4 weeks until we meet fish!

Well I am settled in Las Vegas and Bryce has started school so I have a little bit of time on my hands now that I can do things like read and write blog entries. Here we go with how life has been for the Bott's:

We moved to Las Vegas the beginning of August and my wonderful mother helped us get down here and settled. After she left, Bryce and I had a few weeks of wonderful bliss where all we did was pretty much nothing. It was so fun to not have to be anywhere and to be able to have just "us" time before he started dental school and our little fish (AKA baby) joined us. We were able to see our new baby doctor, who is awesome. I am now 35 weeks and I am scheduled to have our baby September 25. I have a funny quirk, I don't really like odd days and I am having a hard time that they scheduled me on an odd day...I told Bryce I am going to vacuum the whole house and go for a run on an even day so hopefully I would go into labor. But Bryce doesn't think it is a good idea to get fish here any sooner. Darn. By the way, we have nicknamed the baby "fish" because he doesn't have a real name yet. I am getting more nervous as the due date approaches. I am nervous about having the C-section. When I was just talking about it and it wasn't a real thing yet I wasn't as nervous, but not that it is actually going to happen in just 4 weeks from today...breathe Michelle, breathe.

Bryce started dental school yesterday! It is so crazy because it seems like it has just been a twinkle in our eyes ever since we got married, and now it is actually happening. I am so proud of him and excited that he gets to start this new adventure. I, on the other hand, am super jealous that he gets to go back to school. I am really going to miss school and I am jealous that Bryce gets to go to dental school and I am staying home. I really think my hormones are playing a major part in my unsettled-ness right now so I am hoping that I can get over it and just be excited to be able to be home with my little fish, but right now I am just jealous.

Well I think that is all I have in me for today. I am by myself a lot now with Bryce being gone and having to take it easy since I was having contractions this week so I feel like I needed to get out how I was feeling.

My blog has a new format, and I had my first temp day!

It has been weeks since I have logged on to blogger.com and to my surprise today I found that blogger is completely new and it has taken me a while to figure out how to actually post. But I have figured it out and I want to share what my first day temping in an office was like. This post is actually dedicated to Marianne, because at Whit's shower I mentioned that I wanted to continue blogging, and Marianne  was 110% supportive. Kudos Marianne!

Here we go. I show up to the office in Clearfield 40 minutes early, I had no idea how long driving would take in traffic so I left super early! Sat in the parking lot reading The Hobbit until 7:56 (honestly people, I thought people go to work at like quarter til? Guess not). Finally somebody pulls in the parking lot and I follow this girl into the office. She doesn't know where any of the hygiene stuff is. The schedule is double hygiene all day. Other assistant shows up, knows where some of the hygiene stuff is. Second assistant is going to be with me throughout the day helping me with both patients every hour. First 2 patients are no shows. Have to sit around for an hour before patients show up. VERY COOL and MODERN office. Everything is digital, including a cool Nomad xray taker, which I didn't use. Second round of patients are a mom and her 12 year old daughter. I was nervous because I have been working at my dads pediatric office and I felt a little out of practice with a complete hygiene appt. Finish the mom really fast, built my confidence back up. They clean up with rags....like reuse the same rag the entire day and just spray it with cleaner. Does that gross anybody else out?

Next cool thing is a hygiene appt and getting the patient numb for his wisdom teeth to come out. Can I just say I LOVE doing anesthetic, probably so much that I will never move to Texas. There is a downside to this wonderful part of the day.....the dentist wanted palatal injections! I hate palatal injections! They are OWIE WOWIE and I always feel bad because I know that pain personally. Anyway, the guy was way brave and no tears were present.

At the same time as this patient, the other patient had come with his "partner" and they were both HIV+. I think I was more nervous about this because I am pregnant right now. But I was very grateful that I had thought to bring my own eyewear (my loupes are hiding in a box right now in limbo waiting to move to Vegas) and I had my own lab coat because the office didn't offer either of this commodities. But the guy was way nice and he actually had pretty clean teeth so there was so splatter going on. But I was still grateful to get home and shower!

