I'm No Super(wo)man

I don't expect anyone to read this incredibly long novel... its just another page of our lives that I wanted to include for when I finally print this blog into a book... I tried posting it yesterday too but blogger was down... but here it is:

It’s been exactly one week since I took my clinical board’s exam. It literally feels like it was years ago. I’ve considered not even posting anything about this because I wasn’t quite sure if I really wanted to remember that week of my life… but as it is, here it goes. So just a little background on this situation – our clinical boards exam was the last test we had to take to obtain our dental hygiene license. The test is roughly $1,300 to take, 2-5 hours long, and requires that you find a very specific patient on your own with all the requirements outlined in a handbook (pretty much just a patient with a TON of calculus) and then we clean the patient’s teeth on a time limit and the examiners check to see if we did a good job. Sounds easy right? Well that’s what I thought, and that’s where I was very wrong! So I found my patient about 2 months ago. He was perfect. Big mouth, no complaining, lots of calculus, etc. About 1 month ago I tried to call him to confirm the appointment and his number had been disconnected. So a few weeks before the exam my husband and I braved the streets of West Valley City and found my patient, go his new phone number, and confirmed him again for my test date. Done and done. Right? Nope. Then last Monday happened. Dallas had been gone to Nebraska for work already so Ashton and I were just enjoying our little vacation together lounging around and catching up on some much needed mommy time. At about 5:00 Monday night I had my sweet, Spanish speaking friend call my patient one last time to confirm our appointment that Thursday. And that’s then my whole world turned upside down. Literally. She called back and told me that my patient cancelled because he couldn’t miss work after all and there was nothing I could do to convince him to come. I never knew one phone call could make me feel so awful. I immediately started making flyers to find a new patient. Ashton and I drove out to a local thrift store and Jiffy Lube where I thought I had some really great potential patients I could screen the next day along with one of my friends’ parents. Needless to say I didn’t sleep much that night. Then Tuesday morning came along. I woke up to a perfectly sweet text message from my dear best friend, Amy Bracken that read this, “Jaycie, I think you are so great. Seriously, superwoman, you’re one of my heroes”. Amy had no idea what was going on right then and how chaotic my life had just become, but this sweet little notion was just what I needed to get my day started. So off Ashton and I went to my school, stroller in tow, to screen some patients for my boards exam. After 5 hours, 2 chocolate bars, about a dozen held-back melt-downs, and a very whiny toddler we had to call it a day – with no patient found. I had some really great leads but no one would answer their phones! So that was that. I was starving, Ashton was crying, we were both exhausted, my husband was 800 miles away, and I had no patient to take my test on in just 2 ½ days. So that’s when I pulled out the big guns. I called my mom. J And then the tears really came out, or should I say the waterfalls. I was literally sobbing on the phone to my poor mom who had no idea what I was talking about and could hardly understand me through my slobbery talk of a needing a patient with lots of calculus and no one to help me take care of Ashton. She said she would be there in 5 hours. Oh how I adore my sweet mom. I hope I can be like her when I grow up. Because there she was at 9 pm after dropping everything she had going on in her own life and driving 5 hours from Vegas just to be with me when I needed some comfort. Oh yeah, and did I mention that amidst all of this I was supposed to be packing and cleaning to leave to be with Dallas in Nebraska that Friday?
So thanks to my wonderful, helpful classmates I found a patient who said he was “60% sure” he could come be my patient on Thursday. I begged and pleaded and offered way too much money for only a 60% chance of him showing up. I was still devastated. My other leads fell through so all I was left with was a 60% chance of having a patient (better than 0%!) and about 5 billion prayers. In the meantime, my mom was busy cooking, playing with Ashton, and helping my cross things off my 2 page long to-do list. Really, my mom is the superwoman you see. She truly is AMAZING. And I could not have endured this without her and her support.
And then Thursday rolled around. Cinco de Mayo. Test day. I showed up at school at 6:50 am to see if there were any extra patients who wouldn’t mind coming in later that day to be my patient in case my 40% odds were against me with my scheduled patient. Success! The sweetest young man agreed to come back that afternoon to be my patient if mine decided to not show up. So off I went to Salt Lake City. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that through all of this I found out that my scheduled patient needed a panoramic x-ray taken because he had his wisdom teeth and you couldn’t see them in any other x-rays we had for him. Oh, and the panoramic x-ray machine at our school was off-limits because it was in the WREB examiners area. So that was just one more little stress added to my list. I had to find a dentist who would let me use their machine and then I had to get my patient to meet me there too. So, off to SLC I went, only thinking there was about a 20% chance that my patient would show up at Dr. Smith’s office to get the x-ray taken. But 2 minutes before 9 am, in walked my patient to my disbelief. We got the x-ray and I got a promise that he would be at my school at 11 am for my test. What a relief! I got home just in time to fill out all my paperwork and do a quick run-through in my head of what needed to be done during the exam. I showed up to my school right at 11:00 and there my patient was waiting for me, along with my back-up patient. I saw light at the end of the tunnel! We finished the paperwork we needed to do and got called back at 11:30. I obviously had never seen inside my patient’s mouth before, but I was ready for anything considering what I had been through to even get a patient in my chair. As soon as the exam began I quickly realized how hard his calculus was to get off – it was awful! I worked my poor little hands to the bones and then the unthinkable happened. Halfway through the exam my patient got sick. That’s right, sick. Throwing up. With 3 trips to the bathroom during my TIMED exam on a VERY hard patient I was having serious anxiety. And if anyone knows me and throwing up, you know that it is honestly my biggest fear for some dumb reason. But at this point I didn’t even care. I just wanted to get that calculus off! I used every second I had too. With about 3o seconds to go I raced my patient to the check-out desk (I really made him run too!). We made it just in time, not one second to spare. As I watched him walk back to the examiners I tried to just step back and take a deep breath. I knew I didn’t get all of his calculus off. I felt so irritated at myself for this fact, but I honestly put my best effort in with the circumstances I was in. So that was that. I cleaned my operatory up, met my patient out front, apologized for making him stay through his sickness, and paid him way too much for his time and disgusting calculus. So there it is. My Board’s story. Looking back now, a week later, it doesn’t even seem so bad and I feel dumb for being so stressed and overwhelmed and making my mom come stay with me. But really, at that time, that’s what I needed.
When I met up with my mom and Ash after my test I noticed that Ashton was a little sunburned. My mom then admitted to barely making it to the gas station 2.5 miles away from my house only to realize that she had left her purse at my house. So she had the trek that long walk back carrying my very heavy 2-yr-old – and then back to the gas station again! What a trooper! See, I told you my MOM is the SUPERWOMAN! Not only did she walk 4 hours in the hot sun with 35 extra pounds, but she spring cleaned my ENTIRE house (windows, fridge, bathrooms, moved furniture around – the whole works!), cooked for me, listened to my nonsense for 3 days, packed my car for me, grocery shopped for me, and most importantly she took care of my wild child which is a task in itself. Yes, I was a wreck and needed help doing ALL of that, how pathetic! Through all of this craziness I honestly became very worried that my anxiety was hurting my little growing bean inside me because I hadn’t felt him move since I found out the news on Monday. But to my sweet surprise, as soon as I sat down to begin cleaning my patient’s teeth he started wiggling away like a little goldfish again, as if to say, “It’s ok now mom, you can do this!” I am so thankful for the wonderful and amazing friends in my life that helped me last week, and most importantly I am beyond grateful for my Mom. As for now it’s just the waiting game for a month to get my results – and to see if I really can be a superwoman.