I haven't blogged in a while, and there's a reason - I haven't been around.

It's the end of the fiscal year, so once again I am using up vacation days so I don't lose any (I know poor me).  So I have been out of the clinic quite a bit.  I have several more to use up in September also.  It has actually been a good thing, because we lost several dental assistants because of moves and we are streched thin.

I recently got back from the University of Florida in Gainnesville with SGT Trillo doing a presentation to the freshman class there.  It was a quick trip down and back. 

I have been the sick call and exam dentist a little more than usual, so that has also changed the normal routine of things a little.  Today as sick call doc we had  a pretty light day.  We had a "hot tooth" that had a crown on it and we had to begin the root canal on that.  Next patient came in with some soreness with her jaw joint and muscles on one side, next patient had a tooth that had recently had a filling done by a civilian dentist and it looked a little high and had also broken so we replaced it with a temporary filling and will see how he is doing on thursday.  Next patient had a small chip that we fixed in 10 minutes, and the last sick call patient had also had a filling chip that we quickly fixed.  With such a slow day I had one of my other patients come in and we delivered a crown.  The contact was a little light so our lab guy soldered more gold to it so it was a little more tight (nice benefit of having lab technicians in house).

Other interesting cases...I was delivering a crown last week.  As I took the temporary crown off half of the tooth came with it.  I took 2 small pins and placed one horizontal and one vertical in the tooth.  I then took the crown that was made and placed vaseline on it so the material wouldn't stick to it, and I placed some dental material that sets on its own inside to rebuild the inside part of the tooth.  Worked like a charm and I was able to cement the crown on after it was set.

Additionally I was able to get a spot for the German Armed Forces Sport Badge I have been training up for it.  It is different than the EFMB that I had done before.  The event I am the most worried about is the high jumb/long jump.  Being vertically challenged that will be a little difficult :)