I learned a few lessons today. 1 hour is actually a pretty long time for a regular hygiene patient when the Dr does his own exams, and the assistant takes the xrays, and you don't probe every patient, oh, and you don't have to wait for an instructor to come and look for a spicule of calculus hiding in the sulcus of a 1B patient. I also learned that I definitely like the idea of trying out offices before settling down because when I commit to being somewhere, I want to have a similar philosophy as the dentist and the office. I also learned that I will probably NEVER be a commuter! I have been spoiled with my dads office only being 2 blocks away.

Well this is quite a post. I think I had better retire and get ready for a fun weekend! Bryce had his last day of work today and I can't wait to party for the next month!!!

The final countdown is on!

Here I sit, with 1 more clinic day left at WSU! I won't be able to come to the last day of clinic because my sister is getting married on our last clinic day. It is a busy time! I am so grateful that I only have 1 more quad of a class III (scheduled)  and 1 more child (scheduled) to be seen until I am all done with requirements! I finished all of my PE"s about a month ago and today I finished my last arestin experience (Thanks Madi!!). I don't usually like to use arestin at school because the pt's have to pay for it and I haven't seen patients that have really benefited from using Arestin. The rep for arestin would probably hate me for saying that, maybe I just haven't seen the right kind of patient that would benefit from it.
My morning patient was a gentleman that I saw a few months ago and he wanted to get in 1 more time before I graduated. He is the sweetest guy, but he is pretty difficult because he has a ton of toothbrush abrasion and class V fillings that are chipped and broken and provide nice little nooks for bacteria to hide. He has really impeccable homecare  so he doesn't have any pockets. I love when patients I have seen before come back and I am able to build more on a patient/hygienist relationship rather then just seeing someone because I need their requirement and then I never see them again. That is one reason I am so excited about working in private practice is to be able to see patients on a continuous basis. When I have worked in offices that is my favorite part of working in a dental practice. I love having a relationship with patients.
Next week is my last time ever having to have someone check my work off, and that is slightly terrifying, and then extremely exciting!!! I am so excited to graduate and to find out about clinical boards!

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!!!!

Well folks, we are almost there. In just a few short weeks we will be graduated and hopefully have our scored from WREB. There were a lot of girls today that had our instructors check their board patients. To your girls I say you are brave! I feel like there isn't anything I can do now anyway, so why does it matter if I find out now, compared to if I find out in 3 weeks? Also, at boards 3 different examiners check the patient, and I think that is one of the things we really have going for us! But I am glad that so far the people who have had instructors check have been really happy with the results!
This morning my patient was late, like an hour late, and so I wasn't able to start scaling on her until 9:30, and then I had a retarded computer that wouldn't print. I was only able to get 1 quad done because she had to leave. What was a class III and I hope she comes back!
My afternoon patient was my first mockboard patient. I thought she would sit in the chair, do a quick ultrasonic, fine scale a little here and there and she would be good. Hoping for a class V because that would have meant that she was doing really good home care and that her mouth was improving. Alas, this was not meant to be. She still had  A TON of bleeding and quite a bit of deposit! Luckily it wasn't really old calculus and so it came off fairly easy. But I was so surprised, and slightly depressed, that she had that much deposit! It probably means that I am not doing my job like I am supposed to and she didn't fully understand how important it is for her to keep up the oral hygiene regime at home. Hopefully I can stick it in her head and she can keep up her clean mouth after this appt.
Well folks, this is the end of this blog. I need to go work on my paper for 4890 as well as my professional portfolio for 3301. Dang those papers. I know I said this earlier, but I wish I would have kept track of service stuff in 1 place for the whole 2 years. Now I have to go searching through my planners and SADHA book to find my service activities. Memo to first year students: keep you information together! Also, when you are receiving awards or licenses or anything, put it all in one place so that when Alexander wants it for your professional portfolio, it is all ready to go. Wish someone would have given me this helpful piece of advice.

