X-rays

Well, Wednesday night my patient's mother called and cancelled for him, so I was out a monring pt. When I got in I called around and was able to find a girl to come in, but she couldn't come in until 10. So...I waited around for her. I passed off my blood glucose PE in the meantime and by the time my pt got there I was able to finish her OD. We'll take x-rays on her next time to make and accurate classification.

In the afternoon my pt was such a sweet lady. She spoke spanish and I was trying to speak to her in my super spanish! It was kinda funny, but I think I did ok for the most part. Lilly helped me a few times. The crazy thing was that she had a lot of work done and a ton of active caries, but she really had like no boneloss. She said she had some pain while we were doing the extra oral exam. It was hurting her on the R side of her nose. I felt it and it felt a tiny bit more swollen when compared to the other side. Prof. Alexander came over and we checked it out. She had a remaning root tip on #4 that we saw in the BWX, but other than that we couldn't see anything. However, we felt that in order for us to treat her better, it would be nice to have an FMX, so we did that and decided to call it a day. Her gums were very tender and I wouldn't have been able to clean her at all with out doing an injection, and I don't know if she was ready for that. I don't think I was ready to clean around all the active caries either. Anyhow, she's coming back another day, so we'll get her taken care of.

Some ideas I liked...

Okay, so whoever knows how I can add something to my blog that will allow me to just add a ton of pictures so that I can have for ideas...let me know. Seriously. I see so many pictures that have ideas that I love...but I need some way to keep them (just the picture) so I can refer back to them...maybe I'll have to ask Prof. Hanson. But if anyone knows, share the knowledge! Until then, these are some cute ideas that I really liked.

I would LOVE a craft room like this one day! Does this not just say FUN!

These were some cute ideas from the same site.

A super cute valentine...to bad I didn't see these last week.

Valentine's Day cont.

Here's a few from V-day. We keep it simple and Rob wouldn't really tell me what he wanted, so I got him some treats and put corny saying with it. At least he liked it!

And these are the cookies I made last week to take to some of the neighbors...but we weren't home all weekend and sadly ended up throwing about 1/2 the batch away....they were super good too!

Yummy! Looks good!

And due to a request from my dad...The 2007 5A Utah State Wrestling Champs! After a few years in 2nd place, the Warriors stepped up to dominate the tourney and won by a landslide!

Way to go Warriors!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! I hope that everyone had a great day! This holiday is one of my favorites! I think I just love the Red and Pink. But I also really love all the love! I made sugar cookies last week to give, however, was gone all weekend, and by the time we got around to it, I figured the cookies tasted a little to old...but it was fun while it lasted!

Guess What I Found!

I was as giddy as a school girl! I found a mockboard patient! I guess all the searching paid off. Actually, midtown gave me her number, but I hadn't been able to get a hold of her until Thursday, so I set up a screening for yesterday and she had calculus that had calculus! Sweet mother of Pearl! I'm so happy! It was such a relief! I screened her and took one quad of x-rays. It's like the best!

Where can I find some teeth like this?

Serioulsy! How come I can't find anyone who slacks on brushing! I know, I should be really happy when people brush, and usually I am, however, that's not what I need right now!

Out of all the people I found yesterday, I got two to come in for a screening. The first one was practically as clean as a whistle. The other one came in this morning. He was from Saudi Arabia and he had restorations, which means he's had access to care. We found 12 clicks of calculus (tartar) on his entire mandible, which is what I need in one quadrant! Seriously! Where are the dirty teeth hidding?

*I know, I know *sigh* under the 24th st bridge*
Sorry for the picture, but this is what I'm looking for...send anyone my way!

I'm desperate!

I am so looking forward to the day that I don't need to find my own patients! The majority of my morning was spent wandering campus asking nearly EVERYONE I passed by if I could take a peek in their mouth! Seriously! I went up to many, many people asking them when the last time they had their teeth clean, asking what their brushing habits were, and if I was lucky enough, asking if I could take a peek in their mouth.

