Last week she kept running a 99.4 fever but we couldn't find a reason. The doctor put her on an antibiotic because of her congenital heart defect. We just can't take chances that an infection could make it's way to her heart.
On Sunday afternoon, she started crying about a toothache. I knew it was bad enough that she was going to need to go to the dentist. She had a huge filling that had fallen out and I had an appointment for her to get it fixed this week.
This morning she came downstairs with a swollen face. I knew immediately that she had an abscessed tooth. I got her to the dentist who told me we would need to go to ER because the infection was bad enough to need IV antibiotics.
But...a hurricane was starting.
I called her cardiologist because I was hoping I could take her to our local hospital. Normally, they won't touch her because of her heart, but I thought that maybe our cardiologist could convince them to just treat her infection...because...a hurricane was descending upon us. But no can do....she needed to be in Boston.
So I went home and packed...Jeff came home from work to take care of the other kids, and I set off. We felt it was better for him to stay home than to take SaraGrace and I to Boston and then return to the other kids. Jeff was worried he might get stranded in Boston and not be able to get back to the kids. The winds were gusting pretty bad but I made it. Poor SaraGrace was in so much pain and her face had swelled even more.
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While she was in pain, she kept reaching for me and saying, "I'm so glad I have you. I'm so glad you're my family." So precious.
After the morphine kicked in, she was raising her arms in the air and saying, "My arms feel so light." haha The dental team wanted to see her, so she got into a wheelchair and started being silly.
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The tears flowed shortly after, though, when she heard they were going to pull her tooth. The infection was not going to get better with that tooth in there, so it had to come out. Thankful that we came to Boston where we could get everything done in one place.
The tooth extraction was pretty brutal. She was crying hard and saying, "OW! OW! OW!" I was having flashbacks of my own horrible tooth abscess as a small child and worrying that she was feeling way too much. (I felt everything during mine and I didn't want her to repeat that horror.) The dentist finally got the tooth out and it was HUGE. I couldn't believe how long the roots were. ugh.
Within an hour or so, she had bounced back and was waving to every person who passed her room--which got pretty hilarious. People would start to wave back, would get an odd look on their faces like, "Do I know you?" and then put their hand back down. I was cracking up! One of the janitors walked by and she waved happily to him. He stopped in shock and struck up a conversation with her. It was so cute. I could tell it just made his day.
She's sleeping now--with a brand new pillow pet that the Child Life Specialist gave her after watching the Great Tooth Extraction. Since they gave her Versed to help her forget the ordeal, she scored a pillow pet and won't remember anything.
I, on the other hand, won't soon forget because I didn't get any Versed.
On the home front, we still had power as of about 10PM. Yay! SaraGrace and I are hoping to head home tomorrow.
For now, I am watching the storm on TV--and some idiot on CNN is standing in thigh deep water doing the newscast. What's that about? New York and New Jersey are definitely getting hit a lot harder than Boston.
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