Blog On Hold For The Final Year...

Teeth and relaxation...must learn how to make them go
hand and hand....

TIME FLIES...

Week 1- Final year of dental school "Hit the ground running"

One week back in school as the seniors of the school... I am already exhausted. I wasted no time scheduling procedures that I've been dying to do... and just went in it. I learned/ did more things this week then I did all last year... it was amazing. However, as a person? ... How am I feeling? Beyond tired. Mental exhaustion since I went from a very chill and fun month of break... to full speed ahead.... full time patient care. Ah. However, last week I only had 3 full days of patients.... next week I have 5.... 10 appointments of screenings, exams, treatment planning, cleanings, fillings, crowns, and even a root canal.... all in one glorious week. I finally feel like I'm becoming a dentist...and you know what? It's about darn time. I'm starting to enjoy it a lot more. This was my dream for the past 15 years. I can't really see the light yet, but it's slowly coming. I'm 2/3rd of the way there.. just have to learn how to survive.

Typically I have 15 minutes to eat lunch or dinner. There are 2 days out of the week were I'm at school for 12 hours.... so they give a 1 hour lunch, and 1 hour dinner... however... most of the time during lunch is spent cleaning up and setting up for the next patient... that sucks out a lot of the time from my "personal time." but.. I made it a mission to go home every time, no matter how little time I know I have to eat something... anything. I realized sitting through a 4 hour appointment gets me ridiculously hungry. My patient even called me out on it... I was so embarrassed. I try to wake up at 6 every morning so I can start my day. I eat a very well balanced meal for the mornings (fruits, whole grains, almond butter, and other fiber rich foods) however, that's just not enough. I get hungry.. very quickly... so that's something I need to figure out. I will probably have to take a snack break during the appointment... I hope my patients understand.

Lunch this week was the same.... for 5 days, I toasted two pieces of bread, put on some roast beef ham, a slice of cheddar, heated it up in the microwave, squirted a swirl of mustard, and placed a heaping of salad on top... paired it with a piece of fruit, and rice pudding. BLAH. I'm not a fan of homemade simple sandwiches. For the last 2 years, I would go home and make myself actual meal in that 1 hour time frame.. it was so nice... that's why I call it my personal time. It's my quiet oasis... where I can reflect on the morning, and anticipate for the afternoon.... apparently as a third year, that doesn't exist anymore.

As a lover of cooking, I made so many failures this week. I don't think  I will be cooking much anymore, but I try to make dinners for a few days. Here's one for the books : I made a wonderful mushroom chicken noodle soup that I stewed for an hour in my dutch oven, then as I was about to turn off the heat, I decided to add some cayenne pepper to it.... just a few shakes, I got that spice jar, inverted it, shook it... and 1 tbsp of pumpkin pie spice came out..... omgggg..... why. I quickly scooped up as much spices as possible.. but realized.. the soup does taste ok with the pumpkin pie spice! ( well a little bit of it) ... so it wasn't a disaster, but I do prefer it without pumpkin pie spice :/ My next mistake came in the morning when I was making blueberry pancakes. I do still believe in homemade foods, and well... I mixed it up, poured it on the pan... 2/3rds of the way into the batter realized that I forgot the egg.... these mistakes have never happened before. Why now? You can imagine where my mind it. I need to take this weekend to untangle it. I need to bring my A game next week. This is going to be THE MOST challenging year of my life so far. I have to be ready.

No Goals, No Expectations for this blog. :( ... back to how it was in 1st year.

Week 2: "Neglected"

Neglected. That was the theme of my cooking life. I used my stove one time this week.. and that was to boil eggs.... It's kind of a blur as to what I ate this week... I spent very little time deciding.. and eating.... but I"m sure it could be summed up with more sandwiches.. and frozen meals heated in the microwave... my mom has been coming out every week and brings me fresh fruit and home cooked meals... so it's kind of nice not having sandwiches for a few days. I do start off my days with some wonderful cold brew coffee.. I never let it run out. I have 2 beautiful containers of it in my fridge all week. Coffee is getting me through life. I'm so glad my stomach is not acting up so much anymore... * knocks on wood*

2 weeks into this year and I can say that I've covered all aspects of dentistry... either in the treatment planning phase or actually starting the procedure which actually gets me really excited. This past week I did a few fillings, exams, adjustments, cleanings, took final impressions, made some really beautiful temps, scheduled extractions, planned a few dentures, got an implant, and started on a root canal. NOTHING IS LEFT UNTOUCHED....the best parts about that are my patients... they tend to fall asleep on me haha.... but hey, drill in mouth.. and sleeping patient? ... Kind of dangerous.. but also kind of a compliment. This week should be somewhat simple, I am in emergency all week... so I can officially only have 2 of my own patients....and one is already an emergency patient.. here's to taking a breather.. and legitimately missing all classes this week....woohoo!

Week 3: Emergency and forever "Dent"ed

I'm spending this whole week doing my emergency rotation... and some how my patients  (and myself) are also the ones in emergency as well.... fractured teeth, huge infections... ah....  once again, a weekend was not enough time to figure out everything and wind down. I spend the weekends hanging out with friends, trying to get away from dentistry as much as I can... (always fail though.. ) and just laying in bed looking at my semi decent view. I like my quiet time. For the first time since I've been cooking for myself, I sliced a corner of my finger off... as well as a part of my nail. Sigh. I guess this is a sign, I need to focus on just one dream. I seriously thought that I could manage, but out of exhaustion, I missed dinner, and went to the store to get some foods. I came back at 10pm and started to make some soup... and well while slicing the onions .. I sliced off a corner of my finger..... and probably mind slipped. I was surprised I didn't have another breakdown, but I knew it was coming. Was this the final straw? THis quarter I've already had 3 cooking disasters.... out of the 4 times I've cooked? Maybe I just can't cook anymore. I don't know.

