I am freaking out!!!!

Today I saw my fav hispanic patient with the cool calc rings I mentioned in a previous post. Well anyway, I am 1.5 hours into the 2 hour appointment to scale 2 quads when I reach for my trusty Montana Jack (yeah, I have one in each set up--how lucky am I?) when I notice that the tip is broken!!! I freak out! I look in the patient's mouth and I try to explain to him in part English and part Spanish that I broke the tip of my instrument and I do not know where the tip is. I felt pretty confident that he did not swallow it because I was having to suction everything out of his mouth. He was not swallowing even his own saliva-he just let it pool and then I sucked it out. Well my slow speed had nothing. My patient was so cute he was crawling on the floor with me looking for it. I told my Dr and he was fine with it. He did not think we needed to go and get a chest xray the patient did not either. So here I am freaking out but holding it together. My patient did ask if I was ok. He knew I was pretty upset about the situation. He told me in his broken English that it was ok and that he did not swallow it or aspirate it. It made me feel better knowing that he did not think I was negligent. I was having so much fun cleaning those rings of calc off his teeth and now the afternoon was spoiled. Man....It was really hard for me to pick up that Montana Jack for my next appointment. But I figured if the horse bucks you....

So RDH's let me know of your tales of glory! I would love to hear them.

My friend Von got a deer on Sat. He brought me the hind quarters and back straps. I cut them up and filled my freezer with meat! I am pretty lucky! I love this time of year! I love to see the whole town in their orange and 4 wheelers. It is so delicious to eat that first piece of venison fresh from the kill! Throw in some fresh apples from New Harmony and life is all apple pie again!!!!

Are bad days contagious??

Ok so I have been reading some blogs from WSU. The dental hygiene students there are having a tough minute. I remember those minutes and sympathize greatly. What I did not know is that they are contagious! I was looking forward to Wed so much! I could not wait to get in there and clean the rings of calc off of my patient! Well the day started off with my first pt being 20 minutes late and he was a friend of the Dr so the exam took forever. So now I am 30 min behind. By the time I get to calc boy I am almost 45 minutes late. Then to top it off the digital xrays in my room were being retarded---it ended up being a wire thing but who knew...So I am late and then calc boy had some serious calc! I could not believe it. I worked my fingers off. He was bleeding so much I could barely see. I really wished I had an assistant or CA or instructor there to help me with the high volume suction but alas I was alone with the blood spraying everywhere from the ultrasonic. I have a piezo and the water spray is a little different from the magnistrictive ones I used in school. When I was cleaning up my opertory there were blood splatters everywhere...So by now I am feeling like a looser hygienist who is late and cannot get the calc off even though I cleaned calc boy the best I could I am just not positive I got it all off. I am so glad I see him again next week for another quad...I can redeem myself. THEN to top it off my Dr found a probe depth I missed. I had recorded a 4mm pocket on the distal of a tooth that had a crown with recurrent decay under it. Well it really had a 9mm. He did not yell at me and even blamed it on hitting a piece of calc but he just wanted me to be sure I got around the deposits and probed deep enough. I felt/feel horrible! Now the tooth will not be able to be saved because of the extent of perio. Man I feel like a looser RDH!!! I know I should not feel this way. Everyone is entitled to bad days and I need to remember the good days and patients and not focus on the bad ones. Well to sum up my day; I did not take a lunch and when my last patient of the day arrived I was still taking xrays on my patient (running me about 55 min late). Yesterday was the first day that I was the last one t leave the office. I had to close up shop and set the alarm. I must have done it right because no one told me differently today.


On a much lighter note this is my cute niece again. Her mom is weaning her from the binky...well one night she was sad and put two in her mouth. She is so freaking adorable to me that I have to share her with you all....

Wonderful Day!

Last night Cedar experienced a great and wonderful thunderstorm around 2:30 am. At first I was scared because I was awaken by a glass rattling thunderclap but then I calmed down and listened to the storm. I was great. I snuggled in my blankets and went back to sleep. This morning I woke up and stumbled to the bathroom when I looked out the kitchen window I saw (yup I saw...I wear the night and day contacts that you wear continuously for 30 days--kind of a cheap lasik ha ha ha) snow covering everywhere! It was beautiful. The trees still have leaves on them and so the branches were hanging so low due to the weight. A lot of trees on my street were touching the ground. The mountains are covered enough to give the red rock a white dusted appearance. It is truly beautiful! I have a feeling that it is going to be a wonderful day!

Tomorrow will be a wonderful day also. I have a patient coming tomorrow that has the most amazing black rings of calculus I have ever seen! He is an early 20 year old hispanic man. His teeth are just covered in deposit but since he is so young it comes off fairly easily. He would be a great board pt except he has some gingival hyperplasia and therefore some really deep pockets! I am looking forward to cleaning another quad tomorrow!!!! How great is my life?!?!?!?

A new experience

Today I saw a patient. He was scheduled for SCRP. His pocket depths were 5-7mm. He was high strung and wanted nitrous. He did not have very much deposit and what deposit he had was really deep at the base of his pockets. He told me he previously had SCRP completed and knew he needed it again. So I didn't even have to go into my speil. He had scheduled 2 hours with me. I thought to myself...ok this guy wants scrp I will give him scrp. I hooked up the nitrous and proceeded to start and intra oral exam when I discovered he had some huge exotosis. They were form 4-9mm deep. The patient also had large mandibular tori. I know you are thinking so what, the man has bone gowths-who cares. What made this patient unique was this was the first patient I had to give maxillary injections too. It was such a challenge to get the PSA right. I tried to give a MSA but the patient said not to try again. It was really hard to get around that deep bone. Luckily the nitrous and PSA was enough for him to tolerate the procedure. I really wished my office had Oraqix-it would have been so much easier. Fellow RDHs let me know how you handle this. I am too afraid to bend the needle and I thought about giving an infiltration at 90 degrees but I just could not do it. I need some advice....

