Dental memories...

Today was interesting. It brought up lots of memories and emotions.

My son needed a filling, not that awful in the world of parenting, but to both of us a little traumatic.

As we were waiting for this afternoon’s appointment these past experiences were running through my brain…

Him as a six week old baby, ill in hospital. On one occasion, just after Dave left to go to collect the older kids from school, they decided he needed IV fluids. So I had to watch as 2 nurses and a doctor held down my terrified and screaming baby while I watched helplessly. I didn’t have chance to discuss if it was the right thing to do, Dave wasn’t there. 'I' had to consent. (Although if I hadn’t I think they would have gone against my wishes and said I wasn’t capable or something) 

It was all down to me, yet I couldn’t protect him or even hold him as he was taken to get this IV tube in. 

I admit it traumatised me - I was terrified, I knew that I had to make the ‘right’ decision (whatever that was!), and he was ill. But I also knew that antibiotics can destroy the gut biome as so didn’t want them unless there was no other option, yet the nurses were making out it wasn’t even a concern! I couldn't have a decent conversation to discuss it properly. I felt ridiculed for my own thoughts, opinions and experience. 

I felt sick. Sick and powerless. 

Not helped that my family were away on holiday (well at my sister’s wedding!) and that Dave and I had to look after the older 3 kids as well as one of us stay with our baby in hospital, so we had to find our own practical and emotional support. Plus. A rather large shadow in my background- my baby brother died as a newborn when my own grandparents were on holiday- it felt like history could be repeating itself… my mental health was shot for several months, or even years after…

Then in 2015 he needed a couple of fillings, one in a baby tooth and one in his adult one. The dentist did the baby one fine and then got to the second and muttered ‘Oh, it’s deeper than I thought’ and kept drilling… suddenly I could see my child looking rigid and terrified (he had forgotten to raise his hand as she said to do if it hurt) and so I asked him if it was hurting, and he shakily put his hand up! 

The dentist looked at me like I was interfering but I didn’t give a shit what she thought, he just sat there silently shaking that it hurt, terror and fear in his eyes, while I calmed him and gave him some rescue remedy. She then told me (rather irately!) that she 'could' do a further numbing injection, but that she had done the part close to the nerve now and it should be OK and he wouldn’t feel any more… so we agreed to let her continue. What else could I do with a deep hole drilled in his tooth? But as I held him I could again feel him tense right up as he felt pain, silently crying. 

We went home and I just had to hug him for several hours until the tears, pain  and fear had subsided.

Then the last time he needed dental treatment he had a baby tooth that was sticking sideways. I had managed to get to see a different dentist to the one before, who said it needed pulling out (and gave us a couple of decent reasons why) and reassured him she would make sure he couldn’t feel it, and he trusted her (and me!) He was due to go back a couple of weeks later if it still hadn't fallen out.

Actually how I managed to get myself in the surgery that day I have no idea, I was spinning violently, I felt sick and exhausted and couldn’t take much in, but my concern over him somehow over rid my symptoms of feeling ill. 

The week after this I was diagnosed with my brain tumour. So at the appointment to pull the tooth I was in no fit state to look after myself, let alone him. Dave took him while I sat at home feeling the most useless mother in the world, sitting on the sofa sobbing. 

Plus fuzzy flashbacks of the times I saw him in hospital when I was admitted with my tumour… the day before my operation when he walked in the ward with my Mum, looking terrified, sat on the bed and hugged me. Everything felt unreal and blurry from the hydrocephalus and the tumour, and in this haze I didn’t know if it was the last time I would see him again.

I just wanted to hold him and say it would be alright but I was too scared to do so… I didn’t want to lie. 

Again I just sobbed as he left... I never wanted to do this to my child... Up until this point he had never even left me for a night! Now I was having brain surgery, had already been in hospital for a night, still hadn't got a definite date for surgery and was due to stay 5-9 days afterwards!

Then after the surgery, when he walked up to see me – I looked haggard, with my hair a mess and 2 huge stapled ‘zipper lines’ in my hair that he asked me to hide! – and the simultaneous look of fear and relief in his face. Again he climbed on to the bed and just sat and hugged me, the fear pouring into me to be absorbed while I just held him tight. The relief holding him had on me too. He had told me he was shaking and had felt sick on the way in plus he had needed to take some of his homeopathic remedies I had told him to use when he wanted (along with simple terms of what to use them for.) 

Thankfully at this point Mr Jones had come in and discharged me - three days earlier than we had been told was even possible!!!… So we just both sobbed a bit more while being told this news and as we realised he could go home as I would be back later that afternoon to see him. Brain surgery wards are not fun to be in – I wanted to leave too! 

Believe me, there are times when a hug is so powerful and this was one of them, etched on my soul… 

…so today, I have felt all of these strong emotions again, several times over, before we even got to the dentist!

 💞

Then Dave sent me a message (I was talking about not wanting to take him to the dentist alone) saying ‘I could do it… I’d dealt with worse!’ and yes something inside released and I was actually quite calm in taking him there. 

Again sitting by his feet while he was in the dental chair and holding his legs (I slid a chair next to him, so I could hold him near his feet- I don’t care if its normal or not) I felt I was finally saying ‘I am here’, and letting go of my hurt from all the times I hadn’t been in the past.  As well as for the guilt of the past few years when I was too tired or simply forgot to remind him to brush his teeth…

Then sudden realisations once again hit me. When he was a baby, being treated by others, and I was in a panic –  he was OK after. When he, or any of my family, has done anything 'bad' since – it has all worked out fine in the end. I even had my skull drilled and opened up, a surgeon in my brain! The body can manage so much more than we (or just I) give it credit for. 

How many times have I stressed over nothing? My worrying (once again) helping nothing. Just as with my surgery, and everything else, I need to trust he will be OK.

Why can’t I just stay tuned to this guidance?  

 

💜 👼 💜

 

 

 

Washing Away The Past....