Local Anesthesia

I remember being in school one day last year, and hearing news that the seniors were starting local anesthetic  that day. I remember thinking how scary that would be, and how glad I was that anesthesia would be a whole year away for me! Well... today that day came! I spent the better part of yesterday after school reading, studying, looking at pictures of nerves and their locations, and even prodding my poor husband with cotton application sticks! 

I came to school today with butterflies in my stomach, so nervous to poke poor Misty! Once I began, it was like all my studying clicked. I thought to myself "Aha! Maybe this is something I can do!" I loved it! The insertion points and angles were not nearly so hard to find as I thought they would be, and I felt like it went great for my first time! I was shaky because I was nervous, but now that I feel better about it I know I'll be more stable. I can't wait to start administering LA to my patients! 

No shows and progress

I called my first patient 15 min after her appointment had started, and she informed me that she wasn't coming. I called my back up pt and got her in the chair an hour and a half after clinic had begun (yikes!!!!) She was a class V, so I got to work! I busted my buns and got her finished and walked out on time! (woot!) and didn't get any errors!

My second pt was a harder 1B, and I had no errors on her either! I think my aha moment today was actually feeling good about everything! I felt really good about getting no errors, passing off a PE, and even staying calm losing an hour and a half of clinic time and still getting everything done! All in all, I love second year!!!

Facing fears

Today I faced my greatest fear practicing dental hygiene; treating a patient with HIV. In my mind, I was a little freaked out. I tried to go to all the alterations in treatment in my mind when I realized... there are none! We already treat each patient like they have everything, and if we follow the guidelines we have been taught, we are perfectly safe. I was only able to scale 1 quad because they had to go an hour early :( I missed 3 spots on that one quad because I wasn't adaptiing distally enough on the lingal maxillary posteriors, but such is the price of learning. 

My other patient was a class V and I finished him with no errors (hurray!)