The Tooth Fairy

For the past 2 months or so, Greyson’s insurance company has been bugging me to take him for his first dental appointment. Coincidentally, I’ve been avoiding taking him for the past 2 years or so. With the amount of specialists we see on a regular basis, I really neglected his “typical” appointments. I finally bit the bullet and scheduled an appointment with a local pediatric dentist. I had a tough time finding a pediatric dentist that accepted G’s insurance, but I finally found one that did, and they were accepting new patients. Score. Unfortunately, I did not read reviews online of this particular practice before our first appointment today.

Now, I am not one to “bash” an establishment, particularly because all practices are different and people have different opinions. So, for the sake of respecting those that enjoy this particular practice, I won’t disclose the name of the group.

Now, if you’ve been reading my blog over the past several months, you know that G is not the type of child that can sit and wait. Our appointment began at 3:30 pm today, so I met Derek there with the kids. I purposely completed the new patient paperwork from the practice’s website and faxed them over in advance, so we could arrive right at the appointment time, rather than 30 mins early, as requested. I did this because I knew that there was no way this kid was going to stay quiet and sitting in one place for 30 minutes. The receptionist confirmed that she had the documents when I received the reminder phone call, and stated that arriving at 3:30 pm was fine. I never really thought that I had to anticipate arrival times and waiting rooms until G came along (and became mobile).

We arrived around 3:20 pm and checked in. Fully expecting to have a quick in and out visit, we didn’t bring a diaper bag (stupid on our part). Now, it was a pediatric office, so luckily he was occupied with toys and books that were available. 3:30 pm came and went and Derek and G were still waiting to be taken back (I took Roslynn home because Duke had to go out and she was getting restless). 3:45, 3:50, 4:00 passed and still, waiting (and running) around the waiting room. Derek was exhausted from running after G, and G was tired of waiting…. and rightfully so.

Finally at 4:25 pm, they were taken back. After sending several angry texts to Derek about the wait, he informed me that he was taking Greyson back, just as he was going to walk out the door from the ridiculously long wait. I thought to myself, “Geez, if our office made an autistic child wait for over an hour and a half (this includes the time waiting in the exam room for a hygienist), we would have zero clients.” Thankfully Greyson was fairly well behaved and Derek didn’t have too much of a panic attack from chasing him all over. Once the hygienist and dentist came into the exam room, they did a check very quickly in his mouth and BRUSHED HIS TEETH. No, they did not clean his teeth. No they did not polish his teeth. No they did not do x-rays or take any photos of his teeth.

THEY BRUSHED HIS TEETH

Now, again, I do not want to bad mouth another practice, but oh my word. I could have brushed G’s teeth at home for free and without the 2 hour wait! When Derek checked G in, he was told to make a follow-up appointment immediately, before he was even seen. Derek made the appointment for early September, but after the impression we had today (and reading online reviews), we unfortunately will be starting our search again for a pediatric dentist. In an easy world, we would just take him to our family dentist office, but because of his behaviors and lack of patience, we need an office that will sedate him for cleanings. So if you have any suggestions for us, we are all ears for local children’s dentistry offices!

I hope the next few weeks will be anticlimactic. Our next big appointment is on March 27th, when we go back to Baltimore for our final (hopefully) appointment with Dr. Comi and the genetic specialist. As for now, we will take our little man to our own office in the upstairs bathroom, and brush his teeth ourselves….with no wait.