me: what's your name?
2 yr old patient: me
mom: no, it's not!
2 yr old: me
mom: your name is leo!

when it was mom's turn to have xrays taken, it was my turn to be a babysitter. we meet all people's needs here, including child care. :p
i went to school for 8 years so i could babysit. haha.
so, i had leo on my lap while i was sitting at the computer doing some notes, in order for taina to take xrays on mom in the exam room. leo has tendency to run away to any and every room.

upon first glance i expected leo to be easily picked up and i could just plop him on my lap. but seriously, this kid was prolly 40 lbs. or maybe i haven't had to pick up toddlers in a while. or maybe i got used to picking up malnourished children who don't weigh enough.

anyway, mom must have really strong arms. eeks.

2 yr old today. we needed mom, one assistant, one nurse from across the hall to hold him down while i brushed and checked his teeth. nothing that he was saying was very understandable, but there was one moment when he yelled, "THAT'S ENOUGH!"
i wasn't aware of this at the time, but he was straining himself so hard to fight us that he kept farting on his mom's lap.
finally at the end, he seemed to enjoy the fluoride (which barely any kids do) and was smacking his lips.

of course it's sad that we had to put him in such an uncomfortable circumstance, and that he was so fearful and nearly "suffering".
but.
it was pretty hilarious and we all had a pretty good laugh.

bad mood monday morning!

clinical fail: kinda in a rush and the 5 yr old E was tired, so he totally freaked when i started giving an injection. i couldn't continue because he was flailing. on any other day i would have fought him a little longer with his mother's help. but bad mood monday morning caused me to quit early and refer him to a pediatric specialist right away, so that i wouldn't have to fight him anymore.
so he was happy. but prolly going to turn into a spoiled brat.
then as he sat in the corner waiting for his mom to finish her cleaning, monin gave him a cookie.
i was a little annoyed because the kid's got a bunch of cavities. but she, in her grandmother's heart, couldn't deny the boy.

anyway, on a brighter note, the afternoon was much more chill and i was in a better mood after rocking the christmas music a while longer.

last week i spent some time coming up with a list of things that i'm thankful for at esperanza, since today i finished my 1st year of working at ehc. hooray. so i mass messaged it to my coworkers. i'm glad i wrote it in advance, because i wouldn't have had the heart to write it today and it would have been a list of complaints. anyway, by the end of the day i got a dozen encouraging responses. so went from not feeling supported at all and feeling discouraged, to feeling supported and encouraged.

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subject: feliz one-year... to me!

hola!

i survived EHC one year today! praise God! haha. just wanted to thank todos from the bottom de mi corazon for their support during my transition into the workplace and to philly (the REAL WORLD).

recently i've been trying to carve out time to internally process the year, in order to best come up with goals/personal mission/vision for next year. my reflections are below if you're interested. (no offense taken if you're not! it's muy largo!)

some things i'm thankful for at EHC:

-snow days
-holidays
-vacations
-lunch time
-bathroom breaks
-timely paycheque

jajaja, now onto the real things...

-morning devotions
-prayer groups
-retreat pow-wows
-supervisors who pray for me
-digital imaging, paperless charts
-the 6th floor view of philly from k&a, that makes philly seem so serene
-health insurance that i still don't fully understand how to use
-co-dentist who bails me out and covers my clinical fails without telling me i failed
-assistants and staff who translate the culture and language for me, especially when i am unaware that a patient is asking me out to dinner while i'm trying to educate him about cavities.
-lots of grace given by all during my 1st year in practice
-all the kids who make me laugh every day
-all the kids who scream and misbehave and make me content that i'm not in a season of life to have kids right now
-working with an islander immigrant population (because i'm a second generation islander immigrant)
-being able to witness God's work and redemption in the patients' and coworkers' lives
-moments to share God's work and redemption in my own life with others
-patients who bring me food
-coworkers who bring me food
-shop owners on kensington avenue who give me food
-the opportunity to re-examine and refine my values, namely financial values, family values, and educational values. to not assume that they are always better, just because they might seem more 'successful' according to the world's standards. but to really seek the Lord and the word to determine whether they are right and bibilical, and to adjust/align accordingly.
-a very unique cross-cultural learning experience. i was raised in a racially and socio-economically mixed small border city in a very relaxed and socialist-leaning canada. since then i've had to adapt to living in an ambitious, progressive u.s. college town, southern rural france, urban japan, simplistic sweltering tropical pacific islands, a bush-bush village in west africa, and a quaint colonial town in guatemala. north philadelphia has been just as, if not more eye-opening in terms of seeing the extreme diversity of humanity (people doing/having done things that i would have never imagined to exist/been done before. reaallly?...)
-decompartmentalization/integration of my spiritual/physical life - i can't not talk about faith with non-believer friends, because it's foundational to our daily work/career.
-God's protection in a neighbourhood with statistically higher crime. my most hazardous experience in the 19134 so far is that a bird pooped on my face. i hate birds!

