A morning at the dentist

I spent all Friday morning at the dentist's. We actually have a wonderful dentist here, Florence. She was trained in England and is married to a Canadian missionary so she knows how to be a little more gentler with us wimpy westerners :D. I had a filling fall out about two months ago but I just haven't had time to get it taken care of. So when Kingsly at the Children's Home started complaining of toothache I decided to finally make time. I also took along Seth and Josh as the needed some things done too. My friend Joy also came so she could hold the baby while I was being worked on. 

Florence found that I have three cavities besides the filling that fell out, yikes! She fixed two and will do the other two this week. For some reason she doesn't like the white filling and always goes on about how the metal ones are so much better and more durable. I literally had to argue with her to give me the white ones. She said, "Why does it matter, you already have a husband?" Too funny! Anyway I managed to convince her to give me the white fillings even though she was shaking her head at me (made me feel very vain). I did have to the nurse Jordan halfway through as she was screaming her head off. I felt wierd with cotton balls in my mouth and the little bib thing on :). Anyway Josh had to have a tooth removed as his permanent one was coming in on the side of it. Seth had two teeth removed as one was rotten and the other was in the way on his permanent tooth. And little Kingsly had two teeth removed too as they were in a bad state. Poor little Kingsly, it was his first time to visit a dentist but he was very brave and did great. And the damage for three hours of work of two fillings and a total of five teeth being removed; $100! Sometimes I love living in Africa (okay, all the time)!

Most of the kids at the children's home never brushed their teeth before coming to HHCH (but they also never had much sugar either). Their biggest problem is plaque. I talked with Florence and she is going to come out the orpahange next saturday to check all the kid's teeth and see who needs what done. Then we can work at getting them to the dentist in order of greatest need as funds come available.