So, Cooper had 15 teeth extracted today (fifteen!). Over half of those were already actually broken off, and just the roots sitting in his gums. When we took him in for the procedure, we assumed it was periodontal disease, but that turns out not to be the case: he has an autoimmune disorder called resorption, which means that his immune system attacks the dentine—which I guess is the hard stuff—in his teeth and erodes them until they break off or fall out. Wild! Poor bubs.
It was stressful doing this procedure. Cooper has a heart murmur, he also has some (thankfully, minor) damage to his kidneys from kidney disease before we were able to get him on special food, and he had a stroke last year that has him on blood thinners, now. These are all called ‘co-morbidities.’ So, doing anesthesia was a risk. One that his doctors were obviously confident was very small, and that he would be fine, but it was still scary. He’s up there in years, now, and going under, there’s just always this risk that he’d never wake up.
So, today was intense. That kind of worry really takes it out of you. But, everything went fine. He was slow waking up, but he did wake up, they were able to extract everything they wanted to, and his mouth should be good to go for the rest of his long, long life. The doc said this should also be his last procedure with general anesthesia. So, yeah. He’s home, now. Very, very tired. Bleeding slowly from his mouth, which is what they told us to expect. Unsteady on his feet, but interested in getting up and moving around, which is good. He seems to be as we expected him to, what the doctor told us to expect. He’s there. He’s not totally out of it. Just very tired and uncomfortable. I hope he gets a good night’s sleep.
Night night.