Some were willing, some not so much. One guy asked me where the camera was. ha ha, acutally not so funny! If they looked at me weird I told them I was DESPERATE! Why am I so desperate you might ask? Well, I have one week to find a mock board patient and we have UDA this thrusday, so I have no clinic days to find anyone. So I have to resort to find someone and bring them up to do a screening. Out of everyone I asked, I found 2 who might work. One more so than the other b/c he had a lot of plaque on his teeth. Yippee!

To anyone who reads this blog, I sure they think I'm off my rocker, and the truth is, I probably am. But at least I haven't resorted to driving under the 24th st. bridge! I swear, I'm not going that far!

3 more months until I never ever have to do this again. Mary Ann, do you miss this?

Another mockboard unhopeful

Okay,

So I seriously need a mockboard pt! And worst of all, I thought I had it! I finished cleaning 2 Quads of a class 3 in the morning, but I didn't want to use her for a mockboard b/c she had more food on her teeth than calculus! Canasta! So needless to say, the biggest reason she classified as a 3 were her pocket depths.

But here (was supposed to be) is the good news: Tuesday I was CA and this girl just showed up to get her teeth cleaned, but at the time, everyone had a pt, so I took her name and made her my Thursday afternoon pt. I was pretty excited b/c she had an African accent and I was kinda hoping that she didn't have acces to care (how bad it that?) so that her teeth would be bad enough for me to use.

So she comes in on Thursday and says she hasn't been to a DDS for like 20 years and that was to have a cavity restored. *In my head I'm doing a little dance! Sweet, here's my board pt!* So I start by taking her back to x-ray-oh yeah, she's from Kenya and just came to the US this year to go to school. So we get her to x-ray and I take the first BWX on the digital....it comes up....not only is the lamina dura intact, it's like the best lamina dura I've ever seen. *In my head I'm thinking "How can this be"* So I take one more, The same, seriously, the most radiopaque lamina dura ever! After 4 BWX, I was qute discouraged! So I figure, she's never had a FMX, and she was really concerned about these gaps btwn her mand. canines and premolars, so lets do a full mouth. We START to do that, but she couldn't handle the pain of the uncomfortable XCP's for PA's. So I got all the anteriors and 1/2 the posteriors. So with that said, I was like, okay, hopefully she'll at least have a little calc under the gums, although none was radiographic. So I get started, all pockets were 1-3, with 2-3 4's, but that was uncomfortable for her too...I seriously wanted to inject her! I think a big set back is that she hasn't been to a DDS for so long, she doesn't know what to expect...not saying that is should hurt, but saying that yes, you are going to feel something.

So we get done probing and I go to explore where I find after 20 years, she has the CLEANEST teeth I've ever cleaned! Seriously, people who come every 6 months have dirtier teeth than she did! Craziness! So I finished her in like a half hour. So as we're getting her stuff to go, she asks if we would recommend any othodontists and my instructor proceeds to tell her a few and that she'll need a pano. So we decided to do the pano here b/c it's cheaper than it would be at an office. So I get the pano ready and we take one...but don't worry, I only put ONE film in the pocket, so it turned out a lot darker than it should've. So we take another one, but as I step out of the room to push the botton, the machine won't move, so I step in and press reset. The pano machine resets, and starts to take the pano (while I'm in the room) and then stops right in the middle. WHAT THE HECK! By this time it's 3:00pm, you have got to be kidding me! Seriously! So I go get Prof. Alexander to come and watch (after I've reloaded the pano sleeve for a thrid time!). We set everything and step out to take the x-ray when it doesn't move...we step in and press reset and the machine resets and then starts to go WHILE WE'RE IN THE ROOM! Seriously...my poor patient! At this time she says "can I just come back another time?" To this we both say "Yes". I apologize profusely and send her one her way...whew. And that was it...so much for my mockboard hopeful!

I switched to Beta

Okay, I wasn't going to do it, but I was helping a girl at my work with her blog and she was a Beta Blogger. I got a good look at some of the new things that are available with Beta and I was SOLD! So here it is, my new revised Blog-Beta style! So if any of the Dental Hygiene girls read this and are still on the old blogger, I would suggest changing! It's a lot easier to use!

