Career change

When you live in a small town, the pool of viable candidates for certain professions is somewhat shallow. That's where I come in. I'm not a good swimmer, but am able to wade in any pool. When the call came in for me to "fill in" at this office, I was more than happy to help out. Here's how the call played out:

RING
Me: "Hello?"
Deb: "Hi Donna, it's Deb."
Me: "Oh Hi Deb. What's up?"
Deb: "I was wondering if you had time later this month to help out at the office."
Me: "Sure. What do you need? Answer phones? Scrub toilets?"
Deb: "No, we need you to assist the dentist. You'll be rinsing and suctioning patients' mouths."
Me:
Deb: "Think you could do that?"
Me: "heh, heh. Uh, I've never done THAT before but I guess I could do it."
Deb: "Good. Why don't you come in next week and we'll show you around?"
Me: " 'k"
CLICK

And there it was. Just like that. The beginning of a new career. Turns out that assisting is something I'm adept at! I think with my innate love of tidying and neatening, suctioning spit and blood out of and around people's mouths is a natural transition.

I'm assisting next week. My first patient is a friend who is in dire need of a root canal. She's jazzed I'll be getting to know her a little more intimately. Not really, but she's a hiker friend and she's not exactly jazzed, but is pretty much indifferent as to who is on the other end of the suction tube. That's a good thing, because I'm out of practice and whatever gets in the way of the business end of that tube is fair game: tongue, cheek, doctor's glove. It gets a little dicey at times. Luckily, I've been blessed with patient patients.