Ebbs and flows

So Tuesday sucked. Plain and simple. I had a patient for the afternoon and her husband was being seen by Jodie. I have never missed so many spots in my life! Whoa talk about a piece of crap cake. I was quite disheartened as you can probably imagine at doing so horribly right before boards. When my instructor sat down and named of 9 spots of missed calculus I thought, "there is no way, they are probably 'fake' clicks." But when I sat down, they were huge pieces of chunky glorious calculus. So I came to the conclusion that I just stunk that day.
This is why I was very grateful for another clinic day.
My morning patient canceled Wednesday night, but I was actually slightly grateful ( I probably shouldn't say that, but I was). I was only grateful for this misfortune because this patient is a class IV and I just didn't have the gumption to be able to do that this morning. So I spent the morning gathering my boards instruments, putting my cassette together and reading the candidate guide again. It was a very productive morning and it gave me a nice calm feeling of getting things done. Now I just need to take that dang board!
My afternoon was also very productive. I had a sweet lady who is in my ward and who I have seen a couple of times. She was super easy. She has a  lot of crowns and she keeps really good care of her mouth. It felt good because I was completely finished with her in under an hour, except I had to take conventional xrays so it was a little over an hour that she got out of here. I think I am finally beginning to arrive at that awesome point when pt's done take 4 hours to complete.
It has been 4 weeks since I took my national board. I think my results should be in my email...but they probably aren't. I almost done want to know until after my clinical board, because I don't want to feel stressed about the results.
Well friends, this is it. Last clinic day before boards. Good luck everyone who is reading this. We are all going to do amazing and everything is going to work out!

GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!!!!!

Marianne did awesome today...

I had a very productive day planned yesterday about 4:00. Until I got a call that my morning patient (a class IV!!!!) canceled because he found a job and couldn't come this morning. I was very sad about this because I was really planning and hoping for this patient for my eaglesoft patient. But lo and behold  a miracle happened. I had my class III/class IV coming in today for a tissue evaluation after the laser. Thank you laser! I was able to input all of my eaglesoft information this morning because I didn't have a patient and I was able to get another project done! That was pretty awesome and I was happy about that. I love checking things off of my list to do.
I was very happy that I was able to complete this project, but I don't want anyone to think that I wasn't also very impressed with how well the tissue responded to tx! It is so glorious to see the beginning scary and then to see the after results of treatment. Her pocket depths were almost all wnl! There were only 3 areas that had a pocket depth of 4mm. For how much she had before we started this is an amazing feat. It was so amazing to see the difference because I had seen her before. It also made me feel really good when she was telling me afterwards how happy she was that her mouth was feeling better and that she was more healthy. Warms the heart.
My other afternoon patient was a little boy who I saw last year. His dad was a mockboard patient for a senior last year and so I asked him again today if we could have someone take a look at his mouth. And it worked out PERFECTLY!!! Jodie screened him and he is perfect for boards. I had him scheduled next tuesday to clean his mouth, and so now jodie is going to be able to clean the rest of his mouth, have him for boards, and the pt only has to take one day off of work instead of 2! This my friends is what we call a win-win situation.
I have to put a little diddy in on my day yesterday at the VA. I had a fast morning, and by fast I mean I was done by 9:00 and then I sat around until 1:00 because the 9:30 pt's never showed up. Boo. It was a LONG lunch. I took some xrays on my patient in the afternoon and then Connie came in and asked if I wanted to have a really cool experience. Um, of course Connie, is that even a question? So I walk in to this patient and he turns to look at me and he has a huge tumor on his neck! When I say huge I mean like there is a grapefruit growing out of his neck. I started working on him and he was only able to lay down in the chair for about5 minutes at a time without having to sit up and put his head between his knees because the tumor was cutting off his blood supply and giving him a huge headache. I felt so bad for him. It got so bad that he we sat him straight up and he was only able to lean his head back for about 1 minute at a time. I was having a hard time because he was a class IV and I was trying to go as fast as I could, but I just didn't have the time or the vision to be able to do a very thorough job. I asked Connie to come in and finish and she really went at it with the US, but the patient was having a really hard time, but he wanted to get everything finished because he was starting radiation. It was a pretty stressful and anxious appt. Connie went crazy with the US and we got done as fast as we could. I had a minor breakdown after because it was so hard to watch him and his wife have to go through this tough time. I was definitely ready to be home yesterday night. So relieved to be home that I forgot to call my patients (that hadn't canceled) to confirm them. Good thing the afternoon patients came!

