Bob Loblaw

San Blas...Day 3

Saturday was actually the busiest clinic day for everyone. This is what we woke up to...the noise of hundreds of people standing in line. A lot of these people slept right there in the dirt to save their place in line. Many people who came on Thursday and Friday weren't even seen until Saturday. Have you ever seen so many white cowboy hats in one place?! This man came on his horse. He tied it up right there at the clinic. Dr. C caught us getting ready for the day. The least we could do was put on a little makeup so we didn't look as gross as we felt! Another first for me in Mexico was actually drilling and filling a tooth! I've seen it done a million times...couldn't be too hard, right?I loved every second of it! Dr.C stood by just to let me know if i needed to to anything differently. So, this is me placing my first composite filling!The next few pics are all pretty self explanatory...just at the clinic....Sorry to those of you with weak stomachs...you may want to skip this last pic! These were some of the other teeth i extracted. This man came in for a "cleaning" because his gums were sore. They look like it, eh? There was so much infection the best thing to do for him was to pull them and send him to a dentist that could make him a denture. These were pretty easy ones to pull. He only had about 6 other teeth beside these. I felt sad for him after but he was very grateful that he wouldn't be in so much pain anymore. This cute little girl was so brave...as are pretty much all of the pts there. I don't know if they just realize they don't have a choice and its free or what...if i cleaned anyone in utah that had anywhere close to as much tartar as these people did, they'd be jumping out of my chair and freaking out...unless they were numb (and they'd jump for that part too!) These people were pretty dang tough! I have NO IDEA why, but these urine specimine cups were in the storage closet of the dental clinic! Dr. C decided to try some Mexican Peridex and this is what he put it in! We all got a kick out of that!!! I think i gagged a little!! As far as sterilization goes, they have an ancient autoclave that takes way too long to work, so our instruments were jiggled in the ultrasonic, soaked in Cidex for as long as possible, then we wiped them with alcohol soaked guaze. I know, this makes my skin crawl a little too! We worked till about 7pm on Satuday (cinco de mayo) and called it a day. In 2 days we saw just over 100 pts! This is our awesome team! We are feeling tired, but very accomplished and excited about all the patients we were able to see...and disappointed at the same time that we still had to turn away about 70 people.These are some picts in the kitchen with the ladies that prepared our meals. I think that's the biggest pan of refried beans i've ever seen! Our last night there i think i only got about 45 minutes of sleep due to some very loud abnoxious music that i couldn't even understand the words to! It was awful! I didn't feel very good in the middle of the night to begin with, but to add Mexican party music on top of that i was about to kill someone! I went inside around 3:00 am, and pushed three kitchen chairs together and laid down on those. I think i slept for 20 minutes, then got cold, so i went back outside where i had left my sleeping bag open...it had already gotten cold and a little wet from the dew. I shoved my earphones in my ears, turned rascal flatts way up on my ipod and actually was able to sleep for a little bit...then it was light outside before i knew it. At 6:00am the music was still blasting!

posted by Jami @ 4:00 PM