Monday, March 8, 2010

I am so exhausted. It's about 11 pm and I still have to shower. Today we had to be at the dental clinic at 7 am, so it was an early morning. We had oatmeal and cereal for breakfast. When we got to the work site, patients were already lined up.


Here is a video of our clinic while we were working:



Throughout the entire day I saw about 5 or 6 patients. For the most part the ultrasonic didn't work so I handscaled. My patients weren't very difficult. Most had hardly any calculus. There was one tooth on my last patient that had level 3 calculus and I enjoyed getting it off. There were a few things that surprised me today: occlusal calculus on a few patients and "good" oral hygiene. Most of my patients said they brushed twice a day and they didn't have that much calculus. Most patients don't floss daily and one of them had never flossed. I enjoyed bonding with my patients and some were very appreciative even when they waited all day.




In the afternoon, the neighbors slaughtered some pigs, so you could hear the squealing even with all the drills. Ashley and I watched.



We had a half an hour lunch, so I felt rushed. Kathleen and some Guyanese women made snapper (fish), potatoes, pumpkin, Roti (bread), green beans, and pineapple. It was so yummy.



We worked and worked and worked in clinic, but the line never seemed to get shorter. I was part of the late group to come back, so we left at 10:20 pm. I had to eat dinner and shower still. I have a headache, not a terrible one, but it won't go away. We worked for about 15 hours today.