Category Archives: Dental

Today seemed to be a journey from one misadventure to another.  

We arrived at the hospital after stopping at Tim’s for coffee on the way – not a winning cup among them.  

Thankfully, we decided to check out the dental unit before putting the patient in the room.  Maybe there was some value in having the slowest anaesthetist in the place this morning.  The dental unit is attached to an oxygen tank that runs at 1700 psi through a valve that brings it down to 80 psi or so.  The valve blew.  That is a mighty big puff of air!  

Forty five minutes later, maintenance had the problem solved and as well promised to repair the other stand-by unit.  

All the kids ended up being bigger cases than we anticipated.  That is sort of par for the course.  A lot can change in the year or so that it takes us to get someone in to the OR for dental work.  

And then our anaesthetist, being on call, ran off to maternity to give some labouring woman an epidural – another 30 minute wait.  

Last case – in the middle, we blew an air line somewhere in the unit.  Thank God we had that stand-by unit ready to go.

Today we were not running to meet a deadline in the OR.  But, we had patients booked at the office at 1:30.  We made it back there by 2:30.

At 2:30, I had to deal with a patient who brought in a denture (hers, I guess) that some denturist had made upon her request.  She figured it was time for herself to have a complete upper denture.  She wanted me to take out all 11 of her upper teeth and fit that denture for her.  I asked if anyone had checked her teeth before she made this decision – No.  I suggested she think it over and perhaps come in for a check–up so we could see if she actually had any teeth that needed to be extracted.  

I am afraid I sent her home thinking I am totally unreasonable.  

And now to top off an mis – eventful day, I just burnt the pizza.

Over the past year or so, I have been collecting dental supplies to send out to the dental clinic at Karawa Hospital.  I even had a donation of dental extraction forceps from my dental supply company (Henry Schein Ash Arcona) through the guy we deal with all the time and his boss.  Shipping things out to the Congo is no easy matter.  It is risky to ship by any means and very expensive.  So getting connected with an old time Congoite ex-missionary (if one can be called an ex-missionary and still be so involved in missions) was an answer to prayer.  Shelon is Canadian, no less, works with Health Partners International and so that simplifies the whole shipping process.  He has found that the easiest and least expensive way to get valuable supplies out there is to make a trip out himself and hand deliver the stuff.  He takes little baggage of his own and ships many trunks as excess accompanied baggage.  So those time dated medications don’t outdate and he knows they get there. 

He made a trip out in Jan.  he is back and sent me this picture.

Songo, one of the men I trained, has received the trunk I sent. 

A picture is really worth a thousand words.

Sheldon plans another trip in May.  This time I can send some materials that I couldn’t send in winter for fear of them freezing.  Must buy another trunk.  Must order local anesthetic and some filling supplies. 

Anyone want to help, contact me.

We always have a couple of parties at Christmas.  There is the sort of formal invite your spouse party that we have catered. 

This year that one happened back on the 9th.  We ate a great meal drank a fair amount of good stuff and then went glow bowling, where some of our illustrious staff members drank a little more good stuff.  The bowling seemed to deteriorate as we went along – scores that is.  The games did get funnier.

Tonight we had our wind-up staff party. 

Some of our staff did get wound- up.  We had a talent contest, of sorts.  I got a lovely shot of W. V. in a Sumo wrestling suit.  I may post pictures or maybe I will just keep them for blackmail later on.  If I post them I can never tell you her real name.  I just may post them!

We had a fun time – much laughter and lots of pizza.  Did the Chinese gift exchange thing.  I wonder how it came to be labeled as chinese?

Now here I am in Saskatoon.  Patrick has some surgery – a hernia repair tomorrow.  I will just be a mom anxiously waiting for him to come of of the anesthetic.  Prayers are always welcome.  And thanks.

Today half the scheduled patients did not come.  In their places we fit in all sorts of the kind of emergency that happens just the week before Christmas – the teeth that have broken unexpectedly both front and back, crowns that come off at strategic moments, last minute finishing up things before insurance runs out at the end of the year, that sort of thing. 

One patient ended up in the ditch and was waiting for the tow truck as they called.  Can’t really blame them for not showing up. 

The lengths people will go to to avoid us!

It was just sort of a weird kind of day where nothing went according to schedule. 

Hodgepodge – that sort of describes my day.  (and I think it is a cool word)

The day started out with a little tiny girl having her first fillings done.  What a trooper.  She was only three.  She wiggled a bit but we managed to send her out with a beautiful pink filling to match her pink pants, t-shirt and shoes.

Then a challenge.  A root had broken for the therapist and in the process there was a little opening into the sinus.  My time in Africa sure pays off.  I learned to deal with such things myself when they happened.  So a flap, some gentle elevation and once the little root tip was out, the area stitched up tight.  He was warned not to sneeze or blow his nose for the next week.  He had one simple little request – please not to prescribe an antibiotic that would interfere with him taking in a little Christmas spirits.  I said Ok as long as he did not fall too deeply under the influence and sneeze. 