I love being with Tuesday girls in clinic!

I am doing another make up day today due to the clinic days that I will not be able to attend. I love being with the tuesday girls because some of them I don't see very often! I like this switching thing and being able to see everyone.

So I had a pretty successful afternoon. At the beginning of the afternoon I was hoping that my patient wouldn't show up because I suddenly didn't feel in the mood to be cleaning teeth. But I was very grateful that she showed up because she is a potential board patient! She has all of the calculus, but she is pregnant and only has the 4bwx and 2 anterior PA's  so if anyone wants her, then they will automatically have a 4 pt deduction to start boards with. So far nobody has wanted to take that risk. I totally understand, I wouldn't want to feel doomed from the very start. But the patient is so nice and reliable and she really wants to get her teeth cleaned so I asked her if she would mind being a back up patient, and she doesn't mind doing that. I wish that magically we could just take the xrays we need. Shoot dang.

This patient has all of her wisdom teeth and she has a lot of calculus. I cleaned both upper quads today and she had some pretty funky anatomy that kept throwing me off. It was so frustrating  because I could feel these spots, but I felt like my instruments just kept "slipping" around them instead of even making a dent in them. I didn't know if it was because my instruments just weren't sharp, or if I wasn't putting enough lateral pressure, or what was going on.But it was a little bit of a frustrating experience. But I was able to pass off subgingival irrigation and I think it was really beneficial for this patient. I like when I have requirements that are not only beneficial for me to get done for requirements, but when the patient will also really benefit from them.

It has been a long day, and this week is going to be really long because I have clinic and TA tuesday, VA wednesday, clinic thursday, and sealant clinic/screenings on friday, then drive to Provo for a birthday party...phew it makes me tired just thinking about it. I just need to remember to take things one day at a time and somehow I always make it through just fine.

Ta ta for now friends.

Final Mockboard!!!!

Alleluia!!! Final mockboard is finished! I never have to find another mockboard patient again! We were talking today about how bittersweet it is to be having all of these "last" things happen this semester. I am really going to miss this program and all of the girls and the instructors/professors. I can't think about this yet because it could put me in a depressing mood.

Something that doesn't put me in a depressing mood is thinking about clinic lunch time in the wet lab. It honestly doesn't get better. I love the chatting and the laughing and everything that goes on in the wet lab at lunch. If you read Marianne's post from today you will see why these days are so funny and entertaining. Love lunch in the wet lab.

Mockboards went pretty smoothly today. It seems like I have to learn some lessons the hard way though sometimes. My patient said she wanted to try without getting numb and so I acquiesced and said that we could try and start out with no numbing but if she needed it then we could definitely use it towards the end.  Well she was getting really tender towards the end, especially on her anteriors because there was some recession. I could feel there were still a couple of spots, but she was so jumpy that I just stopped scaling those areas. From now on (so for boards) my patient is going to be numb! Lesson learned. I also scaled the quad I have the most trouble with, the lower right.  The lower right quad is the bane of my dental hygiene existence! So I sacrificed today by doing the lower right so that I can do the lower left for real boards. I just feel like I can't get enough leverage to really get in and scrape the calculus off. I wish I could do it with my left hand from the other side. It would be like having 2 lower left quads, and I would rejoice over that. But I am really blessed because my patient is so nice and getting her teeth cleaned are important to her so I don't have to beg her to come and have a huge service done. 

