Dental Check-Up

Despite having gone to bed late at around 9:30pm last night, Renee still woke up at +/-8am, came to my bedside and waved a milk powder pack she's removed from her sample packs she's given at school yesterday. She had told me that she liked it very much and would like me to change her milk to this brand, lolz but when I told her that the nutrientional contents in her current milk seemed to be better, she then said that she'd have this at night and the usual one in the morning(we've already cut her off night time milk actually) which I agreed of 'cos and told her that she'd need to drink alot more water if that's the case.

Remembering the dental check-up we've to bring her to, I immediately switched my mobile on but at 10am, there was still no phone calls from the centre. A note on the map attached to the referral letter indicated that we should call the centre, after 1 day, if we do not hear from them or KKH but I didn't wish to wait as Renee is still unwilling to chew*(due to pain), not even her favourite bread.
*she has however, decided to chew abit when I bought some paos after our lunch and I guess, after so many hours w/out her fav bread, she simply couldn't resist, heee.

Whilst on the phone with the National Dental Centre, I noted that the attending doctor at KKH had not indicated an urgent attendance by the dental doctor(I guess that's why they've not acted faster?) on the referral letter but in replying to their query, I informed them of Renee's inability to chew as yet, which to them, was probably also a good cause for concern. Luckily for us, there were 2 cancellations in the afternooon(2 and 2:30pm) and we grabbed the 2pm one.

At the NDC, although we were next on line, we still waited for quite a while before the dentist actually attended to us. It turned out that she's an intern if I'm not wrong, 'cos after a pretty long consultation with her, we still had to wait for her senior to have a look which warranted another x-ray 'cos apparently the former had not detected the obvious fracture line on 2 of Renee's upper teeth! Then, though I've expected to speak to the senior after the 2nd x-ray, we weren't given a chance to(she wasn't even back to review further) and the very friendly intern(in actual fact, dentists are trained pyschologically to be extra nice due to obvious patients' fears), being reprimanded by the senior right infront of us(for not detecting the fracture lines and the defective equipment in the room), had became not so friendly thereafter and we were quite abruptly 'dismissed'.

By the time we've gone for the 2nd x-ray, hubby had returned to join us(I had still thought that we'd need to go back ourselves when I told him to go tend to his work, so you can imagine how long we were there).

There were a total of 2 'cuts' on her bottom gum resulting in the 3 front bottom teeth to wobble - The nerves seemed to have been affected and I'm to monitor, should she complain of more pain in the near future, chances that the nerves might 'die-off' and that's when the teeth will drop. The only consolation to this piece of information is that, in normal circumstances, the baby teeth will start to drop from 6 years old onwards and since she's 5 now, she need not wait for too long before her adult teeth to surface.
Even if the teeth do not drop, she might still experience more sensitivity now til the 'change', haiz...

This incident, together with our experience at KKH yesterday reminded me on why I've always not liked going to the public hospitals/medical centres(although the doctors and nurses had been singing 'praises' of her) if one can afford it. My biggest regret now is that I hadn't been calm enough to think properly 'cos if I had, I would have asked the GP to refer us to a specialist and probably, we wouldn't have to subject our precious one to being a 'guinea pig'/experimental, training objects.

Whatever it is, there's nothing we can do now but I will most probably bring her to the PD to remove the stitches 'cos I'd prefer better advice/treatment on how to minimise her scar and 2ndly, I will find out if I could ask for a senior consultant on her dental follow-up check(which will be in a month's time) before deciding if we should go for another check with a private practitioner(if you have any good recomendations[scar treatment &/or dental], pls let me know).

Meantime, I would need her to lay off her violin practices/lessons for a while and I hope it won't be too long 'cos we've already skipped her lessons for a month already...

The stitches