My boots

I love shoes! And I've been trying to get this super cute pair of boots by Nine West off of eBay.

However, I've been trying to bid on them for the last two weeks and keep gettting beat at the last second! Nuts! So the other dayI decided I might as well just place a bid on these pretties by Steve Madden

I don't like them as much as the other ones, and in all honesty thought I'd be outbid again, but no...I won them. So now I'm awaiting my boots! I'm excited, but probably not as excited as if I won the other ones, I really like the worn look of the Nine west ones, but I guess I'll just have to break the ones I got in! I've been tracking them, and in two days, they've only made it to New Jersey! Seriously! Oh well, their expected arrival date is Feb 1...that's in two days. I gues I can wait that long.

Dental Hygiene

Okay,

So we've had two weeks of clinic and I thought it would be best to start blogging about it. Last week I cleaned two people and one was a 1b who was super healthy and the other was a class 2 that was sensitive to the Ultrasonic. So I thought, hey, what a good time to practice my skills with out the ultrasonic. One reason for this was that with the 1b, people don't really use the Ultrasonic, but I have been, so I thought I'd try it to cut back on my time....so didn't happen.

My 2 was bleeding a lot, and Instructor Allen, who is amazing, said I had a couple tissue tags. Yikes. But the one that really got me was my 1b. She had healthy tissue, and was a flossing queen. But she was bleeding a lot too. After the appt, I asked Instructor Allen why she was blleding so much and she said sometimes it happens w/ people (my pt was on her period) However, she noticed some tissue tags on her too, and we know that isn't good.

So after being super discouraged, she told me she'd watch me next time and she what I was doing so she could help me out.

So yesterday I had a 1b in the morning and she noticed a couple tags, but she watched me and gave me some pointers on how I can better adapt. She also recommended doing long controlled strokes, compared to little ones. That really helped! In the afternoon I had an elderly woman who had lost most of her posterior teeth, so we counted it for two quads of a three! Yes! But I tried the long strokes and that worked well. Her daughter brought her in b/c she is her main care giver and I went over OHI with her a lot. I told her she's got to make sure that her mother is getting back to her two molars on mand. L. There was a lot of plaque build up and her bone levels are REALLY low back there, although there is no mobility yet. I also tole her that her mom has a lot of debris in her mouth and that she would need to help her to make sure she was rinsing all of her mouth out.

All in all it was a good day. I need to remember to do long strokes and keep my whole blade adapted to the tooth until the very end of the stroke. I really like Instructor Allen. She's so way awesome! I'm so glad that she's willing to spend the time with me that I need in order to improve my skills while I'm still in school b/c if I don't learn it here, I don't know where I will.

Bored?

Rob gets creative when he gets bored in the car on the way home. He kept complaining that people were looking at him. I wonder why?

A year ago today..

So I understand that over the Christmas break this blog has become more of a personal blog for me, rather than a dental hygiene journal, but now that we're back in, I'll get going on my DH posts. But not on this one.

Today was our 1 year anniversary. I can't believe it. It's been a whole year, but it doesn't really seem like it's been that long, or maybe that short. It just seems like it's been like this forever. We've been talking a lot today about how we are now. We've both given a little and taken a little, and we both agreed that the giving and taking will continue. I'm think we both bring out the good in each other, and our goals have become unified (is that a word?). I love Rob more today then I did a year ago, and even more than I did yesterday. We're learning how to understand each other more and more. I think my favorite thing about being married is that I get to see Rob every day. Some other highlights are
1. He starts my car in the morning
2. He helps me with the dishes when he has time
3. He helps me work on being on time
4. He's a lot happier when I make dinner for him
5. He loves to talk about his mission
6. He loves to go out to eat as much as I do
7. He works really hard to make sure we (I) have the things we need/want
8. He is a really good Primary teacher
9. He helps me tidy the house
10. He's really good at budgeting-something I'm really happy I learned to do this year

These are the roses Rob surprised me with on Thursday night for an early anniversary present.