I feel like it has been forever since I blogged, but then I realized that it has been a long time since I was in clinic. The whole month of february I will not have a full clinic day. 2 of the days I was gone and the other 2 days were mockboards. It is a good thing that we were able to see a patient on our half day after LA or else I would not have seen a regular patient the whole month of February in the Weber clinic.

My time at Weber State is drawing to a close in just a few short months and it is a little sad to me. I have loved being in school and in a learning environment. I can't think to deeply about that right now so I better go. Until my next post. Peace out Peeps.

LA Mockboard/tired afternoon

Today was our LA mockboard and I had signed up to be first because there was only that spot or the last spot left. But as luck would have it, I woke up late, was almost late to clinic, and was sweating from getting everything ready when the examiners came over to watch me give the injection. I wasn't really that nervous  because my awesome peer pal (shout out to Cesia!!) had come all the way from SLC on a day when she didn't even have to be at school. What a champ. I did the PSA first and it went without a hitch, and then I did the IA. It was so beautiful! It went right in without hitting osseous, and then I aspirated and....POSITIVE ASPIRATION! I haven't had a positive aspiration yet and it kinda caught me by surprise what I did next. I remembered hearing that if you have a positive aspiration that you can move the needle and aspirate again and continue with the injection, but only if you can tell if your second spot gets another positive aspiration. I couldn't tell on the next aspiration if it was positive or not and I SHOULD have just gotten a new set up.
Lesson learned: always get a new set up if you have any sort of positive aspiration.
My only complaint about the morning is that there were quite a few aspects of LA that I didn't know were wrong to do. I wish that in clinic that the instructors would always say something if what we are doing is not correct for the WREB. For example, I always look at my window and then turn it to the correct place when I pick it up, but that is a fail if you touch the syringe without the top on. That would have been nice to know about 4 months ago when we were learning. Another thing that would have been nice to know was that I have always thrown my needle away the wrong way. In lab they told us we could hold on to the tips of the card when we threw it away, so that it the way I have always done it. And I guess that would have been another fail.
All sorts of failures that day.
On to the afternoon. I was pretty worn out after the morning, not that it was physically exhausting, but it was emotionally draining and then I had to sit for about 4 hours after my injections and wait until the afternoon. My vote is that he mockboards are in the afternoon from now on.
My was finishing a patient who was a class III/Class IV. I really wasn't in the mood for that deep of cleaning, I should have scheduled a 1B for the afternoon or something like that so it wouldn't have been so physically exhausting. My one happy thought for the afternoon was that I had sharpened my instruments last time so they were nice and sharp!
I gave my sweet little patient anesthesia and I wish the mockboard would have gone as good. Those dang positive aspirations. This patient was really tough last time and I was exhausted. And to add on to that, I had offered this patient to participate in the laser study. I was so tired by the end of the day and the laser added on another 20 minutes. Plus I was HUNGRY!!!! I guess I could say it was just one of those days that I wasn't totally invested in being in the clinic. These are rare because I love the clinical aspect of school and I love working with patients. It was just a tiring day. Now I have a break for 2 weeks before a real clinic day again. My next clinic day is my last mockboard!!!! I should probably sharpen my instruments again!

