Living with my greatest fear.

~Chapter 11~

Grant's POV:

As normal, I was at work again today. Ellie is at home again as she has a two week break. She goes back in a couple of days. I'd asked her if she wanted to come to my office and just sit in the break room but she said no, which wasn't a surprise to me.

I've been at work for a couple of hours now, I haven't had a very busy day - only a couple of patients.

As I don't have a patient for 15 minutes, I figure that now would be a good time to get the stuff I'm going to take home for Ellie. I get a box of masks and gloves, I get a bag and put a mirror, an explorer, a probe and a scaler in it to take home. I put it all in my bag ready to take home later.

*A FEW HOURS LATER*

I'm finished with work now, so I tidy everything away in my room and make sure I have filled in all of my patients' journals. I say goodbye to everyone in the office and then leave and get in the car and drive home.

I get home, get out of the car, get my bag and go inside. I put my bag down in the hallway and go to the kitchen, like I always do, to put the kettle on. Whilst the kettle is boiling, I go upstairs to Ellie's room to say hi to her. I knock on her door.

"Come in."

"Hey, E. How are you?"

"I'm okay. My cheek kinda hurts though." She says a bit shakily.

"Do you want me to have a look? It's probably just where you have bitten it by accident but I can have a look anyway, if you want me to."

"Um... Okay, I guess..."

"Follow me downstairs then, E."

Ellie and I walk downstairs and I ask her to go and sit on the sofa whilst I get the stuff from my bag. I just put the two boxes on the counter behind the sofa and picked a mask out and a  pair of gloves. I go over to the sofa with it all in my hands. As soon as Ellie saw that I had it all in my hand she immediately grew more anxious. I go up to her and kneel in front of her.

"E, calm down, it's all going to be okay. I'm pretty sure you have just bitten your cheek and now it's a bit swollen, that's all. There's nothing to worry about, I promise."

I don't want Ellie to freak out about this, it's nothing big, like I said, but I guess because she is so scared she doesn't understand that. Ellie doesn't manage to calm down really at all. I took her hand and put it over my chest and told her to follow my breathing. Eventually, she starts calming down and she starts to breathe normally again.

"Do you feel okay now?"

"Better than I was."

"Okay, good. Do you feel okay enough for me to have a look?"

"Hmm...yeah, sure."

I grab my stuff and sit on the sofa at one end, and take a cushion and put it on my lap.

"E, can you lie down onto the cushion for me, please?"

Ellie lies down on the cushion and I put my mask under my chin.

"E, do you have your phone on you?"

She nods.

"Can you put the flash on for me please?"

Ellie put the flash on her phone and I asked her to hold it in a certain place so I can see her mouth more easily. I put my mask above my mouth and on my nose and opened the bag with the tools and put them on the bag on the table, which I moved closer to the sofa.

"Can you open for me, princess?"

Ellie doesn't open her mouth at all, and I can see tears forming in her eyes. I didn't think this would affect her like it has. I think she thinks that there is something wrong, even though I am 99% sure it's nothing.

"E?" I say, not sure if she's okay or not. "Are you okay, princess?"

Now, Ellie starts to cry. I tell her to sit up and I move the cushion from my lap and put it on the other sofa. I move over to her and wrap my arms around her, giving her a big hug. I don't want Ellie to think I'm this scary - I don't want her to think I'm scary at all.

"What's up, love?"

"I'm so scared, Grant. What if you find a cavity or something? Then I'll have to go down to your office. I can't do that, Grant, I really can't."

"E, do you think you have a cavity? Is that why you're panicking so much?"

I don't see why Ellie is panicking about me finding a cavity... Maybe she is in pain but isn't telling me? 

Ellie shakes her head to my question.

"Why are you panicking about it then? If you're not in pain, it means you don't have a cavity that needs treating immediately, if you have one at all."

Ellie just shrugs her shoulders and stays completely silent. I'm now wondering whether she is in more pain than she told me about. Ellie has never been the one to tell me that she's in pain but now she's panicking over something she doesn't have?

"Shall we go back to me having a look, then?"

Again, Ellie just nods but stays completely silent. Normally, I wouldn't start to do anything without someone saying they are okay for me to start, but as Ellie is panicking about something that she supposedly doesn't have I want to see if she does have something that is causing her pain and/or discomfort.

I move back to the end of the sofa and put the cushion back on my lap and ask Ellie to lay back down for me. She does.

"Can you open for me, love?"

She barely opens her mouth but at least she's opening it now. I gently push down on her chin so her mouth opens up more and I can see all of it. I ask her to point to the side of her mouth that her cheek hurts on, and she points to her right. I have a look all along the right hand side of her mouth and I just see a bit that she had accidentally bitten and now it's a bit swollen. Like I thought, it's nothing major and it will go away in a couple of hours. I do check her teeth whilst she is lying down. I don't see any cavities or anything that may be causing her pain/discomfort. She was just panicking about it. I suppose it's from the last time she had a checkup.

I tell her she can sit up and I'll tidy everything away. I put the tools back in the bag and put them in my work bag, because I will have to take them back to work tomorrow to put them in the wash to sterilise.

"Ellie, what do you want for dinner?"

"I don't know. What do we have?"

"We can have a pasta salad, soup, some sort of thing with chicken..?"

"Can I have a pasta salad?"

"Of course you can!"

I start preparing dinner.

*30 MINUTES LATER*

Dinner is ready and I call Ellie down for tea, because she has gone upstairs to do some homework before she goes back to school on Monday.

We sit and eat dinner and talk about Ellie going back to school and what homework she has to do before.

After dinner, I wash up and we watch some more of Euphoria.

*TWO HOURS LATER*

We've watched 2 episodes of Euphoria and Ellie says she wants to go to bed, so I tell her to go and get ready for bed and I'll go up there in a few minutes.

Ellie shouts down the stairs a few minutes later that she's ready for bed, so I make my way upstairs.

"Have you cleaned your teeth?"

"Yes, I have."

"Let me see."

She opens her mouth and I have a quick look around to see if she has brushed every tooth.

"You could have brushed better!"
She groans.
"Don't worry! I'll show you how to brush better tomorrow." "Night, princess."

"Night, Grant."

I leave her room and go back downstairs until I feel like going to bed.