No turning back now

The demolition has begun. By the end of the day the bathtub was also gone and all the drywall (or whatever walling was used back when this house was built) was gone. Much to our delight the studs and remaining structure look good (at least to our untrained eye). We didn't see any signs of water seepage or damage what-so-ever.

Though the day was not without a bit of drama. When the workers initially began work they mentioned that they thought we needed to completely removed the radiator piping for the demolition. The contract guy hadn't mentioned our radiator lines being a problem, so this threw me for a spinning loop. After talking to a representative from our oil provider, who also services boilers, we learned that removing and replacing radiator lines is no small task and one they wouldn't likely be able to get to for several weeks. It wouldn't be cheap either. So I told the contractor that touching those pipes was pretty much a no-go. Thankfully, the worker figured out a way to remove the tile on the wall without disturbing the pipes. What a cloud of doom that had been. I couldn't help but feel like such an idiot for not being better prepared. It was such a relief to get back to worrying about what paint color we should select for the wall.

I'm not sure how far they'll get tomorrow, but the original floor is still here, so I imagine there's more demolition to come. We weren't home when they finished today as our long awaited appointment to see the Oral Surgeon was this afternoon.

Should you ever need to get to Bethesda Naval Medical Center, please note that there's virtually no parking for oversized vehicles. Our family vehicle wouldn't clear most of the parking garage spaces, and so eventually my husband had to drop our son and me off at the front door and search for a spot in the NEX parking lot.

While we were ontime for our appointment we wound up waiting perhaps an hour before being seen, and by this point in time much of the staff had gone home, and nobody was available to run the 3-dimensional x-ray that would have been needed to determine the exact nature of the teeth my son has in cleft affected region of his gum line. Perhaps we'd like to schedule another appointment for another time?

Since at that moment we were being seen by a 4th year resident, not the doctor we were suppose to be seeing, I requested that he at least come in, look at the x-rays I had (taken by our awesome dentist) and give me an opinion, as we've already wasted spent two months waiting for the chance to consult with an oral surgeon.

To be perfectly honest, if I were willing and capable of paying 100% out of pocket, we could have consulted with a civilian Oral Surgeon months ago. I was kind of mad at myself for not being more prepared to just go elsewhere. I've got a few names, but no clear path to utilizing our insurance to cover this. When our orthodontist wrote up the consultation request, I contacted the Cleft Team and asked them for a referral. To which the response was, "who said they (The Bethesda Cleft Team's Oral Surgery) couldn't see you?" Then, the cleft team coordinator promised to bring our case up at their next team day meeting. After which I heard nothing for several weeks. Actions, or in this case, inactions speak louder than words.

So in the mean time I ask our dentist to take a look and see if he could pull the "extra tooth." He'd already pulled a tooth from this exact same spot, perhaps all we needed was another simple extraction and the third tooth could descend?  However, his x-ray couldn't guarantee that these teeth weren't fused together, which can happen in cleft cases. So we tried again to get a consultation. After my husband made the call, scanned and sent the consult request, they scrounged up an appointment a month later.

So, after all this waiting, first the couple of months, and then today in the office, to hear "oh perhaps another time" was just a touch aggravating. However, I'm quite proud of myself for not having to drop the "I'm a nurse card" and was able to negotiate some sort of plan out of the doctor today. I suppose I probably come off as over-invested mom, since I didn't use all of the proper terminology, but had essentially verbalized comprehension of the possible scenarios before the surgeon stated them in his terms. Thus, he got right to business in formulating a plan. Either there are two separate teeth and he will extract one, or they are fuses and the whole "deformed" tooth would be removed.  While I'm not sure of the soundness of this plan, and if there might still be a better solution (save if the teeth are fused, could they perhaps shave it or something), at least we have made some forward progress, and have a date (in less than a month thanks to a cancelation). In the mean time I can research this further.

The thing that was most insulting was the whole time we were waiting to be seen, the staff could be heard making jovial idle chit chat in the hall ways. They didn't seem to be very busy at all. Had someone been tracking us from the beginning, they could have been running that x-ray while we waited. Of course nobody was attending to my son's case at all until they'd all gone home. By time we were done consulting with the doctor, the whole place was deserted, building lights out. My impression of the department is it didn't seem very efficient. If I think about it much more I'll be too nervous to allow them to work on him. What if they're this idle and inefficient when my kid is under sedation and his airway could become compromised? Do I trust them with his life? Seriously, while rare, children do sometimes die while undergoing routine procedures all too often because someone was being complacent and neglected to attend to the basic oxygenation needs of the patient... Joan River's being our most recent tragic example. Oy... I'm not feeling very reassured now am I?