Afternoon in Tuesday clinic

This afternoon I was in Tuesday clinic because I will not be here this Thursday. I had this really sweet man who had a lot of Class V restorations that were cracked and broken with a lot of ledges. He actually had quite a bit of calculus! The ultrasonic took me a long time because I was trying to stay away from all of the composites he had in his mouth, but he still had a lot of calculus. It is hard not to judge what type of classification a patient will be when you are talking to someone on the phone, or when you choose names off of the list, and I thought for sure he was a class V patient who came in every 6 months so there wouldn't be very much calculus and it wouldn't take me very long. I was wrong on that today. He had a lot of recession and toothbrush abrasion that had left ledges in the root surface. One of the more difficult class V patients I have seen.
Another exciting thing about this patient is that he needed to premed. This is the first patient I have seen while at Weber State that I have had to do more on the health history than just 1 medication or no medications at all. I thought I was going to make it through scotch free, but that didn't happen, and I was happy for the experience.
Now I need to start thinking about the next mockboards because I do not have a patient and I am not going to be in clinic until the next mockboard seeing patients.  Well I take that back, I will be here for a LA mockboard and finishing up a class IV. But I will have to use another tuesday afternoon clinic to do screenings so I can find me a mockboard patient! Dental Hygiene gods??? Can you hear me???? Now I need your help! Thanks!

Lots of stuff going on right now

Man, there is so much going on right now. I think it just need to take a break and.....
Breathe.
Yep I feel a lot better now.

Today was a pretty amazing day. I felt like I got a lot accomplished! My patient this morning was a Class III/IV. I numbed her UR and LR. It took me a long time to finish her and she was probably the toughest patient I have ever had. Her calculus was really tenacious. I used the triple bend, slimline and curved ultrasonics. I passed off 3 PE's (ultrasonic 3, RD #2, and LA #2). I don't have very many PE's left and that gives me comfort because there is so much other stuff going on. I am stressed because I have about 4 weeks that I won't be in clinic and I have other requirements that need to be met and patients that need to be in and finished. Phew! Oh yeah, and add to that all of the projects for Alexanders class, presenting for our research, and taking national boards.

Breathe....

My afternoon patient canceled so I called someone on the resource list and she was a IB, which was nice because I haven't fulfilled that requirement yet. She was pretty simple, but I missed 2 spots (lame) that were pretty subgingival. I definately wasn't scaling that far subgingivally, that's what I get. But I was really happy that she took me less than an hour including scale check, HHX, and conventional xrays. I might possibly be getting the handle of this!

But I am still stressed that I am not going to find my next board patient because of the limited time I am going to be in clinic. Dental hygiene gods?? Now is the time to step in and send in a board patient.

Mockboard #2!

Breath a sigh of relief, mockboard number 2 is over! I was so nervous yesterday night because I hadn't stressed and prepared like I did last time. But it all turned out because I came early and was able to get everything prepared. My patient showed up on time (what a reliable awesome patient) and we were able to get going right away. I had successes and failures today.

Failures (we will start with the worst and work our way up)
*Did an AWFUL left PSA, my needle got bent and Prof. Perry said I would have failed my boards. I hate when instructors say that because it totally deflates me. But it does give me something to work towards to be better.
*Didn't print my xrays off until this morning.
*Didn't sleep at all last night so I was reading my peers blogs the whole night.

Successes!!!
*Finished 2 quads of a pretty difficult Class III with LA in both quadrants.
*Only missed one spot!
*Finished with 20 minutes to spare

This mockboard went a little better than last time, I am just happy that I have passed both of my mockboards so far and that both of my patients have qualified. I was a little frustrated today because the spot I missed I couldn't get off and when my instructor came over, it felt the same before and after so I thought it was more root anatomy. But I am just fine with missing one spot.

I am grateful that this day is over and I think I am going to go home and take a much deserved nap. And then wake up and study again for the LA written because I am taking it Monday! Wish me luck!

p.s. took the mock LA written, and I don't feel like it was a very good representation of what we are going to see on the real board, but it is really nice to be able to have test questions and go over them and over them and practice them.

