Holden - Sedated Dental Work

about four months ago Holden's teachers alerted us to some pain he was having in his teeth.  Using his verbal assistance PEC cards he was able to indicate that he was feeling pain in some of his teeth.  After seeing a dentist for a very quick appointment, we were able to guess that he had at least one cavity.

Holden doesn't tolerate the dentist very well.  Even this short visit only lasted for five minutes, and he was thrashing and screaming the whole time.  Our only option to get this taken care of and get him out of pain was to sedate him.  Unfortunately theres a very long line for this, and we weren't able to get him in until the beginning of 2017.  

We were instructed to get him down to the hospital by 7:30 AM.  Of course there were no liquids after a certain period of time, so we were concerned with his mood, but he did great on the ride down, and was even okay at the beginning of the appointment.  

However,  after almost two hours of waiting, he was over it and ready to get this show on the road...

Jordan was able to go back and hold him while the administered the sedatives - we didn't want him to be scared (although we knew it was impossible not to be), but wanted to make him feel as safe as possible.

The doctors assured us he'd be out in a breath, but it took Holden nearly three full breaths to finally fall asleep.  Poor boy was as stubborn as ever.

After about 45 minutes we were called back to recovery and waited for him to wake up.

He looked so beautiful and peaceful sleeping there.  When he woke up that was a bit of a different story.  Once he got home he was much more comfortable.  And although a little off all weekend, he bounced back pretty quickly.

Sleeping routines were off  - as was expected...

The dentist found two cavities  - one in an irregular tooth, which he told us would be a cavity no matter what we did - it just didn't grow correctly.  They took X-rays and did all the necessary things that he wouldn't allow while conscious.

He now sports two shiny caps on his cute little baby teeth.

I hope it's a while before we have to do this again - but all in all, he did very well, and we were very proud of our brave little boy.