His new look

As some of you know, T.J. went in for his 2nd surgical operation of his short life today.  And this is his cute little face tonight, after the surgery was over.

How did he lose his tooth?  Many who know or see his personality will likely think it is from an accident. Which I am surprised it is not.  

I am blaming it on my mom.  When we went to the dentist last year, the dentist noticed there was an extra tooth in the way of all T.J.'s permanent teeth, and he asked if extra teeth run in the family. After a little investigation I found that my own mother had an extra tooth once, hence the genetics made it to T.J.

Last month T.J. went in for his routine dental checkup and the pediatric dentist said that it was the right time to get that tooth out.  It is a tooth that just sits there, never comes down, but pushes the rest of his permanent teeth out of the way and just makes them all crooked and jammed wrong.  So the sooner to get it out the better, because it was already starting to affect his permanent teeth.

We took him in at 7:30 this morning, and dropped Heber off at a friend's.  T.J. was not as excited this time for his surgery, because he remembers the aftermath of the previous one.  He was fine until they had to wheel him away from us. It is so sad to see how scared kids are when they have to take them away to work on them.  

After 45 minutes Dr Albrecht (our dentist) came out to give us the update.  He started out by saying "well, sometimes the extra tooth is just right there and easy to find.  But we had to dig for this one, it was not as easy to find."  Okay, I was fine with that.  Then he goes on "There has only been a couple times when I have had to pull the tooth because it was so hard to get the extra tooth out." And I still didn't get the upcoming hint.  Then he said "and so we had to take his tooth out."  And I was thinking "WHAT??"  It just came as a complete surprise to me because I had no idea it would be a possible result of this surgery today.  Okay, I know a lost tooth is not the end of the world, especially because he is a rough little boy and it gives him character.  But it is just feels like such a permanent change.  (Well, just until permanent teeth come in. So a permanent change for the next 2-4 years.)  Dr. Albrecht told me that he has performed probably over 300 of these surgeries, and has had to remove only like 3 of the teeth.  yay for T.J. making it to the 1%! 

Needless to say, I was laughing and crying at the same time because it was news I was not expecting.  It will just take a little time to get used to.

On a grateful note, I am SO grateful that it is nothing worse.  Just a cosmetic thing I have to ignore.  I am SO grateful medical technology is available to take x-rays and even find this kind of issue before he is an adult and his teeth are already way messed up.  I am grateful for a good pediatric dentist that took care of the problem, and even called us tonight to check up on T.J. after anesthetics and see if I was emotionally ok after my little breakdown.  (which I am.)  Life is good.  

Even though this day turned out different then I anticipated, I know my prayers were answered and everything went well with the surgery. T.J. was a little nauseous and tired for the first few hours, but you couldn't tell by this evening that anything had even happened.  I am grateful that Heavenly Father watches over and blesses our little family.