A Sad Story about Baby Teeth

You see those cute top two pearly white teeth smiling happily at you there?

Yeah, those teeth aren't there anymore.

Oh, you want me to tell you the whole story?

If you insist...

Or if not, skim down to the pictures below to see the gruesome sight. 

It was day of the Pediatric Residency/Faculty annual picnic. I spent the morning baking cookies instead of cleaning the house and then we took a pleasant drive south to Pratt's Falls. 

We joined the other picnic patrons and began chatting with friends. 

The girls went to pick flowers.

Three minutes later, Darcy came running to us to show us what she had picked.

And then she tripped. 

We watched it happen. 

She went face first into a picnic table bench, hitting her lip so hard it made her head bounce backward. Not a pretty sight. 

Her lip was gushing blood and Josh tilted her back to see if she had hit her teeth. 

Yup. 

She had. 

The top 2 were pushed backward quite a ways, and also bleeding. A third tooth was also hit just to the right.

Let me just say, if you child is going to get injured at a picnic, I guess your best bet is to have it happen at a Pediatric picnic. There were probably 15 doctors huddled around her. They got us ice and paper towels and water in 10 seconds flat. 

It was pretty clear that we had to go to the emergency department though. 

So, five minutes after we arrived, we left, bloody lip in tow.

What a champ, that Darcy. She just held the ice and paper towel on her lip and didn't even cry on the long car ride to the hospital.

Fortunately for us, it wasn't a busy day at the ED, so we didn't even have to wait to get into a room. 

(we still had to pay to park though, how lame is that? my husband works there for goodness sake!)

Now, let me tell you a minute how awesome Darcy is. 

She never cried. Like, 10 different doctors and nurses were coming in and out, lifting up here gashed lip, poking and prodding at her teeth and she didn't cry or complain once. She would take off her gauze, let them look, and then put it back on. She didn't even cry when the ENT gave her lidocaine (with a big old needle) and stitched up her lip. Amazing. She was probably one of the best patients they've ever seen.

Anyway, they gave her one stitch in her lip, but nothing could or would be done about her teeth. They told me to make an appointment with her Dr. in 2-3 days and an appointment with the Dentist in 2 weeks. 

Well, I'm still a mom, and can't wait that long... so I called the dentist the following Monday. And good thing I did. After x-rays, it was apparent her 2 front teeth were cracked up in the root and would need to come out. Plus one was really wiggly, and they worry about aspiration (the 3rd tooth she hit will be fine... though it may still turn gray). 

So, we set up an appointment to get her teeth out two and a half weeks out.

She was lisping pretty bad and couldn't eat much beyond applesauce and yogurt and really small pieces of everything else. Quite painful.

Four days later her mouth really started to stink, and when I looked in there it was so nasty. Her gums were all swollen (caused by an abscess) and making the teeth shift around. I called the dentist and they had me bring her in the very next day and out they came!!! Again, what a fabulous patient she was! 

Hello, she had a double root canal and came out smiling!

She was SO HAPPY because that meant the tooth fairy would come! 

Well, her lip has healed up beautifully, and her extraction holes are in the process. 

She is toothless at 3 (almost 4) years old, and will be for a long time. She'll be singing "All I want for Christmas is my 2 front Teeth" for like 3 or 4 Christmases. However, I am super grateful her teeth are out. I was super concerned about the affect it was having on her speech to have those bent teeth in there. Already, 5 days after they came out, her speech is back to normal (she already had a slight lisp, and it just sounds the same). She loves to poke her tongue through her teeth when she smiles. 

But I realize now, how much her teeth (now gap) DON'T show naturally. Her top lip comes down pretty far even when she smiles. I think people won't even notice. But even if they do, it's actually kind of cute. Another plus to taking them out as opposed to keeping them in. 

It was just not cute to have slanted teeth. 

Okay, that was long. You asleep yet?

Here's some pics of our little Toothless Darcy:

 In the Emergency Department

(amazingly I got all that dried blood out of her shirt!)

 Stitched up lip

 Lip and pushed teeth.

 Here's when they started to get all wonky from the abscess.

 And gone.

 The dentist stitched a loose piece of her gum right there in the middle. I hope it heals normally. 

 Sticking her tongue through the gap. And scraggly hair. Whoa. 

What are your thoughts on kids with pixie cuts? Her hair is so sad and I don't know what to do with it.