during college i had a period of doubt where i thought maybe i wouldn't be able to pursue dentistry because i would have a hard time hurting other people, for instance, giving a child an injection and making them cry. herman told me that i just have to think of it as helping them in the long run.

anyway, i've given lots of shots already, and will maybe have to give lots more over the next 30 years depending on what i gotta do the rest of my life.
it's still really hard.

as mentioned before, perhaps everyone is depressed during the holidays (21 year old jumped in front of the septa train 2 weeks ago in west philly). since thanksgiving, all the patients have seemed a lot more needy/high maintenance, with more need to vent.

derr..

anyway, i'm always glad to see the cute kids. i feel bad i gotta poke them. but 4 year old W had crazy cavities. on top of that, she wears a pacifier around her neck. hopefully the kids in kindergarten will make fun of her next year so that she'll be motivated to stop using it. (her top front teeth are flared out from the pacifier, so she will have a hard time biting into sandwiches or pizza or salad in the future). it would be sad, but funny, but sad if she turned out to be the popular kid in kindergarten, and then all the other kids started wearing bobos too. coz, kids are like that, wanting things that other kids have.

yesterday 8 year old M came in to extract two baby molars. sad. i love pudgy meaty cheeks! what a beautiful boy. besides all the sugar bugs in his mouth. anyway, we always tell the patients 'you will feel a lot of pushing and pulling, but if there's anything that feels like it hurts or is sharp, then raise your right hand, and we'll give you some more sleepy spray on your tooth.'
i thought he was pretty numb, but right when i put the forcep on the tooth, his right arm shot up and hit taina in the face. i looked up and her goggles were totally crooked. i felt bad for scaring M, but we couldn't help but laugh coz he was so obedient, very literally, and taina took a sec to figure out what hit her.
i think he was really scared through the whole thing, but he was really brave and tough. as soon as he knew we were done removing the 2nd tooth, he shot up like a zombie, and opened his mouth really big in attempt to see what was going on in his mouth in his reflection in the WINDOW. it was SO FUNNY.

not sure what to think about parents who call their little kids "sexy!"

we give all the patients sunglasses to protect their eyes from any flying things but also the bright chair light. it's something most kids find amusing. we show them what they look like in the mirror and they smile/giggle/laugh. then we make some comment like, "oooh! rockstar!" and sometimes the parents will say stuff like, "terminator!" and then take pictures of "junior's first visit to the dentist" on their camera phones.

and then every now and then a mom will be like, "so sexy!" but she's talking to her 4 year old. and i'm sure comments like that plant some type of seeds that develop a certain type of ethos that maybe isn't as affirming/validating/constructive as a mother would like. but who knows.

friday one mom saw her baby wearing shades in the dental chair and goes, "oh, you fancy, huh?!" and i totally wanted to sing the song. but that's not completely professional. so instead i remarked a very conservative, "i love that song!"

interesting things that people fill out on their dental history forms.

why are you here today? normally we expect something like
"para chequear los dientes/to check my teeth"
"tengo dolor de diente/have a toothache"
"limpieza/cleaning"

every now and then, people take that question a little more literally. more than i would expect i see answers like,
"para tengo cita/because i have an appointment"

duh.

today something made me a little sad. one patient wrote
"i be blooding"

and she really meant to write "i be bleeding"

not "i'm bleeding [in my gums]"

anyway, it's pretty impressive to me that "to be" is poorly conjugated in this population.
english is pretty hard, grammatically.
but i feel like enough people watch enough t.v. where we should be able to pick up on some standard language mechanics.

i showed calvin, and he became very blue, responding with, "what?! it's one thing to speak like that, coz maybe that's cool, but it's just sad when it penetrates into writing."

sigh.
i dunno.

the all day christmas music is awesome. everyone is giddy and we are hyper about keeping a tally on most played songs, and being very critical about the poor quality/cheapness of some of the remixes and newer songs with less meaningful lyrics.

funniest thing of the day when checking E's filling, i always say "bite down and grind a little bit, kinda like you're angry". she bit down on the paper and instead of moving the jaw back and forth, she shook her head and ripped the paper apart. my eyes got really big. then she confessed, "sorry, i have a pit bull as well as a 2-year old at home. that's what they do when they're angry." she kinda thought it was like a game to rip apart the paper with her teeth.

sheesh!

--
aside. we're all being pushed to the limits this month as patients are more high maintenance (more depressed during the holidays?) and things are winding down for the end of the year. nothing like the refining fire.