Gracie's Surgery

Last week Gracie had her dental surgery. We are so thankful that it went so well and she did so great. Our fabulous dentist was able to save all of her teeth and he didn't have to pull any of them!

Here's some before pics, taken the night before her surgery.

This is the front teeth, the front 4 all had to have crowns.

The back 2 teeth on the bottom also had to have crowns.

She also needed several other fillings.

Here she is with her hospital gown on. We were in a patient room waiting for them to come and get her for surgery.

Shortly after this picture was taken, the anestesiologist came in and gave us some "Kool-aide". She didn't want to take it, so they put it in a syringe and left the room. I had to hold her tightly in my arms and hold her head still using my arm to get her to take it, but we got it down. She was a little mad at me after that. It didn't last long though, because within 5 minutes, she couldn't hold her head up anymore and was just laying dead weight in my arms staring at me with her mouth hanging wide open. It was kinda scary and funny at the same time.

Every now and then, she would start giggling and say, "You have 2 moufs" and then she'd giggle some more. I guess she was seeing double. It was too cute. And the other thing she kept saying was, "I love you" over and over again. It warmed my heart that even when she was half anesthetised, she was still expressing her love for her mamma!

When they came to get her for surgery, she was so far out of it, that she didn't care who was taking her. They came to give me a report just a few minutes later that she had gone right to sleep perfectly and the iv and the nose tube had been easily placed.

The next update was halfway through the surgery and the dr sent word that he was going to be able to save all of her teeth and we wouldn't have to pull any of them. Praise the Lord!

The surgery took a little over an hour and as soon as it was over, the anethesiologist came to get me and said they needed me because she was extremely irritable and she just kept screaming for me. So, I got to go back there and sit on the bed and hold her while she screamed and the nurse got her iv out.

We were in the car heading home within 15 minutes and we were home about 5 minutes after that. What a blessing for it to be close. She was extremely fussy for about an hour afterwards, but once the anestesia wore off, she was fine. We kept her on tylenol the rest of the day and she was on a soft food diet for that day and the next day.

Here's the after! Look at that beautiful smile!!

She has done really great. She's having to learn to bite harder things with her back teeth because those sweet little porcelain crowns can pop off rather easily if she bites down on something hard. We certainly don't want to have to have them put back on, so I'm trying to teach her what's ok and what's not ok. She has been asking me if she can bite it with her new teeth before she eats something.

We are so thankful that we were able to have her teeth fixed. And that we were able to do it at the surgery center under anesthesia instead of spread out over 5 visits to the dentists office with her in a straight jacket. The thought of doing that to her just makes my stomach turn. For us, going this way was worth it. The only other alternative to doing the surgery was pulling all of them, and that was not a good idea for several reasons, so I'm glad we didn't have to do that.

Please, Dear Lord, let her enamel grow strong so we don't have to go through all this again. Amen.