Sam Went to the Dentist
A couple of visits ago, while helping Sam finish brushing his teeth, I noticed one of his molars was in HORRIBLE shape. I should have taken a picture to fully capture how hideous it looked: the sides were blackened, the surface looked furry, and the whole tooth just seemed to scream “I’m rotten!” I reported it to his mom, and when she saw the damage herself, she immediately scheduled a dental appointment.
Sam is really mature for his age, and seems to be capable of a lot of advanced tasks. I think that as parents, it’s easy to tell ourselves our kids can do certain things as well as adults, and it’s always necessary to rein in our assumptions. As my friend Amy, mother of two, mentioned to me a few weeks back, “You ALWAYS have to go over the teeth to make sure they didn’t miss anything. ALWAYS.” I’m sure both his mom and I have fallen short here and there, although I am particularly fastidious about his teeth.
After he arrived back in Montreal, the dentist diagnosed him with soft enamel, which led to the advanced tooth decay. Sam was to get a filling, but only after a few weeks of fluoride treatments to strengthen his teeth. His filling was scheduled for Tuesday, April 1.
When the doctor finally got to look closely at the cavity, it turned out that what was visible on the surface was only a tiny part of a much larger hole. What Sam needed…
was a root canal.
Two of my friends have kids who’ve needed extensive dental work, and the stories they told me were traumatic. One kid had to be literally restrained by his parents as the dentist drilled his teeth, while another is now phobic of dentists and doctors alike (when this kid went to the doctor recently, he cried in the waiting room until the doctor explained to him “I’m not the guy with the drill. I have nothing to do with your teeth.”).
So when his mom told me about the procedure, I steeled myself for the worst.
“First they gave him some topical novocaine to numb the injection area, so when he got the two shots at the base of the tooth, he was ok,” she said.
“But the drilling hurt,” she went on. “And he started crying. But you know what? He didn’t fight or struggle. he just took it like a brave little man, crying the whole time. And so then I started crying because he was being so brave.”
I was riding my bike during this conversation and got so teared up I nearly crashed into a tree. “I’ll bet you were crying,” I said, “because I’m about to start bawling right now. Jeez, that poor little guy! And what a brave little man!”
“Yeah, tell me about it,” she said. “The dentist gave him two prizes because he was so brave. Remember, Pumpkin?” she added to Sam who I could hear playing nearby. “And the craziest thing is when all the drillign was over, Sam just got out of the chair. It was as if he’d forgotten anything unpleasant had ever happened.
“And the really good news,” she went on, “is that his other teeth are OK. They still need medicine, but that’s a kind of cream or something they apply to the tooth surface. It won’t require anymore drilling.”
That was a relief to hear. It really sucks to hear stories where your kid’s in pain or distress.
April 3rd, 2008 at 4:43 pm
What a good kid! In addition to how much it sucked to hear about the little guy’s pain, you and Melissa should really pat yourselves on the back for his good nature.
April 9th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
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April 21st, 2009 at 2:50 pm
[...] spent Sunday and Monday driving to Canada and back. Regular readers may remember Sam’s root canal from last year, after i discovered one of his molars was rotten. In the ensuing weeks, i tried to talk to his dentist, who refused to give me any information over [...]