“It’s Alarcón,” Tyler said, looking at Macey like she’d lost her mind.
“Oh, that’s right,” Macey giggled.
Macey ended up assisting me that morning, helping with my first four patients. She talked more than Tyler, but I didn’t mind. Listening to Macey chatter about her life made the day go by faster.
We zoomed through the first few patients with ease, despite the underlying anxiety that someone might yell at me for replacing the old hygienist. Thankfully, no old ladies yelled at me, and we made it through the morning. Every patient I had from eight until noon was very nice, and I loved nothing more than nice patients.
I was especially grateful to one patient named Lucy. She lived on the lake and talked about her four Bernedoodles. She complimented my pink scrubs and even thanked me for cleaning her teeth.
When the afternoon rolled around, I was surprised that nothing horrific had happened yet.
My next patient was Connor Reeves, nineteen years old, with only one medical alert—Asthma. Everything was going smoothly until I got the X-rays back and spotted at least eight cavities.
“How many years has it been since you’ve been to the dentist again?” I asked, and Connor sighed.
“Probably at least seven years,” he said, giving me a sheepish look. “Is it looking pretty bad?”
“Well, unfortunately, I’m unable to tell you what I’m seeing on the X-rays, but I will go grab Dr. Jay to take a look.”
I wasn’t legally allowed to diagnose X-rays. Despite that, it was pretty much expected by dentists that the hygienist would look them over and figure out as much as possible before the dentist came in. But there was one small problem: I was pretty bad at it.
I excelled in almost every area of my schoolwork, but when it came to radiology, I had struggled a bit. So I never seemed to write down exactly what the doctor ended up diagnosing. At my father’s clinic, Dr. Pike had insulted my intelligence and belittled me daily for not accurately noting every single cavity before the exam.
Diagnosing X-rays was my personal nemesis, and over time, my confidence had been—well, obliterated. All it took was a few instances of being belittled or yelled at for me to believe I was terrible at diagnosing X-rays, which made me dread the entire process.
Numbness spread into my fingertips like venom, and I did my best not to panic. I stared at the X-rays and wrote down with shaking hands what I thought the treatment plan would be. I had no idea how Dr. Jay was going to react—all the patients I’d had so far while working here had been either cavity-free or they’d only had one or two very noticeable ones that hadn’t been hard to spot. I’d lucked out so far, but now I was about to face the music.
“Everything okay?” Macey asked, peeking into the exam room to see me still staring at the X-rays on the screen.
“Yeah. Could you grab Dr. Jay? I’m ready for an exam.”
“Sure thing,” Macey said, leaving to get the doctor.
My stomach turned with nervousness as I waited for the dreaded moment when he’d look at the sticky note with my suggestions and tell me I was wrong.
Dr. Jay entered the room a few minutes later, instantly reaching out to shake the new patient’s hand.
“Hello, Connor. I’m Dr. Jay. Welcome to our office.” They exchanged greetings, and after getting to know each other a bit, Jay leaned Connor back in the chair.
I held my breath as Jay grabbed the explorer off the tray and began examining Connor’s teeth.
“DO on three. MOD on five. MO on fifteen. DOL on thirty-one,” Dr. Jay spouted off, the numbers representing the teeth and the letters indicating the surfaces with cavities. I quickly wrote down the treatment, feeling a spike of panic when I realized he hadn’t mentioned an MO on twenty-eight. I’d messed up.
“I’m sorry, I thought I saw something on twenty-eight,” I mumbled, unable to meet his gaze.
“No worries. I appreciate you being thorough andchecking. You have a great eye,” Jay said, and I looked up, eyes widening.
I was shocked at his words, momentarily speechless. Before I could process what he’d said, he was standing up to leave. “Nice to meet you, Connor. See you in six months!”
Did he just praise me?
It was small, nothing major—but he’d said I had a great eye?
I jumped a little when he gently touched the small of my back on his way out. He leaned down ever so slightly so only I could hear him.
“Respira, Amapolita,” he commanded gently before leaving the room.
Respira—a word I actually remembered from high school Spanish class. He was telling me to breathe.
