I Just Want You to Know_ Letters to My Kids on Love, Faith, and Family - Kate Gosselin [27]
Lying in front of the freshly decorated Christmas tree.
On the way home from church one Sunday, we had planned to stop by a woman’s house. She had seen our hour special on the Discovery Health Channel, contacted me, and asked to meet us; she also said she had a box of things for our family. I checked with Jon and he agreed we should do this. On our way, every single kid fell asleep.
“Kate, are you sure we need to stop by? It’s actually peaceful in here for once,” Jon said.
“I know, but we told her we would.”
“Is it worth going out of our way?”
“It doesn’t matter. We need to go since we said we would,” I answered.
We pulled up to the house and knocked on the door.
Opening a gift from a fan!
“Thanks so much for stopping by!” the woman said. Her name was Denise, and she was cheery and kind. She and her husband were our age and had two little girls. “I have a few things for you.” She pulled out a box of household supplies and then handed us an envelope.
Mady, Hannah, and Cara with packages.
As I looked in, I started to tear up. The envelope was full of gift cards—Target, Walmart, among others—as well as a check. I couldn’t believe it. “Thank you so much!” I said to Denise. “You are our miracle today.”
Truly at that time, it took a miracle a day.
One Sunday night in September 2007, we were eating dinner when Mady bit down on a crouton and said, “Mommy, my tooth hurts so bad!”
I looked in her mouth and was horrified. One of her teeth was black and rotting. I started tearing when I realized how serious this was. It must have hurt her so badly, and I didn’t know how I didn’t see this sooner.
Since it was Sunday evening, I couldn’t do much at that point, except give her a hefty dose of Motrin and put her to bed. I arranged for a babysitter to come the next day and tried to set up a dentist appointment. Jon’s new job meant we had new insurance, plus we had moved away, so we couldn’t go to our old dentist. I had a recommendation for a new dentist from our pediatrician, but we hadn’t seen her yet. So I left a voicemail, letting her know the situation.
The next morning the dentist’s office called back and we set up an appointment for one o’clock that afternoon. Mady would have to miss school, but that was our only option. As we drove to the appointment, I had a bad feeling about it. I hated making Mady the guinea pig to meet the new dentist in this emergency situation. Mady didn’t seem to mind too much. She was just chatting away. At one point, she looked out the window and saw a daycare group pushing a six-seater stroller. “Look, Mommy! They have sextuplets too. Anyway, um…” and she continued chatting.
The dentist seemed competent enough and told us Mady had a huge cavity with an infection, but then she tried to pull Mady’s tooth without Novocain. Mady was up and sitting on the chair and practically hanging from the ceiling in pain! I wouldn’t have reacted any better in her situation. Drilling without pain medication? It’s heart-wrenching to watch your child go through something like that.
At that point, the dentist said we needed to find a pedontist, that she couldn’t help us. I grabbed Mady and raced out of there.
On the way home, through her tears, Mady asked, “Mommy, why was that lady was so mean? Dr. Kristin would never do that to me.” I knew what I had to do! I knew I had to do whatever I could to get her back to our old dentist.
When I got home, I called Dr. Kristin and waited to hear back from her office. I kept playing the situation over and over in my mind: Why did I 1 let that happen to Mady? Both Jon and I apologized to her and she just brushed it off like it was nothing. I am continually amazed by the resilience of children.
The next morning the phone rang early. Dr. Kristin’s office had an opening at three that afternoon. I called Jon to make sure he could take her, and then rescheduled an eye appointment we had. This was an emergency!
Mady did really well at the dentist;