The day I LITERALLY got a taste of my own medicine.

I finally understand how my 2 year olds feel.

Now I know why they cry when I tell them I want to put candy on their teeth, make them open up their mouths, and then actually I put on floride.

This stuff is nasty!

It tastes like the way paint thinner smells.

I should've asked my dentist if it came in bubblegum flavor like it does at our clinic.

My mouth is sticking together with the nastiness.

I want to spit it out.

And if the dentist’s office hadn't been so nice to me I'd want to cry too!

They offered me water to make me feel better. And they gave me the option between room temperature water and cold water.

Room temperature water always wins!

Poor kids!

………………………………………….

I get asked a lot of questions in my job.

It’s one of the things I love about it!

I get to teach people, educate them, and empower them.

But sometimes, I’m the one who wants to ask questions.

Especially when I have two kids in a room with the same last name who are exactly 2 months apart.

Adopted?  Different mommies, same daddy?  One of those weird, strange things you only see on TV where the mom gets pregnant when she’s already pregnant and the second baby is born 2 months premature along with the first baby?!

But how do you ask that politely?!

But we’ve got a lot of strange things at our clinic.  I don’t know exactly how many  patients we have total, but I do know we see at minimum, 1000 kids each week.  So  we get to see things like dextrocardia. 

Which is where your heart is on the RIGHT side of your chest instead of the left.

I always get kinda excited when I find one of those kids!

[link to a wiki article on dextrocardia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dextrocardia]

Apparently it occurs in 1 in 12,000 people.  And I’ve seen at least 3 kids in the past 6 months with it.

WAY COOL!

………………………………………..

So, this one kid, about 5 years old, was in our clinic for a regular checkup and mom asked me what to do about him.

He won’t wear shorts.

Well, he only has 2 pairs of shorts he will wear, and he will never wear underwear  with them because he thinks it is too constricting.

He literally screams in pain if he puts underwear or normal fitting shorts on.

Every time for the past 3 months.

After checking that nothing was anatomically wrong with him, I didn’t know what to do.

Buy his school uniform shorts 2 sizes too big?!  Beg the school to let him wear his orange plaid shorts to school?

Good luck with that one.

………………………………………

We’ve got this intercom system at work that you use by pressing some button on the phone.

Only I never use it because I don’t know what button it is.

And I don’t want the whole clinic to ever hear what I have to say.

But it’s really useful to call people to certain places, for example if some kid vomits in the waiting room, they can call Nora, our cleaning lady, to the front.

And no matter where she is, she can hear it.

We have an allergy lab at our clinic now.  It’s a bit crazy, and sometimes I have issues with it, but overall it’s a great service we can provide for our patients so I put up with it like I have a choice.

And we use to have two girls run it, but one girl just left for a job closer to home, so now instead of calling their names to come to the front, they announce, over the loud speaker:

“Allergies to the front, allergies to the front please.”

And I laugh every time because it sounds like the person on the loud speaker is asking for all the allergies in the building to come to the front.

Like she is commanding all the allergens, the dust mites and pollen spores to come to the front.

Which is maybe only funny if you’re a nerd…

………………………………

Every mom who has a kid 9, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, and 48 months old has to fill out a questionnaire.  It’s called “Ages and Stages Questionnaire” and it’s on it’s 3^rd revision, so it’s called the ASQ-3 for short.

It is basically a tool that we use to make sure kids are meeting all of their milestones on time and nothing is wrong.

It asks questions like “Does your child talk like other children her age,” and “Can your child use a pair of scissors?”

If mom answers NO, then we start to ask more questions to evaluate if this child needs a referral to a specialist to work on speech or fine motor skills.

Because usually when mom says NO, it means that the child can only say 4 words, when we expect them to say 50 words, which is a problem.

But on occasion, we have a ridiculous mom filling out the questionnaire.

She’ll say “NO” that her kid can’t talk like other kids her age.

And then say that her kid is FAR SUPERIOR to other kids her age.  She can say 80 words instead of only 50 words.

Well, pin a rose on your nose.

I don’t care about how awesome you think your child is. 

You’re wasting your time.  I’ve seen awesome kids, and your child is not one of them.  Good try to compensate for the bratty child you’ve raised, but telling me your kid is the next child prodigy is wasting your breath.

If your kid was really that awesome, she could tell me herself instead of you.

…………………………………..

Awww man,

This one day I had a 3 year old with a bug stuck in his ear.

30 minutes later after grabbing another provider for help, ½ the bug was still stuck in his ear.

He was SO sad!

And I had to send him to the hospital to take out the rest of the bug.

Poor kid.

…………………………………

I still have patients that come in to my clinic and I have NO idea what to say to them…

Like the girl who came in after getting a varicella (chicken pox) vaccine with a 2 inch red bump on her arm.

Um.  Um.

This is when I make up the story about needing to leave the room…

And then go out and research what’s going on.

Turned out that girl had only a mild reaction to the vaccine, she’ll be fine.

But sometimes I have patients where I struggle not to laugh.

Like the 16 year old that came in with stomach pains.

They weren’t too bad, only about a 4/10.

He only got the pain about twice a month, late at night, usually on the train on his way home from work.

He would get home, order a pizza, eat it, and then about 10 minutes later his pain would go away.

Hmmm, I’m thinking. 

“Do you think that you could just be hungry, and when you eat the pain goes away.”

“Well, I’ve never thought about it that way, but now that you say it, I think that might be what’s going on.”

And then I look like a genius.

Yessss!!

………………………………

At a going away party for a friend!

This is my fancy Amarillo Wedding outfit.

The Canyon in Amarillo

More Canyon.

The life of the party!

Wedding Time!  Such a pretty bride!

Can someone with a RPTS (Recreation, Parks, and Tourism Science) degree, or someone with more knowledge of city parks help me figure this out:

A bunch of trees died in our park about 2 months ago, and they were cut down, leaving stumps in the ground.  1 month ago they dug up 3 trees and left giant holes in the park, surrounded by bright orange  tape to keep people out.

2 weeks ago they filled the holes in with dirt, but left up the bright orange to keep people away from the  newly filled in holes.

Last week, they dug up the dirt, put huge plywood boards over the holes and left the dirt next to the holes.

Two days later they removed all the dirt from the sides of the holes (the dirt that they filled the holes in with 2 weeks ago) but left the plywood and bright orange tape there.

WHAT ARE THEY DOING TO OUR PARK AND WHY IS IT TAKING SO LONG?!

I'm just a bit confused.

Thanks.