Day 4- Tuesday

We woke up around 6:30am and had breakfast at 7:15am. For breakfast that morning I had bacon, cereal, some sort of sausage, and a plantain. We left for the brigade at Guanacaste around 8:00am with UNC Medical Brigades. After setting up the room, I was in charge of post op care for the morning shift. At this station I gave every patient a toothbrush, toothpaste, and floss, and I gave the patients that got extractions some medicine for the pain. Lunch around 12:00 was the usual Pb&J and chips. In the afternoon I got to do extractions! I got to elevate teeth, which is where you use a tool to get the tooth separated from the gums and have more of the tooth exposed. I also got to assist in actually pulling the tooth, and I eventually pulled one by myself, but it was just a little girl's tooth so it wasn't too difficult. Some teeth were easy to pull, but others took a good amount of time because of either the amount of decay or the tooth was just really not wanting to come out. One woman's tooth came out in pieces because of the amount of decay so when we tried to extract it, it just fell apart and we had to take piece by piece out. Another woman's tooth had 3 roots on her molar so that was cool to see. After helping all of the patients we left the brigade site around 3:30pm. On the way back we stopped at our favorite gas station to get some goodies. Before going back to Rapacco we went to a little building where they make plantain chips and I bought a huge bag for 30 limperas, which was about 1.50 dollars. Dinner was at 6:30pm and we had talapia, plantain chips with salsa (my new favorite snack food), watermelon, rice, corn, and green beans. After dinner we had a dental meeting and packed up the suitcases for the brigade the next day. The brigade staff had a surprise for us that night with a bonfire, s'mores, and a band which was a lot of fun. I was really tired that day so I went to bed around 9:00pm.