ten years ago..

 

A: Nice to see you. Please let’s go back ten years.

J: Yep.

A: To November 2015. On a Wednesday we did scale and cleans, recall exams and a few fillings. And then I went; played tennis; went home to bed and woke up after two weeks in ICU.

J: Yep.

A: Thursday what were you thinking?

J: This is be something you probably want remember. 2015 was a very significant year for me as well.  I actually had some emergency surgery which was a big operation and I was off work at the time. The interesting thing for me was nobody told me. Because I was recovering from a big operation. One of the DA’s contacted me.

J: I immediately contacted Lorna (Alan’s partner) and said what can I do?

J: I came back to work early. To manage the patients as best I could. You were a ridiculously busy man.

A: What were you told?

J: A lot of it was unknown. Lorna wanted to play things a day at a time. She thought you would wake up and be okay. And it wasn’t until after you woke up, we were able to get a better picture of what was happening. It was four or five weeks before I was able to come and visit you. You were insisting you wanted to see me.

A: Did you come and visit me?

J: I did. Things were different for you. You suffered a brain injury. And you were fixated on one topic. Which was as soon as I walked in the door you told me you wanted to sell the practice.

J: The other thing I remember is you tried on a few occasions to escape from the ward because you didn’t want to be there so when I was leaving you said I’ll just come with you and I thought you actually can’t.

A: They eventually let me out.

A: Well one day, in hospital, I said to Jo (my daughter) I’d better get back to work. I’m sure the patients are building up. And she said you are not going back to work. You are retired. So, I looked around the ward and thought have to sell the practice.

J: I returned to work and helped Lorna to manage the patients as best we could.

A: When you buy a practice, they come back to see the nurse.

J: Interesting that you say that. Because that was a massive concern for your patients.  When they called, they would say is Jodi still there. I’m not coming back if Jodi’s not there. I would have to reassure them.

J: Well, we built rapport and I worked for you for fourteen years so I built relationships with these people as well. I was a familiar face. They built a relationship with me as well.

A: When you had a regular patient come in what would you do?

J: Some of them would panic and say what would I do. All I could do was reassure them, the practice was taken over, their records were here, we were going to have some lovely dentists who they could see and that I would help them transition be on site or be chairside. And lots of them did need reassurance. They were asking me for my personal opinion.

J: Like are you sure this person is okay. And would you see them. it was a massive change for them. Because they had been seeing the same person for twenty plus years.

A: It was also a change for me, you and Lorna.

J: It was a significant change for a lot of us. For me I had worked with the same person for fourteen years and then I needed to move into a situation where there were a lot of dentists. And a lot of other staff.

A: Your job changed.

J: Initially I was chairside a lot because Dr Fernando didn’t know me and I didn’t know him and as time went on, he realised I had a skill set that maybe other staff didn’t so my role developed.

A: Do you do any chairside assisting now?

J: Every now and again they may get a patient who is particularly challenging and a few months ago one of our dentists asked me if I would help him with a particularly challenging patient and I said absolutely. She turned out to be my granddaughter.

(Ha ha ha.)

A: The practice is still going well.