Untold Story #4: Chip's Teeth

Here's a story that hurts my heart.

In July, I took Chip for his first dental check-up. Perhaps I would've taken him earlier had we not gone without dental insurance for awhile; at any rate, three isn't very old. Chip was perfectly cooperative, even for the x-ray, and our family dentist said everything looked fine except for a spot on the back of one of Chip's front teeth. He recommended that I take Chip to a pediatric dentist who works more regularly with children.

Chip was just as cooperative for the pediatric dentist, who looked at the x-ray from our family dentist and checked Chip's teeth with instruments. She agreed that everything looked fine except for the spot in the front. "I would probably put him under to fix it," she said, "or we can just watch it closely for the next couple of years until the tooth falls out. It'll be one of the first to fall out."

"What would you do if it were your child?" I asked.

"I'll tell you what," she said. "Let's take some additional x-rays and get a better picture of what's going on in the back of his mouth. That will help us make a decision." So Chip had bite-wing x-rays taken.

After looking at these new x-rays, the pediatric dentist announced that Chip had eleven additional cavities in the back of his mouth, all "flossing cavities" between teeth. She said we needed to put him under in the hospital so she could correct his problems. She recommended silver crowns for all his back teeth.

As you can imagine, I was stunned. We'd gone from talking about one little spot in the front that could be "watched" to talking about twelve cavities, surgery, crowns! I couldn't fathom how things had gone so wrong. "I don't understand," I said. "I mean, this is my fourth child, and I've never really flossed my kids' teeth, but we've never had problems like this. What do you think happened?"

"If I were guessing," she said (and she was a cold fish), "it has something to do with his being the baby and spoiled. Did he have a bottle longer than the others?"

"I nursed him longer than the others," I said. "I nursed him for two-and-a-half years."

"That might be it: nursing him in the middle of night without brushing his teeth, afterward," she said. My heart may well have broken with that statement. I felt like such a bad mom, and there was no warmth in this pediatric dentist. I felt judged and very much...mowed over.

The receptionist seemed no more compassionate. She asked for over $400 to schedule surgery; told me to expect to pay over 4K out-of-pocket to the dentist; and advised that I should expect to pay additional money to the hospital for anesthesia, etc. Gripping the counter, I said in a small voice: "I think I might be sick."

"Did you say you think you might be sick?" she asked. I nodded. She just stood there, staring at me.

...

I wish you could see me, now: typing, deleting, typing, deleting. I can't quite decide what to tell you. I run the risk, always, of your thinking I'm crazy. And I can be a little off: especially when I'm not taking mass amounts of Omega-3. My non-lubricated brain is a suspicious, relentless machine. It's convinced that it's smarter than most everyone else's brain and that it can solve any problem it likes. It's prone to anger and despair. It's willing to stay up all night, churning and burning. Reading.

Long story short: I didn't sleep much for awhile (and ended up getting very sick), but I learned a lot. I took Chip to another, more conservative pediatric dentist. She verified that the problems in Chip's mouth are real but said no silver crowns. Then she said I had time: just a little bit, but time.

I've driven through six states for milk and beef. We'll call it twenty-seven hours of driving. I'm not exaggerating; thank God for my extended family, nonetheless. I promised to tell you a story about a butcher. In Kentucky, he slaughtered and butchered one of my parents' cows. He wrapped and sharp-froze the meat, and my dad and I packed it into five coolers along with my brother's dry ice. And, really, this is just scratching the surface. Whether my baby (with his heart murmur) has to undergo surgery, or not, I believe in the measures we've taken. We'll know more in a couple months. In the meantime, I beg your prayers.

Untold Story #3: Scott County, Tennessee

My Mom. Photo by Ashley Nicole Baker. 

As much as I treasured my time with my nephews, the timing of this last Tennessee trip wasn't motivated by them so much as by 1) a women's retreat, and 2) a butcher. I'll tell you the latter story, later, but for now: the women's retreat.

For ten years, my mom has coordinated the Scott County Ladies Christian Retreat. If I have the story straight, she felt (and still feels) led to encourage greater unity among the women of various churches in my home county and beyond. With an attendance of approximately 125 women, this last time, there were more than forty churches represented.

I love the spirit of this event. I've attended three of the ten to teach and/or photograph, and I've been blessed every time...by the teaching, singing, fellowship, etc. The theme, this year, was "Laying Aside Every Weight." My mom taught a workshop on Alzheimer's: the disease to which we lost my grandma. Her sisters traveled down from Maryland to support and help, so I had some rare, beautiful time with my aunts while I was in Tennessee.

Aunt Ellie & Aunt Joyce - Photos by Ashley Nicole Baker.

Writing this reminds me that I need to get my mom's notes because--not wanting to get even more worked up prior to teaching, myself--I didn't attend her workshop. I attended workshops by Sherry Laymance (my sister-in-law's mom) and Stacey Bell. Both of these women have been in my life for a really long time, and I was amazed by the intersection in what they shared.

(L) Sherry & My SIL Sarah, (R) Stacey. These photos are mine.

I taught, this year, on the weight of emotional pain and focused on practical helps to manage anxiety and depression.

Me, Teaching. Photo by Ashley Nicole Baker.

My home county has grown so much in the twenty-four years since I left home. Not only do I recognize spiritual growth, but I see new businesses, institutions of learning, parks, and concert venues; I missed him, but Hank Williams, Jr. performed in my home county the night of the retreat! Scott County even boasts a wonderful museum complex, now, on the grounds of my old high school. Unfortunately, because someone was filming, we weren't able to visit the Learning Lodge portion of the museum complex the day we visited. Even so, there were a lot of things to see and do.

