What a HECK of a Day!!

9.18.12
 The stress of today started yesterday as both of my patients who were husband and wife canceled due to so family emergency, which is fine, stuff happens, but that leaves me at 3:30 on Monday afternoon trying to find two patients to come in :(  So I go to the resource list and seriously call at least 20 different people to come in. FINALLY I get two people, one girl who said she could come in the morning at 8:30, ( I agreed to that because I was sick of calling people) and the other who said she could come in the afternoon.
Well Tuesday morning 8:30 rolls around and my patient still has not shown up, 8:35, I called my patient and there was NO answer! So, we all know what that means... She is not coming! So go to the resource list again and start calling people... Not having any luck, I text my husband, and tell him I have no patient, so him being the sweet guy that he is, leaves work and comes to be my patient. So it worked out. Its not over yet.... Then as I am walking my husband to check out, guess who is calling on my phone... Yep that's right, my afternoon pt calling to say she can't come in today! UGH! I was so mad! So luckily, my good friend Laken was stuck with me yesterday calling patients as well, and she had someone who really wanted to come in, so I called and asked him if he could come in on short notice and he said he could!! Whew! 
This patient had been to the clinic before, so I was looking at his chart and he had a "Fun" health history!! (just what I love ;)), So as I was all prepared for this patient, and going to bring him back, Mr. Salamon, informs me that I am going to be seeing his wife instead! Well, his wife has the same "fun" health history as her husband. Her unlike her husband was suffering from Alzheimer's. I have never had to work on someone suffering from this, so it was a new experience for me. Not only did she have Alzheimer's, she was diabetic, had heart arrhythmia's, and a few other conditions. It was really sad! So, when I went to take her blood glucose, she kind of got mad at me, because I exp. to her that we needed to do this because she was diabetic, but she told me she wasn't because she couldn't remember. Luckily her husband was back in the operatory with us otherwise we wouldn't of got anything accomplished. She was the nicest, and sweetest little old lady, but boy did she tell her husband what was up! Ha ha. I was getting a kick out of the two of them. 
She only had enough teeth for three quads, so one of her quads was a 5, and the other quads were 2s. I told my pt, she had the option to get numb, but she did not want too, and she really needed too! She was flinching when I was probing! So as I began to scale her teeth ( which were so decayed and breaking down) I didn't know what to scale, because a lot of it was decay, and she also had a lot of plaque, so it was hard to determine what I should be scaling. My patient was not very happy to be in my chair at all, so wanted to be done so her husband could take her to lunch. ha ha! I didn't know how to approach this, because I didn't want to scale anything I shouldn't... I had my instructor come over to help me and tell me what to scale, and she ended up telling me to just gently go around each tooth, to de-plaque.  It was hard (given this specific pt, and the condition of her mouth)! I was trying to go as fast as I could, and I was trying to be very gently because everything I did was hurting her (but she didn't want to be numb). She kept asking me it I was done, and I had to keep telling her it would be a few min longer, then she would get mad at me ha ha. 
It was a challenge that was for sure and it really tested my patience, but I turned out good and taught me a lot! I still have to scale one quad! So I will be seeing sweet MaryLoo another day!