Dental anxiety in 2020

Due to an unfortunate accident involving a birdbath in my grandmother’s back yard, I have had some pretty extensive dental work done in my life, which has left me with a deep-seated dental anxiety. Usually it only involves me, so it’s fine - but yesterday my kids both had to have some pre-orthodontic extractions because they had baby teeth that just wouldn’t come out and were starting to affect the trajectory of their adult teeth that are trying to come in.

My son went first, he had four teeth extracted (one in each quadrant) and I was a little startled when the dental assistant handed me a packet containing the four teeth they’d removed. One had a bit more root than I was expecting, but the dentist explained that generally those roots will disintegrate on their own but this one was just taking longer which is why it had to be pulled.

Then my daughter went, and she only had to have two extractions - but when they handed me her tooth packet, I was pretty freaked out. The second tooth they pulled had HUGE roots. I was trying to be calm in front of the kids, but I immediately started panicking that they had pulled the wrong tooth. I drove them home and gave them ibuprofen, then immediately started searching through my email for the extraction orders from the orthodontist. I was able to finally confirm (with a little help from google) that they did pull the correct tooth, but I had a bad hour freaking out internally about it!

Anyway, they’re both on a soft food diet through the weekend, so I’ve stocked up on pudding, smoothies, and protein shakes. They seem to be doing well this morning, though I dosed them up on ibuprofen again before I sent them off to school.

I had to take a xanax to get to sleep last night, though. And I don’t know what the fuck to do with packets of teeth. I put them away so at least I don’t have to look at them for the moment!