  Some things seem too difficult to blog. Last night, as I closed the day with a few hours of research (see below), I thought about blogging the day's events and I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Maybe people who have tons of kids and have been through many kid-traumas would laugh at my emotions, but if they do, I'm sorry time and experience have hardened them to the point that a crying child doesn't break their heart. Enough of the drama. What happened? Aidan fell at school. He wasn't doing anything daring or crazy, just either walking by the stairs or down the stairs (it's difficult to interpret the story from him and nobody saw it) and tripped.
He seems to have taken the full blow of the fall on his upper lip, and his teeth. All of his top teeth. From K-9 to K-9. Half the teeth were pushed back to about a 45 degree angle, and the other half were pushed up by about 10 to 20 percent of the crown, from what I can tell.
He bled _a lot_, but remarkably, there was no cut in the lip itself, just severe tissue trauma. I was most of my way through the grocery store with an overflowing cart when his pre-school called. When they call me, they're always careful to immediately say, "Mrs. Feighery, this is so and so. Nothing is wrong, there is no emergency, I'm just calling to discuss [insert bland issue like party planning here]. " Not this time. They said is this Annie Feighery, and this is so and so calling regarding your son so I knew something was wrong so I just said yes impatiently over and over until the woman got on with it.
They explained the injury and asked if they could begin giving him Tylenol for the pain and I said no, just give him ice. I think this took them back, most parents would just want to stop any pain right? I didn't even know if tylenol was a better course of pain reliever than ibuprofen yet. Maybe I want to focus on relieving swelling? Mostly, I wanted to examine his symptoms exactly as they were myself, rather than not knowing how bad it had initially been. Also, I read in one of my books recently that in the event of traumatic injury, it's best not to treat it if the child can stand it until the doctor examines the child. I know this is strange, but my biggest immediate decision was whether to check out or leave my cart.
By then, John was on the phone b/c his number is also on the emergency call list and he was saying just leave (remember that John is in California on training right now). My dad was with me and he pointed out that there weren't any lines. So he checked out and I went for the car and once I got Ellie in and drove up front, he was out waiting for me. The triviality of Whole Foods behind me, I had to decide what to do with Aidan right away. I called my pediatrician's office and had him paged. He called me right back within like one minute. Let's just say this here because it bears repeating. I love Dr. Hubert Ho. He's a fantastic physician. If you live in Houston, and you have medical values that fall somewhere between trusting western medicine for its emergency response, but trusting the body and homoeopathy for prevention and maintenance, he's your guy. Anyway, en route from Whole Foods to the school, I discussed Aidan's apparent condition with him. My first questions were hectic and wild, like "should I take him to Texan's Children's ER or to a pediadontist?
" (I don't have one, not even a dentist for John or me) Then I thought better of my questioning after a second and said, "Do I need to take him anywhere at all? " And Doctor Ho said no. That was a beautiful moment for me. I was able to set aside the anxious response to what I'd heard over the phone, which included "you probably want to come get him and take him to a doctor or dentist right away" and begin to evaluate the situation before responding. Dr. Ho said whatever damage to the teeth, including damage to the roots or permanent teeth underneath, that could be, is already there. He said the teeth that are pushed back (at that point I didn't, nor did anyone else, realize any were pushed up) will either fall out or solidify in their sockets, and little could affect that. I asked him about worst case scenarios and he said maybe one of the teeth is against a nerve and could require a root canal, but we'll know that in the next days, there was no advantage in having the asap x-ray to determine that.
I asked him if I should expect a great deal of pain, if I should preempt the pain with tylenol. He said when it comes to injuries, young children often tolerate them with very little pain, especially compared to what an adult in a similar situation would feel. He said to watch Aidan for signs he was in pain, but until then, just give him ice and soft foods. He did mention that since Aidan is three now, it's time to get him a dental check-up anyway, so I should take him to a dentist soon.
