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.