End of First Semester Holiday Party!

This was a nice way to celebrate the end of a long semester. We all dressed up and had a nice potluck dinner! It was fabulous!

I am Giving Up SODA!

Before I was accepted in to DH school, I did not drink soda! In my first semester of DH I became addicted! Dr. P always seemed disappointed in me when I would come into her office slurping up Dr. Pepper! :/ I did learn that it was better for your teeth to use a straw, but needless to say. . .I must confess this horrible habit since I plan on being a dental hygienist. I am facing my addiction and giving it up for the new year! 2011. NO MORE soda! : )

-Soda rots your teeth! The phosphoric acid dissolves the calcium out of your teeth's enamel and causes cavities. : (

-When it comes to your teeth, the worst thing you can do is to sip soda throughout the day. If you're not ready to give soda up completely, try and drink it at one sitting with a meal, and when you're done, immediately rinse with water.

Ruin Is The Road To Transformation

I have decided that I will from now on always turn what we automatically think is negative and turn it into positive. I feel like I usually have done that throughout my life but when things get hard it is easy to focus on the negative. This year I think must have been the hardest year to get through. or at least the most challenging so far. I feel like each year as I get older I continue to say this. But recently I watched Eat Pray Love where Julia Robert's has a beautiful line. . "ruin is the road to transformation" so my perspective now is that rather than each year ruining me and each little negative thing destroying me, I am merely being transformed into the person who God wants me to be. Ruin meaning destroyed? no. . . no it means being renewed over and over. Which is what the Lord does for us constantly is to take us and renew us. I feel ruined right now in a way, but I know that God is trying to open my eyes to something much greater and beautiful that I can ever imagine! I dream of the day that I can be on the mission field helping people who are sick and need help. I tell myself that God is trying to teach me patience. I feel like I've been waiting forever! I dream of the day when i can get married and have a family like every single one of my friends. But I know that is far off in my story. My friends ask me if I'm sad, and yes sometimes, but I can't be for so long because I am overtaken by how blessed I am! I want my story to be different. I don't want to be like everyone else. So every day I will continue to eat pray and love and let this life constantly ruin me so that I can be transformed into the person God made me to be.

He gives and takes away

It's amazing how you can feel like your fate is in the hands of human. But then I remember Christ. And how I am defined in Him. I am written in a much greater plan than anyone on this earth could ever decide for me. The decisions made have already been written. "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord". Therefore I rejoice. I will rejoice when I am sad and I will rejoice when I am happy. I will not let the things of this world tear me down. If I did anything, I hope I was able to in some way share my faith and my passion for missions. And my passion to serve people, my passion to love my passion to make people to laugh. If you were never broken, if nothing bad ever happened, if you were never weak, then you would never need healing, you would never need hope, you would never need to cry out, you would never need to be carried. I am constantly in the arms of the Lord. He gives me strength. He gives me hope. He gives me healing. He takes my brokenness. He carries me. He gives and takes away.

Highland Park Oral Screenings!

Today a few of us tagged along with Mrs. McGregor to a church in Highland Park to participate in their health fair. We set up two tables with information on oral health, did oral cancer screenings, and informed people about the VCU school of Dentistry. It was a great experience being apart of the fair. There were many other tables set up . . .gluclose screening, flu shots, blood pressure, massages etc informing this community about their health. Someone spoke about medical insurance, and another gave her story about cardiac arrythmia, another spoke about nutrition. The best part was talking to the people and motivating them. I can't wait for the next volunteer opportunity! Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Dental Floss Wrapping Solution :D

What do you do when you can't find tape!? Use dental floss! I am going to my best friends baby shower today. Here is my crafty solution to wrapping a gift!

