Eden's x-rays were e-mailed to the office there in Chico and I watched as the doctor viewed them with a very burrowed forehead. Then, he moves his chair over to Eden (who is laying stiffly in the chair with apprehension) and looks in her mouth. Eden immediately sprang forward when he put the cold metal mirror thingy in her mouth. I assured her again that it was OK, he was just looking. She relaxes down a little again, but never fully is relaxed until she is off the chair. The doctor finally looks up and says, "It looks like I have my work cut out for me." The next thing he says is, "When can we get her in?" Now we know even a little more why she is fully on alert when someone looks in her mouth. Her mouth is the cause of a lot of pain for her, even though she doesn't let on much about it.
When Cade and I met her in June, we knew she was going to have dental trouble. Before that, when we accepted her referral, we knew there was a high possibility that a child of her age from Ethiopia was very likely to have a lot of dental problems. We signed on for this, but I can't help but think about all the other kids in ET in very similar situations who will NOT ever get help from a dentist and who live in a lot of pain from their teeth.
The dentist told us that we are basically wasting our time having her brush her teeth. They are that bad! WOW! He also said she is to have NO SUGAR AT ALL!! In her mouth it is like a time bomb is ticking. It is only a matter of time that she gets a full blown toothache, abscess, or infection (we have already treated her for an infection by our first dentist)until they can do the work that needs to be done on her teeth. That will include capping her permanent 6 year molars that came in deformed, root canals, more capping, and fillings and extractions on her baby teeth because they are so bad and if you were to leave them they would affect the permanent teeth under them (some could already be affected.) Don't even ask what a estimation of the bill looked like!!
Thankfully, I got confirmation Yesterday from Healthy Families that Eden will be covered starting January 1st. Unfortunately, that means that she has to wait until after then to get the work done on her teeth because she will have both a dental bill and a medical bill because it will have to be done at the hospital where she can be under sedation, where they will do all the work at once!!
Yesterday these pictures were taken on the way back home, taking a much needed stop at Aunt Jeanie and Uncle Dallas' house.
This sweet girl is also a tough girl and was very brave!
2 comments:
All I can say about the dental surgery is that you will be so glad that you did it...We had our daughter put under at 4 years old and the amount of work that was accomplished in 45 minutes was simply amazing... we had 7 crowns of baby teeth done and 3 baby root canals and teeth cleaned and xrays.. she was back to normal in about 2 days as well. It was well worth the surgery to us.. and this was a child that has always had good dental care, so don't feel bad!
I know exactly what you're talking about. The dentist wasn't my favorite place when I was younger, I had enough cavities to fil, due to malnutrition. Hopefully all goes well for you all.
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