smoke

When my kids were young, one thing I was really good about was getting them comfortable with their health care providers. The doctor and dentist office was a place where we went to get taken care of and received trusted advice. They were good people we could talk to. We never had any problems going to the doctor or dentist. Even when faced with scary problems, my kids knew that they were going to get good quality care.

That all changed when we came to Italy. I'm sure part of it is my fault as the kids must sense my own uneasiness and troubles trusting a system I don't understand and struggling to communicate with doctors who don't speak my language. But a part of it is also the fault of the doctors.

The case in point is my Punkette and her dental issues. She had several soft spots when we left the states that were likely to become cavities. They did. I got her to the dentist. She went voluntarily, had a cleaning and it was confirmed that she did have cavities. An appointment was made to fix them, FOUR MONTHS later!

We survived until the appointment, but things are worse by then. But she's still cooperative. She allows them to drill two of the smaller cavities out without any medication. When they tried to fill the holes, they jabbed a plastic spacer and this caused her a lot of pain. She refused to open her mouth for them after that.

This is where the core of her problem starts. Not one, or two, but now THREE different dentists reach a point with her where she refuses to cooperate and they just give up. They come to me and say, I'm sorry, I can't help her, she won't cooperate. I've been in the office with her, I've made her go in alone. They all ultimately hand the decision over to her, saying, "Do you want your teeth fixed or not?" Her answer, "No." And they give up.

Finally I had some hope with this last one. We had scheduled several appointments for Punkette just to get comfortable. Just cleanings and sealing the molars. The first visit, all she had to do was open her mouth. Finally, this dentists laid down the law to my very determined punk. The dentist told her what was going to happen that day and she couldn't leave until that was what they did. It took her an hour to open her mouth. A f@#!ing hour, but she did it. The next appointment was the cleaning. Half an hour, but again, she did it.

I thought FINALLY we are getting somewhere.

And they just friggin flushed it away today. Today was sealant. The dentist needed to use a few more tools for this. Punk didn't like how many tools were going in her mouth. TODAY, dentist made the fatal mistake. Put the damn ball in Punks court. Punk said no. Dentists looked at me in defeat, said, "lets cancel the next three appointments and have you come back, end of January."

So I'm fuming. This makes no sense to me. What happened to no way out? Cause if my Punk knows there's a way out, by all means, she's takin it. What happened to working her through this. If three tools is too much, isn't there a way to compromise. It may take longer, a lot longer but you can't just give up. I thought this dentist would be flexible and do what ever it takes to help this kid. The suggestion was that I punish her in some way so that she cooperates next time. I just can't imagine a scenario where this would help. She needs to be in that chair, letting the dentist work in her mouth. ARGH. They got her to the cleaning and now were back to zero.
ARRR!!!!!

Ok I'm done. I'll get Think Green up right quick. Thanks for listening.

edited to add:
I blocked comments because I was too mad yesterday and really just needed to vent. All better now. I'm ready to jump back into the fray.