A Toothy Accident

As if there wasn’t enough going on in our lives, we had another rather eventful day today. I was outside with the kids and Rayah and I were out on the deck and I went down onto the grass to get something. Rayah was right beside me, but it didn’t occur to me in the moment that she would want to follow me and before I knew it, she had stepped right off the edge and fell face-first down the couple steps. I quickly picked her up and she was screaming intensely, but with her clumsy nature, she has had many spills and a few bloody cuts from biting her lip or something, so I didn’t really expect it to be too bad.

As I looked in her mouth, I immediately saw that her whole mouth was a pool of blood, so I quickly whisked her inside to try and clean it out to see what the damage was. At first glance, I was horrified as it appeared that three of her teeth had been completely knocked out. I was worried that they were gone and she had possible swallowed them, but it wasn’t long before I saw that they were still there, but horribly bent down and now facing forwards instead of up!

It was rather gruesome and there was a lot of blood and I didn’t know what to do, so I immediately dialed 9-1-1 and they dispatched an ambulance, as I was at home with both kids and no vehicle. I then called friends who live nearby to come over to watch Justice and then called Joe at work to ask him to come home early. I had left Justice outside in the fenced-in backyard and was sitting in the window seat at the front of our house to watch for the ambulance as I tried to comfort Rayah, when I then noticed my son running around in my front yard with a big shovel!!  Arggg!  He had actually escaped our back yard just the other day, so we had switched the latch on the gate to try and prevent him from being able to get out – which apparently he had no trouble figuring out a way to open it!

So I quickly ushered him inside and sent him to his room and it wasn’t long before the emergency vehicles started rolling in. First there was a paramedic truck, then an ambulance and then a fire truck and then when something went wrong with the first ambulance, a second ambulance came on the scene – it was quite something! By this point, the bleeding had mostly stopped and Rayah had calmed down considerably, but when the house was rushed by some 8-10 unfamiliar men who all gathered around to stare and assess and poke and prode, she got pretty hysterical – lol. My friends arrived soon afterward and watched Justice for me and then I quickly gathered a few things in the diaper bag and Rayah and I loaded into the ambulance and headed to the Children’s Emergency. It wasn’t surprising that after all the commotion, Rayah soon passed out into a deep sleep.

At the Children’s Emergency, the doctors couldn’t do much for her and were unsuccessful in getting a hold of the on-call pediatric dentist, so after a couple attempts, I got through to our family dentist and we got an emergency appointment with them. Joe was at home with Justice, who was napping, so Rayah and I had to wait for a couple hours for Joe to come pick us up, which was a little challenging, because Rayah was surprisingly cheerful and happy and wanted to run around wreak havoc in the waiting room. When Joe finally arrived, we headed to our dentist who examined her briefly, but wasn’t comfortable performing any procedure on her, since he wasn’t as well equipped for dealing with young children. So he then referred us to a children’s dental office which was clear across town and we headed back in the direction we had just come from!

Before arriving at the children’s dental office, we had been warned by our dentist that Rayah would likely lose her three teeth and that they would extract them. To me, this was very sad news, even though I know they’re baby teeth and that she’ll get new ones in 5-6 years, I really was hoping that they would be able to save her teeth. When we saw the pediatric dentist, she told me the same thing, but after they strapped Rayah into a restraining blanket, she stuck her fingers in Rayah’s mouth and basically just pushed the bone that was holding her teeth back into place. Poor Rayah screamed her head off, but once it was over, she was soon back to her happy self. The dentist informed us that she heard a definite “clicking” noise when she pushed the bone back, which is good news, but that we will have to wait and see how the teeth do over the next few days and that there’s still a chance they will need to be extracted.

I am feeling hopeful and am praying that her teeth will be able to stay in, even though they are still rather crooked and not in line with her other teeth at this point. I was just so proud of my little girl today, who was so brave and such a trooper, considering the ordeal she went through! I am also so thankful for all the prayers that went up on her behalf and that her injuries weren’t any worse. To be honest, I’m still feeling a little on edge and a little emotionally sensitive and a little nervous about the days ahead, but I am just learning again my need to lean up on the strength of the Lord and to trust Him with all my fears.

Here is a little collage of the day’s events with pictures from the ambulance ride, our wait at the hospital, and a couple of Rayah’s sweet rearranged smile. If you want to see the really gory pictures, I won’t include them in this post for anyone with a sensitive stomach, but if you’re really curious, you can click here to check them out!

Lastly, here’s a picture of our deck step where Rayah has now left her permanent mark.