Tooth

Our adventure of the day involved a private dentist, an x-ray tech, a polyclinic oral surgeon, Apteka (pharmacy) and one pulled tooth. Long story short, Ellie had one last baby tooth (not counting the molars) refusing to come out and the adult tooth was pushing through and it was causing the tooth to break and the gums to bleed, not to mention being quite sore; so it seemed best to extract the tooth. You wouldn’t imagine some of the things that were said (“eye teeth don’t come out this early” .... “there’s not enough room for her teeth to come in”) well they do come out if the bigger tooth is pushing it out! With Oksana’s help they started to understand I was only concerned about the next two weeks and what to do about the immediate problem, not the next year and what orthodontist she should be seeing!


Something that’s different here (in Slavutich at least) is the dentist’s aren’t qualified to pull teeth, only the oral surgeon does that (hence why we braved the polyclinic….this is a routine procedure right?!) With some hesitation and bracing my 8 year old down (who is terrified of shots and having her tooth yanked) in 5 minutes the tooth was out, it was rather painless thanks to mepivacaine (a common local anesthetic). A funny moment was Oksana’s comment that she recognized the medicine from the T.V. show HOUSE and said "that can't be too bad right!?" Oksana and I had a lot of laughs (it’s either that or freak out and cry) and I was very thankful for her help. Ellie came through like a pro and got the traditional chocolate milkshake (homemade…it’s not like they have a Sonic) as she waited for the feeling to come back to her face.

Just remember us next time you are debating, do I take them to the doctor or not?  Around here that is a loaded question with a lot more ramifications!