Sigh. Sometimes you just have to grin and bear it. On Saturday Dave severed the tip to the first joint of his left index finger. It was chaos, pain, a 911 call and more pain. Poor Dada! The next day after the hand surgeon told us there was not a "chance on this earth" of him keeping the tip, we took him to hyperbaric oxygen treatment in Randolph Mass. The Randolph folks opened up the center just for him, wonderful souls that they are. And he went really early on Monday morning. On Monday, the day of reckoning, the hand surgeon opened up the bandages and instead of the blackened necrotized tip of the finger there was healthy pink albeit mangled skin. It lives! Let the healing begin - which will take about 2 months or more in which time Dave can't lift Ellie.
Ellie, is cutting her "4 year molars" at age almost 6 - which makes sense since she was very late to get teeth at all. She is suffering the process and the chemistry is upset in her mouth such that she has a huge canker sore on the same side of her mouth on the cheek. It's so painful you can't even lightly brush the outside of her cheek with our her wincing and bursting out into howls of pain and then sobs. We have been trying to swab the area with Q-tips full of different concoctions from the doctors. But the swabbing alone is traumatizing her with her oral aversiveness. And she is driven absolutely crazy because she can't even comfort herself by chewing on her thumb.
As Dave's sister says, "Sleep is for the weak". And certainly not for me this week.
Anyone have experience with the molar thing yet? This one hit me by surprise. A year ago Ellie's dentist told us she had all her teeth. But maybe she doesn't think of molars as teeth - like the thumb is not a finger....whatever... help, yelp...any tips on remedies to speed up the healing of Ellie's canker sore will be much appreciated.
*Thanks to Rick for the title of this post, black humor and all. Also for the advice on the MSM for Dave which seems to have all been a part of the magic formula that is healing his finger!
4 comments:
WOW! Never a dull moment! I wish both Dave and Ellie speedy recoveries! Would it help Ellie if you ditched the cotton swab and used something small,smooth and flat instead, like the back of a bristle-less toothbrush? And possibly chilled. Cotton swabs tend to stick and can be a tad abrasive (in my experience). Good Luck!
Kristin, Thanks for that tip - that totally makes sense! Doh! Why didn't I realize that? I will try the next dose sans q-tip and use something smooth. God -anything to help it all be less traumatic and painful for her!!
I hope Dave's finger heals well. It's really strange but my ex (my eldest's dad), tried to remove a couple of his fingers from his hand last week - luckily unsuccessfully. He's okay now. I've told him about the HBOT and how it worked so well for Dave.
You guys need to have some quiet time. Thinking of you.
ouch! I wish dave a speedy recovery.
as for the molars ... there are 1 year molars, 2 year molars, and 6 year molars. How many teeth does Ellie have? If she already has 20 teeth, than she is working on 6 year molars.
Teething is hard -whatever teeth. The health food stores sell "gummy oil" that contains clove oil that you can rub on to the sore spots. But try it on yourself first because it is strong stuff so you'll want to know how much to use by how it tastes.
hope you get some sleep ... and some teeth ... soon.
http://www.webmd.com/oral-health/guide/teeth-birth-adulthood
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