On Tuesday, April 9, I was able to watched a man receive a regular cleaning and a tooth extraction. I was really excited because like I mentioned in my previous posts, the most I saw was a bunch of tooth cleanings. The man was getting his third molar out, which is really just a wisdom tooth. After the cleaning and before the procedure, he was giving me advice about how I should get my wisdom teeth pulled out as soon as possible because he said it's much harder once you're older. Anyways, during the procedure, Dr. Yamat and her assistant kept giving him anesthesia because he kept tensing up and they needed to make sure that his blood pressure didn't get too high enough or it will lead to major consequences. She would also have to take breaks because his blood pressure would get too high. Dr. Yamat was also having a hard time trying to pull out the tooth. She mentioned how she was able to pull out the other two molars easier before. Because of this, she said that she had to split the tooth. I wasn't able to ask her about the tools she was using because first, I didn't want to break her concentration and second, she went off to work on another patient right after. Anyways, the tools she was using looked like a bunch of screwdrivers. She would use to to dig into the gums while her assistant would use the "sucker" to suck out the blood. There were times where I couldn't even look because it looked very painful. It felt as if I could feel the pain too! When she finally pulled it out, the tooth was really small. It was much smaller than I expected. After the procedure, they gave him an ice pack and told him to rest. I didn't want to talk to him because I feel like it would just hurt him. Overall, as disgusting as the procedure was, I thought it was really interesting. I cringed most of the time but I was very interested. I couldn't wait to see something cool like that next time.
On Friday, April 12, I went into the office again hoping that I would witness something just as cool as I did on Tuesday. Unfortunately, they said that there isn't much going on when I got there so I just watched a patient receive a regular cleaning. Dr. Yamat's assistant kept telling the patient that she needed to brush and floss more because her gums kept bleeding. To be honest, that advice is something I really kept at heart. Watching the patient helped me remember of my old habits. I used to hate flossing, especially when I had braces. But because my dentist would tell me that my gums would always bleed, I started to take her advice more seriously not only because it would improve my oral health, but because she would tell me that in front of other patients and it was just really embarrassing.
I really do this this whole experience got a lot more interesting than I expected. I really do hope to see a little bit more before my time is up.
Tuesday, April 9: 3.5 hours
Friday, April 12: 1.5 hours
Total: 5 hours
Running total: 17 hours
No comments:
Post a Comment