On a lighter note. I went to Hogle Zoo last weekend. My niece and nephew as well as all my siblings (except Army Dave) and mother went with me. We had such a great time in the rain. All the animals were great. I loved the black bears and the baby orangutan. I love being out of school! I love having time and money to go on little trips like this! Now if I could just get a little sumpin-sumpin life would be perfect ha ha ha!

Annoying

I went to a movie the other night. I was nice to go out with some friends and enjoy a good movie. I was all calm and relaxed having been to a perfomrance by the Utah Symphony Orchestra earlier that evening. My relaxed state of mind did not last very long. During the movie there were not any of those annoying phone rings. It was worse...they were texting each other. This was highly annoying to me because in this great day of stadium seating in movie theaters the glare from the phone screens and key pads were blinding me! Imagine if you will, a dark theater, comfy seats and a large screen to which my eyes are glued and then some random Joe opens his cell phone and blinds the lower left corner of my eye. Now I am seeing spots as I try to ignore the rudeness the Joe when my direct right is blinded by another random Joe! It is now near impossible to see the screen and watch the movie that I paid a dear price for! I have flash spots in both eyes and both Joes keep texting!! This behavior continued througout the entire 2+ hour movie. I am please to announce there were SEVEN random Joes in the audience that night and I had to deal with multiple bouts of blindness! I was so irritated that if I had not been in the company of calm cool and collected friends I would have stood up and shouted, 'For the love of all that is holy. STOP texting for 2 hours. I promise you will live, if it is an actual emergency then leave the theater!' I had it all planned out. I was so hot under the collar that I could barely enjoy the show. I tried so hard to lower my BP and to calm my nerves but it did not work. I was still irritated after the movie. I just cannot imagine having to text someone so bad that I could not wait until the movie was over. I guess since I am of an older persuasion that I do not understand the need to be accessable through a phone 24/7. I like to be lost for a few hours each day-in other words I like to detatch from the world turn off the phone, radio, tv etc and have a little peace and quiet giving my brain a chance to relax. I like the quiet time. Not many people like the quiet time anymore. Everyone fills every moment they have with noise and activity. I say STOP and enjoy the moment you are in now. Enjoy the movie, enjoy the drive, enjoy the rain, enjoy the sun, enjoy the stars, enjoy the silence. And for the love of all that is holy....stop texting during movies!

White and Nerdy

Today I finally heard and saw Weird Al new song 'white and nerdy'. It is spoofing the song Ridin' Dirty. It was the funniest thing I have heard from Al in a long time. It made me realize just how white and nerdy I am! I have no doubts in my mind as to why I am single. First I am white. Yup that means I am white. I do not fake bake or sun worship. I am truly a white girl! Second I am a Sci Fi nerd. I love the television series Stargate SG-1. I love Jack O'Neil aka Richard Dean Anderson. I enjoy reading books with dragons, wizards, knights, and space travel. So there you have it world. I am not sure if that is a good thing or not. All I know is that I am proud of who I am. I am proud of where I come from and where I am going. I am proud to be a hard working white American! There is nothing wrong with not being white and nerdy just as there is nothing wrong with me being white and nerdy!! Now thanks to Weird Al there is a song all about me! You should really check it out.

My first Meth Mouth

Last week I had a patient who came in for an initial exam and cleaning. She had been in the week before for an emergency tooth extraction. This patient was about 35 years old. She was a little nervous to be in my chair. I did not realize why until I had her open her mouth while I placed the first xray film. I knew immediately that she had used meth before-quite a lot of meth. I chatted away trying to put her at ease. I asked her when her last hygiene appointment was. She told me that about 5 years ago she left in the middle of her appointment because it hurt so bad. In my mind I was thinking, no duh it hurt, you have a cavity in every single tooth in your mouth! I explained to her that I could numb up areas of her mouth to make the cleaning more comfortable. She agreed. As I was cleaning her mouth-which was a challenge with all the active carries- I told her I had just graduated and that I had seen pictures of meth mouth. I then asked her "So is that what I am looking at here?" She said yes. She then told me about how she had used meth and now her children were not in her custody etc. I felt bad for her, but proud that I had enough guts to ask her if she was a meth user. Honestly, I was afraid that I would offend her and that she would just leave my chair. Then the dentist came in and flat out asked her how much money she wanted to spend on her mouth since every thing needed a filling/crown. I think it would have been cheaper to get full dentures. I am not sure what she decided. I hope to see her again.

I attended UDHA this past weekend. I do not want to make this post too long but the last speaker of the convention said that Fluoride is good only topically and that systemic fluoride was not useful except for the fact it ended up in saliva and therefore was working topically. I have not looked into the studies she quoted but I was wondering what y'all thought about it. If this is true we can end the fluoride campaign and take that money and apply it to the legislative fund:)

It was so good to see everyone at the convention! I enjoyed myself and learned a few things.