The Last Few Weekends

Last weekend I went down to Corvallis for the OSU, Washington football game. We spent the day watching football and hanging out with friends. It was a great day and OSU crushed Washington. My mom and aunt were in town also that weekend so I got to have dinner with them in downtown Portland. Today I went skiing for the first time this year and this is the earliest in the year I have ever skied. The mountain opened last weekend and had another good week of snow accumulation. We got up there about nine this morning to about 10'' of powder. The snow was great and the weather was bearable. Not all of the mountain was open year but we made the best of what was there. We skied hard until about 2:00pm and headed home. We stopped at a BBQ joint just off the road on the way home. Now it is time to rest and watch a little football. THe Beavers won today 42-10 against Washington State. Up next is the Civil War. Go Beaves.

Hunting and a Few Pictures

I have spending my fall weekends hunting. Last weekend I went down to a place that is North East of Lebanon. We saw two does and a spike. No shooters. This weekend I went to a place that is North of North Plains and South West of Vernonia. No deer seen but I did see lots of sign. The fog was so thick at time that I could not see very far. I did manage to hike a few miles take a few pictures and managed to only get rained on a little bit. I took these photos this morning.

First week of school

The first week of school was crazy. The pace was fast and furious. It seems like I can plan but things always change. Everyday is different and exciting and hectic. I saw one patient on a semi-emergency basis and now she is going to be my patient instead of another students. I did a lot of treatment planning this week but next week I have a few more procedures planned including an esthetic composite, a root canal and a scaling and root planing. Should be fun.

Summer Vacation

Summer vacation started off with a trip to San Diego fro the weekend. I flew down and stayed with my grandparents for the weekend. After coming back to portland for a day, I drove down to Ashland and stayed for the week. On my way to Ashland I stopped in Albany and spent the day at my friend Carson's Dental office. It was a great experience to see how a private practice can operated and it gave me something to look forward to when I graduate. While in Ashland, I spent the week relaxing, I went to a show at the Oregon Shakespeare festival, got my teeth cleaned. On my way back to Portland, I spent the day at OSU for the Beavers home opening football game. I saw lot of my college friends and the Beavers won easily. I left the game early because my cousin Dale happened to be flying in to Portland that day to buy a pickup truck and was totally lost in portland. Dale stayed with me that night and the next morning we drove to Idaho. Me in my truck and Dale in his new one.
On the drive we saw some big horn sheep and we had lunch with uncle Harold in LaGrande. I spent three weeks in Idaho where I stayed on the ranch. I helped out around the ranch and enjoyed the fishing. The fishing in the bass ponds was slow but the spring pond got stocked with five thousand 6-8 inchers which were hungary and wiling to bite. I also made a trip to the South Fork of the Boise rive with my friends eric and Ben from school. I hooked 8 fish but most were white fish. Overall we had a good day and learned to fish a new river. We made one pack trip up into the Bennett Mountains in order to drop my uncles hunting camp for this upcoming deer season. We had a few small rodeos with the horses but everything turned out ok and we found a good spot to set up camp.
One project that I was working on this summer was rebuilding the front clutch on a '62 Cub Cadet garden tractor. The clutch runs the mower deck and it went out while I was mowing. The parts were hard to track down because there are only a few specialized internet retailers that carry them. It was fun to learn about the mower and all the enthusiasts for these classic mowers.
Overall I had a good break and was refreshed and ready to start school and stat seeing patients again.

NBDE Part I

I took the first part of the national boadrs yesterday. I am sure that I did just fine. I spent the last week and a half studying for the exam. I am now going to get out of Portland and enjoy the rest of my summer vacation.

The Clinic

This summer we got to start seeing patients as students providing comprehensive care. It has been a good experience and I have been thoroughly enjoying it most of the time. School is much better now that the things that I do are actually going towards the care of real people and not just practicing on manikins. Today was a particularly special day but not because I got to do anything spectacular. One of my patients who I am going to remake her upper denture came in today to so we could finalize her treatment plan and get her on a high caries risk plan. She asked if I could reline her ill fitting upper denture because it was bothering her and she knew that we are about to go on break. I said that I thought I could do that but I needed to check with faculty because we typically don't work on things that were not made here at the school. I got it cleared, and after all the paperwork was done I got to reline her denture. It made a world of difference to her quality of life. She went from having an upper denture that was poorly relined, irritating and would not stay in to having a denture with a little retention. A vast improvement for such a small procedure. She was so much happier she said that she was going to go home and have a steak. I said don't get too carried away. It is amazing how one little thing that takes only a few minutes can make such an impact on someone's quality of life. Before today I was kind of dreading remaking her upper denture knowing that the best I could do would still be not very good. But After today I am excited to see how much more of an improvement I can make when she gets a new denture that is done correctly. I still know that it wont be great but it will be better than I first thought. Experiences like today is why I got into health care and what keeps me passionate about what I am doing. I hope there are many more day like today in my future.
Tomorrow, I am going to be doing my first fillings on a real patient. Wish me luck!

Triple Threat

On Saturday I ran in my first Triathlon out at Hagg Lake near Forest Grove. It was a sprint triathlon which is 1/2 of an olympic distance. It was 1/2 mile swim, 12.5 mile bike ride and 3.1 mile run. I completed the race in 1:38:11 which ended up being 180th out of 303 participants. I was 6 out of 9 in the males 20-24 division but I did beat a former OSU football player in my division. The swim was the most difficult because I am a novice swimmer and it was my first time swimming in open water my swim time was 21:37. The bike was tough because the course was anything but flat. Bike time 47:05. I did well in the run with a time of 23:53. This equates to a 7:39 min/mile pace which is good considering it is the last leg of the race and it was again a hilly course. Add on a few minutes for transition time and you get the 1:38:11 total. I am now poltting my next adventure and I will update when I have that planned out.