Dental Emergency

What is a dental emergency? I've often wondered this same thing. When you call the dentist and get the recording they always say "if this is a true dental emergency, please call....." This always makes me laugh a little and wonder why on earth you would need to call the dentist after hours. I mean really. Even if you chip your tooth, can you not wait until the morning?

Friday night we discovered what a "true dental emergency" is. It started out like every evening we've had since the weather started cooling off. We ate dinner and then went to the park in our neighborhood. This particular Friday, some friends drove over to meet us. Just as we were about to leave, Keeley scooted off the bench and fell onto her glass of water. She cried (but she cries a lot) and wanted to be held so I picked her up. Then I noticed the blood. Lots and lots of blood. Keeley has fallen and cut her mouth before but there was never this much blood. I didn't know what to do outside of cuddle Keeley to get her calmed down and get back to the house. My friend told me that I went into a zone but I didn't feel particularly panicked - more a need to stay calm so I could figure out what to do. She gave me some wipes and I carried Keeley home while Kelly got Kayden in the car to drive home. The walk wasn't far and I just couldn't bear the thought of Keeley being hurt and scared strapped into her car seat.

She quickly calmed down and we talked the whole way home while I tried to get her face and hands cleaned off. We are in the "yuuuuck" phase right now and I didn't want her bothered by the site of all the blood. As we walked up to the house, Kelly walked out with a popsicle for her and we continued to cuddle while she enjoyed her popsicle. Once the she was smiling again, I plopped her on the counter to assess the damage.

Her poor bottom lip was split and the top lip was really swollen. When I lifted her lips to assess the teeth, I came pretty close to freaking out. Her front center tooth looked like it had been broken in half and the one next to it was pointing back toward her tongue. I decided that if a tooth is pointing the wrong direction, that merits a 7pm call to the dentist.

We made the after hours page to the dentist on call and tried to get the girls cleaned up while we waited for the call. When the dentist called back, he said we needed to see him that night. Awesome. We decided to leave Kelly at home with Kayden so at least one of the kiddos was on schedule and Keeley and I headed out to the dentist. Our dentist wasn't on call so we had to drive about 40 minutes away to the on call pediatric dentist.

Keeley was so very, very brave. She cried a lot but she was so cooperative. She even knew when she had to take her pacifier out and did so before we asked. He looked in her mouth and decided we needed x-rays so Keeley has now had her first set of x-rays. Upon looking at the x-rays, the dentist determined that she hadn't broken the front tooth but pushed it way up back in the gum. He also said he was going to need to reposition the other tooth. Poor thing.

We moved back to the exam area and Keeley and I sat tummy to tummy and then I leaned her back in the dentist's lap. He opened her mouth and then moved her tooth forward and massaged the tissue around to get it to stay. He didn't use any medicine because he said it didn't usually help and once the tooth was back in place it stopped hurting. Keeley cried hard and there was lots more blood but she recovered quickly. We got home and rocked for a long time and then she slept just fine and woke up right on schedule today. She seems totally fine. We have to keep her on a soft diet since that tooth will be loose for a couple of days and follow up with her dentist on Monday. The dentist also said that the tooth that was going the wrong direction doesn't have a great survival chance so our little monkey may be gap toothed for a while soon!

Here is a picture of her this morning. You can see the split and the swollen upper lip.