World's Worst Mother

That should be my official title today.

I. FEEL. HORRIBLE.

4 month ago or so Zachary was complaining about his cheek hurting. Usually it would happen in the middle of the night or if he was already really upset. It's about the time we started on the meds and so we felt maybe it was a compulsive cheek-biting habit. I asked him several times to show me WHERE and he pointed to the inside of his cheek; I saw nothing there.

Well, today I was brushing his teeth for him, which I haven't done in ages. I mean he's almost 6 now...I didn't feel I needed to continue brushing his teeth for him. Zachary about jumped out of his skin, told me that it *really* hurts when brushing that tooth and then I saw blood. I started lecturing him about how he needed to make sure he brushed his back teeth better because the gums were bleeding and that's a good sign that he's not getting them good enough.

So, I took a look after he rinsed out his mouth. I was absolutely horrified and embarrassed and pained by what I saw.

Zachary's back molar is *completely* rotted out.

He had a filling put in that tooth about 2 years ago (yes, he was young) because they said that that tooth hadn't calcified properly and needed to have a filling to fill it in and keep the tooth the appropriate shape. Well this same tooth is now missing 1/2. In the middle of the tooth is red swollen gum. At first I thought something was stuck in there, like the bacon from breakfast. But nope.

Zachary said it doesn't hurt him on a normal basis. But he also doesn't chew on that side "because I can't think about the food, all I can think about is the tooth".

I feel horrible! I should have known this. I should have seen it before now. He hasn't been to the dentist in a year because we missed his last 6 month appt. I'm sure that the cheek pain was probably pain from an abcessed tooth and yet I wrote it off with everything else that was going on. It's amazing to me how high his pain tolerance must be because from the looks of the tooth...it must have been hurting him.

Tomorrow I'm calling the dentist for an emergency appointment. I don't know what they are going to do. Of all the things he inherited from me, why did he have to inherit my horrible teeth?