I reckon most people spend Father's day thinking about their dads or other family members but for me, Father's day reminds me of the awful day that poor Miss T suffered a horrible tooth trauma resulting in one of the front adult teeth being knocked out.
It was 3 years ago in 2019 on Father's day that we were due to meet up with some other JIA families. Looking back, the signs were there to perhaps not attend as the weather hadn't been great but I have never been one to let others down and as the organisation concerned had created an official "event" on Facebook for the meet-up, I felt that we would be letting others down if we didn't go to the park that day.
I wrote up about what happened to Miss T's tooth at the time as we were shocked by the lack of knowledge by the emergency services about what to do.
However, we are eternally grateful to our own dental practice who DID know what to do to give that tooth the best chances, however slim they were. It turns out that on a Sunday afternoon there were no NHS emergency dental services available for children and so it resulted in a big emergency call out fee at the dental practice.
These are photos from the day at the hospital where they didn't know what to do so I attempted to reinsert the tooth myself.
It was mushy food and drinking through a straw for a long while after that.
I hope it never happens to you, but if it does, it's worth familiarising yourself beforehand with what to do if an adult tooth gets knocked out because there is no guarantee that the emergency services will give you the advice you need at the time.
I've written up about the "pick, lick and stick" message that we were told about afterwards on this post I wrote up at the time.
She was supposed to be monitored on a regular basis by Kings Dental hospital but since the COVID pandemic began, her appointment that was due in June 2020 was cancelled and we haven't had another one through yet despite chasing up on several occasions.
She attends our own dental practice for her routine dental check-ups so I'm hoping that if anything significant was spotted that we'd know about it through the routine check-ups.
The long-term outlook for that tooth remains very uncertain. They explained to us at the time that once the risk of infection has passed/reduced, the tooth still won't be the same as the others due to the way that it fuses to the bone making it unreceptive to orthodontic treatment and at risk of infraocclusion as she grows.
I continue to pray for that tooth so that by some miracle it will turn out to have reintegrated back into her mouth in a way that the dentists thought not possible. It seems to have done amazingly well so far given the risks and how the odds were stacked against it and I hope that it continues to amaze us.
