I'm Thankful for...Dentist Appointments?

Have you ever had one of those really exhausting and challenging, yet very refreshing and fun days? Today was one of those days for me.

At 8:30 this morning I left on a caravan. You may very well be thinking what exactly a caravan is. I definitely did before today. Well, the caravan I was when today was pretty much a camper and a big truck put together, with a dentist chair and medical supplies inside of it. I'll just give you a picture so that you can visualize it.

Okay, so you can't really see the front of it. But it's pretty much just the front of a big truck. 

Anyway, four other adults and I caravaned out to a small community to do doctor/dentist work. Actually, technically we didn't ride in the caravan. It was already at the community waiting for us. We just rode in a normal car. I just thought caravaned sounded cooler.

I have to admit that when my mom first asked me if I was interested on going on this caravan as a dentist's assistant, I was pretty hesitant. I mean...it's pretty intimidating at first. I didn't really wanna go with four strangers. I'm clueless on dentistry...especially Spanish dentistry! There were a limited amount of people that could go. Why were they willing to bring me? How was I supposed to be a help?

Even though almost everything inside of me was screaming, "No! I don't wanna go!", there must have been something inside of me that made me say yes. My guess is that "something" was Jesus. Actually, that's my know.

So, off we went. It was about an hour drive to the community, and we got there around 9:30. Wasting no time, we started to work right away. At first I wasn't really sure what I should do, but that didn't last long. I first had to write down the names, ages, and gender of all of the people in the community who were waiting for the dentist. Let me assure you...this task isn't as easy as it might sound. Some of the names of those people were names I have never heard of. I could not spell half of those names for the life of me. I asked many of them just to write their names for me. Oh, it's also not the easiest thing to ask elderly people their age. It's actually quite awkward.

After collecting the people's data, I went back inside of the caravan and the patients started to come. The dentist I was assisting was so nice and patient with me. It was quite a challenge at first because I didn't know what any of the dentist tools were called in Spanish. Heck, I didn't even know what they were called in English. Thankfully, she helped me out a lot. Every time she wanted me to pass her a tool or paste, she would slowly tell me the name of it and I would try my best to remember for the next time she wanted that instrument. It became easier and easier to remember with every patient. I also had to charge each patient after their appointment and give them change and everything. Every patient either had to pay nothing, 2, 3, or 4 dollars.

One of the patients. His name was Andres. Before his turn, he kept asking and asking us when he was going to be able to go. The poor kid had to wait for at least two hours.

Probably the worst mistake I made throughout the whole day was putting my fingers into the sterilizing liquid to take out the dentist instruments that were being sterilized. I was supposed to sterilize the tools... I just wasn't supposed to sterilize my fingers. They just forgot to tell me that I needed to use tweezers to get the tools out. But it's all good... I'm just going to have greenish/blackish index fingers for about a month.

We worked non-stop until about 1:30 when we finally went in and ate lunch, which was provided by the community. We had about a 15 or 30 minute break, and then went straight back to work. We didn't finish until about 4:30, and it took us until about 5:00 to pack everything up. I pretty much was standing up the entire day. My legs are aching. It was such an exhausting day. Yet, I loved it.

Lesson of the day: Never take dentist appointments for granted again. It's amazing how long some of the people waited today just to be seen for a little bit. Some were waiting there all day! They don't have a local dentist, and they definitely weren't going to miss out on the opportunity.

I'm cool.

People waiting.

A patient being examined by one of the doctors.

More people waiting. Oh, and there's the front of the caravan

Do you know what another fun aspect of today is? If you guessed Tiffany Eddington coming in tonight then you are a winner! Tiffany's flight is scheduled to land at about midnight tonight and she is going to be staying for two weeks! We gonna partaaaaaaayyy!