Surgery, sedation, and soft diets...

That's what the next week or two holds for us. Let's back up a few weeks and I'll explain.

I'll start with Chloe. Both Cassie and Chloe had their routine 6-month teeth cleanings on December 8th. Cassie's teeth looked great and no cavities. I'll leave out my disappointment with the way her cleaning was done and the stress Cassie was put through -- let's just say it won't happen again that way. So back to Chloe, Chloe's hygienist did a great job with Chloe and her cleaning went well. However, Chloe has two more cavities. She had two when she came home from China and they were filled and sealed when she had her ear tubes done on May 21st -- both were in her one year top molars. This time I was told Chloe would need two fillings and would need to be sedated. I had no problem with that but I did have a major problem with their sedation policy. I refused to comply or make the needed appointment. After a few phone calls with different office personnel, we were asked to bring Chloe back in to see the head dentist/man in charge on Saturday December 11th. We complied with that request. :)

After the dentist examined Chloe's mouth and she got prizes for her and her sister, I got a very informative biology lesson on teeth formation and problems that can occur with these formations. The bottom line is that all Chloe's teeth -- except the one 2 year molar yet to come in -- have major amounts of hypercalcification. Basically that means her enamel didn't form correctly on spots of her teeth -- you can see this by the discoloration -- very white spots - on her teeth. This of course means these spots/areas are very weak too. Most of Chloe's hypercalcification is at the base of her teeth -- making it very hard to fill should the need arise. If they drill in these weak areas her teeth might crumble. That means that instead of two fillings, Chloe will need two crowns. One crown will be on a 2 year molar that's only been around for about 3 months and the other will be on a bottom front tooth. Oh, and that front tooth also needs a partial root canal. Nice. Not! Her crown on the back will be silver and the one on the front tooth will be resin. And one more thing -- Chloe will more than likely end up with a mouth full of crowns on her baby teeth. Thank goodness baby teeth crowns are much cheaper than permanent teeth crowns. So we'll be able to afford the special xylitol toothpaste and oral rinse Chloe (and Cassie) will now be using to help ward off future dental issues. We are also considering putting them both on oral fluoride treatments -- yes, it does cause discoloration of the teeth -- a white floral pattern -- but it's better to have discoloration of your teeth than no teeth at all.

Then the dentist and I discussed and debated his office's sedation policy and we both agreed that complying with my request was going to work out best for our family situation. Score one for mama -- she move mountains for her baby girls.

Chloe will be having this dental work completed on Saturday January 15th. And the 'main/top dentist/director guy' will be doing the work himself. :) That also makes mama very, very happy. We will give Chloe an oral sedative at home just before we leave for the clinic and then she'll be given more when we arrive. 40 minutes later, the procedure will start and nitrous oxide gas will also be given. I will get to stay in the room the whole time -- as I promised I would be good and not interfere. As long as the sedation works -- sometimes it doesn't -- please pray for her -- we'll be able to ease the pain she has right now with her teeth and get the repairs/crowns done. Yes, she complains that her front tooth hurts -- my poor baby girl. With Chloe having a cleft lip and palate we expected lots of issues with her teeth, palate, braces, palate expanders, and so on -- but never did I think she'd have two crowns before she was 31 months old.

Back to Cassie. When we got Cassie's referral pictures, she hadn't had her cleft lip repaired yet. Cassie's lip was repaired in China and we didn't find out this info until right before we traveled to get her. Once seeing Cassie we knew she would need a lip revision at some point. For the record I LOVE Cassie's lips, her slightly over collagen-filled look -- even if it's only on one side -- but I know that she will disown me as a teenager if we don't do what we can to even out her sweet little lips now. I guess part of me knows that God gave her that lip so that we'd find her and she'd find us. Having surgery on that lip takes away that visual reminder on how we found each other. It's one of those times as parents we have to do what's right as opposed to what we want to do.

When we saw the cleft team in May we mentioned that Cassie has some problems with biting her lip where it's very thick and that in the winter it gets very dry on that side causing her to pick at it and it gets a tiny blister on it sometimes. Because of this the surgeon wanted to see Cassie in 6 months to talk about doing a lip revision. She wanted to wait until Cassie's speech was better before doing the surgery. Our appointment to see the surgeon was on December 2nd. Everyone agreed that it was time for Cassie's lip revision to be scheduled. For the record, Cassie didn't get a vote. She HATES doctors or anyone who belongs to the medical field. We scheduled Cassie's surgery for February 1st -- the first available time on the surgeon's schedule. It's going to be an outpatient surgery. She'll have some dissolving stitches on/in her lip and will be on a soft diet for about a week. The surgery itself seems pretty straight forward and they have only booked the operating room for 2 hours so we think the actual surgery part should be fairly quick. The hardest thing about the recovery is going to be trying to keep Cassie or her sister from bopping her in the mouth.

Everything was set for the 15th (Chloe) and the 1st (Cassie) and then the surgeon's office called this past Wednesday. They told us that they had a cancellation on Wednesday January 12, and wanted to know if we wanted to move Cassie's surgery up. After a few phone calls to Sonny at work to see how his schedule looked, we decided to take the opening and Cassie is now having her surgery on Wednesday the 12th -- this coming Wednesday. Chloe will be having her dental work 3 days later on the 15th. This going to be a busy, crazy, stressful week for all of us. Adding to the chaos will be the fact that Sonny has evening conference calls on Wednesday and Thursday nights from 8pm to 9:30pm. This always messes with the girls' bedtime routine. I'm hopeful that both the surgery and dental procedures will go well and that by February 1st things will be back to the normal crazy busy around here.

Please keep both girls in your prayers next week as they have tough weeks in store for them.