G, a Muslim girl from the Old City near the Flower Gate, arrived at DVI for the first time on December 11, 2011, in extreme pain. G’s father brought her in on an emergency basis, and with one look at her mouth, Ziva sent G straight to Dr. Petel for x-rays and a check-up. At 14 years old, G is one of the worst cases we’ve seen at DVI – with pretty much every tooth either missing or needing immediate treatment. It so happened that an endodontist was in the house, so Dr. Petel directed her to Dr. Schleider for an emergency root canal, thus saving that tooth from extraction. G was missing several front teeth. According to her father, G was “angry and ashamed of her mouth.” She tried to keep her mouth covered in school and avoided speaking in class – and wanted to drop out of school altogether for this reason. G’s two sisters and three brothers had never received dental treatment. Her siblings have been invited to be treated at DVI – and her brother M came for the first dental appointment of his life in January 2012.
With such severe dental decay, G has become a very frequent visitor to the clinic, and as each DVI dentist treated her, they would take an interest in her and give her a bit of confidence. Along with our visiting volunteers, Jerusalem volunteer Dr. Joel Cohen took great interest in her case and volunteered to do posts and cores for her teeth that underwent root canals, and Jerusalem Pedodontist Dr. Ziva Luria-Har Zion and our own assistant Meira took impressions and had a mobile prosthesis made for her. When G was fitted with the prosthesis on June 14, 2012 her reaction was overpowering… everyone in the room was close to tears as G smiled widely, her entire life having changed profoundly over the course of just 6 months’ time. G even joined the basketball team in her high school, became one of the stars of the team, and told us she was selected to fly abroad with the team in an international competition – she agreed to go because she is now proudly smiling in all team pictures!