Most productive day up to date

Today we were at the VA hospital. I had a class V patient in the morning. It was the first heavy smoker I have worked on. He had heavy staining and malpositioned teeth on his mandibular left quad. I swear I could not see the lingual of #28 no matter how I positioned myself. I got as much off as I could and was not surprised when the only spot I missed was on that tooth. It is quite satisfying to get that much staining off. I love when you can tell such a big difference from the beginning of the apt. to the end.
After I finished my first apt. I did my chart and went to help someone else clean up their unit. My instructor grabbed me and said to follow her. So I did. Turns out another pt. needed cleaned before he could see the dr. He was awesome. He had the same name as me and had 4 purple hearts. His cleaning involved the most biofilm I have ever cleaned off. He had erosion on all the mandibular ant. and it was quite the learning experience. I love the VA.
I finished him and ran and ate a 10 min. lunch. After lunch my afternoon pt. had cancelled but they filled it last minute. He ended up being a class III. He had great homecare but deep deep pockets. He was by far the hardest pt. I have ever worked on. His calculus was so incredibly tenacious. I could not get it off. I have never had the experience where I knew exactly where the calc was but could not get it off no matter what I did. Prof. Mc. helped me so much on him. It also made me appreciate good hygienists. He couldn't understand what was taking me so long, I didn't want to tell him it was faster last time because they didn't clean any of his teeth.
It was a great day and I learned so much and experienced so many new things.

Crazy Day

Today I attempted something a little crazy for someone with my speed, or lack of speed cleaning teeth. I scheduled four different patients, and passed off four PEs. It went surprisingly well for most of the time. I saw a sealant pt first, then two quads of a class III. Afternoon was one quad of my mockboard class II, and finishing a class IV. Fun. Karen saved my life by taking some x-rays for me. It was fun. I'm excited for when I am fast enough to do that without going crazy.

UDHA convention

I love convention. I don't know why but I just love it. I love going and hanging out with all the other students and hygienists, I love learning new things in the classes, I love all the free stuff and vendors, I love seeing all the newest gadgets they have come up with to make my life easier, I love riding front runner down, its just a good time. On Friday I had a hard time staying awake in class but loved seeing all the girls who are not in my clinic anymore. I went down on Saturday and the class was amazing. The speaker was wonderful and I learned so much. So glad I didn't turn off the alarm and go back to bed.

Also I bought a tooth shaped cookie cutter. Yes, I am that big of a dork.

clinic days

Today was a fairly typical clinic day for me. I finished a class III pt. in the morning. He got in a car accident on the way to the clinic the last time he was scheduled so I was relieved when he showed up in one piece. Everything went smoothly on him. It was fun because we learned the right and left ultrasonic yesterday and I only had two quads left so I took some time to experiment with them. I started with the triple bend and knocked off all the big calculus. I have learned to love that triple bend quite a lot today. Then I moved to the right and left. They really were so much easier to get into those deeper pockets in the posterior. Then I used my slimline. Then moved on to handscaling. It was the easiest time I have ever had with a class III. There was only a little bit left on him to handscale by the end. SO much less hand fatigue. Loved it. My only complaint is the amount of switching the inserts. My ultrasonic doesn't quite reach the sink so my floor was soaked by the end of his apt.
The afternoon went well too. I seriously need to learn Spanish. My patient was about 60 and had never been to the dentist before. Awesome. You couldn't see the back of her lower anteriors through the calculus bridge. The health history was quite the experience for me. We had a serious language barrier problem. I got creative and was typing phrases in google translator but then couldn't understand her replys. Plan B: called Todd and had her talk to him and then had him tell me what she said. It took some time but we got it done. Then I looked in her mouth. Class IV. Cool. Once again used all the new ultrasonic gadgets and had the same result as the morning. No missed spots. Wonderful learning day. I have four patients scheduled for next tues. It's gonna be an intense one.

Funny

Found this little bit written in my notes as I studied for the dental materials test today......"If someone told me I had to be a researcher I would go nuts and eat oranges or something." I love Dr. Naylor. She makes me laugh, I think I am going to write down more of her sidebar comments cause they really make it more amusing to study.

LA round 2!

