PDA

It's not about Parental Drug Association, it's about our Personal Digital Assistant or PDA in the workplace. PDA is a small electronic device which can include some of the functionality of a computer, a cellphone, a music player, and a camera, it's also known as palm top computer. We use PDA in checking attendance of the students at Y(YMCA) in the before and after school age program. We usually leave it at the Y room at the end of each meeting, then use it again in the afternoon. I'm in the afternoon shift, because I have a morning job at the school. Usually I take rest at the Yroom after my work to wait for my shift, anyway it's just 30 minutes waiting, that's perfect for my newspaper reading while taking a break.

This afternoon something weird happened......our PDA was missing. My co-worker, and me were nervously looking for it everywhere in the room, but we had no luck. I was more nervous, all the circumstantial evidence were pointing on me, I am the first one in the room, reading newspaper, taking a rest. Then, it will be my last day of work tomorrow, I already resigned from my job because we will be moving to Wisconsin next week. Or I'm just being paranoid.

Here in this school, no one will get your things even you leave it somewhere, cellphones, cameras, valuable things, it's everywhere, unattended but no one dare to get or attempted to steal those. That's why I can't believe that our PDA was missing. Did I mention we don't have Security Guard in this school? Security Guard is not a popular job here. In fact, all the establishments here in Dubuque has no security guard. So, its' just somewhere, we went to the school office, we inquired who was the last person who went there in the room. They called the 3 person who were the last used the room, and presto one of them got it. I will not reveal his identity here but it serves as a lesson that it's not safe to leave valuable things everywhere.

The importance of Oral Hygiene

Having a great smile and good teeth are so important. Sales people, executive, professionals, performers, students and just about anyone from looking good and feeling better about themselves. I confessed that I was raised without a dental professional checked my teeth. Having a dentist is the last thing in our list, food first. If our tooth aches, we will just do self-treatment like herbal medicines, garlic and pain medicines. We don't care about abscess and gum swelling. As long as our stomach is full and meet our basic necessities.

When I had my first dental check up here in the States, I was so nervous, I knew there will be a lot of work they will do on my teeth. First, they did a lot of x-rays, bite wings x-ray, upper and lower. Then the dental hygienist cleaned my teeth. They knew right away based on the x-ray that I have a dead tooth, and there"s no other choice but to pull it, which I refused because I did not feel anything on that dead tooth, not painful, its normal looking, how come it was dead? The dentist made a simple test just to show me it was really dead, he put an electric stick on one of my "healthy tooth" and I felt a tingling sensation, its painful. Then he tried it on my "dead tooth" and I feel none, no tingling sensation, nothing, no feeling. It means, it's dead. And there's a link on that, it's not that simple that I have just a "dead tooth" They said I will need a biopsy to check if its cancerous. Of course, I felt scared. NO idea that a simple tooth will make a difference. Just found out that there"s a lot of related diseases link to our teeth. So we better not take for granted oral hygiene.

After that, I got numerous dental visits, my biopsy was negative. But since hubby got retired, our dental insurance was stop. And I still have more appointments left. It's embarrassing but I have 2 cavities for treatment. We have to pay for 100% for this, we have no choice, I really need this treatment to save my teeth. I need a smile.

I want to thank Dr. Lattner and his staff for a job well done on my teeth.