Sea Days-Sad Day

     So on Monday and Tuesday we had days that we stayed on the boat.  "Fun at Sea" days.  On Monday we had a lot of fun exploring the boat, going to shows, and the kids went to Camp Carnival.  Monday was a great way to start off the trip.
      Because I document on this as a journal, family history I must talk about Tuesday to Wednesday on the trip.  Tuesday started out as a great day.  Woke up and went and had a yummy breakfast.  Skip took the kids to play miniature golf, etc.  Then we had lunch.  After lunch the kids wanted to go and play at the water park and water slides.  We thought that sounded like a great idea.  All 16 of us got our swim suits on and headed up to the top deck.  Then of course as we got up there Jace needed to go to the bathroom (#2....which takes forever!) so Skip headed back down to our room with him.  I had Cora and was playing at the Splash Park when I heard Casen screaming hysterically and my brother, Bryan, screaming my name.  I look over and Bryan is holding Casen and there is blood everywhere.  I immediately go to grab him...while my brother, Brandon grabs Cora.
     I grab Casen and can tell very quickly that he needs a doctor.  Then I look and his front, permanent tooth is gone...not at all there.  I grab Casen and start running back up the deck to go to the ships hospital.  Let me paint you a picture of what this looks like.  Here is me, in a swimsuit with nothing else on (no coverup, shoes, etc.) holding my 7 year old walking as quickly as possible across the top deck.  Casen is screaming, crying, and bleeding everywhere.  Everyone on deck that was peacefully laying out is now jumping up.  One of the people that jumped up ran up to me and immediately started telling me that he was a dentist and was going to go with us down to the hospital.
     So we end up down at the ship hospital.  Lucky for me I had my entire family with me.  My brother's friend Tony and my brother Bryan had grabbed Casen's tooth out of the pool and brought it down to the hospital.  I have never really seen a permanent tooth (with the root totally intact) out of the mouth before. I was blown away by how long the root was it was crazy.
     The hospital called Skip and got him to come down there. Thank goodness. The dentist immediately was telling us that we needed to get the tooth back into his mouth.  He said this was essential to try and save the tooth.  The ships doctor was saying that any oral/ tooth injuries must be sent off of the boat. They were arguing.... that the ships medical team can not fix Casen and the dentist was arguing that he could do it.  Of course the doctor was saying because of liability the dentist could not fix the tooth on the boat.  They wanted to send us on a boat to Puerto Vallarta (closest to where we were at the time) for medical care.  The dentist was saying there was no way he would take his kids to Mexico for care. I refused to send Casen.  The doctor left the room to go and get an "Against Medical Advice" form for me to feel out.  It was so crazy because being a nurse...there are not many circumstances in which I would go against medical advice.  While the doctor was gone the dentist looked at me and said "I will just hurry and put this back in...it is the best thing to do" he then put the tooth back in before the doctor came back in. The dentist then left the ships doctor to deal with everything else.  They kept an eye on Casen for a while and then finally the bleeding and everything had stopped and we were able to leave.
     I have to tell you how fantastic this dentist ended up being.  He checked on Casen that night and then everyday for the rest of the cruise.  He said there were things he would have done if he had his stuff with him or the ship would have let him do the care.  However, under the circumstances, he was so so great.

What happened?
     So after all the chaos calmed down Bryan told me what had happened.  I guess Casen was going down the water slide on his stomach feet first.  He collided with Parker at the bottom of the slide and hit his face on the end of the slide.

Since being back from the cruise.....Casen has had had a couple of appointments for his tooth/mouth.  XRays showed when we got home that the area was infected (Not really surprising due to the fact the tooth was completely out and in the pool).  He was on antibiotics and then has had follow up.  He will need to go to an endodontist in about two months (after complete healing) to have the tooth and area repaired. But all things said a very good outcome.

So after the accident we went to dinner (Casen didn't eat) and then I took the kids back to the room to go to bed.  It had already been a very long day.  Skip went to some Comedy shows with the family.  He got back to the room and went to bed just after midnight.  At about 1:15am the beep beep beep came on over the intercom  and told us a man had gone overboard and we are beginning a search.  Panic set in.  I immediately ran next door to check on Brandon and Tony...they were in their room. Bryan, whose room was on the other side of me was immediately in the hall as well.  Then Thad was in the hall and had just called Brady's room (he was a couple of floors up from us) and they were in their room. Everyone began flooding the halls.  Everyone was awake.  All of us went up on deck to see what was going on.  They had the search lights and search boat scanning the ocean.  It was a very sad and scary moment

Our cruise director's blog      

http://johnhealdsblog.com/2010/10/13/a-very-sad-day/

These things did put a damper on the atmosphere of the cruise especially during the time we searched for this person (about 8 hours) I felt so bad.