A Not So Routine Walk

A routine walk to meet Daddy at the bus stop lead to Cooper’s first major injury.  He tripped when walking on the sidewalk and hit his face on the pavement.  He cried a pain cry, but stopped by the time I made it back to the house just a couple of minutes later.  We didn’t even notice the crack in his tooth until the next night and the following morning the cracked portion was sticking out like in the picture.  This lead to our first call to a pediatric dentist who told us to go to Children’s Hospital.  After consulting with my ER Children’s nurse friend Jenni, we opted for urgent care instead of the ER.  Thanks again for all of your help, Jenni!

This tooth chip ended up coming out between the time the nurse and doctor saw us so we were glad to have someone look at the final stage of the tooth break.  We have since been to three referral appointments and are still deciding what to do.  There is a chance it can successfully be capped now and need to be capped again at age 4.  This would be determined after a thorough examination under general anesthesia when it could also be found to be too damaged and get pulled instead.  It could get infected and need to be pulled right away.  Or it could be fine left alone and he would just have a chipped tooth until it falls out naturally at age 7.   So many differing opinions and so much to consider.  We realize in the scale of things whether he has a front tooth until 7 or not is pretty minor considering what some parents have to see their kids go through. Fortunately he continues to appear to be pain free from the chip so we will make our decisions after some more research and the holidays have passed.