It began on Saturday when he went over the handle bars of his bike for the first time and got an inordinately large fat top lip. It looked really strange, and was quite painfull, but his teeth stayed were un-affected. The thought occured to me to take a photo of his lip, but at the time I couldn't muster the energy.
On Sunday morning after a good nights rest the swelling in his lip had decreased dramatically, and he was looking almost normal. After returning from chuch the kids got on thier bikes and begged me to come outside to watch them ride (as yet, even though they can ride thier bikes un-assisted, they for some reason are not able to ride un-supervised). I got up to go outside, and the moment I opened the garage door (literally) I saw Matt, who was riding his tricycle for some reason, turn sharply uphill towards the house on the driveway. The sharpness of his turn caused the trike to fall over an Matt fell teeth first onto the pavement.
He began crying instantly, and from the steps in the garage I could see blood pouring out of his mouth. I ran down to him and somehow knew that this was worse than the fall he took the day before. I scooped him off the ground and rushed him into the house to clean the blood out of his mouth and inspect the damage. I felt sick when I saw one of his front teeth pushed abnormally back toward the inside of his mouth about 4 millimeters, and down towards his bottom teeth about 3 millimeters -- it looked really painfull and (now that the episode is over) quite strange.
I held Matt tight in my arms and got him into the van. Erin woke up Hannah (who was napping innocently) and put the two girls in the van so we could drop them off at Lara's house and get Matt some medical attention. My first thougth was to go to the children's hospital, but thankfully Sean was able see Matt at his office.
In the car ride to Sean's office Matt started to calm down somewhat, but would randomly burst out in tears of pain. It made me feel sick to think of the strange, painfull discomfort that he must have felt when he relaxed his jaw and his mouth began to close on teeth that weren't set right.
Fortunately, when we got Sean's office and sat in his dentist chair Matt's teeth had already set back in thier sockets. Sean said that it's likely that Matt pushed them back into thier sockets by pressing his tongue on the back of his teeth. We're just glad we didn't have to anesthetize Matt and push the teeth back in manually.
When all is said and done, his teeth, now back in thier sockets, are noticably lower than they were before the accident. Before his accident, Matt's teeth had molded around his pacifier so that his bite formed an eliptical void in the center of his mouth. Today, his front teeth have droped down, and the elipse is no longer visible. Also, the pain in his mouth caused him to not want to use his pacifier. Strangely this accident has corrected his bite, and gotten him off his binki (pacifier).
5 comments:
That story hurts me. I'm glad he's doing better. Poor cute boy!
That is so sad. He even has blood on his shirt. Make sure he doesn't fall anymore, it's too sad to see him banged up. I'm glad his teeth are OK.
Strange juxtaposition of blog entries = the one previous to this? "Grace and Matt learn to ride two-wheelers". Is he back on the bike? Good thing you know a dentist!
that kids is a trooper! poor dude.
Ouch.....poor little guy. Hope he is feeling better.
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