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!