Hit the Rock

Sometimes I take very unimportant pictures with my phone.

Sometimes I snap a picture of very yummy gluten free pizza...

Or, I take a picture of Jeremy's deodorant while I'm still at Meijer so that I can text the picture to Jeremy to make sure that I'm getting the right one... even after 10 years I still often buy the wrong kind. Right scent, wrong kind... anyway...

Or, Abby says, "Mommy! Take a picture! I'm the same size at our bench!"

Or, I snap a picture of a chalk drawing made outside on Leap Day... imagine that...

But, sometimes, my phone is called into service for much more noble purposes.

Today, Elayna had an appointment with the oral specialist to have her broken tooth checked. Back in October of 2009, Elayna face-planted on the cement after tripping and falling out of the van door. It was a very horrible day and it will have horrible consequences for Elayna the rest of her life. In that fall, she broke her front adult tooth.

In September of 2010, after her being in pain on and off with this tooth, we had a nightmare of a time with the thought that she needed a root canal. See this post. It will explain itself. What a journey we have had with her poor tooth!

(after that episode and her still having pain because the doctors couldn't do anything, God HEALED her tooth and she hasn't had ANY PAIN at all in that tooth since October of 2010!! total miracle!)

But the root canal was still necessary one day... we knew that it was coming. eventually.

After many traumatic dental appointments, today her tooth was finally ready for the dreaded root canal.

Believe me, I made SURE they were actually doing a root canal before allowing one single needle to touch Elayna's mouth.

The nurse we were working with at that point was very matter of fact (almost mean) and I wondered if she had one ounce of compassion in her body. She wasn't good at calming Elayna at all. In fact, she kind of had me a little worked up. You know that Mama Bear feeling? Yeah... that's how I felt with this nurse.

"Of course we are doing a root canal today. She has to have it done. Do you want her tooth to fall out?"

Dumb question to ask a mother, I think.

Then, after I asked about how long the procedure would take, she said, "Well, if she sits well, it can be very fast. If she fights us, it could be 2 hours. It shows in our chart that she was a little bit of a hand full the last time you were in."

"Uh... she was 7 and you numbed her for no reason!!!" I wanted to shout, but didn't.

Thankfully, another, very kind and thoughtful nurse came in to actually do the numbing and shots. Huge blessing. She was wonderful. And, I told her so.

Then, after many tears and a little laughing gas, Elayna was prepped and ready...

(Mommy's heart was still not ready... oh, that is hard to watch your child cry, knowing they are facing pain!)

"Mommy, my lip feels huge... how big is it?"

After debating whether or not I should show her, I pulled out my phone and snapped a picture for her.

"See? It feels bigger than it looks."

"Mom... it looks big!" But the picture did help calm her fears and made it more of a science lesson than a dental procedure. Very cool use for my phone at that point. I could show her things that she couldn't see on her own.

The specialist and the gruff nurse were the ones actually doing the root canal. And, although that nurse was gruff, she grew on me by the end. She was good at what she did and you could tell that she cared about her job.

They kept stopping their work on her tooth to take x-rays... at one point, they stopped and left a needle in her tooth while they took an x-ray, had it developed and waited for the doctor to come back in our room... she sat like this for about 25 minutes! Poor thing!

"Mommy... what do I look like now?"

"Well, you have this thing stuck in your tooth. Want to see?"

Again, I pulled out my phone to capture the needle in her tooth. I even had to text that to Jeremy because he loves this kind of stuff.

You can kind of see the needle in the root canal of her tooth in the x-ray to the right.

They did more work... overall, we were there about an hour and a half.

This is gruff, but good nurse working on Elayna.

This is the awful and very long root canal tool. Yikes! I snapped a picture because Elayna wanted to see how long the needle was that went into her tooth.

It hurts just looking at that thing! But, Elayna was a trooper and asked the gruff nurse lots of questions at the end. The nurse showed her all the x-rays and explained what they did and what her tooth looks like now. 

The specialist is hoping that with this root canal, he will be able to save her tooth which will keep her from having surgery later down the road. He told us that this is the last thing he can do for her tooth. And, gruff nurse reassured Elayna that when she comes back for the next 3 post-op checks, they will only take pictures. No shots. Another bonus point for gruff nurse.

And, here she is at the end of her ordeal...

The gruff nurse even let her keep the nose piece to show her sisters. Big bonus point.

"Hey, Elayna... you were very brave today." said the gruff nurse as we were leaving. She held out her fist to Elayna and said, "Hit the rock. You did good."

Elayna smiled, hit the rock and walked out the door.

Not sure where nice-gruff nurse was at the beginning of today but she sure came out at the end.

I calmly put my "Mama Bear" face away, smiled and walked out the door with Elayna.

Hit the rock... yes, hit that rock. The root canal is over.