So I have decided that injections are my favorite thing on the planet. I LOVE them. Who would have thought that I would so thoroughly enjoy stabbing people. And I didn't think I was a violent person. Today I teamed up with Heather McKay and we had a party. She did fantastic. Everything went super smooth. Gotta love the zing. I can't wait to explain to a pt. that they are in pain because I did a great job on their injection and got super close to their nerve. Anyway so I was super numb and we had lunch right after. Then later after I ate dinner I was thinking my lip still felt fat so I looked in the mirror and found out I had eaten my numbed lip for lunch. I am so smart. I have a couple of higher class pts. that I purposely scheduled for right after our next lab so I can do the injections. I am super excited!

Oh poor Heather
Time for her revenge
Kayla looking for Heavenly guidance

Nitrous!

Today is the nitrous lab. Yeah I have been looking forward to this. Me and Tori are going to get high together, haha. So it was a pretty chill day. I haven't slept all week so it was a good. We all hung out in a group and chatted while people were up on nitrous. Fun stuff. Turns out I really like the stuff. I just wanted to stay and sleep a while.

Technical Difficulties

Yeah for Nitrous! Hook me up

Waiting for my turn.

Dr. Hansen's awesome socks.

Oh how I love Dental Hygiene

Dr. Naylor loves Nitrous

My first 1B this year!

Today at the VA I finally got a 1B! I struggled for a minute switching my focus from root surface scaling to the crown. It was heavenly. Also my second pt. was quite interesting. He was just the cutest little man. He was exposed to Agent Orange for 15mo. in the war. He has a crazy amount of side effect from it like Diabetes, Leukemia, Basal cell carcinoma, etc. The list goes on and on. It broke my heart to see everything he was going through as a result of his service and made me even more grateful for what the veterans sacrifice. Going through the chemo did a number to his teeth. He was so worried that we would think he was neglecting us by not being in for the last year or so and told me multiple times that his Dr. told him he couldn't get his teeth cleaned. I learned a lot scaling his teeth. One of his posterior molars had a crown with some decay underneath that I learned I needed to be very careful with. He also had crowns on nearly all this posterior teeth. I love the VA. The only thing I do not like is that you don't get to see the pts again.

Confidence

Confidence is key. Today I did not have it. I felt slow and felt like I had no idea what I was doing. Not great. Then I panicked...then I started shaking. Poor pt. New goal, Confidence.

YeeHa, I love LA

Local Anesthesia is the coolest thing ever. Today we got to give each other 4 different injections. It was thrilling. I am sure that when I have an actual pt. I will be shaking like a leaf but I am lovin it right now. I was pretty nervous to be the dummy pt. but I was partnered with Julie and she was fantastic! I didn't even really feel it. I am excited for next week!

Second Day of Clinicals

Today was much different than last week. Much more frustrating but I did learn a lot and I guess that is what matters in the end. My first patient got in a car accident on the way to the clinic. I felt so bad for him. I frantically found someone else to come in. He ended up being a class III borderline IV. He was a nice person. I didn't get to scale but I am excited for his next apt.
My afternoon pt. also canceled so I called my favorite pt. from last semester. He is the sweetest guy ever. He is retired and is always willing to come last minute and help me out. The hard part was they lost his chart and he has about 20 medications. With the missing chart I had no choice but to start over. So after looking up 17 of the medications and spending over an hour just on his chart they found it and walked in. Lots of wasted clinic time, and I wasn't able to finish him as a result.
I struggled with the scaling for some reason today. Nothing felt comfortable and I couldn't figure out why. I couldn't figure out what instruments to use where, etc. Another girl had an extremely hard patient in another pod so I never saw my instructor to get help. My goal is to get a better routine down and to practice, practice, practice. Back to watching the adaptation video before every clinic again. I have found that I struggle with class II/V the most. The tight tissue and rough root structure really makes me question all my abilities. I have the hardest time differentiating between calculus and structure sometimes.
I did use the extra oral fulcrum I learned last week from Dr. Hansen. The coolest part of the day was getting to try the CO2 laser on two of his teeth with deeper pockets. I am excited to see how well it heals up when he comes back for his next apt. I am really excited to get to learn to use the laser even better. It is an amazing tool and I think it will eventually be utilized in every office.

This chicken needs to be numbed

Oh my oh my I love this. Today we had a lab in local anesthesia class. We got to practice giving injections on a raw piece of chicken. Now I have spent the last year dreading learning this. Both practicing and being practiced on. Now I am just plain excited to try it. It was so cool. Who knew.