i need a new filing cabinet.

i think i'm picking up smidgens of the philly accent.
meanwhile my brain is no longer able to think fluently in any one language, instead it's just a mumbo jumbo of an incoherent 5 or 6 languages.
and unfortunately, sometimes it comes out like that when i'm speaking.

stride

yesterday C came to the clinic. we fixed her tooth. she told me she'll be getting surgery at the beginning of next month to remove her tonsils. we are in the habit of offering prayer, so we prayed for her surgery. i told her i would stop by where she works to get some pizza for lunch. a few hours later i went to get pizza. c was no longer there but the woman at the counter asked if i was the dentist across the street. looking at her skeptically, i responded, "yes?" then she told me that i didn't have to pay because c bought me lunch. awesome!

i think this really helps me care more about k&a and encourages me to invest here more. everyone talks about how it is such a rough neighbourhood, it's the ghetto, and it's really hard to be here.
it's rough. it's ghetto. (am i allowed to use this word now? everyone here uses it.) and sometimes it's hard to see the brokenness and chaos.
despite this, people still take care of one another. and i felt very cared for. there are only a few shops that i've been to on our block, but so far everyone's given me freebies. i know that people don't have much here (materially), so it means a little bit more.

anyway, this blog has a lot of crazy stories, but i'm glad the Lord is meanwhile constantly restoring my hope for humanity and faith in Him.

umm... err.... eh....

trying to pray better in spanish. the past few times, i'd stop after a couple sentences and say "oh forget it!" and then switch to english.
today i made it through an entire prayer with an occasional long pause followed by an english word. i'm glad my assistant and patient found it entertaining.

-_-

welcome to the [neighbour]hood

took a walk at lunch yesterday. our clinic is almost kiddie corner to a walgreens. right at that intersection (across the street from walgreens) was a man holding a prescription drug bottle, and he was counting pills and placing them into two women's hands.

WHICH IS EXACTLY WHY I'M NOT GOING TO WRITE A SCRIPT IF YOU ARE EVIDENTLY NOT IN PAIN!

as i sit and embrace my hot tea

nothing to do with philadelphia or kensington.
but i really like dunkin' donuts' tagline about their hot chocolate this season:
"BETTER THAN MITTENS!"

new tats

ok, if i tagged my blog posts, i would probably have the most posts about tattoos.

today Ike (name has been changed) came in for a filling. i asked how his weekend went, if he did anything interesting (like i ask everyone). his big news was that he got a new tattoo.
what kind of tattoo?
then he pulls up his entire shirt and there's a giant "Lucky" on his chest, which sadly looks like ballpoint pen. hope he goes in again for a touchup.
anyway, i guess latino men don't always have chest hair! (previously thought it was just the east asians).
normally i ask way too many follow-up questions. but this time i'm sorry i asked. i really didn't need to see his tattoo. i would have taken his word for it.

apparently i can't help myself though... and subsequently asked even MORE follow-up questions. what's lucky for?
that's his girlfriend's name.

but then i was confused.

coz later on he mentions that he has a wife.

and that's when i stopped asking follow-up questions.

maybe i should have. so that either a) i would no longer be confused. and/or b) he could confront his issues.

more entertainingly, he absolutely LOVED lidocaine 2% w/ 1:100,000 epi! (not novocain... which is no longer used in dentistry). no one likes injections. if someone says they like it, they're weird. Ike really is one-of-a-kind, though. after he felt the numbness he wanted more. he asked if he could get some for his girlfriend. and after we finished his filling, he exclaims, "this is dope s***!" most of our patients aren't comfortable using expletives like that in the clinic. Ike was evidently feeling very much at ease.

life would be sweeter if...

yesterday patient came in. saw his birth date on the chart and told him, "wow! you had a big birthday this year! 80 years!"
he smiled and replied with, "now is the dessert phase of my life!"


i love dessert.

life would be sweeter if we lived as if we knew time was short and today could be our last.

needle stick today. my first one ever!

i'm not shaken by the big things (fear that i might have contracted hepatitis from a patient w/ a history of hep c, or fear that i might even have contracted hiv since the pt's spouse has current hep c, making him/her high risk for hiv.)

no, disasters like that don't particularly scare me.

but it's frightening to see how my attitude turns so sour at the thought of having to file an incident report, having the inconvenience the patient with getting a blood test, and having to inconvenience myself with getting a blood test and what other paperwork.

whatever.

anyway, since i had to stay at work a little late waiting for my hiv test, i got to talk to my patient a little more. these complications only happen to the nice patients!

and then i got to observe a patient's family in the waiting room. the dad was looking slick, which is uncommon for this community. he looked like he had an 'important' job, that he was a career man. that's great. but, i saw how easily it can get to someone's head as well. once he entered the waiting room, he went straight to the mirror to check out his hair, like diva style.

the two little kids were reading this book called "the wiggles", which is one of the latest television crazes with kids these days. i've never seen the tv show, but it doesn't look that impressive.

reflection on last week

last week was utterly draining.

two of our medical patients died. i can't remember if i had seen one of them at the dental clinic, but the ripple effects of heaviness still affect me. one was a 35 year old woman, leaving behind a 10 yr old and 13 yr old. the other was a young boy, who was killed in a house fire as a result of someone smoking hash.

i've never heard of so many house fires until i've moved here.

when it rains it pours.

on top of that, two of my assistants had funerals to attend (family members). one was a 35 year old woman, unexpectedly had a heart attack. the other was an 18 year old who was shot to death.

bleak, i suppose.