By the time I was at Aidan's school, I was off the phone with Dr. Ho and feeling much more calm. Aidan was sitting on his teacher's lap sucking on ice. They'd hidden his overshirt from my sight so I didn't see all the blood, but his undershirt and pants still had some blood on them and his mouth was still bleeding quite a bit. Thankfully, blood doesn't bother me like it does a lot of people I know. I didn't even look at his mouth. I just hugged him and listened to the director and teacher, then left. I just wanted to get him home and soothe him. At home I made him some chamomile tea, massaged his little body quickly with essential oil lotion, and put him to bed to sleep next to his papa. By the time he woke up the swelling had seriously set in, and my little boy's face was difficult to recognize.
His top lip is about three times its normal width, and the swelling in his lower nose bridge pushes his nostrils up a little so it looks like his nose curls at the tip a bit. His eyes were sunken a little, with dark circles under them. And of course, once he opens his mouth, his once-perfect teeth look just awful. Meanwhile in California... John was feeling terrible being so far away. Our close little family is firmly based on attachment parenting values, in a way, we are borg.
We feel and experience everything together, only John wasn't with us to feel and experience everything. He felt like his boy really needed him and a silly training was hardly worth not being there for his son. I didn't know what to tell him. Because my dad was here visiting, in truth I had taking care of the kids covered. But I knew exactly what John was going through. I called his parents to weigh in on the subject, who felt like there will be lots of traumas in the kids' lives and if John wants to be the kind of dad who goes to space, then he needs to stay in California. In the end, their advice we ended up taking was to give it a day to see how everyone fared. After his nap I was gently probing everything, seeing just how loose everything was.
That's when I realized the damage was to all the front teeth, not just the ones that were pushed back. While he was asleep I'd read up on tooth damage in four separate books, and felt pretty confident about my decision to not rush him to the dentist. But this further damage really made me question myself. What if he loses every top front tooth? It will be four three, maybe four years before he has teeth again! It wasn't just that. At this point I was about five or six hours after the accident, and my tough guy, supermom routine was really falling apart.
I hated that this horrible thing happened to my boy. And where was my husband to just hug me and tell me it will all be ok! I buried myself into online research until I was satisfied that we really were on the best track, somewhere around midnight. I still felt like my heart was breaking into pieces. I no longer felt secure about any decision I'd made from having Aidan in preschool to buying him new shoes a few days ago (that were small replicas of dad's new Sketchers) that probably contributed to the fall. I finally took his clothes out of the plastic garbage bag to soak the blood out and that was amazingly emotional.
Looking at all that blood, I just felt terrible for my little boy, that this happened to him, that my arms hadn't been there to catch him. And I felt very alone, with no one who understood my doubts or pains. I curled up in bed with Aidan and fell asleep cuddling with him. This morning his teeth were a little more secure in their sockets, and the pushed back teeth were even a little forward, up to only 15 or so degrees off.
I'm not sure they'll improve more than this, but at least maybe they'll stay in? The lodged up ones are the teeth that really scare me. They could take two to four months to drop, or else they'll gray and die, or cause a pulp infection and require dental extraction. I'm watching for abscesses, but his lip is far more swollen than the gums. We're in the giant hunt for soft foods Aidan likes. I've also got a good list of foods from my books that promote dental healing. Sea vegetables and calcium foods are best. He loves kale in tofu, thankfully! Also blueberries, which I mixed into a smoothie with yogurt and papaya to boost his immune. We still don't know about John's training. His boss said he could come home either for the weekend or for good, it's up to him. That's great news for me, but waiting until tomorrow to see him will be hard. Aidan still hasn't required a pain reliever at all.
I've done my best to soothe him with lavender baths and teas. He's such a trooper. Everyone keeps saying he's taking it like a champ. Whew! What a long post this is. I'm sorry, but writing it all down has been extremely cathartic. Like writing the birth stories. I'm glad I got it all down, I'll keep you posted with updates. 