Then a difficult and long root canal on a young lady who had the misfortune to have a molar with defective enamel – all brown and soft.  That and the fact that she missed her yearly check-up last year and voila – an abscessed tooth.  Christmas will be more fun without an aching tooth.

And to wind it all up – another little one – just as well  behaved as the first.

This morning I was thinking over my day, both the day yesterday and the day to come, today.  

Yesterday I had one of my favourite patients come in for his “annual” check-up.  He is a nursing student.  I don’t designate him as one of my favourite patients because he has perfect teeth or no bad habits or perfect hygiene.  He is a favourite because he makes us feel good when he comes in.  He has a crazy, whacky and wonderful sense of humour.  He makes us laugh and we have a good time when he comes in.  We will therefore go out of our way to provide him the best treatment we can offer.  It is a pleasure to do it.  He was the last patient and so he left us all feeling like we had a good day.

Today, I am seeing a much less favoured patient.  The patient is fine but his mother….  She questions my proposed treatment, seeks second opinions on things that are really pretty standard treatment.  She then wants us to follow up immediately on the opinion she has gotten elsewhere as if the delay in her child receiving treatment is the most critical delay in the world.  She questions the costs.  She argues with the reception staff.  She coddles her child, again questioning anything that is less than pleasant for him.  It is not a pleasure to see her.  Not for myself.  Not for the reception staff.  Not for my assisting staff.  

There is no humour, nothing pleasant to anticipate at all.

She will provide the finishing touches to my day.  I imagine she will be on my mind all day.  Part of my job will be to confront her with the way she accepts treatment and how she treats the staff she deals with.  The treatment proposed is simple stuff. 

OH JOY! 

NOT.

Update – Divine intervention?

The child’s father came in. 

Today was one of those days – spent in a classroom of sorts.  I guess you can call the Top of  the Inn a classroom.  We certainly had nice views but we were busy taking these kind of pictures:

and

and

We learned how to operate our cameras – changing settings to take better close ups and portraits.  And we did a bunch of those kind of shots too – just I’m not sure how happy the subjects would be to see their pictures up on the internet. So all you get is me!

I am excited about learning how to take the pictures of the x-rays.  We always have trouble losing x-rays we send away to the insurance companies so this new skill will be useful.  I learned, too, that I have a really good camera for this type of photo – the favorite of this group of experts.  They should know – the clinical photography dept of the U of Toronto. 

It really was a great course.  Now maybe we just need to get that thinning feature that rumors claim one camera claims to have.  Oh, the instructor did give us some tips for that too. 

Listening to the laughter.  It sounds good.  We had a hard and stressful morning working on kids sedated just enough to get the work done.  Lots of crying today. 

Now there is laughter.

The poor service guy.  What he doesn’t know I guess won’t hurt him.  He came to service the office today.  He was good looking, he was. 

Then he asked about the length of hoses we wanted.  He asked about the guy who “usually services the office.”

In the lunch room we now have laughter.  He has no idea of the service he did for the office. 

And if you are thinking sexual inuendos – you have a mind like a dental assistant!

So if your dental insurance is running out in less than two weeks and you haven’t been to the dentist for years while you had good dental insurance, whose fault is it when we can’t get you in so that you can get all seven fillings and two hours of cleaning and maybe a root canal and a crown or two done in those two weeks? 

People have no qualms about putting the pressure on us. 

Mostly they are fearful people but — how do we be gentle and patient under the circumstances?  Getting that much dental work done in less than two weeks is going to hurt…if we can even do it;  which I doubt.

I enjoy having a summer dental student around.  There are a couple of reasons for this.  For one, it makes me realize how much I have learned over the years.  Secondly, I am reminded of how necessary it is to stay up to date with techniques and treatments.

Often the student will come up with an x-ray, pointing out some pathology that I would have quickly passed over as just a variant of normal.  It is easy to do that when I am busy.  Having a student pick up some of these little things is good.  It keeps me on my toes and reminds me of the importance of taking note of the little things. 

Some things seem so easy now that I would have needed help with when I started out for sure.  I still remember old Dr. Singer helping me with an extraction in the first few months after I graduated.  I felt a bit bad about it then.  He was nearly 80 and I had less strength than him – let alone less ease with the technique!  It takes time to develop a feel for the way a tooth moves under pressure.  

Then there is the pleasure of teaching.  It is fun to see each student learn some practical stuff while in our office.  They get more familiar with techniques, learn to interact with patients in different ways than at school, they gain confidence.

One day, my kids remarked that I had a pretty good set of pipes!  I replied that they must be kidding.  But I guess my work keeps my right arm in fairly good form.  Now if the rest of the body would stay so trim!