Rough Days for My Princess

My little princess Ja is having a rough time this month. Earlier this week I had to take her to the oral surgeon to have her two front teeth extracted. She had fallen and chipped them when they first came in, and we had never realized it. We just thought that, like many new teeth, they just weren't completely even. We don't remember her falling and her mouth never bled. As it turned out the chip was bad enough to let in an infection. By the time her teeth were pulled the backs were half eaten away.

She's only two, so for the surgeon to do her job I had to restrain her myself. The dental assistant gave her some bubble gum scented nitrous oxide (laughing gas) through a tiny pink mask. She was fine with that, just sat in my lap watching cartoons. Luckily, the cartoon character was in a rocket ship wearing an oxygen mask (or whatever they're called) so I told little princess that she was an astronaut, too. After the gas ran for a few minutes, the dental assistant rubbed some numbing gel on her gums. It was basically a super concentrated Oral-gel. Ja hated that so much. She screamed until she threw up several times. I ended up having to strip her to her diaper because she was covered in vomit.

After a few minutes, the surgeon came in. She actually had to give her four numbing shots in the upper gums. That was a horrible few minutes. I had both my arms and my legs wrapped around my little princess to try and keep her still, two dental assistants held her, and she still nearly struggled free. Fortunately, she managed to not throw up again until she'd gotten all four of her shots. The surgeon left for fifteen minutes while the medicine took effect. During that time Ja calmed down quite a bit and even started walking around the room and played with her big brother, Toe.

The dental surgeon and her assistants returned. Once again I had to lay flat on my back with my arms and legs wrapped around my princess. As quickly as she could, the surgeon pulled her teeth. Immediately, Ja's mouth was packed with gauze which she fought with all her might. I was really afraid she was going to choke on it because of the way she was struggling and the fact it wasn't that big. It could have easily gone down her throat if the dental assistant had lost her grip on it. The same assistant was nice enough to gather Ja's clothes in a plastic bag for me. Ja stopped bleeding enough for it to be safe for her to leave, so I put her in her coat, tied her up in the mei tai, grabbed the bag of clothes and Toe's hand and made a mad dash out into the cold and into the car. At least we were done for the moment.