Dad went with the little kids and me to the museum complex, also to the butcher (in Kentucky), so on this trip, I spent much more time with him than with Mom. Mom is working full-time, these days, and she was completely spent following the retreat. Dad washed her feet, and she and Charleigh fell asleep right after.

But the little kids and I even managed to squeeze in a visit with our friends Shelly and Joslin (Joslin had grown so much since the last time!), so it was a wonderful trip on many levels. Stay tuned for my butcher story...then, for a dinosaur story.

My Girls with Joslin

Untold Story #2: CJ's Senior Casuals

My nephew CJ is about eighteen months older than my son Cade. Their personalities are very different, and they've always lived in different states, but they're close; my entire family is close, and CJ and Cade were the only grandchildren for more than five years.

I look at these senior casuals of CJ and get a little tearful not only because he's my dear one all grown up, but also because Cade is right on his heels.

It seems like just yesterday that I was pregnant for the first time. The pregnancy had been planned, but I was completely freaked out. At the time, I didn't have words for what was happening; now, I can tell you that I was experiencing panic attacks. My ex-husband asked what would make me feel better, and I begged him to send me to my brother, who was stationed in Hawaii at the time. My ex-husband bought me a plane ticket.

I remember so much of that trip in vivid detail. CJ was just under a year old and incredibly active, flying almost tirelessly around the first floor of their home in a walker. I watched the effort my brother and sister-in-law put into caring for CJ and despaired in my mind, thinking: I will never be able to do this. I returned from Hawaii feeling even more freaked out than I had before.

Of course, I hadn't put it together in my mind that babies don't come out crawling, climbing, and zipping around in a walker. What's more, kids are different, and CJ's a much busier sort than Cade. Jim and I always laugh recalling that--when we took CJ and Cade to Disney World--we heard very little out of Cade besides: "CJ, wait! Wait, CJ!"

It was my great pleasure--my greatest pleasure, actually--to take CJ's senior casuals. So much of my reward in learning how to use my camera is in being able to capture my own precious ones in my own way. My eyes and heart love this fun-loving young man, who burst into our family and paved a road all his own. I believe in who he is and who he is becoming, and I'm so thankful to be in his cloud of witnesses.

  

Untold Story #1: The Lost Sea

The little kids and I vacationed in Tennessee, last month, and the day before we left to head home, we took a trip to The Lost Sea in Sweetwater. I'd lived in Tennessee from sixth grade until graduating from college, but I'd never been to The Lost Sea, and neither had the little kids or my nephew Boone, who played hooky from school to go with us.

Well, technically, Boone played hooky to go to Santa's Land with us, but for several reasons, I changed my mind at the last minute so that, the morning of the trip, I was texting my brother: "FYI, we're heading to Sweetwater instead of Cherokee." No regrets on this, although The Lost Sea was different than I'd expected.

I'd been expecting something straight out of Peter Pan...something, you know, like this:

source: basementrejects.com

With a glass bottom in the boat. And lots of magical things to see all around, while in the boat.

I don't know how I'd expected to get to the boat, but somehow I'd missed the walking-a-pretty-good-distance-through-a-cave factor; thus, everyone but Boone was wearing inappropriate shoes. I think it's humorous, to be honest, that my sister-in-law had no earthly idea that we'd remain in Tennessee (as opposed to heading to North Carolina), let alone that we'd be hiking in a cave; yet, she still managed to outfit her child better than my kids. This says a lot about the kind of mom I am.

The good news is that--while Charleigh took one good tumble, and Chip got rocks in his sandals something like five times--we all survived to tell the tale.

The Lost Sea was the fourth cave I can recall visiting, and I thought it similar to Luray Caverns and Shenandoah Caverns, Luray being by far the most impressive of the three. (I think Mammoth Cave very different from the others: vaster-feeling and less Disney-World magical.) The Lost Sea has a pretty interesting history; you can read some it here. One tour guide did mention that there was a bar (Tavern in the Cavern, or some such) down there at one point, but it only lasted two months. He said alcohol doesn't affect people the same way in the cave; therefore, they would drink too much and fall down the steps or crash their cars upon leaving.

Anthodites, or Cave Flowers

Of course, the sea part of The Lost Sea sets it apart from the other caves I'd visited. It's more of a lake than a canal (as I had imagined) or a sea (as its name suggests). There are some huge rainbow trout in it, but I saw those off the side of the boat, not through the boat; the glass part runs skinny as a 2x4 along the middle of the boat's bottom, and our panel was really muddy. Our tour guide said the lake is really deep; yet, there was no mention of life jackets. Bizarre, but like I said: we all survived to tell the tale.

If I remember correctly, our tour guide also said that, while the trout aren't blind, they don't procreate in The Lost Sea. The people who run the cave leave lights on for them, feed them, and scoop them out of the lake once they die. What a strange, unnatural existence; right?

After leaving the cave, we took a little hike through the woods. The kids were walking just ahead of me on the trail, and Boone had Chip by the hand. There was a bit of a drop-off on Chip's side, at one point, and Boone said: "I'd feel better about this if I were on the falling side." Then they switched places. I'm just crazy about Boone; he's an unusually thoughtful person.

After our hike, we hit the buffet at Donna's Old Town Cafe in Madisonville, which met everyone's approval. Several folks commented on the excellent behavior of my little kids, who were, in fact, exceedingly well-behaved. I smiled and said: "Thank you," but I knew the truth: my little kids were exhausted from hiking through a cave and the woods in inappropriate footwear. Even Boone took a nap on the drive back to my parents'. It was a most excellent adventure.