Seeds of Hope

One of the places I want to live. Here is an old video of the Seeds of Hope Brazil orphanage. This is what keeps me motivated in life. I can't wait to serve here as a medical missionary. Check out their website http://www.seedsofhopebrazil.com/

DUN DUN DUN

It was not bad AT ALL. My first Patient yesterday was wonderful and my experience was as well. My partner and I worked great as a team!. First we got the patient in the chair and did medical history. My partner inputed the info in axium while I sat with the patient and tried to cheer her up and keep her calm. I took automated vitals and did intraoral and extraoral exam. My partner did the probing depths and recession while I inputted the info in the computer. Our professor told us to go ahead and clean her 11 teeth :) and then we realized that there were no x rays in her chart in axium. We were told by someone that we should just reschedule for her to come back and get xrays and a cleaning done. I ran downstairs trying to get a copy of her previous charts to know when the last time she had xrays was. . . and the chartroom was closed. So. There was a little miss communication as to what we were supposed to do about the radiographs. Our patient is going to reschedule to come back and just get the x-rays and cleaning. I was a little frustrated because we could have easily gotten our patient done. All in all it was a great learning experience. I want to get more proficient with axium. I think when I learn how to imput everything it will be a breeze! I realized how much I am going to LOVE this and love my patients.

<3ec

VCUUUUUU Basketball Game!

DH REPRESENT! Check out our cool advertisement that the VCU School of Dentistry bought!







We Won OF COURSE!
GO RAMS!

Celebration!

Celebration FOOD!




I PASSED all of my comps. Praise the Lord.

Sink or Swim

The two words today that stand out to me the most were sink or swim voiced by one of our lovely professors. :) "In this program you either sink or swim. . . and today your head was barely out of the water (with my gracey comp)" were the piercing words that punched me in the gut. But I felt it coming. I know I need a lot more practice with instrumentation. I'm not close to perfect. It's hard saying that when coming to dh school I thought without a shadow of a doubt that I was going to ROCK in the clinic. But here I am needing a lot of help. This has been such a roller coaster for me. I want this more than anything. I do not want to fail. The only thing I could think of today was imagining myself packing up my locker. . .which is a lot of stuff. I would probably have to make two or three trips to remove everything I have in there! I don't want my head to be barely out of the water in this program. I want to be walking on the water! BOOM! I think we should all strive to do this. Make the impossible possible. We all have the potential to go beyond succeeding. Now. . . I am off to study immunity. Good luck everyone on the exam tomorrow. :)

BAKE SALE!

The Bake Sale went REALLY well today! Thanks for all who baked or helped out in any way!!!!! Get ready to sell some more tomorrow from 12-1pm!

Rubber cup polish 2

Here is a video of Rubber Cup Polishing. . . looks easy!!!

Salvation Army!

Here Is the gang from the Salvation Army. The seniors and juniors did oral screenings. It was a lot of fun and good experience for volunteer work! Hope everyone can make it for the next event!

The one time I am told to use my middle finger. . .

OK. So it has been a looong 3 weeks of failing my explorer/probe comp. As many of you know I failed it 5 times!!! FIVE. So I want to walk you through my journey and hopefully my experience will help you all in some way. The first time I failed the comp, I didn't think I was doing anything wrong. Then the second and third time came and I finally realized that I was doing everything wrong. Still I did not seek help because I thought I could fix the problem on my own. The fourth time I finally had a lightbulb moment as to how my hand positioning is destroying me. The CORRECT way to hold the instrument is easy once you get it but for some reason it's too easy to want to digitize the thumb pointer and middle finger together. THis is wrong and it's what I have been doing this whole time! SO. it is hard to explain but your pointer middle and ring finger stay TOGETHER at ALL times. They do not come apart. Even when I tell myself this, I still fall back into the habbit of pushing in and out with the pointer thumb and middle. BUT you have to ingrain the UP/DOWN motion in your head. Your ring finger is your fulcrum where you pivot right!> SO keep your fingers together. and pivot your ring finger up and down. . .that is where the scaling moting comes from. . . then when you are working your way around the tooth you must use your thumb and pointer to turn the instrument. The middle finger must be placed in a position so that the instrument is not allowed to roll off your finger. THis all is hard to grasp. . . And if you are having trouble GO SEE the professors. They don't bite. :) I learned my lesson the hard. way. And by the way. . .I PASSED!!! So remember UP and down on your fulcrum ring finger. . USE your MIDDLE finger for keeping stability so you turn the instrument into interproximal medial distal areas! Go get help. . even if you think you don't need help. :) Love you all.

Clinic Comp Check List!

Hello class! I will have a brand new comp check off list up in clinic tomorrow morning! November 2nd is coming soon! So lets encourage each other to get these DONE!!! :)

DH Car Wash!

The SADHA car wash was lots of fun! We were able to raise lots of money to provide free dental care for the salvation army! Go VCU Dental Hygiene!