Case study

What an awful holiday season it had been for Danielle, an 11th grader at Ithaca High School. It all started right before Thanksgiving when she had to have her wisdom teeth removed. Her mouth hurt so much she couldn’t enjoy most of the Thanksgiving meal. That and the antibiotic she was taking, clindamycin, gave her a metallic taste in her mouth, and so even the mashed potatoes she could eat didn’t taste right. On Thanksgiving, her 83-year-old grandmother had fallen and broken her thumb and elbow. She had been in the hospital for a few days and then in a rehab center for a week. When Danielle had visited her grandmother in the rehab center, she had seemed to be in good spirits and was looking forward to getting ready for the Christmas holiday.