We Left The VA Before 3 PM!!!!

Oh, today was such a wonderful day!  I had two patients in the morning and none in the afternoon.  I had 4 quads of a class V, a pano, BWX, 2 PAs, passed off the subgingival irrigation PE, and placed Arestin.  On top of everything I have hooked my 4 VA buddies on crocheting.  I spent part of our lunch teaching them how to crochet.  What a wonderful hobby I have them "hooked" on.  Do you get it?  Hooked?  Crochet hook.  Oh, never mind!  Lame attempt at being funny.  I had a terrible headache after lunch, so I was more than happy to not have a patient in the afternoon.  My four friends did a great job of getting finished with their patients super early.  So, I just played the role of clinical assistant in the afternoon and got everyone's rooms cleaned so that we could go home.  We were out of there before 3 pm and home by 3:35!  Now this day has set the standard of what we are going to shoot for every VA day.  Our group also has only 2 VA days left!  You bet I am counting down!  I can't wait to not have to leave at 6:45 in the morning to be down there by 7:30.  I will never work in an office in SLC.  I love the convenience of working close to home.  Let's just hope one of the dentists by me is hiring in May.  Something I learned from today was that I need to take advantage of my air.  I have gotten out of the habit of using my air to check for supragingival calculus.  I missed one tiny spot on the straight lingual of 25.  I must remember to do that especially with boards coming up in about 2 weeks!  YIKES!

An Interesting Week

This week started out a little bizarre.  Early Sunday morning I had a grand mal seizure that landed me in the ER for about 4 hours.  I got a new cell phone on Saturday and obviously spent too much time playing it through out the day.  Just second after turning off the light at 12:15 Sunday morning I went into my seizure.  I have been fine since except for my short term memory.  I still had to take the Process of Care exam on Tuesday.  I was ever so grateful that I had already taken the national board.  I don't think I remember anything that I studied for that exam.  When I entered the testing center on Tuesday, I put my license in my right back pocket of my jeans.  When I left the testing center I don't remember what I did with my license.  It may have fallen out of my pocket for all I know.  But it is officially gone.  I called the testing center and they don't have it.  I didn't even realize it was gone until the next day buying tickets to a movie.  So, I will be going to the DLD tomorrow to get a new drivers license.

This week was also our third and final mock board.  I was a little nervous because it has been more than a week since I have scaled and I had a seizure during that time.  I just prayed that I remembered what I was doing.  I was unable to confirm my patient.  She is a Midtown patient and speaks mostly Spanish.  I left her a message, but she never returned my call.  Thank heaven she was in the afternoon, because that gave me the opportunity to talk to Midtown and she had been in the day before and remembered that she was coming in to see me.  WaHoo!

She showed up and I was able to convince her to let me get her numb.  I was so thankful!  She was wonderful to work on.  I felt like things were going really well.  Then I hear Michelle, right across from me say, "I am going to let you have a little break and then I will check again."  Perfect!  I will do the same.  I scaled a little longer, then allowed my fingers to have a break.  When I got back in her mouth, I found a huge chunk of calculus that I hadn't felt before.  I was so glad for Michelle's reminder to let my hands have a break.  I would have missed an area otherwise.  I had a very good mockboard experience.  I only missed one probe depth.  It made me realize that I need to make sure my angulation on my probe isn't too shallow, which can lead to a false reading.  I will do better next time.  But I got a 98.75%!  Can't complain about that!

Also, Mr. Salomon finally got a hold of my board patient.  He scheduled her for next Thursday so that I can clean the right half of her mouth.  I already had a patient scheduled there, but this woman is my priority until after boards.  I only have two clinic days before board week, and I want to see her so that I can confirm my Board time with her and get her permission ahead of time to get her numb.  Here's to hoping that I pass my local anesthesia board so that I can get her numb!

Oh How I Hope Brooke is Right

Thank you for your kind words, Brooke!  I really needed that.  Right now I feel so inadequate and afraid that I am not going to do well.  I keep wondering if it possible for someone who has as much training as me to fail every single board exam!  I have to keep those thoughts out of my head.  I have got to stay positive.  I do hope that my brain will be able to select the most accurate answer.  I have this constant pit in my stomach and I feel like I want to cry all the time.  I just can't wait for it to be over.  It will be such a relief to know that I have one more down and only 3 to go.  I know that we all are going to amazing!  We are amazing people and we work with the best, so how could we not pass, right?  I have prepared my whole life for this!  Let's get this bad boy over with.  I am not studying any more for the National Board.  I know that nothing will stick at this point any way!  So, why waste my time?  I am going to have a nice evening.  The boys are sleeping over at their cousins house.  I am going to do something I haven't done in a long time.  Lay back and enjoy a movie!  Pass the popcorn, please!