Yo hablo espanol

Seriously, when am I going to lean spanish? I think about it all the time and how useful it would be to be able to converse with my spanish. But I did have an interpreter today because I emailed this guy to see if he could come in and translate for me, and when he emailed me back he said that he couldn't come. But then he showed up about halfway through the appt! It was nice because I was able to give my pt some OHI and not feel like I am just using and abusing him because I need his requirement. Today was a pretty good day. I was able to take some PA's this morning on my patient because she fell down a few months ago and hit her nose and her mouth. Luckily everything looked good and she didn't have any fractures or anything.
My morning patient really opened up to me about her life and the problems she has had in her life with her husband and her kids and I felt so sorry for her! I guess people to tell their barber everything, and their hygienist falls under that category as well.
So today was a good day overall . I got some xrays, which I am kind of stressed about, and I had a class II and a class V.

What am I doing here?

My patient this morning is my patient that I will be using for mockboards and I have to admit I was having a little bit of a hard time. I get all pepped up from the VA because I do pretty good and then I sit down in my chair here and I use instruments that I haven't used very much and I can't angulate very well. I didnt use my gracey's very much last year so now when I use them I have to learn how. I feel really comfortable with my other instruments, but I was missing part of the tooth structure. Prof Alexander is an angel and she sat down with me and showed me how to angle my instrument so that I can get that area. It helped so much!!! But it pooped me out for the morning and I still have the afternoon to go. My patient canceled late last night and I have called 10 people to see if they can come and none of them could come in this afternoon. Hopefully somebody shows up out of the blue and they can be my patient, lucky person....

First real clinic day!

Wowza! Today was crazy, plain and simple. I had 2 patients this morning and it was a lady and she was bringing her 6 year old daughter. I was planning on taking a pano and some bitewings because this little girl had never had xrays before. Working in a pediatric office has taught me that it is SOOOO important to get xrays early. We do surgery on kids as young as 1 year old! But the little girl started crying and it is clinic policy that you can't stand in the room when xrays are being taken.  So I wasn't able to get the bitewings on this little girl, but I was able to take a pano and that took a load off!
Next I started working on her mom and she spoke mostly spanish. We could understand each other very little. But I got to practice my spanish!  She said that she didn't want to do xrays and a cleaning today because she didn't have the money so I told her I would take a look around and then if she wanted we could just do the xrays and then she could come back for the cleaning. I did my OD and I started probing and she didn't have very deep pockets, but she had TONS of subgingival calculus! Because she had it all across the front I recommending taking a fmx and she said that was alright. So I took a full 18 xray series and I saved it in the wrong folder!!! And while I was taking xrays the xray machine wasn't exposing! So it took about 20 minutes longer to finish! But I think she is going to be a good mockboard patient!!!
This afternoon was much more relaxing. I had a guy that is a 1B and he was way nice and I didn't have a ton of deposit. But I learned something very valuable from Dr. Hanson, she showed me how to look for sheet calculus that is smooth.
I am so excited for second year!!!! I love that I can really start to do things on my own and that it is my judgement instead of having my hand held the whole time. FREEDOM!!! I love working on teeth and I love working with patients. This is the best profession!! Now I have a whole other week until clinic again!