To put it mildly, we’ve had a bit of a week

It all started last weekend, at this point I’m not sure exactly when, but Dearest Son came downstairs almost in tears and holding the side of his face. It was pretty swollen and he was struggling to speak or eat.

I had a good look and couldn’t see anything obviously wrong except the gum looking a little irritated. It was ‘the tooth’. The tooth which has caused him no end of trouble since he chipped it years ago when he used it to separate 2 lego pieces. I won’t go any further into that.

Anyway, as with anything ‘mouth’ I boiled the kettle, got some salt and made him a salt water mouth rinse. This is always the number 1 go-to as it calms inflammation and helps healing. I went looking on the old interwebzones and found that amongst other things, a slice of garlic against the sore area can do wonders.

Well, you know me and garlic.

I was on the case before you could say vampire.

One slice of garlic was applied after giving one painkiller. (At his age, that’s all he is allowed). We usually go to the allotment on Sundays but he just wasn’t well enough so I got to soup making. Between that, rice pudding, stewed apples with custard and banana smoothies, at least he wasn’t hungry.

I asked how the garlic was working and was told his face didn’t hurt so much and now felt kind of numb which was an improvement.

On Monday morning I phoned the dentist and explained the situation. Luckily they had just had a cancellation for Tuesday pm so we got that slot. I have to point out here that the dentist Dearest Son has is EXCELLENT and even more amazing DS likes him!

After having a look around, Mr Dentist gave the news I had told our son he was most likely to hear. It was an infection and he was to get anti-biotics. I had thought as much and I didn’t mind because he hasn’t had anti-biotics for years. Now, Dearest Son has inherited many things from me and one of them is the need for braces. I went through the same thing at his age and sadly, he will also need 4 teeth out before the braces can be applied as he is getting wisdom teeth now and there just isn’t enough room for all those gnashers.(Yes, I had that done too).

The Excellent Dentist also knows how anxious Dearest Son is when getting any work done so he told him he would be getting it done at the hospital so they could knock him out. I got anxious but Dearest Son thinks this is the coolest thing ever!

I’m trying to remain calm. I know he has a long and painful journey ahead of him but I also know it will be worth it because he is quite conscious of his teeth not being straight. So imagine how relieved I was last night, when on our walk, I was informed he was LOOKING FORWARD to getting it all done! He has realised its a big step towards his goal – straight teeth. He also realises that once all this is done, that’s the end of the road as far as work to his teeth – all he’ll have to do is look after them and to be fair, he is very good at that.

So as I’m not going to give you a picture of his gob, I’ll show you what we saw on our walk tonight!

Hope you’ve all had a great Halloween and will have a great weekend.