Week 4: "I can do this"

This week was epic. I felt like I was having a comphrehensive practice. Tuesday, I had a revelation. I can do this. I can do dentistry. I did my first root canal in one appointment. There has been very few proud moments in dental school for me thus far, I'm a hard critic to please. But that... GOLDEN.  This officially started my career in the root canal department of dentistry :) I couldn't stop starring at the final post op film. I prepared all weekend by reading so many articles about calcified canals.. fearing the worst... but no, it was fine. Not a problem. I slowly opened up the canal, from barely getting an 8 file in to a 35... got beautiful tug back from the master cone, and the rest is history.. and I was probably one of the last people to use GT files in our clinic..... well it kind of bummed me out that we drilled out half of it to put in the post the next day, but hey, my work was still kind of there. After the epic root canal, did a test case, and passed. This are looking up.. but then the rest of the week hit. Lab work got tedious, and beyond frustrating. Patients started cancelling, and yea, life started to go as it normally goes again. Hectic. I missed lunch twice this week. I had to sneak out of my appointment and go upstairs for a snack.... but in the end... totally worth it.

Week 5: "GP"

Did another root canal on Monday... I'm becoming an anterior specialist... which is great because that's what I want to do in my future practice... then at night clinic... took impressions to make 2 complete dentures, and then the rest of the week was at the Highland rotation... I took out 10 teeth! Hm. Weird.. the ratio is quite skewed. I'd rather do 10 root canals and one extraction. I was asked way too many times during the highland rotation what I wanted to do after graduation... I mean is it really that bad that I want to be a general practitioner? I get that everyone there are training to be oral surgeons, but come on, where are these referrals coming from? I want to be able to do everything to my comfort level and refer out when I'm not. I want to learn the basics and rationales of extracting teeth, but you know what... I prefer saving teeth. Any who, I saw maybe the most diverse patient pool ever. I couldn't even believe it. The medical and social histories were beyond complex which really challenged me. I really only extracted a few teeth before this rotation... I say it's a win in my books. I got to stand in an operating room to watch a jaw fracture fix... which was cool. Patients there still didn't take me seriously, but when it came to extracting it, no pain, no worries, no problems... and getting that big thank you at the end... or even having patients clap after the tooth is out.. was always a nice feeling. These patients are what really makes it worthwhile. Some came in as early as 3:30 am in excruciating pain to wait to be seen probably 7-8 hours later. I came, I learned, I extracted... back to the land of drilling and filling. Will I miss the 5am wake up calls? Absolutely not. How about the most horrible cafetaria foods I've ever had? ya.. no. Coffee pumped through my veins this week. No joke. 3 cups of coffee in the morning (thank goodness for my cold brew glasses sitting in the fridge!).... amazing how I got through the day without fainting.... some teeth did not want to budge! See ya later Highland....


Week 6: "Focus and Slow Down"

Fillings and crown preps... that was the theme of this week. I'm not complaining. It's about darn time I start prepping crowns.... and it seriously isn't as scary as it was back in the sim lab days... Teeth are more forgiving than the buttery soft plastic. I'm starting to trust myself and my training more. I also started 2 rotations this week... I have this amazing opportunity to do dentistry on a pretty unique RV... and RV with 4 dental chairs... and everything that I need clean, drill and fill. My other rotation is in Oakland... doing dentures.. it's just interesting seeing and working at different clinics around the area... one thing for sure is that as a dentist you have to quickly adapt to your setting.... use the burs that they have....and forget about the stuff they don't have... the set ups are all different... but I guess there are so many multi purpose instruments out there which makes my life so much easier.

Week 7: "My Diet...." 

Is crap. I got sick at the end of week 6.... I definitely bounced back quickly.. and was thankful that I got sick on the very end of the week.. and took the whole weekend to recuperate. That's fine with me.... I rather be bed ridden.. than treat patients while sick. I was confined to a soft/liquid diet because of my horrendous sore throat... but then the week picked up.. and my diet.. well.. was awful. It was embarrassing... I ate corn dogs, pizzas, burgers, cup of noodles... things that take 5 minutes MAX to make. yummy... and well not much else... since I ate around 1 meal a day.... no wonder I dropped a few sizes and all the clothes I just ordered online don't fit anymore..... I need to take care of myself more... I need to find the happiness that I had in foods.... I mean... food is heaven to me... grocery stores are my favorite places to go to.... With all the stress and frustration because of dental school... it's hard to figure that out... figure out the essentials of life.... aka. nutritious foods. When I'm stressed.. I forget to eat. I was just running. That's how I felt..... running from appointment to appointment... place to place..... not really taking that break... no wonder I finally got sick.. it's been YEARS... oh well... I spent the end of this week cooking for myself... and even baking cakes.... calories are calories...... I need to gain back some weight.... and remind myself.... powerbars and vitamin water does not equal an adequate meal replacement.

Things are looking up. Just gotta believe.