Bump Brothers

Two weeks ago Tyler complained that his tooth hurt and pointed to his molar with a filling.  I thought we'll see if it continues to bother him.  The next morning he complained that his cheek hurt, but would not let me look in his mouth.  He kept complaining, so I gave him some Motrin and sent him to school, hoping it wouldn't bother him.  After school I was talking with him and noticed his jaw looked a little swollen.  I had him smile and his smile was not symmetrical, his jaw was definitely swollen.  I called his dentist and they told me they were about to close for the day and they would be out of the office Thursday-Sunday so they would not be back in the office until Monday.  They gave me number for Emergency Dental Care.  I called them and they had an appointment available at 6:00pm.  Jeff was working, so I loaded Tyler, Rachel, and Matthew in the car and headed on my first outing with all 3 kids.  They took x-rays and said that he needed a root canal. Thankfully Matthew slept the whole time during the visit and procedure.  It was hard to see him go through that.  Poor kid. 

The next morning his face looked even worse. I was shocked at how quickly it was swelling. Jeff was home this time and took Tyler to the kids dentist office just around the corner from our house and pleaded with them to just take a look at Tyler.  So they did more x-rays which showed the swelling getting close to his neck/airway.  The dentist said the tooth would need to come out.  The options were to pull it immediately, which would be painful because of all the swelling, or to wait for the antibiotics to reduce the swelling and pull it at a later date when it would be less painful.  The problem with waiting is the swelling could get worse before the antibiotics are able to kick in and we could end up in the emergency room with Tyler having difficulty breathing.  The dentist recommended having it pulled immediately and Jeff agreed.  So the poor kid had to get his tooth pulled after having a root canal done on it the night before. 

We felt like the tooth fairy should give Tyler a nice reward for getting this tooth out because of  all he went through.  The tooth fairy usually gives Tyler a dollar when he looses a tooth.  We asked Tyler how much he thought the tooth fairy would give him due to all the pain and trouble this tooth has caused him.  He said maybe a dollar and a quarter.  (I was thinking more like a hundred dollars for all the trouble.) The tooth fairy settled on 5 dollars.  Tyler was pretty excited the next morning when he found his 5 dollar bill.

Tyler was not the only one with a bump on his head.  Matthew has had a hematoma on the back of his head since birth. We teased Tyler that he didn't want Matthew to be lonely and the only one with a bump on his head.  That week we called them the bump brothers.