Brave

When you're scared

but you still do it anyway,

that's BRAVE.

~Neil Gaiman~

June sixth was the day where I woke up at 5 a.m. to take Mikail to the Hospital for his dental procedure. He woke up happy as can be. Thinking that the sun would be sleeping still when we got up, he was a bit disappointed that it was up already. So clearly he was not worried about what was before him. Unlike his Mama who was clinging on the promises of Jesus that her boy would be okay. That there would be no allergic reaction to the anesthesia and he would come out of this with regular white fillings and not a smile full of silver crowns.

We headed to the hospital and had to enter via the E.R. since regular admission wasn't open this early in the morning. Mikail happily coloured a few Mickey Mouse pictures with his invisible marker until we were brought to his room, changed into hospital pjs and then settled into a the iPad for a bit. We were then escorted down to the O.R. holding area where he was given a drink of tylenol/dopamine, which he thought was juice and promptly spit out half of it when he realized it was yucky (bitter). Whatever to into him did its work and he was partially sedated by the time we had to go to the O.R. Let me tell you...a three year old is hilarious when on dopamine. Loopy! He too giggled a lot because it felt so funny to him.

The hospital staff was amazing. They allowed me to go into the O.R. with Mikail. I carried him in and laid him on the table. Held his hand, kissed his cheeks and whispered Mama love into his ears as they tried to get an IV into him. Like me, the veins in his hands are tiny and they burst one immediately. So, they went to his foot which worked great. He was calm and happy when I left to wait in the waiting room. 

The pediatric dentist came to see me within about 40 minutes and all went well. A lot of the discoloration on his teeth was stain due to the medication he was on as well as vitamins he took. She polished those and then they filled the three cavities (I thought there were more, but they were just stains) with white filling. Crowns were not needed. Thank You, God!! He got through with the anesthesia no problem, but would be 'out of it' for quite a while. The anesthesiologist was going to sit with him until he woke up and then they would come and get me.

I was able to ask the dentist a few questions about the cause of this and learned that newborns who are sick for the first month of life have a different type of bacteria in their mouth that often allows acid to eat away at the teeth more than the average person. THIS is what she believes happened in combination with the use of the medication he was on. She said that the rest of his teeth are super healthy. There are no issues and just to keep brushing and flossing as we are. She even said we didn't have to floss until his teeth grow closer together. Right now his teeth have gaps between them BUT I am still flossing daily anyhow. No playing around with this. It just felt so good to here a confirmation that this was not our fault as parents. I knew that in my head, but my heart needed to catch up. It has.

Within half an hour Mikail was wheeled down to my waiting room. He was sitting in the lap of a sweet nurse and we went up to his room where he sat in my lap and we played games, sang songs, and watched Max and Ruby while we waited for the next two hours of observations to pass by. Jason also came around this time, as did Butterfly (the pediatric clown) who gave him a 'surgery bear' for being brave. She also got his Bravery Beads going (more on that another time) and once we were released, Mikail got a ride in her car with her. So fun!

He's doing great. We went out for icecream on Saturday and he was so excited that he could eat some too. Usually he says 'no thank you' to icecream. It was too painful to eat for him. Now he proudly said 'Mommy. Teeth no more cold. Warm teeth. Yummy icecream!" That's a whole lot of talking for our little guy who five months ago only said single words and preferred sign language.

So happy to be on this side of June 6th. So happy that our little guy is so very brave.