Phobia

Phobia. . . what is a phobia anyway. According to dictionary.com a phobia is "a persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, activity, or situation that leads to a compelling desire to avoid it." This last week was an interesting one at best full of what some might call phobias.

First of all I turned 24 which is an age I never thought I would actually be and made me think of all the things I thought that I would have done by this age (definitely something to reflect on later). 24. . . Freaky deaky!

Second I found a board patient for my clinical board exam in April (such a relief and she is PERFECT). I won't even try to explain what you look for in a board patient because no one will know what I'm talking about. You have to spend hours upon hours in a dental office doing calculus detection to understand. In this case a phobia overcome.

Third (and this is where it gets really juicy) I have my anesthesia board exam in less than 2 weeks. After some stress endured by a fellow student over board patients for our exam I gracefully (and don't forget that) volunteered Joseph to be my patient. The anesthesia board exam is quite simple. You give 2 shots in 2 different spots in the mouth while some examiners watch your form and skill. Simple enough right? I thought so. . . .well I called Joseph to ask if he would be so kind as to be my patient (keep in mind he had volunteered a few days before) well he said yes. Now looking back I don't know if he was really willing or was just trying to be kind seeing that it was my day of birth, but he came early to pick me up so I could practice on him.

He joked around with some fellow students and instructors in the waiting room while I set up the chair. Then he came back and I placed topical anesthetic in the appropriate spots. Now I need to make a disclaimer here. . . I am a great anesthetist! I am gentle and kind and I do a good job. Back to the story. After a few minutes I removed the topical and picked up my syringe. Shot #1 - success!! Second practice of shot #1 - success. Now on to shot #2 - first attempt - I hit bone. As I'm explaining this to my instructor Joseph claims to have been imagining people grinding piano keys out of bones (weird, but ok). I pulled the needle out to try again. . . second insertion was a success until Joseph blurts out that he is about to BLACK OUT. I quickly removed the needle and watched as he seized and blacked out. Everyone started to panic. People were yelling for the doctor, someone ran to grab the oxygen tank, and everyone backed away. . . but me, I quietly mumbled to myself, "Oh, he does this when he passes out." And this is true. Remember when Joseph got his tonsils out and passed out after the IV? Well I certainly do. He came to seconds later and regained the color in his face. He was fine!! But is Joseph really that afraid of needles? Does he have a real live phobia? Maybe so, but if he does why did he say he'd be my patient?

He won't be my patient, don't you worry. In fact I will never give him a shot again. . . even if he needs it.

Note to Self

Do not EVER wash your plastic shower curtain in the washing machine. It may smell good when it comes out, but the tiny tears in the plastic make showering a big mess.

Do not EVER make 2 cakes for your and your husband. It will make you hate yourself, and you'll have to wear your fat pants until both cakes are gone.

Cats

What is it with cats and shedding? It's disgusting. As I've rollered my clothes every morning in preparation to leave the house I've thought to myself. . . "how nasty would it be to have you mouth open while your hygienist leans over it with cat hair ready to jump from her sleeve into your wide open mouth. . . " Yuck, just the thought makes me sick. The cat has now been banished to the basement, the house has been dusted and thoroughly vacuumed. Sorry cat, the thought of cat hair in my patients mouths was just too much to handle (although you are a good and very cute cat).

Frankenbumper

As some may know we were hit in Logan canyon on New Years Eve by a lovely California couple who had little experience driving in the snow. I will not recount the happenings due to bitter feelings towards the driver and Allstate (won't ever be insured by them, just thought I'd put it out there). However I do want to say kudos to my bro-in-law and his handy work. Here is a picture of our $1300 damage fixed with a mere $40.

Good on you bro. Frankenbumper looks great and drives great. Also good job Joseph for being the good little brother and holding the light and handing the tools. You both are great.

On a totally different note. . . our landlord brought some men over from our ward last Saturday to move the shed from our driveway to the driveway on the other side of the house. They jacked it up onto a trailer thing and moved it with a 4-wheeler. It was a spectacular sight worthy of being on the Discovery Channel or something. I wish I had pictures. Under the shed we found this:

How disgusting!! That is a huge hornets nest . . . it makes my foot look so tiny.

Violated

After a great lesson on not being angry and choosing to take the higher road Joseph and I walked out to our car to find our jockey box and our change drawer open. Someone had forgotten to lock the doors and someone else had rifled through the stuff in our car. My response: Lets just add to the anger I feel from being told not to be angry in Relief Society. I was already in a foul mood having been asked at church by my ward mission leader if I had fulfilled the assignment he had given me yesterday. No, I was too busy making sure that he wasn't having a heart attack to have read his mind as he was blacking out. Luckily nothing was in our car of value but a mere 80 cents, but I do feel violated and I have decided to take the lesser road and be angry all day.

