I haven't had too many crazy things happen to me yet in clinic. I did have a "screamer" in Oral Surgery one day. The lady was in pain when she came in, and that got her all worked up so when it was time to work on her she was taking ever little thing and making it seem like it was the end of the world. Just all sorts of drama. But I got her all numb and on Nitrous to try and settle her down, but she was still being a baby about everything. Any little push or pull on her tooth elicited screams, but when I would ask her if it hurt she would say no, and that she just felt pressure. (For those who have never had a tooth pulled, the local anesthetic that we use takes away the perception of pain, but not the perception of pressure. So when extracting a tooth, the pressure from the pushing and pulling to loosen the tooth can still be felt, but not pain. However some patients will still link this with what they think is pain.) Anyway, it got to the point where I had to give the lady 2 options:
1 - Be brave and give me another minute of uninterrupted working time to get the tooth out. (It was loose by this point)
2 - We call it a day and she goes home with the tooth still in her head.
I though for sure she was going to call it, but she decided she was going to try and be brave and let me get to it. I told her to let me know when she was ready and I would begin again. She took several second to psych herself up, all the while asking me if I was ready as well. Finally she gave me the green light, and 30 seconds later the tooth was out. At this point the patient breaks down in to a crying blubbery mess because the whole ordeal is finally over while simultaneously apologizing to me for her behavior and telling me I did a good job, followed up by a round of profuse thank yous.
Quite the ordeal, but I was proud of my self that I was able to stay calm, keep some control on the situation and ultimately get the tooth out so the patient would be in less pain. But man it was a crazy time with that lady.
If any other crazy clinic stories come up I will try and share them on here before I forget them.
In other crazy news, Ashley and I are going to be parents...of TWINS! Yep, yeah read it right we are skipping right over "parents of one" and going for "parents of two", or as we jokingly call it "Man on Man coverage". Here are our most recent ultrasounds.
We won't know the genders until Jan when Ash is up to 20 weeks (she is 15 weeks right now). Just for fun we went over to Babies R Us to look at a few things. We got down the twin stroller that we like from the display and loaded up the 2 display baby carriers on it. I didn't think to take a picture, but it was pretty much like trying to maneuver an 18-wheeler. We also looked at cribs and all that other fun stuff, but until we know if we are having boys or girls or one of each we aren't going to be buying anything. Still, it was fun to start thinking about it more and looking at how our lives are going to change. It is going to be pretty crazy!
Anyway, I am going to end here. Look for another Schapper Babies update in January.
