80's music ROCKS!

one of the best 80s songs around. love it, love it, love it.




btw, i got cookie hooked on the smurfs.

i need an aura cleansing

i broke a mirror in my office on tuesday. i know it's seven years bad luck, but my patient and assistant who were trying to make me feel better told me that superstition arose because of how rare and expensive mirrors were back in the day, and that your reflection was your soul trapped in it and that breaking the mirror was breaking your soul. this mirror was $0.99 from honest ed's, and i myself hadn't looked into it (the patient did), so i'm hoping malocchio will gloss over me, or at least cut me some sort of break - the mirror was pretty cheap, after all, and my reflection was never seen in it. to be safe, i did some research on mirror breakage and the reversal of bad luck from such a mishap. turns out you have to bury the shards under the moon. now the incident occurred in my office and my assistant quickly cleaned up the mess. i wasn't about to go prowling around in the garbage and furthermore transport broken glass shards on the subway. that would elevate my psychiatric lunacy status from mildly insane to seriously wacko. however, i did find some alternatives. so i turned counter clockwise seven times, i'm waiting for a full moon to chant some sort of luck-changing poem/spell, and i need to find some white sage or sweetgrass to burn to cleanse the negativity from my aura and hence ward off the bad luck. any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated - and no, i don't mean "referrals" to the nice men in the white coats.

a saturday trip to the ER

never a dull moment on a saturday, of course.


my second-to-last patient was a dude i had seen about two months ago. he had a few upper incisors remaining and a mutilated lower dentition with multiple carious non-restorable teeth, the only non-carious tooth being his lupper eft lateral incisor. he wants dentures for his upcoming wedding in september - the guy is only about two years older than me. we were trying to coordinate his treatment with the denturist, who sent him to my office for whatever treatment we decided on for the remaining teeth. he needed either endo and post, core crown on all but one of the upper with an upper partial, or full upper extraction followed by immediate complete denture, and lower extractions and lower partial denture. i opted for the extraction and denture, since finances were very much an issue and this guy has no insurance. i spent an fort-five minutes talking to him, as he didn't want full extractions on the upper but also didn't want to pay for RCT's he needed to save the remaining teeth, and he completely refused any and all treatment on the lower teeth. i wanted to make sure he understood what he was refusing and the implications of such refusal. he argued with me for another forty-five minutes about his treatment, demanded a discount, then got mad when i charged him for the exam and the six periapicals i took. he left in a huff and i wasn't expecting to see him again. so imagine my surprise when i saw him in the schedule for extractions. hmm, how 'bout that, we're rolling with it.

saturday afternoon he shows up and my receptionist says, "mr. r. is here, but he's swollen."

"of course he's swollen, he has multiple bombed-out teeth! seat him and i'll be right there."

i had never seen anything like this before. the left side of his lips, upper and lower, were swollen to over three times it's normal size. "whoa!" i blurted out. apparently, it had started this morning. now, it's impossible to get a story from this guy as he talks round-about in circles, jumps topics, repeatedly changes his story, and has a thick accent but after speaking with him and having him repeat it to me followed by my repeating it back to him twice, here's the story we got:

on june 12 he had swelling on lower lip on the right side after eating some cantalope. the pharmacist recommened some reactine for him. it worked for a while, then swelled up enough again to prompt him to see a physician at a walk-in clinic on wednesday june 14. this physician gave him pen VK 300 mg qid and another script for "an allergy pill" that he didn't know the name of. he had some relief again, and went to work the rest of the week. he ran out of the allergy pills that sunday and took the penicillin, which he was only taking three a day instead of the four, up until this past wednesday, the 21st, meaning he did not finish the medication. he started swelling again, this time on the upper left side, and the swelling then progressed to the left lower lip. he took another dose of the Pen VK and then came to his scheduled appointment to see me.


i examined him and ruled out odontogenic origin because, funny enough, the swelling was locates at the one site where the teeth were fine and he wasn't in any pain. my colleague, who also happened to be there, also saw it and we both agreed that it most likely did not have a dental etiology, as the swelling was not hot and hard and did not appear to be infectious. what concerned me was that the swelling started to spread across the midline and he slowly started to develop a "lump" in his throat upon swallowing. oh-kay, let's get you to a doctor ASAP.


now this guy doesn't have a PCP, or even an OHIP card, so there was no place else to go than to the ER. i didn't feel comfortable dismissing him alone in that condition even with a script, as who knows what could happen over the weekend or as soon as he leaves. there's an ER down the street from our office and one of the girls was going to put him in a taxi. but he had never been to a hospital in canada before and he was very nervous, so he asked me to go with him. i cancelled my last patient and i took him in my car.

anyways, the physician examined him and believed it to be a delayed hyper-sensitivity reaction of some sort, to what, we don't know. but he got a dose of steroids, some clindamycin to cover any remote possibility of a dental infection, and a referral to an allergist for testing. i'm glad i went with him. he's very difficult to understand and i since i had already correctly pieced the story together i was able to "translate" and move things along faster. we were there about two hours, not too bad. i took him back to my office, where he booked his next appointment to have his extractions completed. he asked me if there was any way he could thank me. i told him the best way to thank me was to take care of his teeth. he then invited me to his wedding in september. talk about gratitude!

disappointed with my score here!

