The End of Mouth Pain?

Well, the surgery was a roaring success, it seems.   Seth was at the operating clinic by 7am, and home before noon.  He looked a little dopey for the first hour or two, while the anaesthetic wore off, but he ate a bunch of yogurt and the soft insides of some cinnamon bread.  He even expressed a great sense of humour about things:  He asked that I look at him while he took a bite of the cinnamon bread; he put it into his mouth and bit; and then he laughed when the whole piece of toast came back out intact because his four front upper teeth were removed during the surgery and he simply couldn't bite it!  I thought that was a great sign.

As the afternoon wore on, he became chirpier and chirpier, to the point where he even rode around the driveway on his tricycle for quite a while, walked to a nearby play structure to try out the slide a bunch of times, and went with me to the grocery store to pick up a few quick things.  What was interesting to me was that he was, for the most part until it was time to get ready for bed, very cheerful.  At the grocery store, he positively hopped around the aisles, grinning is toothless grin, as we picked up our stuff; and he began to show me his mouth full of silver and holes.  When we got back home, he even let me take pictures of his mouth (sorry, haven't uploaded them onto the computer yet), opening wide and pointing to various parts as if showing them off.  I wish I'd caught on camera the look on Lizzie's face when she looked into his mouth.  Her own lips parted in shock and she gasped.  She pointed and prodded at the silver-encased teeth, and couldn't seem to figure out where all of his (six!) missing teeth were.

At any rate, he was frozen pretty well against pain for the first number of hours and has been on a constant dosing of Tylenol and Advil since, but given the givens, I think he's doing great.  I'm so glad that, despite our misgivings, the surgery is done and he seems to be doing great so far.  And despite having an extremely peaceful house all morning with just Matthew and Lizzie, I found myself missing the little dude while he was away...I was very glad to see him come through the door again.  Despite the horribleness challenges of the last few weeks, I already can't imagine life without that little guy.