The other night, about 9:00, my 16-year-old comes to see me.
"Hey, Mom, my teeth hurt. And I think one of them has a hole in it."
That's how it started. I looked with a flashlight and, sure enough, I could see a dark spot. "Looks like you'll need a filling, " I said.
Sometimes I'm so naive.
We found a new dentist in the morning. We got the bad news shortly after that. "Looks like he'll need three fillings, and possibly two root canals."
WTF?!?! Child, how long has this been bothering you? A long time, he says. WTF?!?! And you couldn't have said something sooner? He just shrugs.
I knew he had a high pain threshold, but puhleeze!!
We went back for root canal #1 and two fillings. Another dentist did the work and thought he could avoid the root canal. I think we heard angels singing.
New Fella assured me that his kids had a similar problems when they got their braces off, which my dear child did recently. Then, he lost his first set of retainers. Then, he broke one of his new retainers. Smashed it to smithereens. He owes me money, big time.
The rest of the work is scheduled for today, but man-child woke up in extreme pain this morning. Abnormal pain. So, we aren't out of the root-canal-woods yet. Poor kid.
And poor Mom's wallet. My ex is supposed to pay half of all this, but he seems to think he can pay whenever he (and his wife) think it's most convenient to them. It's okay for me to be out the entire amount because he thinks the pittance of child support he pays actually covers more than groceries.... (And for the record, it doesn't even cover that; this is a 16-year-old boy I'm feeding!) I'm the National Freaking Bank of Blogget!
So. Ouch. For everyone....
6 comments:
Sorry for both of you. I'm going through a fun lesson in dental insurance myself. Apparently there is an annual maximum and not the good kind where they start paying everything after that. The kind where you get to pay 100% of everything.
Yes, there is! Doesn't that suuuuuckk?
And on orthodontics, there's a LIFETIME maximum! That's why kiddo owes me money -- he lost or broke three retainers, at $150 each, and we've already hit his lifetime max.
DANG! I'm sorry for you, too, having to go through a similar lesson....
Once agian, why am I planning children? Please someone help me I need a reason to procreate.
Hor-gal, I'll tell you what I told my son when we were at the zoo one day. Everywhere we looked, we saw women with little babies. He finally asked, "Is having a baby fun?"
He was 15. This was a loaded question. So, after making a joke about "fun until they're 15," I told him it's the most wonderful thing you'll ever do -- and the most difficult.
It's all the "wonderful" that makes the difficult parts worth it. I can't tell you the joy it gives me when people say my daughter looks exactly like me. Or like today, when I watching my son stop and help a woman in a wheelchair, in the pharmacy. There's little things all the time that make you so proud your heart aches....even though I joke about throttling my son sometimes.
Does that help? :o)
Yeah, that's what I hear quite a bit, that the great stuff outweighs the hard stuff. (not to belittle YOUR feelings, I just mean that that's what many parents tell me)
That's really nice about your son in the pharmacy :)
Yeah, that's the Mommy Mantra, about the good stuff making it all worth it! ;o)
The pharmacy was a nice moment. The poor woman was dropping things all over the place, so he picked it up and helped put back things she didn't want, etc. It was funny, though, I'm walking along, saying something to him, and realize he's not answering me. I turn around and he's gone....down an aisle, helping this woman. Not a word, just did it.
Sometimes, he's still a really good kid. :o)
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