Hard

So Sydney had her surgery to correct the decay on her teeth. 

How did it go? 

NOT. WELL.

We were supposed to just fill the cavities she had and be done.  Simple, right?  It turned into me wanting to smack the over-eager-doctor-wanting-to-create-perfection-in-the-mouth-of-a-3-year-old.  The first trip the nurse made out to talk to us was to tell us that they had no choice, they had had to extract one of her upper teeth.

 

Say what?!?!?!?

It went downhill from there.

Syd was supposed to be in surgery for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, and at 3 1/2 hours into it, they actually came out and asked us, "Since we cannot get the 2 front upper teeth perfectly white because of all the bleeding, wouldn't you rather us extract them?"

Insert mommy getting hysterical here.

And to top it all off, the doctor pranced out afterwards to give us a lengthy and snotty speech about how children need to have their teeth brushed.

Ahem.

I gently reminded her of Sydney's very malnutritioned condition at 2 years old when we adopted her from China. 

Her response?  "China?"

She had no recollection whatsoever of Sydney's history, which she herself had told us had contributed to the dental condition.

Needless to say, it was a nightmare from beginning to end.  She did briefly warn us that Syd may have some "ulcer-like problems in the corner of her mouth from keeping her mouth open so long".  In reality, the instrument they used to hold her mouth open during surgery was too big and since the surgery lasted 2 hours longer than planned, both sides of Sydney's mouth split about 1/4 inch.

Oh I could go on and on.......

Here we are 8 days post-op and this is the first day Sydney has been at all like herself.

She has not slept through the night yet.  She is up 3-5 times a night screaming for mommy.

She has asked a thousand times who gave her the boo-boos on her mouth.

She did not go off of pain relievers for the first 6 days.

I had to coat her lips and sides of her mouth with petroleum jelly every 15 minutes or so or she would scream that it hurt. 

She could not eat anything with any substance to it at all for the first 5 days, and even now cannot bite anything off (even something as soft as a boiled hotdog).

She could barely open her mouth wide enough to put a spoonful of soup in.

She sat and looked in the mirror and cried over how she looked.

It has been a nightmare.  Worse than that, it has been a nightmare that we agreed to put her though.  I know that hindsight is 20/20, but right now I am kicking myself that I even agreed to the surgery in the first place.  Our regular dentist thought it was borderline whether or not he would even fix it or just leave it alone since they are all baby teeth.  Oh how I wish I would have just left it alone.

I know that she had some decay, but this is so much worse.

It feels like we put a cast on a papercut!