but i love this psalm (20):

May the LORD answer you when you are in distress;
may the name of the God of Jacob protect you.
May he send you help from the sanctuary
and grant you support from Zion.
May he remember all your sacrifices
and accept your burnt offerings.
May he give you the desire of your heart
and make all your plans succeed.
We will shout for joy when you are victorious
and will lift up our banners in the name of our God.
May the LORD grant all your requests.
Now I know that the LORD saves his anointed;
he answers him from his holy heaven
with the saving power of his right hand.
Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.
They are brought to their knees and fall,
but we rise up and stand firm.
O LORD, save the king!
Answer us when we call!

yesterday a patient came in a wheelchair, both legs amputated below the knee. wasn't well kept. there was an obvious wet spot on his pants. and an even more obvious odor - reeking of urine. one of the assistants walked through the hallway, not even 15 feet away from the patient and yelled, "QUE ES ESO?!" ("WHAT IS THAT?!"), but then tapered off her voice when she realized it might be coming from a patient.

anyway, his teeth were hurting. our clinic is really cramped and very difficult to maneuver a wheelchair in there. i apologized saying, "sorry we don't have much space!" [then smiled... as in, it's gonna be tough, but we'll manage if we work together.]
then the patient snapped back with "this is terrible!"
i definitely didn't expect that kind of reaction.

calvin and i lifted him onto the dental chair. he was very lightweight (probably because legs are heavy), and/or calvin did most of the lifting. hehe.
everything went sort of normally. but the patient didn't humour my initial charm. so throughout the appointment as i was given attitude, my charm morphed into sass.

story of the legs is that the patient suffered a gunshot wound, was paralyzed below the waist, then ended up having frostbite in the legs, requiring amputation.

the smell didn't bother me that much, despite my entire team struggling to fight their gag reflex. while it was foul, it's at least an organic smell, rather than a toxic smell. and, because i was pre-warned, i put something on my nose that i shouldn't have (minor allergic reaction here) so that i could smell it inside my mask while working. i think everything, sorta went according to normal. the only thing that annoyed the hell out of me was that the smell was attracting fruit flies. geez, this is the city. there aren't supposed to be bugs!

anyway, today the flies were still there. and i'm happy to say that i killed one. hope they don't come back!

abuela's got a sense of humour

75 y.o. lady came today. the thing we always say is that we give patients sunglasses because we like to pretend that we're at the beach. so, she's got the shades on, we lean her back in the chair, turn on the light and she goes, "me falta un bikini!" (i'm missing a bikini.)

even though she looks GREAT (for 75), i'm glad she wasn't wearing a bikini.

sounds, then the story

last friday katie heard some gunshots from her office. she looked outside onto allegheny and G street. there was a shooting and people were running in opposite directions. eventually the cops came to barricade and investigate.

this afternoon "lia" brought 5 grandkids to the office with her. she always recruits her brother "cio" to watch them. these kids are a riot. we need an esperanza day care.
anyway, while working on "lia", i started hearing at least 3 kids wailing in unison. usually we only hear 1 at a time. these sounds went on for about 10 minutes.
later, yoly told us that the kids were not behaving so "cio" yanks out his belt and smacks them one by one. she and cathy didn't say anything to him because the kids were also driving them nuts. so they just looked down to their desks and remained silent. "cio" is always wearing a big belt too.

manic monday

first patient of the day thought i was mad at her for complaining that her teeth were sensitive.
we dug deeper and indeed found some insecurity issues.
her mom told her that she was 'fea' (ugly) her entire life. even though she is in her 40s or 50s now, she goes home and her mom still calls her ugly.
so now she really believes it. and it was very heart-breaking. monin shared some verses from psalm 139 with her.
digging even deeper, we learned that she was an only child and her mom raised her as a single parent. so perhaps there was some hurt there, maybe the daughter reminded her of the father who did not treat the mom well, and it came out as resentment toward the face of someone who resembled the dad. who knows.
finally i finished my dental work... an expensive 90 minutes of chair time later... and then we prayed for her before she left.
i wish my dental work was prettier. alas, i am a first-year dentist.
anyway, the hope is that she can be freed from these lies, that she would find her worth in Christ.

this is sad, but i'm starting to sometimes not hear the difference between B and V.

thank you. and thank you for reducing me to my appearance. you are about a 4.

something in philly that makes people think that they can express themselves verbally without any filters as much as they like.
maybe it's the liberty bell and constitution center and independence hall that make people super excited about free speech?

so, loitering men have this habit of saying "beautiful!" or "sexy!"

on my way to work this morning, i was thinking of comebacks. i have some pretty good ones. but every time opportunity presents, the reflex is to squint my eyes, glare, then walk away. hmmph!

september was not a good month for blogging.
october will be better!

something that made me laugh out loud this week was when jose came to get his fillings done, afterwards, he blurted, "I LOVE COMING HERE! I LOVE IT EVEN MORE THAN GOIN TO THE CLUB!"
i laughed maybe even a little too loudly.
because he's probably not kidding, since he doesn't have a filter on what he says, but at the same time it's a little awkward, since his perception of reality is a little different from the majority while he's still recovering from a stroke and dealing with short-term memory loss. as a result, i think it's difficult for him to perform higher thinking or deeper conversations.
the first visit his mom had told me that he had fathered 4 children pre-stroke.
last time he told me he thinks he has three kids. as for the 4th one, he wants to go on maury to do a paternity test.
sadly, i'm not fazed if he actually thinks maury is the first-line method of obtaining paternity tests. welcome to america.