Worst week EVER!

I have had the worst time finishing up my patient x-rays this week.


How our lab radiography class works is we have three practice rounds on a dummy (we call these dummies our "Dexter" x-rays) in which we take 18 x-rays of the entire mouth. The first one obviously isn't perfect because we're just learning. The second one has to be perfect but often times kids still struggle and need help from the teachers on placement and/or angle of the x-rays. The third is actually a different technique that they show us to take the x-rays and these too have to be perfect and all 18 of them need to be done within 30 minutes. They ensure that you only take thirty minutes by scheduling another student right after your time should be up. Putting even more pressure on each student. Then we get to schedule a patient, and we can only miss six x-rays altogether out of 18. We have to retake these six and hope that there are no more retakes because if there are, another patient needs to be scheduled due to the overexposure of radiation.


Overall I finally ended up passing on my third patient (finished it today actually). I was so incredibly frustrated during these past six weeks of radiography, more so then I have ever been in my life. I spent Tuesday night in tears because I didn't pass my second patient and didn't think I would need a third AND on top of all that, Nate wasn't able to be my backup patient because he recently had x-rays taken at the dentist. I was stressing out a lot this week. Last week there was also a problem where my teacher had actually lost my entire second "dexter" x-rays so I had to retake those as well.


I couldn't be happier that the weekend is here and I am completely done with my radiography classes and passed them both with A's. I have also come to learn that I am the one student in my class that nobody EVER wants as a patient. Lucky me, I'm a gagger. REALLY BAD GAGGER! Almost threw up today actually when x-rays were being taken of my teeth. I'm the student that you would want as a patient only if you wanted a really big challenge. I couldn't be happier though because nobody in class wants anymore of a challenge in school.