For the last month or so, Asher has really been "on one". He would wake up multiple times at night, was ornery during the day and was very disobedient (besides normal toddler behavior). We were at our wits end as to what to do. Then, on the 2nd of December he mentioned that his tooth hurt so I figured "okay, let's take him in for his first dentist appointment". At that appointment, on the 9th, we figured out why he has been so cranky. A tooth was cracked into 4 pieces, had a cavity, and the gum tissue surrounding the tissue was infected. Wouldn't you feel a little cranky too?
After a week of antibiotics Asher had "emergency" tooth extraction on the 19th to remove the damaged tooth. I felt sick watching him him "go to sleep" with the shot they gave him. Within 1 minute he went from active to incoherent. They then used IV sedation, a form of anesthesia, to keep him asleep during the procedure. While sedation is great, so that Asher is not traumatized by the tooth removal, there is just something very unnatural about an active 3 year old lying in his father's arms during recovery, very much drugged and unaware of the sights and sounds going on around him. Rob held him for about half an hour before he finally started regaining consciousnesses again. He couldn't talk, but stared off into space until the drugs wore off enough that he could control of his mouth.
At home we had Asher watch a couple of movies so that he wouldn't try to walk, which he couldn't do for several hours. He tried to walk once and immediately fell over and looked at me in confusion like, "What's going on here Mom? My legs won't work". The next day he woke up with full control of his faculties and we could tell he felt much better. The surgery site healed quickly and he now has a spacer in place of the tooth, until a new tooth grows in when he is around 6 or 7 years old.
The coolest part for Asher? He was able to collect 4 mini ninjas from the dentist's gumball machines over the series of visits.
What caused the crack? Well, thinking back we remembered that about 9 months ago Asher and I had been playing around and his chin had hit my knee. He had cried quite a bit which was unusual because he usually "gets over" things pretty quickly and was slurring his speech so we took him into Urgent Care. They said that it looked like he had just bruised his chin, hence the swelling, and that if the swelling didn't go down within 3 or 4 days to come back in. Well, by the 4th day it was still swollen and his speech was still slurred so I brought him back in. They said to give it one more day and that everything looked fine. The next morning the swelling had gone down so we figured that the chin area had healed and that there was nothing more to worry about. Well, now we know that that injury had cracked his tooth, which allowed a cavity to easily form, which then led to a gum infection.
Except for a little visible nervousness when the doctor checked Asher's tooth spacer, he seemed to be emotionally fine otherwise.
Good job on your first visits to the dentist office!
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