You Scored 65% Correct

You are a solid child of the 80s You'd never confuse Tiffany from Debbie And while you may not know Prince's first #1 hit You know every word to Little Red Corvette

How Much Do You Know About 80s Music?

i need to study harder.

another one brought to you courtesy of ameloblast

You Were a Giraffe

You are a high achiever - able to reach things others can't. A great communicator, you are good at getting past superficialities.

What Animal Were You In a Past Life?

saturday, saturday

and i'm off to work this morning. i'm tired, having missed out on an extra hour of sleep because cookie wakes up the minute light hits her face. which at this point in the year, is about 4:45 am! one more day of work, then one more short week, and then we're off to the states for the fourth of july! this will be the first time i've had an extended stretch of time off since christmas - not counting the day or two i take off for cookie's school stuff, driving to michigan for a weekend, etc. so i'm looking foward to it. this week went much better, either that or i just have a much better attitude. who cares why, i just feel more like my twisted old self again.

my social calender is busy this weekend as i'm attending a jack 'n jill stag tonight with some friends and tomorrow is a surprise baby shower for our best man's wife. wow, i feel so popular! monday will be time to relax and do stuff in the garden and canuck will be gone on a day-long job interview in barrie! since i faxed out all those resumes last thursday our phone has been ringing nonstop. i think i just have that magic touch.

a blast from the past

i love the 80's. i think it's possibly the coolest decade ever (not counting clothes, i leave that to the 70's). not sure if it's because the stuff was actually cool (smurfs! he-man! cabbage patch kids!) of if its because it reminds me of a time when my only worry was learning to ride a two wheeler (i was a late, late bloomer and a spaz, i was nine!) or what the newest toy in my happy meal was going to be. it's been kind of a rough couple of weeks and i needed some sort of escape from the pressure and stress i've been feeling. tuning in to this wacky stuff takes me back to a time when i felt so safe and just plain GOOD, and the hilarity and goofiness of some of the commercials makes me laugh and just puts a smile on my face. it also reminds me of how much times have changed since i was a kid. it seems like my generation had it so much easier. too much technology now with cell phones, i-pods, $150 sneakers, text messaging, and all that crap, i dunno. i'm an old-fashioned fart like that and i worry for cookie because by the time she feels the pressure to have these things i'm going to be the bitch mom who says "NO, get a job and pay for it yourself!" like mine and canuck's parents did. then she's going to be all screwed up, and it's all because of us. but i will still hang onto my principles. i'm a tough broad like that ;-)

i had originially started a rather negative post about my crappy past two weeks, but after some time off, some socialization/relaxation, a quick visit from my mom, and a good, thourough cleaning of my house, i have a much better perspective and am ready to face another wonderful(or potentially crappy, whichever way the ball swings) week with a much more positive outlook. in a nutshell, it doesn't matter that half the crowns i prepped and impressed last week didn't fit this week despite the fact that i sent perfect impressions, because i sent them new perfect impressions and i would never cement anything that was below my standards and that is what makes me a good dentist. i feel much better about opening my first complaint/incident file with the RCDS, because while it really shook me up and i am dealing with a bit of a whacko, i did nothing wrong and i have a wonderful and supportive staff to back me up and boost my confidence at times like these when i really need it. i'm proud of the fact that although it really (and i mean REALLY) pissed off my dad, who said that i was "cheap" and that all i cared about was money like my cheap uncle out in california who hasn't flown to new york in 20 years, i still stuck to my guns and didn't spend $400 fly to new york for 36 hours for my sister's high school graduation this past weekened - because that money (and then some) eventually evaporated to repair the brakes and a transmission fluid leak on ned flanders, yet another monkey wrench in the cog of my week. i'm optimistic that although canuck is underemployed and repeatedly dicked-over by his current venue, and has gotten really raw deals as far as associateships go this past year and a half, the time that i spent on my day off frantically faxing out over 20 resumes for him has paid off, as he has gotten five interviews scheduled this week. this poor guy really needs a break, i'm telling you. i'm praying that things stabilize enough for us to start having more kids, as while we make enough money together to run things smoothly, canuck wants to be able to support the house on his income alone so that i can stay home as much or as little as i'd like. i'm really lucky to have a guy who's willing to work so hard so that i have to do less. but both of us are increasingly frustrated as to how long it seems everything takes, like we want to get started on all these things, like furniture, a new roof, a dog, perhaps. i worked so hard and paid so much money for my education, when is it going to finally pay off??? why is everything so dragged out and S-L-O-W????

i'm tired and i'm hopeful and i'm nervous and i'm greatful for all that i have, but at the same time i want more, know what i mean? i want stability, i want to go to sleep at night and not have to worry about money, for canuck to have peace of mind and confidence, for me to have faith in myself as a person and as a dentist. it's just so damn hard sometimes, and it's tiring and i'm just waiting for a break, just someone upstairs to cut us some slack. that's why i like to escape to the decade where i didn't have any of these worries. i can only hope that i'm able to provide as happy a childhood as i had to cookie, so that she can look back at the ipod and spongebob and feel that same feeling of security and well-being that i have now.

i think i have to delve into the nineties now, i need to re-create some of that teen angst to bring me back to reality....