Library Notes
January 15, 2005
By Pansy Hundley, Librarian.
In the midst of all the moving and stacked boxes that cover everything, everywhere, why don’t we throw a minor emergency right in the middle of it?
Suzanne was completely worn out from moving, trying to empty boxes, and answering 5,492 questions a day from a very busy, very inquisitive young man who does not understand why Mama can’t drop everything and play with him. So, I told her I would come over about 5:30 Saturday night and she could go do whatever for a few hours. I did not have to twist her arm or make the offer more than once.
About thirty minutes before Suzie was ready to leave, the minor emergency happened.
A four-year-old boy (having turned four on December 30th) does not carefully rise from a couch to walk across the room or to pursue whatever has grabbed his attention. They may slide off, one leg at a time, or leap off or scramble off, whatever is the fastest way.
Well, Cheyenne attempted to do a little of all that last Saturday night, lost his balance and fell into the coffee table. Now, that coffee table is not an ordinary coffee table. It is made of metal and has a steel bar all around the outside of it. Chey fell into that steel bar, evidently, and landed on his mouth. Suzanne saw him falling. But you know how it takes about three eons to get across a room when something like that happens. She got there in time to pick him up. He was screaming at the top if his lungs, from the pain, and blood was going everywhere. I ran for the roll of paper towels and we moped up and tried to see what he had hurt. He was already swelling up. We were able finally to see some of what he had done. He had jammed his three front teeth up into his gum and, of course, his top lip was cut inside all the way across.
Are you aware that there is no emergency dental service available in McKinney , Allen, Plano , Richardson , and maybe not in the rest of the world?
I was holding Chey, who was still really crying hard and Suzanne had the phone book, trying to find us some help. She called two dentists, who listed 24-hour service and neither answered. She left messages.
My next suggestion was to call 911 and ask the operator if she knew of any dental help we could get. She didn’t, but said she could send an ambulance to let the paramedics look at him, to see if they could help. There would be no charge for it. So, Suzie said “Come on.”
The ambulance drove up in a little while, all red light flashing. Three paramedics entered, but Cheyenne would not let them lay a hand on him. He was near hysterical by then. The pain must have been so intense. So, the ambulance, with its’ red lights flashing, left after a while.
We were getting ourselves together to go on to the emergency room when the phone rang. One of the dentists she called had just gotten off a plane at DFW, but she could see him the next morning at 8:30. Suzie should call her back, to cancel, if she found someone to look at him before then.
Immediately the phone rang again and it was the other dentist she had called. They were both so nice. He told Suz there was really nothing to do right then, if there were no teeth that were hanging loose. She should give Chey something for the pain and bring him in Monday morning. They would need to x-ray the teeth, to ascertain if the permanent teeth had been damaged or if some roots had been broken.
Suzie had some Tylenol, with codeine, left from another time, and the dentist said that would be fine.
She was finally able to see that in addition to the front teeth being jammed and the lip cut across, his jaw teeth had mangled his jaw inside. We got some medicine in him and got him to bed after a while.
He slept reasonably well, but Suz woke up about every hour to check on him. By morning he was really swollen. He wouldn’t open his mouth for anything hardly. He just grunted at us and motioned.
He wouldn’t eat or drink anything. Finally, about 2:00 PM he drank a glass of milk. It came up in about an hour and he continued to throw up several more times.
Early the next morning, the dentist was able to get one x-ray done and it, indeed, showed that he had broken the roots on two teeth, so they will have to come out eventually. In ten days he wanted to check him again, after the swelling has gone down more and do more x-rays. He wants to make sure the two bicuspids on each side are not damaged.
Cheyenne was a bit put out on Saturday night, after the pain was better, that he had not lost a tooth, because the Tooth Fairy could have come. Mama told him with all that trouble with his teeth, the Tooth Fairy might come anyway. And, lo and behold, she did. She left him four bright quarters, but he thought a toy would have been better.
The swelling is almost all gone by now. The eating has to be done carefully. He had learned to like tomato soup with the noodles from chicken noodle soup mixed in – noodles only now, and he calls it spagetti-o’s.
Suzie and I are going to collapse over in the corner somewhere and have our nervous breakdowns. We’ve earned them and will have them, just as soon as we get time. Trials of life make you stronger, if you survive and get through them, and at this point, I’m beginning to think that we must be getting as strong as Hercules.
If you are now as worn out as us’uns, let’s all just get lost in a book. It’s worked many times for me, so let’s look at this one that tells us that in “Metro Girl”, Janet Evanovich “is moving into the fast lane, a thrilling, high-octane misadventure with high stakes, hot nights, cold-blooded murder, sunken treasure, a woman with a chassis built for sped, and one very good, very sexy NASCAR DRIVER who’s along for the ride.” Do you think we can stand that much excitement? Let’s try.
“Wild” Bill Barnaby’s dropped off the face of the earth and big sister Alex heads for Miami, Bill’s last known sighting, on a harrowing hunt to save her brother….and maybe the world. Truth is, Alex has been bailing her brother out of trouble since they were kids. Not that Bill’s a bad sort. More that he acts first and thinks later. Unfortunately, this time around, Wild Bill will be Dead Bill if Alex doesn’t find him in time.
Alex blasts through the bars of South Beach and points her search south to Key West and Cuba, laying waste to Miami hit men, dodging palmetto bugs big enough to ear her alive, and putting the pedal to the metal with NASCAR driver Sam Hooker.
Engaged in a deadly race, Will Bill’s “borrowed” Hooker’s sixty-five-foot Hatteras and sailed off into the sunset….just when Hooker has plans for the boat. Hooker figures he’ll attach himself to Alex and maybe run into Bill. Maybe Hooker can salvage what’s left of his vacation. And maybe Hooker’ll get lucky in love with Bill’s sweetie-pie sister. After all, Hooker is NASCAR Guy. And NASCAR Guy is good at revving a woman’s engine.
The race to the finish is hot and hard, taking Alex and Hooker into international waters, exposing a plot to grab Cuban gold and a sinister relic of the Cuban missile crisis.“