As some of you may remember a few years ago Ethan was in a "I'm going to jump off every surface in the house" phase. One time he jumped off the stair and his face hit the floor before he decided to brace for the landing. *sigh* He busted his mouth on the floor and permanently damaged his front tooth. This tooth became discolored and the nerve inside slowly died over the next couple years. This damage also weakened his tooth to the point that he was able to get a cavity in it. We planned on having his cavity filled over this past winter, but with all his sicknesses and caths we weren't able to get the dentist in. Now the cavity has gotten a little worse and they want to take care of it before surgery. Of course. Since the cavity has gotten worse they don't know if they can fill it or if they'll actually have to remove the tooth. I'm really hoping they'll be able to just fill it since that way we won't have to worry about bleeding during the removal and we also won't have to worry about this affecting his permanent teeth! If they remove the tooth now his permanent tooth will come in in about six months they say based on the x-rays. I don't know how this would affect his other teeth though if a big permanent tooth comes in before the other teeth are ready to come out of the way. Oh well, we'll just have to wait and see.
I dealt with cardiology and the dentist this morning to get it all figured out. He has to have an anesthesiologist on hand just in case (they're using nitrous oxide to calm him), but hopefully there won't be ANY complications. Also they'll try to do this whole procedure without stopping his coumadin. This obviously makes it riskier, but hopefully once again they'll just have to fill the cavity instead of pulling the tooth.
Here you can see the discolored front tooth.
This is scheduled for Monday morning at 10am. Please keep him in your prayers that this goes really quickly, easily, painlessly, and without being traumatizing for Ethan! So far he likes going to the dentist because he has really great teeth (well if he didn't break this one), so he's never had to have any scary experience there! Hopefully this won't change his opinion on them!
I also spoke with his school about his delayed return. They said there should be no problem with that, and we'll still be able to do his assessments and open house and all that before surgery. :) I know he's so excited for school to start again, so hopefully being able to see his new class and everything will tide him over until he's able to return.
He also seemed to start getting some kind of cold this week. His voice is all raspy and it keeps sounding like he's going to lose his voice. Nothing else seems to have come of it though, so hopefully he can heal and stay healthy for surgery. We definitely can't afford to have any more problems beforehand!
AND...we switched his breathing medications. He was on Albuterol inhalations 3-4 times a day, but now we have switched to Xopenex. We think that the Albuterol was causing his really obnoxious behavior and inability to fall asleep before 12:30/1am every night! He was so over the top hyper and wound up on the Albuterol! This Xopenex has already shown a huge improvement in his behavior, his overall calmness, and a bit of an improvement in his sleeping at night. Hopefully this will continue to get better and better!
I'll keep everyone posted with how the dentist goes on Monday!
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