A Trip To ER

At this time last night, we were preparing ourselves for a long wait in the ER.  

Earlier in the night, Brady was brushing Joseph's teeth when one

of his teeth came loose and made its way to who-knows where.  We spent more than

an hour at home poking in his mouth, and looking for the tooth and in the process

loosening the other tooth that we were expecting to fall out first.  That tooth Brady was

able to save; the other one was still a no-show.  I was okay with just letting nature take

its course and maybe just find the tooth the following day or in the days ahead during

 a cough assist session.  In fact, I've read of other SMA kids finding a loosened tooth

days after the incident.  But then, Joseph said that he thought that he swallowed the

 tooth and it was now in his lung.  And then he started having some breathing difficulty

and his O2 sat dipped down.  He made a decision for us to take him to ER.   And so

we presented to ER with a boy satting at 100% on a half litter of oxygen,  
in no apparent distress.  I didn't think they would take us seriously or even bring
us in quickly, but they did.   The chest x-ray didn't show the tooth,
and the ER doctor said  that the x-ray was taken high enough to show the jaws
 and there was no tooth seen on x-ray.  Brady and I have always trusted Joseph
when it comes to his health and what he tells us,

so we asked if they could take another x-ray of just the face and his abdomen

in case he really swallowed it.  Later on, the doctor came back and reported that

 he saw the tooth somewhere up in the throat.  He called for an ENT doctor.  

Brady and I resigned ourselves to the possibility of waiting until 8AM before the ENT doctor would show up.  Joseph was sleeping with just the oxygen on and satting at 100% and in no distress.  But the ENT guy showed eventually.  Poked and dug and suctioned inside Joseph's mouth.  He used a scope to look around and even went in Joseph's nose a couple of times because he could not visualize the tooth.  Then he asked for an intubation kit.  What the heck?  But he was only interested in this:



Magill forceps

After a long while, and with much gagging and protests from Joseph,

the forceps finally found the tooth.

This tooth is worth thousands of dollars!

                Thank God that we were able to sleep in our own beds by 5AM.