Abby Goes to the Dentist

Randy had his semi-annual cleaning/checkup appointment at the dentist yesterday, and they let Abby come in to have her teeth checked too.

Randy "prepped" Abby enroute to the dentist by reviewing the words teeth (Abby pointed to her teeth), brush/toothbrush (she mimicked brushing her teeth using her finger), Dr. Tupper (Randy said "we'll just call him Doc", and Abby said "Da")... She had fun playing in the waiting room while I filled out paperwork. Randy got called into the chair for his cleaning/exam, and Abby got called in a few minutes later into her own exam room.

I took a couple pictures of Abby while we were waiting for the dentist to come in to the exam room. She was having fun exploring and playing around until she accidentally bumped a button on the chair. Next thing we knew, the chair was rising up and flattening out! It scared Abby something terrible! She was shaking like a leaf! From then on, she wasn't so excited about being at the dentist.




Dr. Tupper looked at her teeth and didn't seem to be too terribly alarmed at the lack of teeth, but when he was done he did a little research and then came back and said something doesn't seem right after all. She's missing the 3 teeth on both sides of her bottom middle teeth, and he doesn't think there are any yet to come there. The bone structure seems to be lacking, too (like what happens to older people when their teeth fall out and their gums shrink). She's missing several on top, too. He suggested a possible medical condition, and told us to talk to our pediatrician when we see him next. We don't know whether more teeth will still come in. She's a little too young to do x-rays, and really when it comes down to it, there's nothing we or the dentist can do about it, so why bother. If God decides to send more teeth, we'll be happy, but if not, He has a better plan and we'll be satisfied with that.

We have mixed emotions on this matter. Of course, we love Abby and will continue to love her no matter if she has a full mouth of teeth or not. It's not such a big deal now because she's still a little girl, and many little kids have teeth missing. It'll get trickier as she gets older, but thankfully we have a very loving support network around her with our family, church family, and friends, so hopefully she won't get teased too much as a youngster. Assuming her teeth continue on their current track, we'll want to get a lot of dental work done for her when she's old enough to have that work done. If you want to put us as a benefactor in your will, we'd appreciate it! :) (Just kidding...altho it certainly is going to be an expensive road ahead).