Dentists and Doctors

It has been a week of appointments for the Eby Family. As you know, I had my ultrasound and check up on Monday - still reeling from the news of another boy! And the kids all saw the dentist on Wednesday and Rylan had her 2 year check up with the Doctor on Thursday.

First the Dentist. I don't have a lot of experience with different dentists, I went to the same one all growing up and I have only had one as an adult, but Sea of Smiles where I took the kids Wednesday has to be hands down the coolest office EVER. When you walk in the office it is decorated (very well) as a ship. It has an old school two player Ms. Pacman arcade game, a small slide, a table with crayons and coloring pages, and a game room with not one but TWO XBox 360s with different games. And this is just the beginning! They took us on a tour of the office and there are rooms with 2 exam chairs so siblings can go at the same time and parents can sit with them. Each chair has a flat screen TV over it so the kids can watch TV while having their exam. And they had a few private rooms that were glow in the dark to help ease kids with more anxiety or special needs. And at the end of the appointment the kids to get a token to put in the prize machines - old gumball style machine where you get a mystery prize or bouncy ball or whatever. WOW. After I told all of this to Chris, he wanted to know if he go there! And they gave each of the kids a tie-dye t-shirt that Rylan put on there and Brenden wore the next day to school.

So anyway, the appointments went great. The kids were all good, even Rylan (it was her first trip to the dentist). As expected, Jake was referred to an orthodontist. Last year one of his permanent teeth came in behind his baby tooth so the baby tooth ended up having to be pulled out and now the permanent tooth is "stuck" behind his bottom teeth when he bites together. The dentist had a couple of recommendations for orthodontists so now its just making an appointment and getting him in to see just what needs to be done. As for Brenden, we did get some surprising news. He has had a darker tooth (top, middle left tooth when you look at him). They asked if I remembered any trauma and honestly there have been too many to know which one would have caused it. So on the x-ray they saw that there is an infection/abscess above the tooth in the gums so he will need to go back in 10 days to have it fixed. They will put him under Nitrous oxide to fix it, I'm not sure if they are cutting it out of his gums or taking out the tooth and then cleaning it out, but they did recommend that we just let him know that he has to have his tooth fixed and leave it at that so we don't scare him. And for Rylan everything was fine, not much they do with a 2 year old beyond the cleaning. No cavities for any of the kids and I think they will be happy to go back the next time they need to!

On Thursday Rylan would have her 2 year check-up. Everything was great. She is still long and lean - 36 inches (95%) and 25.8 lbs (46%). There were no concerns over her health or development. However, the doctor did (for the 3rd time now) really try to push the flu shot. When the boys had their yearly check ups with her she really drilled me hard about the Flu Shot. I told her it wasn't something we did, but she could just not leave it alone. This time she recommended websites that would give me information and answers to questions. I kept telling her thanks, but no thanks and all I kept getting back was "It's your choice, but..." But what exactly? You just said its MY choice and I choose to NOT have a flu shot for me or my kids. So I think we will be switching Doctors. I'm going to try another doctor in the practice and hope that that works so I don't have to have paperwork transferred all over the place again. And we did have a good experience with another Doctor there when Brenden had the abscess in his cheek.

So that's it. Nothing too exciting and overall nothing too bad to deal with. Brenden will finally be going to the Plastic Surgeon September 18th for the scar on his cheek, but other than that I would imagine we'll only be seeing the doctor or dentist for our regular check ups - at least I hope so! :)