The boys' latest saga

Last week was dental week for the boys. On Monday, RJ had his orthodontist appointment. He got the heavier weight upper arches, "chains" put on both uppers and lowers, and super heavy rubberbands on both sides. The chains are something I had never seen before. Instead of tightening up the wires to pull the teeth together, they put these things that look like rubberbands twisted around his brackets. The object is for them to close up the spaces in between his front teeth. And then the other rubberbands finish pulling his bottom jaw forward to close up his overbite. He gets to take off the rubberbands everytime he eats or brushes his teeth and then has to put them back on.

He was pretty sore for the first week of having all this done but he's been faithful about wearing his rubberbands. The theory is that if he wears them like he's supposed to, he'll be done with braces completely by the first part of October. Oh and he got a variety of colors (his fav is green and orange). He went through and picked out all the pink ones. I wouldn't let him throw them away though. I told him he gets grounded for doing something stupid, he has to wear the pink ones to school. Needless to say, we haven't had to enforce it... yet!

Tuesday was the regular dental check ups. RJ came out with a clean bill of health on his (which he was grateful for!). Robert didn't have any cavities. However, they noticed how his permanent teeth were really starting to turn sideways. So they did a panoramic xray. There they found that his permanent canines had completely missed the roots of the baby teeth and were pushing into the permanent ones! This means they are going to pull at least 2 baby teeth (tomorrow) and hope that gives the canines some room to redirect themselves. If they don't start coming down on their own, he will have to have them surgically brought down and bracketed in place. We are hoping that they move on their own!

On a side note, they did discover something else weird about Robert (imagine that!). He only has 3 wisdom teeth! When I mentioned that his uncle was missing a canine, they started counting teeth on his xray. He may be missing another permanent tooth as well but they won't be able to tell until they get his canines out of the way.

My crazy Tuesday

Tuesdays are usually my days to work 11am-7pm. This Tuesday they had 4 secretaries scheduled instead of the usual 3. I assumed it was a mistake and were going to end up sending someone home. Instead they sent me down to CVICU (a 2 bed ICU with a 1:1 nurse/patient ratio where they get all the thoracic surgery patients). The first thought going through my mind was "oh great, of all the days for me NOT to bring my bookbag!" When I get down there, Paula (the manager of CVICU/ICU and my former boss on TMS) asked what my grades were for my first semester of clinicals. After I told her, she said "Fantastic! You get to help the nurses out and get some hands on experience down here as well as do the secretary stuff." FINALLY I get some patient care time!

Everything went smoothly until around 1:30ish when the thoracic surgeon calls up and states that we have to move one of the patients up to CCPU and get the room STAT cleaned for another patient. We pulled off a miracle turnaround of 15 minutes on making that happen. And then the entire department (keep in mind this unit is the old ER and the patient rooms are the old trauma rooms) was taken over by equipment and staff from OR/Cath lab. To make a long story short, I got to observe putting a patient on ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) and floating a temporary pacemaker. It was such a rush! The doctors and nurses did a fantastic job of teaching once the patient was stabilized. Even during the procedures, they would explain what they were doing and why they were doing it. They even set up monitors at the nurses station so we could have a good view of what was going on.

Needless to say my 8 hour shift turned into a 13 hour shift with lunch/supper on the run. But it was well worth it! And I must have done something right because they asked me to come back to CVICU Friday morning for at least 7am - 11am to assist with the beginnings of a post-op open heart! I am hoping that they are light enough on TMS on Friday that I can stay down there :)