Just a funny little story from my visit to the dentist yesterday. It was supposed to be an easy appointment to put in a new permanent crown. There was a cavity under an old crown so my dentist removed it, drilled away the cavity (and more tooth), then put a temporary crown on about two weeks ago. However, I was in the dental office for about an hour instead of the 15 minutes I was expecting.
So most of the time was spent trying to get a x-ray of the tooth with the new crown before applying the cement. I was let to the dental chair by an assistant that I have never met, and I most definitely have met them all. She felt like a new employee. No matter, I just getting a crown put in, and the dentist ended up doing it anyway.
The first, second, and third x-ray she took did not seem to work. She thought that the sensor was not attached to the computer, but it was wired and connected. She got one of the front desk people to help, and they pointed out that she did not put the lead shielding vest on me. I am not planning to have kids at the moment, but still. The front desk person was also unable to get the x-ray to work, so to save time, we moved to another chair with a much older x-ray machine. We tried again, but still nothing, which was super weird. Finally, the new assistant got the dentist to take a look. My dentist went to the same school and program as me, and spent a lot of time as an electrical engineer. He fiddled with the equipment a bit, and then pointed out to the new assistant that the sensor/detector was put in the bracket backwards. It is like looking at the back of a LCD monitor and wondering why there is no image. By now, 30 minutes have passed.
Anyway, we go back to the original dental chair, and she took several perfect x-rays of my tooth. Afterwards, the dentist came by and cemented the tooth, and all was fine. It was confirmed that she was a new employee since he was basically training her how to pass the crown to him while maintaining spatial orientation, and how to mix and apply the dental cement. She was a lot less talkative after the x-ray fiasco, and looked a bit sad, though it was hard to tell behind her mask.
I thanked her when I left the office, but wondered if I should have said something more encouraging? I remember my first day at various jobs and it was nerve-wracking for sure. It is not even that bad for me since being in finance, there is just a computer, not live patients. My dentist is super nice and chill, so this will probably end up being a good learning experience for her.
Life with chronic diseases 