Head, Teeth, Plug and Toes

Part 1 HEAD:
Wow, where to start with this update. It has been a crazy couple of weeks on Wednesday July 7th Lucy fell and cracked her head open in the shower.

Surprisingly, this was all the bleeding there was. Only a smudge of blood on the towel. In my experience heads usually bleed like CRAZY! One explanation could be that right before her shower I had given her all of the therapeutic grade essential oils she takes internally, one of which is helichrysum. One of the benefits of helichrysum is that it works to balance the blood. This also is the oil we used religiously on location to help get rid of her blood clots after her infection a few years ago. When giving her the oils before her shower I accidentally gave her two drops instead of one…hmmm

After researching cuts, stitches etc. on the internet it was decided that she didn’t have any of the conditions needed for stitches, excessive bleeding, need for reduced scarring, gaping wound, so we bandaged it the best we could for the night and kept her head dry for a few days. It’s fine now.

Part 2 TEETH:
Saturday July 10th: This was a big one. Lucy fell head first into a concrete sidewalk. I was gone and Shanti had taken the kids to the river. They were venturing down one of the concrete bike paths and Lucy began to run several times and was told several times to stop. She ran and stumbled, was told to stop and immediately got up to run again, took a few steps and fell right on her front teeth, only one broke but it is pretty bad. When I got home I didn’t even notice it for 30 minutes but when I did it was such a shock I couldn’t control my tears. I know it is just a tooth but to me, at the time, it was her beautiful smile maimed. It is already changing, slowly, from her jaw not growing. I guess, this was just adding insult to injury, no pun intended!! Lucy and Miles my 5 year old happened to have a cleaning appointment the following week. My father in law examined the tooth and sure enough it is broken pretty bad. It goes up much further in the back and there is exposed nerve. He also smoothed it down as it was very sharp. We will wait to see if the tooth dies and then remove it. In the meantime, we are doing everything we can to salvage the tooth and keep it healthy.

I have a case study in a book about a woman who smashed her mouth, crushing the bone, moving the tooth out of alignment and turning it dark grey. She was told they needed to do a root canal to save the tooth. She decided to try rubbing several different essential oils on it first to see what happened. After two weeks of applying, wintergreen, thieves, peppermint, and cypress to her tooth it had moved back into place and turned back to it’s normal color. This is what we are trying. One more thing to add to my already full plate, but it will be worth it if we can save her teeth. Actually, the broken one has not changed in color at all and seems to be doing well. Unfortunately, the one next to it has turned grey. I am trying to be vigilant with the oils and it seems to change from dark grey to light gray/white from day to day. I have hope that we are helping it to heal!!

Part 3 PLUG:
With the tooth trauma, I took this opportunity to abruptly cure Lucy from her several year addiction to her plug (pacifier). I remember when she was born, shortly afterwards she began to cry, cry endlessly. Once I figured out her allergies and cut those foods out of my diet the crying lessened but she still cried and slept rarely. We were in a complete, utter exhaustive state. We pushed the plug on her like the corner drug dealer. She would have nothing to do with it. All she wanted to do was nurse, nurse and nurse. There were several months where I had to nurse her for over an hour before I could put her down to sleep. I bought every plug ever made. I even bought the ones they use in the hospital for premies. Nothing worked. I prayed she would take the plug so that we could get some sleep. I always had it with us and would offer it daily but she didn’t care one bit for it, until she had surgery and was in the hospital for a week at 16 months old. Be careful what you pray for. She became severely addicted. I’m grateful that she was able to use this to comfort herself in those times I wasn’t able to be with her, going into surgery, coming out of surgery, etc. but when we got home it was another story. Out of exhaustion we fell right in step and proceeded to give it to her at every whimper. We allowed her to use it at all times. Stress trauma, pain and suffering can lead you to make decisions you would never make normally. After things calmed down, Lucy’s PICC line came out, she was off of the blood thinner shots and our CPS case was closed I began to limit her use to the bed, car seat and doctor appointments. Then a year later it was reduced to bed and doctors appointments. She was getting much better at the doctors. Her fear was subsided and she began to not need it as much during appointments. Once we got her jaw diagnosis I began to tell her that when she had surgery she would have to stop the plug completely. I explained to her that sucking on her plug was not going to help with her therapy to make her mouth open wider. THEN the broken tooth. I immediately told her no plug. We quit it that day. What came to follow was something straight out of a heroine addict story. I’m not sure why I was surprised. Maybe it wasn’t so much surprised as completely unprepared. Every time the withdraw fits ensued “I want my plug, I’m so sad, it’s not fair!” I reminded her that I too was sad that she had disobeyed her dad and ran over and over until she fell and broke her tooth. She quit taking naps and quit going to bed at night. It slowly has gotten better but still not perfect…

Part 4 TOES:
One day, out of desperation, at “nap”, it became clear to me that she just might be able to go with out sleep FOEVER. It was bribe time. She had a new found fascination with ballet. She was doing ballet all over the house, she was doing ballet on the kneeler at mass, she called herself a ballerina, ballet was on her mind. I told her I would get her a ballet outfit, shoes, leotard, tutu…when she learned to go to sleep without her plug, she could have them. We went to buy them and came home at nap time. She went straight to bed and took her nap. When she woke up she came down and said “can I have my ballet stuff now, I took my nap”. We will see how long this lasts for.