Christmas 2006

Santa was very good to us this year. We were extremely blessed! Some very good news for you who frequent this blog is that I got a digital camera, so hopefully I'll be able to post more pictures. Saturday night we all went to my family Christmas party and it was so fantastic. My whole family-cousins, aunts and uncles, neices and nephews, grandparents (minus my dad's twin and family from Michigan)-was all there. It was fabulous! It's been a while since we've all been together like that. Unfortunately I didn't get my camera until Monday morning, so I don't have any pictures of that. However, I wish I could've gotten a picture of my cousin's little boy. He loves Superman and was wearing some zip up pajamas w/ the footies. He kept unzipping them and saying "I'm supaman" So we snuck back to my grandparent's den and printed off the Superman logo, cut it out and tapped it onto his chest. It was classic, after that when he unzipped, he had something to show, as well as his muscles.

Here are some pictures that Rob snapped of our apartment on our first Christmas together.

Sunday was great. In YW all the leaders read their favorite Christmas story. I barely made it through mine. However, I had to stop a few times and gather myself. I swear! It's just so touching though. If you're interested, it's titled "Trouble at the Inn" by Dina Donahue. So precious! I'm sure you can Google it. Anyhow, it was so fabulous to be at church and think of our Saviour's birth.

After church we went to my parent's to meet my mother's cousins and their families who came to visit us from Florida and Honduras. Karen, who still lives in Honduras came on Thursday night, but Kathryn who lives in Florida, got to SLC Saturday night. It was so good to meet them. Kathryn is a memeber of the church and has been for a while, and her daughter Ashley just joined. She wants her son Robert Henry to come to school out here, so they are planning to do that while their here too. It's so great to have them here to spend the holidays with us!

After visiting with them shortly we went to Rob's parent's house and went on their traditional "Christmas Hike" with real latterns up to the canal (It's about 1 mile there and 1 back). It sounds kinda crazy to be hiking in the freezing cold, but it was actually quite fun! We sung Christmas carols and laughed the whole way and it's a tradition that I think I'll grow quite fond of.

Sunday night we were able to talk to my brother Tyson who's serving his mission in the Mexico, Cuernavaca mission. He's been there three weeks and sound so great! I love him so much! It's crazy to talk to him, but he says he's absoluely loving it and we know that's where he's supposed to be.

After the call we went back to Rob's parents to stay and wait for Santa to come. It's tradition in Rob's family as well that they all sleep together, so Rob, Will, and I all bunked in Mark's bedroom. We watched "How the Grinch stole Christmas" and fell asleep. In the morning we woke up about 6:20 and watched Taxi until 7:00am when Will felt it was okay for us to go down. Santa definately found us. The first thing I opened was our digital camera from my parents. I totally LOVE it! So excited! So we snapped a few pictures w/o a memory card and I can't figure out how to get them on the computer to post them yet, but I will.

I did however get some on the memory card of Rob and his new paintball gun. Him and his 3 brothers got one. Our brother in law already has one so, on New Years day, they are planning a war.
Yesterday Will, Rob and Matt got them out to break them in on each other and it was quite entertaining for us all to watch.

A night in Bethlehem

Rob and I dressed up for our ward party that was "Night in Bethlehem". It was pretty fun. Each organization was in charge of a booth, my YW were in charge of the bakery...forgive me for bragging, but ours looked the best! I wish I would've gotten a picture of it. It was so fun! We went around to each station to get a part of our meal. Each person recieved a sack of beans for money and paid that way. The activity person did an awesome job! As did the rest of the organizations.

ABC's of Me!

A - Available or single: nope, I have a very cute husband
B - Best friend: Rob
C - Cake or pie: I would probably say pie
D - Drink of choice: Water, although I should drink more
E - Essential item you use everyday: My cell phone
F - Favorite color: GREEN
G - Gummy bears or worms: I don't like gummy candy
H - Hometown: Brigham City, UT
I - Indulgence: chocolate
J - January or February: I think it would have to be January, it's still really winter time then, by February, it just needs to move to Spring
K - Kids & names: I don't know yet
L - Life is incomplete without? Christ, the gopspel, and my family
M - Marriage date: January 2006
N - Number of siblings: Three; two sisters and a brother
O - Oranges or apples: I like both; Golden delicious apples, and oranges that are sweet and juciy
P - Phobias or fears: That I'm not all that I should be.
Q - Fave quote: "You are the only one who determines how your day goes." -my mom
R - Reason to smile: My husband, he makes me really happy!
S - Season: I love fall and winter b/c the holidays mean family!
U - Unknown fact about me: I've performed on an international TV broadcast
V- Vegetable you don't like: Bressel sprouts
W - Worst habit: Wanting things done my way
X - Xrays: Dental
Y - Your fave food: Ice Cream
Z - Zodiac sign: Leo

