Teeth teeth and what? No teeth?

You are probably wondering what's up with the title of this post. Let us fill you in...no pun intended. All last week we had an amazing opportunity to have 35 of our kids included in a dental and medical clinic. A huge group of wonderful doctors, nurses, hygenists and dentists from Buffalo, USA have been in Puerto Plata for the last week volunteering their time to run this clinic.
They have seen hundreds of people from all over the Puerto Plata area, including 35 of our kids.
Now let us tell you that our kids did not all go in for your regular check up and cleaning. For many of them, that was only the beginning...

Many of the kids have never seen a dentist, let alone even know how to take care of their teeth. You can imagine the result of this; rotting, black teeth, lots of cavities, and lots of pain. The smaller kids mostly just had cleanings, even though their teeth are liturelly rotting out of thier head. The dentist said that their baby teeth would fall out soon anyways, so there was no point in putting them through the pain of having teeth pulled.
As for the older kids, which made up the majority of our group, all had teeth filled and pulled. All of them had some problem with their teeth that needed to be fixed. They had rotting teeth, which can turn into a fatal infection...and they were too far gone to just drill out the cavity and fill. So what is the solution? Yank them out!
This process was easy for some...the dentist put the injection of novacane with a huge needle into their gums, shoved the instruments into their mouth, and some easier than others, out came the tooth. The kids did not flinch, cry or even complain once.

For others, it was quite a dramatic and traumatic experience...
Sindi and Yesson are brother and sister. They are both afraid of needles and pain. They both had crucial extractions to be done, and we knew it was not going to be an easy task from the very beginning of their visit. The visit started out with preliminary screening to see what needed to be done, and a simple cleaning and floride. Well, for Yesson and Sindi it was a challenge just to get a toothbrush into their mouth. So, in order to get their extractions done, the dentist put them in a straight jacket. We stood with them, talking and trying to relax them. It did not make much of a difference...as soon as they were asked to open their mouth wide the screaming and crying began. They were done at seperate times, but were both hysterical! Eventually, after it was all done, they felt much better. Yesson couldnt have been happier, and Sindi was a little exhausted from the whole ordeal but relieved. When we took them home, their Mom was so happy and grateful...she knew the kids had issues with their teeth but had never been able to afford a dentist.

On another spectrum of dental work, some of the kids have problems with their front teeth. Displaced, rotted and missing, they were able to have them fixed. Jose Manuel for example, had a huge chip out of his two front teeth. The dentist was able to bond the two teeth and now he has perfect front teeth! He can not stop smiling and looking at himself in the mirror. We are SO happy for him!!!
We are SO happy and thankful about our blessings this past week. All of the kids who had dental work done are healthy and recovering very well. They are all back to their normal selves minus a few teeth!