So, I began the last post by saying what a trooper she is, but she has proven that even more this week. After the last picture I posted I began to notice that her left eye was looking worse, not better. I feel like I was guided to be watching out for "something" since swelling was expected. It was when she woke up on Friday looking like this that I knew that "something" had happened. I mentioned that I thought she was going to have a good shiner, well it was more than that. All the while, Kate was acting perfectly cute and cooperative, except for wanting to wear her red velvety dress all the time.
After feeling a little crazy trying to make the right connections with appropriate doctors and the dentist, we ended up at the medical center waiting to see an eye doctor to make sure her eye itself wasn't infected. She was definitely quite the sight this little trooper of ours: eye swollen shut and dressed to the nines in her red dress and black patent shoes. I couldn't stand the thought of her crying and making her eyes even more swollen, so I surrendered on the dress front. All the while, nurses kept walking by telling us how glad they were that we were there to take care of this and how serious this was.
The eye dr took one look at her eye as he walked past the waiting room and sent us to the doctor on call in the emergency room. The emergency room doctor told us it was a type of infection called cellulitis and that because it was around her eye it could even be life threatening if not aggressively treated. So we were sent for 3 IV antibiotic treatments over the weekend. Went back on Monday and we are on another round of antibiotics by mouth.
The dentist saw her as well and decided that he had missed something the first time around so he needed to remove 2, possibly four, of the teeth that he did the major work on. He couldn't believe she was as good about things as she was and feels so bad that she had gotten such a serious complication so he told us any follow up work would be covered.
She had her second surgery today and I can't believe how well she is doing. She is almost bouncing off the walls - maybe because she is feeling so much better. Today Kate woke up to money left behind from the Tooth Fairy and told me she had a big bite under her teeth (talking about the space where the teeth were). She hates taking the medicine, but I really don't blame her. She is a better patient than I would be.
She has been so awesome!!! She didn't even cry when they put in the IV. Or when I am sure her mouth has been hurting. Or when she's had to go to the Dr or even when they took her for her second surgery. The only time she cried was on the last IV treatment when the site started to bleed and sting.
I can't say I have been as brave. It is very hard to watch your little one be so sick (even if she didn't know it). I cried yesterday as we drove home from the surgery center and I thought about how losing 4 teeth this way would change my sweet girl - her speech, her smile, etc. I know it's not huge, and really I am just very grateful that we are almost done with this, but I feel badly that her cute smile couldn't stay the same. Not to say that she isn't cute this way - she is adorable however she is.
Hopefully, in 4-6 weeks when she gets the retainer it will look awesome and we'll be able to really feel "done" with this whole crazy adventure. When I think about it now that it is mostly done it doesn't seem as big and scary - they are just baby teeth after all. Grateful for my worthy priesthood holder husband. I know we've been watched out for. Grateful that this is only a week or two of our lives and not something bigger and scarier to deal with. I am so grateful for an eternal perspective and grateful for the gift of health that we enjoy so much of the time.
