A few days ago my son told me that his mouth was in pain. He has an expander that has been turned many times. He has been going through expanding his palette so that he can breathe better and so that his teeth have space to grow in. From both my husband and my own side genetically pallets are narrow and high and teeth are crowded. We also deal with lip and tongue ties and snoring and breathing issues and the list goes on. I got my oldest son braces when he was thirteen and had so little knowledge around what he actually needed. Sadly it was a waste of money and really did not help him at all. He has such severe cheek ties and lip and tongue ties that never got revised. He also has a high narrow palette. Rarely does a child just need their teeth straightened. There are reasons why their teeth are crooked in the first place!
Coming back to a few days ago ~ I realized that my son had an infection happening on the top of his mouth around his expander. Our orthodontist is over an hour away from our home. I got an appointment for that afternoon and then decided to see if my daughter could go over on the ferry a day early to visit her friend and go to Spring camp because the ferry and orthodontist were in the same area. My friend was gracious and flexible and willing to pick up my daughter and host her a day early. We hastily packed up four children and headed on our 'adventure.'
As we drove to the ferry I got a text saying that the orthodontist office had lost power and the appointment was cancelled. Then I got another text saying the power was back on and so was the appointment. Traffic was very slow and so I got my daughter to the ferry and said a hasty farewell, texted the orthodontist office I was on my way but going to be about an hour late. When we arrived they took my son in and told me he needed to get the expander taken right out. My son has hated this expander from the beginning. He has an extremely low tolerance to pain and this expander felt like the bane of his existence. My small daughter also needed to get her expander checked as it was having some issues.
They started to take off his expander and I was in another area with my baby and six year old. When I saw the girl coming to get me I knew things were going to get challenging. She said my son needed me. When I walked into the room I could see he was in tears. Over the course of the next two hours we went through much travail, wailing, tears, hysterics and drama. My son was soaked in sweat, shaking like a leaf, my baby was crying. I was trying to nurse her to help her calm down and help him at the same time. The orthodontist and others were coming in trying to help. They had one side of his expander off this whole time they needed to simply get one other side off.
In times like this I do what I can. I have dealt with emotional outbursts, anxiety, overwhelm and total anxiety attacks so many times with both of my sons. They have such low tolerance to many things and little emotional regulation. It is embarrassing for me, exhausting, and so hard seeing them suffer over something that honestly was not painful or a large deal. To him though it was an extremely traumatic, painful, emotional thing.
We were in the office for hours. My small daughter had to get expander off but then put back on! She was calm and had a few tears but over all a vastly different experience than my son. Needless to say my son is not getting another expander and he wears a retainer at night only.
I drove home and found it took me hours to stop shaking.
These sort of situations remind me of how challenging chapters of my life have been. Trying to externally regulate someone and take care of multiple other people and regulate yourself and deal with professionals who are trying to be kind but also don't understand....is so much.
I am thankful that this is not an every day occurrence now (the outburst). I have my children in counselling and some of them have done other types of therapies as well. I don't try to pretend we are 'normal' by any stretch of the imagination. I am glad I have been able to learn so much and come so far. However it's been such a brutal journey and it has been something that I could not have anticipated. It has stripped me of so much because I was low on many things in the first place. I walked out of there feeling like I could barely breathe. They were so glad to see us go. They asked me to come back the next day to get the retainer and I said no. I would not be going back for a few days.
All's well that ends well. My son is much happier without the expander and the retainer is easier for him to manage. I don't feel I have recovered from it all. I feel so deeply tired inside. It is hard to explain. It brought up so much.
Life is often challenging. There is much to learn. It is often daunting or scary or sad and then at the same time it is so sweet, so beautiful, so precious, and full of hope.
xo
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