Abby has had a very large frenum since the beginning of time, preventing her two front teeth fron growing together. We were able to take her to the dentist this week on Tuesday morning (the day before Jon's hospital extravaganza & the last day of dental insurance since we've been on COBRA for the past year) to get it fixed with laser surgery.
This is the 2nd time we have tried to do it. The first time was in February of 2008 when she freaked out because they basically put her in a mummy bag, velcroed to the dental chair and then have to give her Nitrous Oxide through a Mickey mouse breathing mask. We decided to wait a little while before trying again.
This time we role played the whole procedure at home a few times. She had a very hard time understanding what "numb" meant. She gets to go to the store to pick a special prize out -she chose the dollar store so that she could get 10 prizes instead of just 1 prize at the regular store.
The part I was more nervous about is that they made her drink a special orange cocktail about a 1/2 hour before a procedure so that she's be "extra" relaxed. I have only ever been able to get her to take the blue-raspberry flavored Advil, so for her to drink this, she had to genuinely 100% believe that it was juice. I had to lie to her. I also had to lie to her when I told her that it wouldn't hurt and that she wouldn't get a shot. I lied to my daughter, but I felt it was in her best interest. She doesn't mind being in different situations as long as she knows exactly what to expect. She was so drugged up they said that she didn't mind the numbing shot and that she did great.
This above picture is from 1 1/2 years ago, and I'll spare you from seeing the after picture. Basically the dentist took a laser and vaporized the tissue connecting her lip to her front teeth. It was black then purple and now turning pink. Her top lip has been pretty swollen all week but she hasn't noticed and I have been very glad that she hasn't really thought to look in the mirror at it since that would make things WAY worse if she saw it. She does enjoy lifting up her lip though and showing it off to every person that asks about it... gotta love her!
1 comment:
Poor thing! I never knew what that thing was called, thanks for the lesson!
And the hospital thing, we just went through rounds of that at our house. I'm glad to hear that others are having the same thing and that it's nothing too serious. Kinda scary though, huh? Glad you guys are all right!
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