May 3, 2005 - Tuesday
This contorted face is the result of Harry's first experience with Novocain. He's trying to whistle (that's something he's been doing a lot of lately; he can whistle in, but not out yet), but the right (his left) side of face doesn't work. Disturbingly, this past Sunday I discovered what seemed like a rather deep hole in this second to last tooth on the upper left side of his mouth. Wishfully, I suppose, I assumed that a previous "filling" (actually just a rather small white patch) that Harry needed a couple of years ago must have fallen out. Troublingly, this turned out to be on the next tooth over and Harry needed a real silver filling. They took a quick x-ray, filled his gums with Novocain, and drilled out his tooth. It's an experience most people are quite familiar with and it was not much different with Harry, with one exception that I'd never seen before. In order to have kids not swallow the tooth fragments that might come off during the drilling, they inserted what I would best describe as a piece of a green balloon into this mouth. It had a small hole for the object tooth to poke through, but other than that it completely covered his mouth and forced him to breath exclusively through his nose. It was really quite shocking for me to see and I can only imagine the eeriness a five-year-old would feel having it go over his mouth.

Ah, but Harry is always been brave at the dentist and today was no exception. He never cried, never flinched, and the whole thing went as smoothly as I or the dentist could have hoped. Admittedly, afterward Harry seemed a little shell-shocked, but then who isn't after going through that at the dentist's office. At least we got to laugh about his numb face when we got home.


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