"Call Dr. Ducheva, let her see how my teeth were fixed!”
As a pediatric dentist, I meet parents and their children, their stories, their fears, pain or joy every day.
Sometimes my eyes and the eyes of my colleagues fill with tears when we see suffering or illness, because it is not easy to enter people’s lives and empathize with them. In other cases, we roar with laughter when the young or old people share their most precious thing with us - their love and smile. Our lives are colorful and dynamic. We probably walk about 2 kilometers a day, running between the floors, the offices and the play area, chasing balls, kids or looking for a toy. At the same time, we fix teeth, we heal and we practice one of the greatest responsibilities of our time – hearing and understanding the people we work with.
Today the story is about the 3-year-old J.J., who was sent by our colleague for treatment under drug-induced sleep. A very intelligent child who was smarter than his age suggested, with a complex problem, decayed teeth, abscesses and pain.
We cannot always bring back the smile entirely or restore children's teeth - there are situations where you should act radically in order not to put the health of the child at risk. This was one of these cases: J.J. had been consulted at a number of places for potential treatment, he had been trained as a soldier to open his mouth, but he was too young for such complex treatment while awake. He wanted his teeth to be like his elder sister’s – white and healthy...
We put him to sleep, I had to take out the 2 central incisors, but I fixed the rest of his teeth. When the little one woke up, his mother said: “The fairy fixed your teeth, she only took out the two front ones because they weren’t good, and now you will be like Goshko (who is six and a half and is currently changing his baby teeth) – without upper front teeth!”
J.J.replied: "Where is Dr. Ducheva, let her come and see how my teeth were fixed…"
It is impossible not to cry and laugh at the same time. There are stories about tooth fairies, there are also 3-hour-long, complicated stories about treatment of such children in the operating room. Yet, everyone wants to hear the fairy tale, the other story remains for us - the team in the operating room ...