VA Day

Another day at the VA. My morning patient was a nice middle age lady who had a pretty regular mouth. No xrays, but I was able to pass off one of my desensitization PE's because she had recession and I put Colgate ProRelief on her teeth. I was happy that is actually works. I would have a really hard time if my teeth were sensitive and I wasn't able to brush make it through a dental appt without sensitivity pain. I am happy that we are able to provide services like that to our patients to make them more comfortable throughout their appt.
My other morning patient was pretty sad. It was a really old man and he had 9-10mm of facial recession and partial on the bottom and a full denture on the top. He had food and material alba in all of his embrasure spaces. I was actually feeling pretty nauseous about the whole appt. And he couldn't lay back so I did the whole appt bending over because the chair didn't go high enough for me to stand all the way up. But I feel like I really did him a service and I was able to really use my files and find them useful for the first time. They were perfect for his mouth! I was grateful that I could see how useful the files could  be in different situations.
My afternoon patient canceled. Enough said about the afternoon.

Mockboards are looming!

The day started out pretty intense...

I woke up late, like 7:35 late. FLEW out of bed, jumped into a pair of scrubs and hurried out the door to get to school. I made it here by 7:50 and got my chair all ready and then....my patient canceled.
But that's ok because some young boy came in at 10:10 and I was able to complete him (15 min scale time!) and take a pano xray. He was only 18 and he has been smoking for 4 years! Where does a 14 year old get cigarettes to smoke?

I was ravenous at lunch! So after a delicious Arby's sandwich, I came back in and found Brooke a mockboard patient!!! And I was able to clean 2 quads on him.

So after a stressful start, this day was actually a success I felt like. Tomorrow is screenings and I hope that we can find a few mockboard patients for everybody that needs them!

Crazy first day back in clinic

I scheduled my patient for today about a month ago and he said that he wanted to get everything done in one day. He is a class III so I told him that he would have to come back after lunch because I couldn't get everything done in the same day.
Here are my mistakes for the day. When he called back to confirm, he said he would see me at 8:30..I didn't even think about the fact that clinic starts at 8:00...So he was late.
Second mistake, he is a chatterbox so the health history took forever while he talked about his smoking habits. And I chatted right along with him.
Third mistake, I gave him anesthetic and I knew he was really nervous about it so it kinda gave me butterflies in my stomach. I picked up the syringe and the window was down...AUTOMATIC FAIL!  I should have taken it out and turned the window around before proceeding. I realized that I really feel out of sorts when I can't see how much anesthetic is going in or how fast. So I need to always remember to set my syringe up with the window right and to always check it before. My patient was also moving his head when I was giving the injection and that made me nervous because I was afraid of where the needle was at. Instructor Perry told me that I really don't need to be giving the LB or the incisive. Right now when I am counting injections, I really count on those other injections. Another reason I will like to be graduated is that I won't  have to do things to count points, I can just do what I feel is necessary.

First day back at the VA!

First day back at the VA and I am feeling a little rusty. My first patient of the morning was a guy that had been in to the VA before and had half of his mouth done and he needed to come in to finish and to have a comprehensive exam. CompEx at the VA are dreadful! They are so dang long, especially with the dental residents. I don't know why they feel like they have to reprobe and retake every xray. It is frustrating. Fortunately the dental resident didn't make me retake any xrays or reprobe, but he kept leaving the room to ask another dentist questions. Luckily I was able to finish 2 quads of class III and I was able to see the other morning patient and finish him.
The second patient was a middle age guy with really malposed teeth. Some of his teeth were so buccoverted that they weren't in the occlusion. It was pretty difficult to clean around those teeth because #22 didn't have any gums on the lingual side. Good experience with him.
My last patient of the day was a gem. At first I thought it was going to be a really long afternoon because she came in wheelchair (she was pretty overweight) and she kept telling me things I couldn't do because it would hurt her. But by the end, she was fantastic and she was a lot more friendly. We have Instructor Dixon and I really like that she is Nazi about doing a pre-rinse. I have never got into the habit of that and I wish I would do it more.