She still has some minor balance and fatigue issues, but her conscussion symptoms are mostly gone.  She is also pretty fragile emotionally, but they’ve assured us this is normal after the trauma she experienced.  These few remaining symptoms should gradually disappear over the next few weeks/months.

There were a few hours between that early morning appointment and the later afternoon appointment (and the hospital is 90 miles from my house), so we had Waffle House for breakfast 🙂

This is me, my Mama, Sarah, and my niece Perry Kathryn.

Sarah is still missing a few teeth and it’ll be a few more weeks before she can get temporary replacements, so we have to carefully choose where she eats. Since she loves the Hashrbrown Bowls at Waffle House and can easily eat them – it was an easy choice!

After Waffle House, we also visited Hobby Lobby and Krispy Kreme Doughuts. Hey… we had to make the most of our girls day!!

Later in the day we saw the oral-maxillofacial surgeon who did her initial surgery the day after her accident.  He removed all stitches from her mouth and said everything is healing beautifully.  This was not a fun visit for Sarah (or Mommy) but it wasn’t too painful for her and that part was over quickly.

She has some scar tissue that might require another procedure inside her lip but it’s minor.

He said she can get the splint off of her teeth (there were two loose that they splinted to try and save) in a few weeks. Then we’ll be able to go ahead and get her some temporary teeth to fill in the gaps.

Then after that we go back in 3 months for another CT scan to check the progress of the bone grafts healing and (hopefully) start the process for implants.  Dr. C. said if all goes well, she might have brand new (permanent) teeth by Christmas!!

Whew… Monday was a 14 hour day!!

Fast forward to Tuesday and we had more appointments.  The most difficult was when we visited our regular pediatric dentist. She had a small cavity in a molar (this was something found and planned before the accident) and should have been no big deal.

But we didn’t foresee is how hard this appointment would be for her.

Sarah has always been a perfect patient at the dentist. She’s never been scared to go and it’s never bothered her at all.  But this time she was shaking and very quiet for the whole visit.

As soon as we left, she started crying. She said having dental work made her very nervous and she had some pretty serious anxiety afterwards.

So she wouldn’t be surprised later, I gently told her that she had to have one more done in a month (at the same time they take the splints off) and she was devastated.

Dr. B offered to give her a mild sedative next time to hopefully prevent the overwhelming fear, but she’s still really struggling with the idea of going to the dentist. Dont’ get me wrong, she still loves our doctor, but her mouth is very tender and she’s just terrifed.

She has ALOT of dental/mouth procedures ahead for the next several months, so I’m really worried about this.  I would appreciate your continued prayers.

Anywho – that’s how things are going.  Overall, we couldn’t be more pleased, but we have had a few rough moments.

Thank you all again for checking on Sarah!   I’ll do my best to continue to update you from time to time as we get news!