We had only been back at school for about a week and a half at the time. I had just arrived to the sitter's house to pick her up after school. The sitter handed Camille her sippy cup. Camille tried to walk toward me, and I was taking a step toward her to pick her up. (I don't let her ever walk around with a cup in her hand and certainly not in her mouth.) As Camille started to step toward me, she tripped and fell on the tile floor. She landed on her elbows, with the sippy cup still in her hand. Her mouth then landed on the hard spout of the cup. Blood immediately was pouring from her mouth, and she was hysterical. The sitter and I both ran to her, scooped her up, and tried to assess the damage. There was so much blood that it was hard to see what was going on at first. I could just see that a big portion of her top lip was hanging and that I couldn't see one of her front top teeth and wasn't sure about the other one. I called our pediatrician to get the name of a pediatric dentist that they thought might be able to see her at almost five in the afternoon. At this point, Camille had basically passed out in my arms from the pain. I let her sleep on me until Sam could drive to meet us. The pediatrician gave us a dentist's name. I called him, and he said that we would need to go to LeBonheur in the event that her lip would need stitches, which he couldn't do. So, off to LeBonheur we went.
Once they could get a look, they could see that her top lip was badly cut, about a third of it hanging (but they didn't want to give stitches to a toddler that young because she would likely pick at them and tear them, which would make things much worse), that one top tooth had been pushed almost all the way back up into her gums (and could possibly damage the permanent tooth forming above it), and that the other top tooth had broken off to where just a fragment remained.
I cannot explain what it's like to see your baby hurt that badly. Dental pain is bad enough, but to have that much happen all at once is terrible. She couldn't be consoled because she was hurting so badly. I was hysterical because I felt so bad for her and could barely calm her down at all.
After a couple hours, they were finally able to get us in a room. My shirt was covered in dried blood. Camille was in her third shirt that had been covered in blood. She was hungry and thirsty but couldn't drink or eat because it hurt so much. It was a miserable night.
The on-call dentist saw us after another couple hours, and she said that we had no choice but to pull the tooth fragment. A nurse came in a little while later and gave her a shot in her gums to numb them a bit. Unfortunately, they were short staffed that night. So, Sam and I had to hold our baby girl down while the dentist pulled her tooth fragment out while she was awake. It was awful seeing her hurt like that and be wide awake for the entire thing.
The on-call dentist also told us that we would need to monitor her lip for any infection for about a week but that we would start to see her lip improve pretty quickly. She also told us that we would need to follow up with a pediatric dentist a couple times a month for a few months to monitor the pushed-up tooth to make sure that it was coming back down okay and that it continued to live. She explained to us that Camille would likely have a scar on her lip and that it was a 50/50 chance of whether the pushed-up tooth would live and whether there would be permanent damage to the permanent tooth above it.
We got to go home around 5 in the morning. Camille slept a little late with us taking turns holding her all night, and then we got busy figuring out what to hungry toddler who was no longer allowed solids food for a while. (Welcome back, squeezy pouches.)
After about a week, Camille's lip began to look much better and was reattaching. Her open wound from where her tooth had been began to turn purple then white then pink. She was healing pretty well. Her dentist visits were more promising each time, as the dentist saw progress in the pushed-up tooth slowly coming back down.
So, here we are six months later...
Camille's pretty little smile is not exactly the same as it was. There's a tooth missing and a little empty spot in her gums where that cute little bright white tooth used to be. If you look closely, you can see her scar on the bottom of her upper lip. Her pushed-up tooth has made its way back down to where it's supposed to be, and we continue to hope and pray that the permanent tooth above it is healthy and unharmed (because that would mean an implant in the future, if it is damaged). She was finally given permission to begin trying to bite off soft foods (sandwiches, etc) in the last month. Her dentist feels that she's just about ready to get her false tooth molded and fit in her mouth. (He wants to do this because it will be so long before she gets a permanent tooth in its place that the other teeth might have time to shift, which could create lots of problems.) At first, it hurt us to look at her little smile and remember how much she hurt that night. But, now when I see her smile at herself in the mirror and touch her "tooth fairy spot", it's just so sweet to see how precious and proud my pretty little girl is of silly faces and smiles, tooth or no tooth. :)
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