Breakfast: eggs and toast- I tried guava jam with my peanut butter toast. I liked it even though I didn't like the guava that I tried the other day.
Clinic: I had a few patients in the afternoon. I was in a pretty good mood.
I assisted Dr. Jim for a while, and it was pretty cool. We started off with a patient I had earlier that day who had a huge cavity his front tooth (#10). Nori, Dr. Jim, and I put a composite on it. I had such a satisfied feeling when I saw the end product. He went from having a huge black cavity to a normal looking smile. It made me want to be a dentist.
I was nervous to assist because I had never done it before, so I didn't know exactly how he wanted things, but I still did a good job.
Before:
After:
Lunch: chicken, curry, rice, and flat bread. I didn't like it as well as other meals, so I had a granola bar and Cheez-Its.
Clinic: It felt so wonderful knowing we were almost done and helped so many people. A few of my patients told me how grateful they were and I even got a hug :)
Towards the end of the evening, there were too many people, so we had to tell them to go. I went around with Andy to pass out toothbrushes and toothpaste. No one gave a hard time or begged us to make an exception. One lady's eyes welled up, which got to me. It made me wish I could have worked faster on easy patients so I could have reached more people. We helped so many people though that it was still rewarding. One lady (20 years old) sat down with me and told me how grateful she was for us. She knows that the dentist in Guyana aren't very good. Her and her brother drove a few hours to come. It made my day because of the simple encouragement.
Towards the end of clinic we were all busting our butts. We wanted to spend about a half an hour on each patient to get as many in as possible. Some of them were a bit longer, but we picked up the pace a lot. Calculus chunks were popping off everywhere. One landed in my hair- disgusting! Katie had the biggest chunk I have ever seen. She said it flung on the floor and made a ping noise.
This isn't the most calculus I saw down there, but it's a common example of what to expect:
We got all cleaned up and ready to go. Ashley and I went to the bathroom, but there aren't any lights, so we brought a headlight. There was a rumor that there were frogs in the toilet that jump out when you flushed, but we didn't see one all week. But this time, we finally saw one on the wall. It was a small tree frog.
Leave the clinic: 10:30 pm. A later group came back around midnight. While we were waiting, we talked, ate dinner, and showered. Dinner was a bunch of leftovers, so I had shepherd's pie again.
One of my favorite parts of the day is coming home to share stories about the day. The girls make me laugh so hard.
When Jeanna was in the shower, she saw a huge spider, so she got done and called people in there. It was honestly the size of a small plate for coffee. Everyone was screaming. We were all trying to calm down in the living room and about 10 minutes later, saw a big cockroach scurrying across the floor. We were screaming again and jumping on couches, even the little boy Reuben.
We watched another NOOMA video and got to bed at about 1 am.
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