Dental Update

Thank you to everyone for your well wishes and kind words today. Henry's dental work was completed and is back home recovering well. The good news was that they discovered no new cavities (other than the ones she had already seen; save for two tiny ones she wouldn't normally even fill in another child, but since we've had so many issues, she went ahead and filled them). She also discovered that he grinds his teeth pretty badly. The two teeth below the silver caps were just completely worn down. Those two molars got silver caps (so 4 total of those in his mouth now). They will now rub against each other and will protect the other teeth from the grinding. The two upper incisors were filled - no caps needed there, thank goodness. The final procedure was to fix the broken tooth in the front. As she cleaned that one out and prepared it, the root was exposed which meant it could either be pulled or have a root canal (pulpectomy). We opted for the latter, and he now, once again, has a picture perfect smile. The rest of his teeth looked good, so hopefully this is the end of it!!
Going in and out of the anesthesia truly is the worst part - and probably worse for us to have to watch than him to experience. In fact, the anesthesiologist said he probably won't remember any of that part of the day. They let us come back to the recovery room earlier than last time. When we went back last time, he was already awake; this time he was still coming to and doing an awful moaning, coughing and shaking thing that is apparently normal, but tough to witness. The respirator made his throat very sore and his voice was still hoarse tonight as he went to bed. After sleeping it off for a couple hours at home he seemed to be doing much, much better; albeit quite grumpy. He also complained a bit about his back hurting and later told me his new teeth hurt. As I was putting him to bed he told me his teeth hurt "so bad, mama." I had never heard him say anything was "so bad" before, so that took me by surprise. He had taken some Tylenol and the dentist said he shouldn't really be in too much pain, so it's tough to say whether they really did hurt or whether it was an attempt to delay bedtime. :)