Sore emily

Today was a LOOOOOOOOOOONG day. Holy moly. My first patient had 3 pages of health history for me to do. It took quite a while. She was really excited about this "smokeless cigarette" thing that she had. Apparently, she's been smoking since she was 18. She's now in her forties. She said she tried to quit but she gained 60 pounds so now she smokes "only because it helps her stay thin." She had recently discovered those "smokeless cigarette" things that I have seen advertised on television. There is no secondary smoke given off and she looooooves that she can smoke wherever she wants. She has different flavors of her smokeless cigarettes. (Today she brought pineapple and mint chocolate chip with her.) She continued to stop me during the appointment so that she could take puffs off of them. She was thrilled about how "they only contain nictotine so they aren't that bad for me!" Oh. My. Word. Professor Alexander handed me a card for a tobacco help line to give to her. She declined the card because she is convinced that because the smokeless cigarettes don't contain the formaldehyde and tar of a "regular" cigarette, she is golden. She also had a massive list of meds for me to look up. She was a class 3. (Finally, a class 3 at WSU!) but she had too deep of pockets and not enough calculus for a mockboard. I only got one quad done on her because of all of the stuff on her health history and probing took me a while. ("Is that a 6..... or a 7.....?????) yikes.

My second patient was a regular at the clinic. He's been coming for a long time. Dude has EXTREME staining. Jeez. I have decided that stain is the worst thing EVER. As much as I dislike the air/powder polisher, I should have used it. I spent 95% of the appointment scraping black and brown off of his teeth. He barely had any calculus, but the appointment was long because getting stain off is a tedious business. Jen Wold told me that she would rather see a patient with incredibly tenacious calculus than one with stain. I completely agree. I'm pretty sure I threw ergonomics out the window because I was so sick of trying to scrape off stain while also trying to pretend to be proficient with indirect vision. My indirect vision skills are seriously lacking.

Anywho, I'm glad today is over. Friday we give each other more injections! Eeeeep!

Peace out.