Driving home from our umpteenth trip to the dentist in Coffs Harbour (no mean feat mind you) I reflected on what we achieved so far. We have one son with three caps on his front teeth, we had three top dentures and we have now got 3 x-rays each of their jaws. We have let them miss a day of school for the last 4 years in a row. We have driven 250 kilometers each time and the kids have gotten used to long trips.
Then, as I am listening to the yawns from the back of the car and looking over at hubby half asleep, I wondered what it was all for. More to the point, who it is all for.
Their teeth, well, they are slow-growing, come out erratically and don’t really have a plan. From the reports of all dentists they have seen so far they are lucky with their teeth. The enamel is strong and they have no cavities which is an absolute bonus. Sure they are still baby teeth and in Sebastian’s case they will be the only teeth he’ll ever have, but they are strong teeth and fully functioning.
When Sebastian had his front four capped, it was fantastic. He didn’t get excited by his looks, he got excited because he could chow down on a cob of corn and leave tooth tracks 🙂 As for teeth down the bottom, in his words :” I could do with two square teeth to help my two pointy teeth.”
Matthew, well, you can’t talk to him about “changing” his teeth. He is fiercely proud of his shark teeth and he has no problems eating at all. So, am I doing it for him?
Nathanael, he desperately wanted teeth . He used to take great delight in wearing his brother’s old dentures until his own teeth came though. Now he has issues far deeper than having no teeth and I can’t help but feel responsible for having given up on the fight for him. Unfortunately, if he doesn’t like the feel of food in his mouth, how is he going to handle teeth in there, even worse, the process of making them. Is this for him?
Well, if we were not doing this for Sebastian, or Matthew, or Nathanael, the only people aside from us, was the general public. Were we subconsciously driven by appearance expectations of the people around us? Have I somehow lost the vision of the teeth for my kids to be directed by what looks acceptable to everyone else? Have I forgotten to ask the boys what their wishes in all this are?
Yes, to all the above. I have realised that despite my wish to let the boys have teeth to put in “if they want to” I have become driven to get them the dentures to “become acceptable”.
I had studied up on the pro’s and con’s of dentures, the good the bad the ugly, all of it. I knew that the greater percentage of kids who had dentures would only have them in sporadically and hardly ever to eat with. I knew that we would have to almost sedate two of the boys to get the casts done to have the dentures made in the first place. I also knew that dentures will neither aid or hinder the growth of jawbone. Yet here I was, still searching for teeth.
I had forgotten to ask the boys.
Here I am on the evening before another appointment, pondering why we are doing this to them.
No number of appointments are going to make the remaining teeth grow faster. No x-ray is going to produce more teeth in any of their gums. No peer pressure at school is going to force the boys to see themselves as different. They are the normal kids and all the other children around them are the weird ones with too many teeth. This is how it is, has been and always will be.
As long as their jaws are strong and their teeth are working I shouldn’t be concerned. As long as the boys are happy and talk openly to me about their worries or concerns, I won’t be worried. As long as they want to teach as many dentists out there as possible about Hypohidrotic Ectodermal Dysplasia, I am proud.
When they say “stop please mum, we’ll tell you when we want them” I will rest.
With love and support,
Tarja Kelly
Tarja Kelly's Blog 