Elijah has had ongoing teeth problems. In earlier posts we have shared the horrible time we have had getting Elijah into see a dentist. Sadly the drama continues.
Elijah’s final treatment to treat his last few cavities came at last. Elijah’s dental office is backed up for months, so Elijah has to wait and wait between appointments.
Anthony and Elijah arrived at the office (on the second day of school) for their 7:00am appointment. Elijah was prepped for sedation, no food or water. We got into the office. Anthony had his ID and insurance card photocopied again (7th or 8th time, we have lost track). We then made it into the treatment room.
Here is where they BLEW IT, 100% BLEW IT.
The nurse said Elijah had a choice this time. Since the sedition medicine tastes so bad he can have a lollypop to suck on after or have the chocolate syrup with the bad tasting medicine. As soon has he heard bad tasting he was done. For 30 mins he refused to let them put it in his mouth.
40 mins after arriving we were walking out with a new treatment date 3 months out.
Our only other option was to try a hospital dental option. The dentist office gave us the referral but said it could be as late as January before the children’s hospital could see us.
In keeping with the Dentist office staff from hell’s track record – took a week for the children’s hospital to call and they could see him in another week. Anthony took the call and told Elijah’s foster care story, the issues we had in the past getting him seen because he is a pre-adopted kid and what was going on. Forms were sent to DHS for signing and all was well.
The appointment day came and Anthony and Elijah arrived at the dental office on time only to be visited by a old friend, a large stack of medial a consent forms, which Anthony can’t legally sign. The office then quickly told us that they would not see Elijah without them.
So last time Joshua lost it, well now Anthony had a controlled explosion. Anthony was quick to inform the staff that DHS had already signed forms! He quickly learned those were only for payment not for treatment. WHY?! WHY?! WHY would they only send payment consent forms but not consent forms to treat. Where they planing to just bill without ever seeing him?
Again the answer rolls back to guy on the phone who called Anthony to setup the appointment. Seems he was new and did not work out so they fired him. Really? REALLY? REALLY? Did they not think to check the guys work AFTER they fired him for not doing this work correctly? I mean it’s only health care related stuff, so nothing important right?
So we got a new appointment for 15 days out to give DHS time to work with the office and left defeated again.
For those of you keeping track, we are now up to 3 dental offices and 8 dentist appointments (with 4 failures to treat or see) in a 8 month time span for Elijah. Each time with him freaking out and getting upset about pain and the unknown. Mad does not even come close to what the Dad’s feelings on this issue are.
At the second appointment we got in with no issues. Met one on one with the Dentist and he took a new set of X-Rays. Elijah did great. The Dentist is meeting with the full team and they will have a group discussion on how to best proceed. Option one would be to try sedation again. Option two would be a full hospital visit with full sedition, the plus with that is they can do all of his procedures at once with very little pain or stress to Elijah.