Erica's Surgery

About twelve months ago Erica was playing in the family room with Ethan. She slipped over and landed teeth first on the tiles. That little fall lead to many dental visits and earlier this week a surgery. Erica's top two middle teeth were damaged by the fall. One has a chip which isn't of much concern. However the other tooth died and eventually formed an abscess, so it needed to be taken out before the infection could do any further damage. Given Erica's age this happened under general anaesthetic in a hospital.

The picture above was taken after Erica's surgery. She was very nervous about the operation and told me many times that she felt scared. However, after we came home from the hospital Erica told David how much she enjoyed her stay and asked if she could go back tomorrow! She loved having her own television, having a nurse bring her a heated blanket every time she was cold and receiving a gift bag with a colouring book, bubbles, bravery award etc. She also took full advantage of the post-surgery foods - an ice block, juice, cupcake, jelly, ice cream, custard and lemonade.

We were very fortunate that she didn't react badly to the anaesthetic - no vomiting. She also continued to nap after she was taken off the anaesthetic, so spent a lot of her recovery time sleeping. After that she spent some time staring out the window, still a little drugged up. There were no tears and she complied with everything the doctors and nurses asked of her.

Erica was super excited the next morning to find the 'gold' that the tooth fairy had left her. She plans on using it to buy a paper fan. Erica's gum still looks a bit dark and swollen, but she is now more or less back to her usual happy self.