Root Canal Hokey Pokey

Some of you will recall that TRC knocked out his front tooth ice skating back during the winter. And if you’ve seen him in person lately, you’ll no doubt notice that the tooth is still gone. It’s been quite an ordeal to figure out what’s going to happen here. We initially took him in to have a temporary cap placed on the remaining part of the tooth, and the dentist looked at it and told him he’d need a root canal. Once that was done, the plan was to put in a post and attache a temporary crown-like object to tide him over until he’s big enough to get a real crown.

Fair enough.

So we took TRC down to a specialist for the root canal. TRC was more than a bit apprehensive, as you might imagine. But after arriving and taking x-rays. the specialist told us that TRC doesn’t need a root canal just yet. The root appeared to still be alive, and he wanted to leave it be.

I am not a dentist. When dentists tell me to do things, I’m programmed to do them. So Denisa and I said okay, and headed home.

Then the cap on TRC’s tooth fell off. We took him back to our dentist to get it fixed, and he asked, “Why in the world hasn’t the root canal been done yet so I can fix the hole in TRC’s mouth?”

We explained the situation, and he took another x-ray and told us the root had started to abscess (which sounds awful) and sent us back to the specialist again with stern instructions that this had to happen soon. Queue the apprehension for TRC again. This week, we took him down to the specialist again, to get the root canal done *for reals*.

And after getting there and having it x-rayed, it turns out the specialist is convinced we still need to wait. Apparently the root is still growing, and the longer we let it grow, the stronger that root becomes. The fear is that if we kill it now, the whole root will crack when the post gets put in, so better to wait and let it mature as much as possible. So we told the specialist and our dentist that we’ll be hosting a cage match between the two of them sometime next week, and the last dental professional standing wins.

Not really. But we’re waiting again, and hoping TRC might possibly have gained some superpowers after repeated exposure to X-rays. In the meantime, if you see TRC smile and notice something’s missing, you’ll know why.

It was from a bar fight.