Such a Strange Saturday Morning

So Jen and I have been ward missionaries for a few months now but have yet to actually DO anything with our calling. This is not because of any personnel shortcoming but because one ward leader was released and another was called so we have been trying to get into the swing of things. We received a phone call from the new ward mission leader, Brother Nameless an 80+ year old man, who wanted to meet us and have a meeting about how to proceed with our callings. We went over to his house today to have said meeting. We met his wife who had a stroke a while back and is very friendly but cannot form words. Her mind appears to be sharp but her faculties are lacking. We got into the small talk and looked at some super cool old pictures of their ancestors and when we ran out of things to talk about we got down to business. As we sat at the kitchen table he informed us that he had suffered the entire night with tendinitis in his right shoulder. As we sat there discussing ward missionary work we noticed that he began to sweat a bit around the hairline. He then began to look paler and apologized for a few momentary mental lapses. He then mumbled something about feeling a bit nauseous and stopped speaking all together. When he began to sway in his chair Jen and I jumped to our feet and kept him from falling over. He then regained some semblance of sentience and said he would like to be taken to his room. We got him to his feet and began shuffling to his room when he started to go down again. We stopped and asked him if he would like to sit in a nearby chair but he simply shook his head and said, "bed." We finally made it all the way to his room where we laid him in his bed. We then went to check on his wife who was crying and all out of sorts with worry about her husband. As we assured her that he would be OK I heard him calling my name from the adjoining room. I went in his room to find him feeling just barely well enough to talk upon which he asked me to put a movie in for his wife. As I was leaving the room he stopped me by calling my name. I paused in the doorway and he said in a halting voice, "Brother Watson...thank you so much... for helping me and my wife...you should probably...do something about...your fly." I looked down at my pants to see that my zipper was wide open. From one man to another even one who looks moribund we understood the importance of zipper protocol. I thanked him profusely and went back into Sister Nameless' room to find her frustrated and yelling unintelligibly at Jen who could not figure out how to work the television to get the movie going. We bumbled around for a bit trying to figure the blasted thing out with a constant barrage of indecipherable instructions at our backs. I finally went to the expert who lay dying in the next bedroom. I woke him up and copiously apologizing for my incompetence asked him how to work the television. After a lethargic tutorial I went back and saved the day. We left after that hoping that leaving the scene would not cause us to be arrested for negligence. We'll go back this afternoon to see if everything is alright.

WREB

What is WREB you ask. Well it's a "national dental and dental hygiene testing agency." They are in charge of the greater part of my board exams at the end of this semester. And the picture above? Those are the documents WREB sent me for one of my exams, for me to take special care of and produce in March on my exam date. Why are they torn in half you might ask. I'll tell you.

Yesterday I sat frustrated in clinic trying to scrap off a piece of the most tenacious calculus I've ever tried to conquer when I heard whispered in my ear, "your cute husband is here and he needs to show you something." My first thought. . . . WHY is Joseph here? What ever he has to show me cannot be good. I'm thinking: did he get into a wreck? Are his reffing pants melted? Did he cut off a limb? Did our house burn down? Reluctantly I excused myself from my patient and met Joseph out in the waiting room. He stood there timidly, his shoulders slumped holding the papers shown above. "What's that?" I asked. "I'm sorry," was his reply, "I didn't mean to!" As I got closer I realized what it was. . . . the confirmation papers for the exams that I just paid a couple of thousands of dollars for. Included were two papers to keep and produce on the date of my exam.

Upon further explanation Joseph had thought that the large manilla envelope addressed to ME with the return address of WREB in the upper left hand corner was actually a book that he ordered online. Instead of opening the envelope like a civilized person he tore the top third off including the precious papers located inside. Upon his discovery that he had torn my very important papers he drove directly to the school to show me. I must give him props because he had everyone in the clinic laughing that he would come in scared out of his mind to show me right away. He also chose wisely in displaying his offense in a public setting or he might not be walking today.

I've pieced the papers back together, but with a profession based on professionalism I cannot present taped papers at my board exam. So I'm off to the copy stores to find the perfect shades of pink and purple to make copies on.

Lessons to be learned from this: 1- Don't open mail that doesn't have your name on it. 2- Tearing envelopes down the middle will almost always tear the contents inside. 3 - If you ever ruin something that belongs to someone else, reveal the damage in a public setting so as to avoid being beaten.