Cavities for Christmas

Our Dental Adventure started in October when Gillian started complaining about her mouth hurting. Clint took a look in her mouth and pronounced "She has a cavity." I was amazed at his knowledge, never having seen one myself, and not realizing they would even be visible to the uneducated.

I made an appointment with our dentist, and took her in immediately. He found not one, but seven cavities! I was horrified! Shelby and Rhiannon have never had any cavities. Immediately guilt set in. I've let Gillian have too much sugar, too many sweets. I didn't brush her teeth for her til she was five the way I did with the older girls. She has soda several times a month...Guilt, guilt, guilt.

The dentist said she would need four appointments to fill the cavities, since they occured in all four sections of her mouth. Over the next few days, Gillian had two appointments, and they filled four cavities. Then I got the bill. $700! Ouch! I cancelled the appointments to fill the remaining cavities until I could regroup and figure out what to do. How were we going to pay the bill we'd alread incurred, let alone pay for three more fillings? And why didn't the dentist warn me what it was going to cost? They knew we were paying out of pocket!

Coincidentally, I had scheduled an appointment for the girls to visit the CBC Dental Clinic later that month. Turns out the Dental Hygiene program there does a children's day. For $30 they will do x-rays, a cleaning, flouride treatment, a dental exam, and even fillings...if that happens to be one of the areas of study for the students at that time. All of the girls were overdue for a checkup, and I thought this option would be cost effective. I decided to wait and hope they would fill Gillian's remaining cavities. The appointments were impressive. They did a good job, and the price was right. Unfortunately, they didn't fill Gillian's other cavities. And even worse, they also found that Tamzin had three cavities as well. They told me they wouldn't be doing fillings until February, and that I shouldn't wait that long to get them taken care of.

I was paralyzed. I called a number of dentists in town, trying to find someone less expensive, but couldn't find anything affordable. Finally, I decided to apply for state low cost medical insurance. I had been debating it for some time. We pay $349 a month for catastrophic insurance. That means hospital and accident insurance only. It doesn't pay for illnesses, dr. visits, well visits, prescriptions, vison, dental. And even if we need hospital care, there is a $1000 per person deductable before they will cover anything. Medical insurance options for the self employed truly suck. Since our income lately has been, well, low, I thought perhaps we could qualify for the state's $15 per month per child insurance program. So, I applied, and waited on pins and needles to hear if we'd qualified, feeling guilty the whole time that I was procrastinating on these fillings.

Last week I was ready to give up and just take the girls back to our regular dentist. I decided I was crazy to think we would qualify. I called them one last time... and was told my my coupons were on the way! I'm struggling between feeling elated to be able to get this stuff taken care of at a low cost (actually free) and feeling guilty because I don’t feel we’re that poor. I was just looking for something that would pay a portion of the expense!

I had to call a dozen dentists to find someone who would take medical coupons, and ended up at Dental Care Northwest in Pasco. They have been very nice, and gentle and kind to the girls. They actually found several more cavities on Tamzin than CBC did. They did half the fillings on both girls Tuesday, and will do the rest next week. They were able to do Tamzin’s first two without anesthetic, so she didn’t have to have a shot. She left the office thinking fillings are no big deal. I'm not so sure she will be so lucky next week. I think they did the easy ones first, maybe to get her comfortable with the procedure.

I'm just so glad it will all be over soon. I have been so worried about the whole thing for more than a month now. It's a great feeling to be getting it all behind us. We are now diligently brushing their teeth with straight floride every evening.

Interestingly, both Shelby and Rhiannon had no cavities, and not even much calculus buildup. The dentist said they both looked great. Maybe it's true, and everyone had a different tendency towards cavities. But I'm still planning to cut back on the sugar.