Today Dominic, our four year-old, had to be put to sleep. No, like you put a pet to sleep, but sedated with anesthesia so some dental work could be done.

Vickey had him at the dentist in November/December for an exam and then an appointment to fill some cavities. But Dominic wouldn’t sit still for the dental work. Even with Novocain and laughing gas, he couldn’t stand the drill.

And who can blame him? I think being a dental patient is an unnatural experience. (No offense, dentist friends.)

Since Vickey’s teaching junior high school, the job of taking Dominic to the dental office to be knocked out and worked on fell upon me.

The anesthesiologist had me hold Dominic’s legs and arms while he gave him a shot in his hip. A nurse also distracted him with a jar full of toys. But once the shot happened Dominic started screaming and trying to hit and kick all of us. That kid sure doesn’t have a very high threshold for pain.

Within just a couple minutes Dominic fell asleep and was carried into the dental chair where his work is being done as I type. He has seven cavities that are being filled. I think he inherited his mother’s teeth, or at least oral bacteria.

All this to preserve baby teeth? Good grief!

And, although we have insurance through Vickey’s employer, we’re still out of pocket a heafty sum for this little procedure. Health care is certainly expensive.

So, back to the title of my post: What to do while your kid’s unconscious?

It is weird, as a parent, knowing your child is unconscious. It’s the first time since we’ve had kids that either of them has been totally unconscious.

Dominic was kind of in and out when he broke his left femur, but even when they put a cast on him he wasn’t knocked out with anesthesia. And yes, that experience was far more traumatic for me as I was there trying to console him while he was in so much pain. Then I had to deal with the police and social workers in Henderson who assumed, incorrectly I’ll add, we were guilty of child abuse. That was quite an ordeal (which you can read about here if you’re interested).

Rather than fret and worry, which I’ll leave to Vickey, I brought my work with me and have been very productive while they’re working on Dominic’s teeth.

In fact, I just took a call from a new client to make arrangements to begin our work together. Good. Now we can pay for Dominic’s dental work!

I’m sure the rest of my day will be spent caring for a sleepy, perhaps grumpy four year-old. Won’t that be fun?

And since he’s been fasting since last night at 10 a.m., I’m certain he’s going to want to eat something, a lot of something, at some point today.

Shortly after we arrived today, the pediatric dentist’s 7 a.m. patient was carried out by her father, still pretty sound asleep. It’ll be interesting to see how sleepy Dominic is after the procedure.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

The doctor was very pleased with the results. He said Dominic is free to do whatever he wants to do without restriction.

Vickey commented that that was good news since we’ve been spelling out the word p-a-r-k for a couple months now (Ellie has gone with friends and we didn’t want Dominic to know where she was headed), not to mention always being cautious when it came to Dominic’s level of activity.

From what Vickey saw, the x-ray showed a solid bone with remnants of the break. You could still see where it was, but you could also see that the bone was solid again.

From what we’ve been told it takes a year or more for a full recovery.

We’re supposed to have another visit in six months to check bone growth. There’s a possibility that his broken bone will grow faster and be longer than his other leg. Obviously that would cause problems. Time will tell.

At least Big D has a clean bill of health now.

Dominic is still crawling, but I guess that’s all right with the good doctor. He goes back for another x-ray on Feb. 13.

Dr. Stewart said we’ve got another three weeks or so of keeping Dominic from running, jumping, climbing, swinging, sliding…all those things two year-olds love to do. He said there’s not much Dominic could do to seriously re-injure himself. Of course, when you consider how he tripped and fell and broke his leg in the first place, I’m not so sure I believe that.

The doctor suggested we work with Dominic on some physical therapy exercises so we plan to tap our neighbor and friend and physical therapist, Mark, for help with that.

Vickey said when they got there Dominic crawled into the corner of the doctor’s examination room and told her, “I scared-ee Dr. Stewart.” I was commenting just the other day about how this experience will probably instill in Dominic a fear of doctors for the rest of his life.

The doctor and his staff took a couple x-rays and felt there was enough healing to warrant removal of the cast. Then they took another x-ray to look at the bone without interference from the fiberglass cast. Dr. Stewart told us Dominic will probably not want to walk or move around for a few days and that we should just help him take it easy for a while.

We were going to leave without anything on his leg but Dominic put up a pretty big stink once the cast was off. After we dressed him in sweat pants the doctor brought in a temporary, removable leg brace. It’s just a long, skinny fiberglass leg brace wrapped in cotton that rests along the backside of his leg. It’s held on by ace bandages.

At least now we can bathe Dominic and get rid of that awful smell. That’s if he’ll stand for it. He was really upset when we left the doctor’s office and brought him in the house, but now, after an hour, he’s much more calm and back to chillin’ in his sofa chair watching one of his favorite movies, Spirit.

Dr. Stewart asked that we return with Dominic in two weeks so he can take another x-ray.

I really couldn’t see much difference in the x-ray from what I remember five weeks ago. I could still see a separation between the upper and lower portions of the femur. The doctor said it was a bad break and will take a few months to heal well.

He also said Dominic’s joints will hurt since they were immobile for the past five weeks and that he’ll just have to work through the pain. Dominic’s threshold for pain seems to be rather low (thus the crying fit after removal of the cast) so we’ll see how he does with that.

My concern is for the long-term, that his leg will heal completely and he won’t have a reoccurring problem with it. Only time will tell, I suppose.