....Now you know my ABC, next time won't you sing with me!

So way DONE!

I'm done! I kinda cut it close. I had 4 more quads of a class 3 and I had 2 scheduled to come back at the VA on thrusday. Luckily I got them! I got a total of 5 quads of class 3. Yeah! My first pt was a class 4! His pockets were seriously so deep everywhere! His anteriors even had 8's! The crazy thing was that it wasn't all the way around the tooth, just in random areas. It was like 568, 486, etc. but it wasn't an 8 all along the (ie) facial surface, that was just the deepest spot. Anyhow, I did get to do injections, so that was fun! My 10:00 pt was my returning class 3 and we were able to finish his R side and I got to do injections on him too. His mandibular anataomy was crazy though, and it was hard to find the penetration site on the IA.
My afternoon pt had an upper partial denture. My first denture pt! Crazy! He was pretty healthy though, he kept pretty good care of his remaining teeth and his tissues under the partial were healthy.
Anyhow, the best thing of the whole entire day was that it was the last thing I had to do to finish this semester up. Yippie! One more to go baby! Then I'm so way DONE!

No talky talky!

So today was good. However, my patient this afternoon is so chatty! She's way nice, but she talks non stop with too much information. I just need to know basics for a HHX, unless I inquire, but when I do, she gives me the whole shebang!
Anyhow, needless to say I only got done w/ the HHX where we found she might have to pre-med for a heart murmur, so we sent a physicians consult, and rather than waiting for who knows how long to get a response and then an hour if she had to, I decided to take x-rays and send her on her way. I'm not hurt by this. I'm ok. However, she did have a crown come off, and she's keeping it in a plastic baggie with her meds until she can get into the dentist....whatev!
My pt this morning was a 5, he's an avid waterpick user, so he didn't have much plaque or calc even, but he did have a few 6-7 pockets and even an 8 that had some stuff deep down. All around though, his tissue was really healthy which is great! It just took me a long time in those areas and I seriously felt like I'm getting so slow!

Until next time, I want everyone to have a happy turkey day!

Picture update

I just got these pictures from my mom. My cute cousins dressed up so festively for the special occasion of Halloween.

Mattias is Jack Sparrow-he's obsesed with Pirates of the Carabian, as well as Spiderman, Batman, Fatastic Four, and we always tease him that his girlfriend is Dora the Explorer, though I don't know why. I think he was talking a lot about her once. Santiago, San as we call him, was a bat, he's not looking at the camera, but he's such a cutie! They are pictured here at their ward Halloween party with their friends, who also seems to have a love for Spiderman. I love these two little guys. We don't get to see them as often as I would like, but they sure are fun! Here's a better picture of San in the act of flapping his arms. I wish I could've seen them.

I wanted to put some of my awesome brother Tyson at the MTC, but, that's the end. I'll try later b/c my computer isn't letting me upload anymore pics.

Why can't I get a class II!?

Okay...so today was great. Truthfully an ideal day...unless you have requirements! I swear! I did a child again today and two last week in the afternoon b/c my patients cancelled/no showed. My morning pt last week no showed as well, so I got my husband in last minute to finish up my 1B requirements. So I'm done with everything but class 2 and 3...which I only have like 6 quads of each in. I need 2s and 3s!!! To top it all off, I've got another kid next week. I feel bad, but I might pass her on to a 1st year next semester. Or I could even do her next semester. I just don't know if I can get her in this one. Snap! I hope I can make it! I've also got to make up two days at the VA, so hopefully that will work out.