The Day of the Cute Older Gentlemen

Well, this morning I saw two class V patients (8 quads) and it went very well. My first patient had a lot of crowns that didn't really collect calculus and only really had deposit on the six anterior mandibular teeth. My second patient literally only had one random little spot of calculus and lots of plaque. I hate cleaning plaque because it's gross and all you really do is push it around, it doesn't really scale off like calculus. Either way, I got him done, the cute 94 year old man. He couldn't hear really well but he was so sweet and he said to me as I walked him out front: "you know what you've got going for you? ...your laugh." it made me smile.

We went to lunch and I actually bought food this time because my mom told me she'd make pork chops for me to take to school and when I woke up at 5:30 this morning I found the pork chops: RAW! yeah, we went to a restaurant called Au Natural and I had a turkey burger with yam fries and then Staci shared a cherry vanilla creme soda with me (thank you!!!)

My afternoon patient was a very cute 87 year old man who was very easy to clean and didn't take long so while we waited for the doctor to come look at him, he told me the story of his wife who died 8 years ago which he said was already 8 years too many. He had been married three times before so his friend told him she wanted to set him up with a new companion. They met at a dance in December and then in the middle of May he went to see her and go to her sons graduation with her. When he knocked on the door she answered it and said "have you come here to marry me?" to which he nervously replied "no?" then she said "alright, then go home." He couldn't believe that after driving over 100 miles she would turn him away without even spending a few minutes with him. She opened the door again and said "if you want to marry me, you'll do it today, and if you don't want to, then please go on your way." Then he said "let's do it". So they went and got married and then that night, at the graduation, they ran into her bishop who said they should have told him they were getting married because he had their temple recommends all ready but now they'd have to wait a year before they could go through the temple. My patient replied: "yeah, but it was so worth it!"

I love my VA patients, they're so much fun and it's fascinating to me to hear their life stories. I really do love getting to know the amazing men and women that come into our clinic out here. I'm learning to truly appreciate the veterans more and more every time I come out here.