My poor Eddie. I am sitting in the waiting room of the oral surgeon while Ed is having his wisdom teeth removed. This kid has never been a stranger to the dentist, orthodontist, oral surgeons and endodontic procedures. And I have become familiar with all their waiting rooms. As far as they go, this one I am sitting in could use an update and new chairs, but this practice has the nicest people working the front desk.
Eddie got his teeth the normal age babies do, 6 months or so. Beautiful white straight teeth. I was always amazed at his red rosebud lips and how they played of his white teeth when he smiled. Right around his 3rd birthday, it was a lovely day out and he wanted to run next door to play with his friend Elizabeth, who went by the nickname Beanie. I called Beanie’s mom, Jackie, to let her know Eddie was on his way over. I stood at the front door watching his chicken white hair bouncing up and down while he ran towards her front step. All of a sudden I heard a noise that is instantly recognizable as teeth hitting concrete. I bolted out my front door screaming, Eddie ran towards me screaming, and Jackie ran after Eddie screaming. I scooped him up and the three of us ran into my kitchen where I sat Eddie on the counter. He was bleeding profusely from his lip and mouth. We got him hanging over the sink, crying, trying to get him to rinse his mouth out with water to see what happened in there. Not an easy task with an almost 3 year old. Finally he calmed down enough so we could peer into his sweet little mouth and OMG what a mess. The inside of his mouth looked like hamburger. He was cut on the side of his mouth inside and out. Jackie looked at him and said he needed stitches and there looked to be a crack in his fang, the eye tooth. I got Ed comfy on the couch with an ice pop, and then collected myself before calling his dad. At this time we only had one vehicle and I needed Bob to come home. I knew I would be met with resistance, as Bob was working and going to school full time, he was 30 minutes away, so if I needed him to come home for any reason, it had to be a serious one. Fortunately he had an opening in his schedule and he came right home. Took a quick look in Eddie’s mouth, scooped him up and drove directly to the emergency room. My husband said they gave Ed some Demerol to calm him a bit while he was in the papoose board. Eddie looked up at him, his mouth all bloody, big green eyes rolling around in his head and said “I Love You Dad”. Poor little guy, ended up with 5 stitches inside his mouth and 3 on the outside, he bit right through the muscle. And his sweet little baby eyetooth was indeed cracked, right in half. After his mouth healed, we had to address his tooth. What should we do? To try and save the tooth for it only to fall out in a few years anyway would be $800. To pull it $200. Considering we didn’t have two nickels to rub together, the $200 option seemed best. How bad could it look, right? OMG!! We were like, what have we done? He looked like a hayseed, a hillbilly. Eddie is a cute kid anyway and it just added to part of his charm, but it took us a good many years to come to that conclusion.
Fast forward 5 years…….Eddie’s teeth were straight, but he needed to have his upper palette expanded. I guess when the orthodontist can get ahold of a young mouth; they can manipulate it so it would mean less pain and torture later or possibly no need for braces at all. He had the braces on the front four adult teeth, and the palette torture device in place. I had a key that I would use in the morning and evening to turn the expander. Eddie wasn’t too bothered by this, he said it felt like someone was tickling his nose. My other two kids teased him, saying he was going to look like “Hey Arnold” the Nickleodeon cartoon character who’s head is shaped like a football.
I was working outside the home at this time. Emma had recently broke her arm, requiring many trips to the orthopedic. Since Bob was basically unreachable and unable to help, I did all the running around for and with her. Then I got the call. The school nurse called me at work to inform me that Eddie had fallen on the playground. She said his two front top teeth were slightly pushed forward, he wasn’t bleeding bad but probably needed to see a dentist. I was so tired of always being the one running back and forth to doctors, sports practices and games. I wanted some help. So I called Bob and asked him if he could go and collect Eddie to see what was going on. Although he groaned about it, he agreed to get him. He said it was a good thing too. I would have had the biggest freak out, bigger than the one I had when I found out how bad Eddie’s injury was.
Bob walked into the school clinic to see Eddie sitting in a chair holding a gauze pad over his mouth. When he removed it to show Bob, he was utterly in shock. Eddies teeth weren’t slightly pushed forward like the school nurse had said, they were almost all the way out of his gums! AAACCCKKKK!! The only thing that saved them from going into the playground mulch WERE the braces. Bob quickly rushed him to the orthodontist because he didn’t know where to go with him. She sent them to an oral surgeon who put the teeth back in his mouth. By the time they got home I was a wreck, Bob was a wreck, and Eddie was a wreck. It wasn’t like his baby teeth where you could pull them out and others would grow in. These were adult teeth. Now he was in danger of losing them altogether. I quickly made an appointment with an endodontist. He checked Eddie’s front teeth with a piece of ice to see if there was any loss of sensitivity. Of course there was. Now the real problem was to get this kid 2 root canals before his 2 front teeth turned black. Yikes, time was of the essence. My poor little guy, so much mouth trauma in his short 8 years. After his root canal procedure, the dentist said it was a good thing we didn’t wait too much longer as his roots were already turning grey on their way to black. He also said because now that his teeth were essentially dead, he wasn’t sure how long they would stay in his mouth. And he would probably need implants one day. Great, another thing to worry about.
Fast forward another 13 years and he still has all his teeth. Thank goodness for mouth guards during all the lacrosse and soccer seasons. And another thank goodness when he decided to be on the high school swim team. No mouth guards needed! I still worry he will wake up one day with two adult front teeth on his pillow and Eddie has dreams they fall out as well.
And there Eddie sits in the oral surgeon's chair. Big green eyes rolling around in his head, chicken white hair sticking straight up, red rosebud lips holding in the bloody gauze. As I was collecting my doped up 21 year old, the sweet assistant who seemed smitten with him, asked if he had any final questions. “When can I drink alcohol?” came out of his mouth. I was absolutely(no pun intended)mortified! My sweet boy is officially a man. Now he can pay for his own damn implants!!
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