Austin Tooth Follow Up

We just wanted to do a quick update on Austin's tooth. Remember when Austin's tooth got knocked out as he went down a zipline at the Ranch? It was successfully reimplanted by an emergency dentist in Salt Lake City. After they placed it back in, we were basically told just to watch and wait. (Changing color to grey or pink, increased pain). The poor guy! 

He has healed so well and we have been so grateful for how well everything has gone. He had to wear a splint for six weeks, which was a metal piece that went over his top teeth to keep it steady. He got it removed early and he was so happy about it. 

The tooth has been successfully reimplanted and is alive. It has fewer nerve cells and Austin's tooth doesn't feel the cold sensation as intensely as his other teeth but he can still feel it. We've been to multiple dentists multiple times, to an orthodontist, and to an endodontist. It's been quite the dental-ride over the past several months. We tried counting up and I think that he is at 8 dentist or dentist-adjacent appointments in the past 4 months. 

As it has healed it has dropped lower than his other front tooth. The dentists say that it's totally fine because the other tooth will drop down as he gets older - it just makes it a little more noticeable right now. 

We expect Austin to get an expander and then braces at the beginning of next year, so his dental appointments are really just starting. 

We are so grateful for the blessing of healing and recovery that Austin has experienced. It was a little traumatic at the time but there have been priesthood blessings and a lot of prayers and it has turned out pretty much as well as we could have hoped! 

Lydia Teeth

I took Lydia for an orthodontist consultation almost two years ago and Dr. Fairbanks (Fairbanks Orthodontics) recommended having 8-10 of Lydia' baby teeth pulled. That felt really drastic. I took her for a second opinion at a different Orthodontist (Dr Maxfield, Aloha Orthodontics) and he said that he would probably wait and they would probably fall out on their own. But here we are, two years later and even though I stubbornly just kept saying "They'll fall out!" only one of them actually fell out. The rest were not coming out on their own. There was concern that the adult teeth were going to solidify up in the bone making it much more difficult for them to drop down in the right spots - and so we finally made the preparations to have the baby teeth pulled. 

Because there were so many teeth that needed pulled (8), we decided to go to an Oral Surgeon and have them put her under so they could remove them all at the same time. The other option was to do it in stages and have the pediatric dentist do it while she was awake. Lydia was a little nervous, but she was very brave. When I brought her to the appointment, they wouldn't let me come back with her to the room or anything. I had to sit in the waiting room and she had to do it all on her own! On our way out to the car, I made a last minute grab for a blanket and her stuffed dog "Pup-pup". I'm SO glad that I did because I think that made a big difference to her. She did great in the surgery and even though she was a little disoriented and in pain when they said I could come get her and take her to the car, she was relieved to have me there and we were able to take her home and get her comfortable. 

After seeing her baby teeth with their GIANT roots still attached, it was clear that those babies were not going anywhere. We had to laugh a little because I kept telling Lydia that all of the roots were already dissolved and that the adult teeth just needed to push them out. Obviously I was wrong. 



Lydia's recovery was successful. She rested, ate soft foods, and kept her mouth rinsed. She was sore for several days and couldn't eat hard foods for a couple of weeks, but she handled it gracefully and with a good attitude. I'm proud of her and glad that we finally took care of this in hopes that it is the right thing for the best outcome. 

(We also have been joking that we had to have Lydia's teeth taken out but had to have Austin's teeth put back in! We've been going to a lot of dentist/orthodontist/endodontist/oral surgeon appointments lately.) 

Austin Tooth Knocked Out

Shantel was up at the Red Brick House (RBH). That is what we are starting to call the Lyman Ranch house now that her parents have inherited the house. She has been helping work on helping her parents get ready to move from Morgan to Lyman and also working on getting the RBH ready for some remodels. 

Shantel and the kids were staying there for a few days. 

They had set up a Zipline at the house and as Austin was riding it he let go and the seat came up and hit him in the mouth. Austin has lots of baby teeth left, unfortunately it came up and knocked out one of his teeth and it was not a baby tooth. Shantel immediately got the tooth in milk and started figuring out what to do and where to take Austin. Unfortunately it was Saturday night and that meant it was hard to find somewhere to take him. I was at home because I had just got back from a trip and was not in Lyman. Shantel finally found an emergency dental place in Sandy that answered and said they would help them. Shantel drove straight there and got there around 8:30 or 9 at night. Austin was definitely worried but was not in too much pain. 

One funny thing is that when the Dentist came in Shantel immediately realized that is was her roommate from her freshman year, Darliece. I didn't know this, but she eventually asked about my Utah State shirt and said the went there and Shantel confirmed with her that it was her roommate. Darliece is a little bit infamous in our house because she was not a very nice roommate to Shantel, so she is probably not the person we would want to fix Austin's tooth. 

However, she got it back in and told us that we'll just have to wait and see if the tooth is able to recover and live or if he'll have to have it replaced. We gave him a blessing the next day and are really hoping that his tooth will be able to recover.