Wisdom Lost

Sadly, Tyler inherited a pretty messed up mouth- orthodontically speaking that is. He has big teeth, a narrow mouth, and he also does not lose teeth. He is almost 14 years old and he has never lost a tooth. All of his teeth have been pulled by a dentist or knocked out by a friend. This combination of a small jaw, delayed loss, and delayed eruption of teeth make for a pretty interesting and expensive dental experience. We have been told multiple times that he is a very difficult orthodontic case. The picture above is my handsome boy one hour before his oral surgery.

Here he is about 5 hours after his surgery to remove his wisdom teeth, 4 permanent teeth, and exposure of 2 impacted teeth to attatch brackets and chains. I cried when I went into the back to pick him up. He looked so small, and pale and he was crying (they told me that was typical for kids to cry following anethsethia) We had a rough 12 hours. He swallowed a lot of blood, which made him very nauseated. He threw up for the first 12 hours. Not the most pleasant thing with a mouth like that. He couldn't keep anything down, including some of his pain meds. There was lots of gauze changing, ice pack rotating (do you like the frozen peas?) and medication administering, it kept us up most of the night. Thankfully, his pain remained under control. He was miserable, but hardly ever complained.

Day 2-we made it through the night! Poor boy was so swollen and bruised and he hated the feel of all of the stitches in his mouth. He was starving for real food, but was still nauseated and could only manage a very soft, liquid diet. Again, miserable, but no complaining and thankfully still very minimal pain.

A smile actually emerged on day 3 (Ok, I made him smile for the picture) along with some more swelling and a few more bruises but we were on our way to recovery. He was back to school on Tuesday and only got made fun of a little for his chipmunk cheeks. I told him how proud I was of him for how he handled everything. He was a real trooper. He hardly complained and many prayers were answered. And now we are one giant step closer to that million dollar (seriously, it could come close to a million dollars) smile!