Shiny New Teeth

Thanks for coming to see me on unfamiliar turf… Blogger has decided to lock me out (no joke – I can write but not publish!) so I’m moving on, at least for today. If I like it here (and Blogger keeps driving me nuts) I’ll stay. Don’t worry, I’ll let you know before you go to all the trouble of changing links and all that!!

Okay, now on to the Really Important Stuff: Zeeb’s Big Day at the Dentist.

Let me begin by saying that our pediatric dentist rocks, her staff is awesome and the anesthesiologist was wonderful. We got there, the receptionist was friendly and warm, Zeeb played with the toys and computer games. Then they had us go into a little side room where there’s a comfortable couch and a little tv/dvd player where Zeeb watched the Thomas the Tank Engine movie on my lap while we waited for the anesthesiologist to come in. (We were the second appointment of the day so we had to wait for the first child to be finished, but it wasn’t long). Anesthesiologist is a very long word, so from now on I’ll just use his name, Dr. Lee. (I’m thinking that’s a pretty common name and also, I would highly recommend him, so no problem using his real name, right?) Dr. Lee was so great. I confess it made me oddly happy that he was an Asian man – almost like he was family or something. Also, he is a dad and has a young son around Zeeb’s age so he really knew how to interact with him. He told us what to expect (first a shot to make Zeeb feel “60’s groovy” and then he’d take him back to hook him up to the general anesthesia and all that) and also told Zeeb what he was doing. And he did this thing that was so touching and so very opposite from Lawmommy’s recent nightmare ER experience… when he listened to Zeeb’s heart he told him, “Some children are very special and their hearts sound just like their mommy’s. Let’s listen to mommy’s heart first and then see if yours sounds the same.” And then of course, after checking both of us he says “your heart sounds just like mommy’s!” I swear, it almost made me cry right there. Of course after that he gives Zeeb the shot and Zeeb cried for a minute and then got all calm and spacy and this kind doctor takes my son from my arms and carries him off to have surgery… Ugh, what a weird freaky feeling that is, to see my little boy carried off like that. Thankfully Husband was there with me and so I didn’t get all worked up and upset. But I did feel sort of on the edge of my seat the whole time we waited. So there we are in this special little waiting room of our own and the receptionist asks if we’d like to watch a movie while we wait! (they use those cool dvd viewer things for patients so they had a list of dvd’s to choose from) So we cuddled on the couch and watched The Matrix while we waited. Hubby even went and got Starbucks for me. Seriously, can you think of a better way to pass the time while your child is having major dental work done? The receptionist came in every 20 minutes or so to give us an update. Which was rather comical … “the first two crowns are done, now she’s working on a cavity…” Needless to say, the boy had a lot of work done. He has many shiny stainless steel teeth now. (The Grand Total? 7 crowns, 4 fillings and 1 root canal) About two hours later, it was done. We went back to sit with him and wait for him to wake up, which didn’t take long at all. It was so surreal, sitting with him sound asleep on the dentists chair, his lips all puffy, and little marks on his face from where they taped his eyes closed and attached the breathing tube. Dr. Lee said he’d probably be a little disoriented when he woke up and that the drugs tend to make kids cranky, and also nauseous… we needed to give him water/juice and then could move on to more solid stuff as he was able to keep things down. And then we were in the car and heading home.

Zeeb was not a happy boy in the car. He really wanted me to hold him, which of course I couldn’t. So I held his hand and sang him every pre-school song I could think of, over and over. When we got home, I took him to the couch and he wasn’t happy or comfortable, but a Pooh video helped, a lot. And then we quickly discovered that laying down made him puke. Sitting up, he was okay, but leaning back, not so good. And that was how we spent the next 4-5 hours, on the couch and in our bed, sitting with him as he spaced out to the tv but never really fell asleep. Poor baby was rather miserable.

Thankfully, the drugs finally wore off after about 5-6 hours and he was feeling a lot better by bedtime. He ate a popsical and some chicken soup broth and even a tiny bit of brownie. (Which I know was not in the proper order of foods to eat but he saw me and K~ having one and was rather adament about having his own, so I gave him a tiny piece… and he didn’t puke it up, so don’t yell at me, okay?!)

So it’s over and I am very glad. I think it’s good that he didn’t have this done sooner because his english is so much better now and he understood what everyone was saying to him. And, it would have freaked me out a little to have him all upset and crying in Vietnamese and all that. And he is really truly comforted by me now, which is a good thing and makes me happy. In a way this was like a “bonding” day for us. You know like we’ll look back and I’ll say, “oh I remember the day you got your new shiny teeth”. I’m weird, I know.