For now, we’re still waiting on Dominic. We’re just glad we can diaper him normally. When this all started I nicknamed him subway because he smells like one. At least now he can take a bath.

Dominic had a good doctor’s visit today. X-rays from the front show his femur is lined up well and you can’t even see that the bone’s broken. From the side there’s still some separation but he said it’s already moving back together nicely. Our next check-up is Jan. 2.

He said the cast and Dominic look good. He said Dominic is free to do whatever he can manage to do: crawl, roll over, etc. When we see the doctor again he may get the cast removed, or it may be another few weeks after that. It just depends on how well he heals. We’re just hoping there are no long-term problems for his leg. The doctor said there shouldn’t be.

We watched another little boy leave the doctor’s office and be placed in a car seat, so we decided to try out Dominic’s seat and sure enough, he does fit in it. That’s a very good thing because he’ll be much safer now when he’s carted to and from the doctor’s office. We’ll still use the wagon to transport him once we’re out of the car though. He’s pretty heavy with that big cast on.

We may tackle taking him to/from sacrament meeting on Sundays again. We’ll see.

Knowing he fits in the car seat may also open options for travel during the holidays. Still, with him in his cast, being mobile and out of town will pose challenges. We’re contemplating what may work in that regard but for now, we’re still planning to stay put during Christmas and New Year’s.

Last night our stake presented its annual Night of Choirs where choirs from each ward perform Christmas carols and everyone sings the Hallelujah Chorus at the conclusion. Vickey and I went to sing in our choir then came home early to get the kids to bed.

It’s hard to believe we’re only a couple weeks away from Christmas.

As a result of the investigation by the county’s family services and Henderson Police Department Dominic has now undergone a head-to-toe set of x-rays and CAT scan, Eliana was pulled from her first grade classroom today to be interviewed by a police officer and the police stopped by our home while Vickey was taking a hospital break to take photos of the scene of the incident (AKA, our family room).

All this in addition to dealing with a very unhappy, uncomfortable and in pain little Dominic. He has muscle spasms every 5-10 minutes and each time he moves, he cries.

Not to mention being parents to a six year-old who feels responsible for Dominic’s fall because she helped him take off his shoes last night and left them in the family room instead of putting them away in the shoe basket.

Of course since none of us saw him fall, we’re not even positive that tripping on his shoe was the cause of the fall.

It has been a very hectic time since yesterday at 6:15 p.m.

Mostly I’m tired. Partly I’m annoyed. And my heart goes out to struggling Dominic.

We have had a few visitors at the hospital and dozens of phone calls from neighbors, friends and ward members.

What’s interesting is that members of our ward have recently had three premature births and a heart attack scare. All that was just before Thanksgiving. It just seems like a lot is going on lately.

Luckily I was able to postpone a few business commitments today and hope to tend to them tomorrow.

Vickey’s taking another stint at the hospital tonight while I tend to Eliana. She and I are going to entertain Tank and try to get a good night’s sleep at home.

Accidents like this teach you to appreciate what you’ve got, your health and strength, comfortable surroundings, good family and friends.

It looks like Grandma Snow will be able to come help out for three to four days. That will be great!

We’ll get through this new family development. It’ll be a challenge, but we’ll make it through and have a very memorable Christmas with an incapacitated little boy.

Here’s a photo of the x-ray of Dominic’s left thigh.

It’s 2 a.m. and I’ve been up for 21 hours.

Dominic has a circular fracture on his left femur. The injury was self inflicted as he ran around the living room after dinner tonight. I was washing dishes. Vickey was making salsa in preparation for her home show tonight. Eliana was in the bathroom and Tank was in his crate.

We heard a fall on the carpet, a pop followed by loud, angry screaming. We knew right away Dominic was hurt and when he was holding his left leg and wouldn’t stand on it, we knew it was time for x-rays.

The only two items on the living room floor were the shoes he had removed from his feet just before dinner. He must have tripped on one of them and fell down in a twisting motion to fracture his leg bone like that.

I took him to the hospital a little after 6 p.m. while Vickey wrapped up preparations for her 7 p.m. clothing show here.

Eliana came with me and Amber was kind enough to come pick her up and take her to her house about an hour later. Ellie’s spending the night at Mark and Amber’s.

We saw a couple doctors, a half-dozen nurses, three x-ray technicians, four cops, a detective and the Clark County family services worker. Vickey and I are suspects in the case. Weird…I never thought I’d type those words. It’s complicated and unfounded, but it’s good there are people doing those jobs to protect innocent children.

At any rate, Dominic’s at St. Rose de Lima in the pediatric ICU (not that his injury is life threatening, just that that’s where they told us they had room, but we think they just want us under surveillance). Vickey’s there with him (she came to the hospital around 10 p.m. after her show and a phone call from the social worker, realizing we weren’t coming home after a couple x-rays and a leg cast).

This picture says it all. The cast goes from his ribs to his toes (at least on his broken leg).

Poor little Dominic. He’s in a body cast for five to six weeks. Now won’t that make life interesting?

Keep us in your prayers. And if you’re reading this on Nov. 29, please don’t call me until after 7 a.m. Vegas time. You can call Vickey if you want. She’s got her mobile with her at the hospital and probably won’t get much sleep tonight. Dominic keeps trying to move then screams because of the pain.

Hopefully we’ll have Dominic home with us sometime tomorrow. We’ll just have to figure out arrangements for a different type of car seat and how we’re going to tend to a two-and-a-half year-old who’s in a body cast.