Dylan's Dental Appointment

If you remember a while back when I took the kids to the dentist that I mentioned that Dylan had one cavity and would need to get it filled but the dentist wanted me to wait to schedule that appointment until after I his echo so I could talk to his cardiologist and make sure he was fine with them doing the sedation in office. I did ask and after a quick roll of the eyes said he had no problem with it and also said (after I asked) that he doesn't need to take any antibiotics before dental work. Which is actually a nice thing considering it wasn't very long ago that they wanted people to take antibiotics before dental work even when they hadn't needed surgery to repair a chd.

Anyway, I have been putting off scheduling Dylan's dental work because of his needing to be sedated for both the echo and then a couple of weeks later the MRI. Just didn't think he needed to be sedated a third time so quickly. I finally broke down and called the dentist to schedule it when Dylan started putting his hands in his mouth like his teeth were bothering him. I looked closely at his teeth and noticed that he had a couple of other cavities on his front teeth and the one cavity was looking worse.

With kids like Dylan who do have health "issues" they use an anesthesiologist to administer the sedation instead of their usual quick sedation with a pulse/ox monitor. That meant that the times they had available were fewer so I was surprised when I called and they could schedule him within about a week. Unfortunately, the appointment was a later appointment. Which meant that Dylan was going to need to go half of the day without eating and a good portion without drinking anything either.

I worried about what I would do when I needed to get the other kids lunch and try to keep him from wanting food and drinks. Luckily I have a very nice mother who offered to let me take the kids there and leave with Dylan before lunch so that he wouldn't be bothered with it. She was tending four of my sister's children so I thought it was very nice of her to offer to watch four more.

Fixing the cavities took a little longer than they expected even after they knew all they would need to do. He ended up with caps on his front two teeth and they had to grind them down to make them look okay. Said the size that fit looked too big and would have just looked bad. Because of the grinding his mouth would be sore. And from how cranky he was the rest of the day, I would say they hurt. Even after getting some Tylenol in him.

I am very glad to have it done. He was very cranky again all morning and I thought it would be a very long day. When he gets cranky like that he thinks I'm the only one who can do anything for him or with him. And gets upset when his siblings even touch me. He did get happy (about the time I took the kids back down to my parent's to let them play with their cousins and so Jimmy could mow their lawn) and has stayed pretty happy the rest of the day. The one exception being when Lys decided it would be a good idea to grab his sore front teeth. No idea why she thought that was a good idea.