Medical School Graduation

Pictures of my medical school graduation, then celebration weekend in Las Vegas...

Getting Hooded then hand shake with the Chancellor, Dr. G!

Brothers picture... of my three good friends: Greg, Brian, Daniel

My parents and I before I received a surprised award :)

Las Vegas

Falling in love at the Le Reve show at the Wynn after a very beautiful performer threw me a red carnation :)

My brother and fiance at the Eiffle Tower... awwww...

The Bellagio water show from the top of the Eiffle Tower... very nice.

Atlanta, Georgia

Hi all, I haven't posted a note on here for quite a while! After my last rotation in medical school, I took about a 5 week vacation. Graduated on 6/5, went to Vegas, then to Georgia. I have here a few pictures of my time in Georgia. I met up with a few people that I went to Costa Rica with and got to spend lot of quality time with a few people. I must admit, I really enjoyed Atlanta. I really enjoyed hanging out with Clint, Carla and Hannah out on the porch. I really enjoyed hiking the Tallulah Gorge with Clint and Deborah. I really enjoyed eating Chef Brantley's wonderful meal. I really enjoyed floating down the Broad River in our kayaks with Clint, Hannah, and Liz :) Ahhh, good times...

Hannah and my colorful creations

Lunch with Ryan at the Ted's Montana Grill... my first Buffalo Burger

Hiking the Tallulah Gorge loop with Deborah and Clint

Yum... good Southern BBQ

What else can I say? Nothing like them boiled p-nuts...

Clint's backyard... lots of wonderful relaxing hangouts on this porch overlooking a foresty backyard. Good times rolling...

Kayaking on the Broad River with Hannah, Liz, Clint... so nice, lots of wonderful memories and pictures in my head... too bad I didn't have a dry bag to carry my camera in to show you pictures of Hannah and Liz fliping over in the kayaks :) We had a great time did we, girls?!

Chef Brantley's Creation: "Bohemian Gourmet"

Talk and Bite
Baby leek with chicken salad
Mini burger
Sushi Tuna roll


The Main Deal
Ocean delight, Orange Ruffie
Pan sheared with olive oil, lightly season, and topped with a thin crisp crab cake.

West meets East Green Beans
Fresh green beans blanched in a southern season boil and finished off in a pan with roasted sesame seeds and olive oil.

From the Earth, mixed Baby Potatoes
Roasted baby potatoes, red & yellow bell peppers, garlic, green onions, and mush rooms covered with olive oil and seasons cooked to a roasted light brown.

The Sweat Things of Life
Key Lime Mango tart
Mini Chocolate cake covered in a dark chocolate Ganache
Bohemian Split Banana, mango, and pineapple cooked down in a brown sugar, butter sauce, topped with ice-cream and a mini fried sneaker.


Expresso

(*) Reflections 2009

Year 2005
Planting of a young tree
Full of robust potential and vitality
Ground was fertile
Gardener was eager and skilled
Tree: ready to stretch, inhale, and expand roots.

Spring
Many are the events of 2005
Formation of a new ring in my wood core
Remember standing with me in the shower of blessings?
Recall the radiant happiness of my heart?

Summer
Along with that happiness was a gift to study medicine
None would contest its challenges
40 hours in class
40 hours on weekends
What have become of my Friday nights?

Fall
First 2 years flew by
Lots of nice memories and good times
And a few challenges later
By divine appointment, I was given a gift I didn’t want
Pain
Emotional, physical, spiritual
Shaken, I quaked
Sadness, frustration, anger, depression
The ice and sleet
Shaved my pride.

Winter
Lingering fog clouds my heart still
Wildfire of anger and frustration have subsided
Tinder has been consumed
Conflicted and incapacitated
I cannot see beyond self.

Spring
As the bone chilling cold of winter pass
New breeze of ocean air washed over me
New shoots of this tree reaches out from the vine
Pods open to fragrant flowers
As my mind finds refuge from the storm and clears of fog
I found Hope and a promise for Joy.

Year 2009
What happened to the last 4 years of my life?
Where was I?
How did I get here?
I don’t know.

What I do know is:
My roots are firm
My shoots are healthy
I am still taking a breath.

As I look UP
Suddenly, I realize
There was a bigger tree
Of which I was taking its shade
I was in the refuge of those who came before me.

As for the Gardener
I’ve realized…
I know His voice!
Sang to me through the winter
Strong arms protected me from the wind
Made cover over me from frost
Placed nourishment for my roots
Pouring living Water over my core
Radiant face over my new shoots
Sweat of blood to color my flowers
Roughened hands to trim my branches
Whispering to me:
You will be shade for others some day
Trust in Me.

Yesterday is passed
Today is yours to enjoy
Tomorrow will be here before you know it.

Make most of your circumstances
Yesterday will never return
You have no other choice but to choose wisely
You are never alone!

Testing out the Hennessey Hammock...

Last Friday I finished medical school. So, to celebrate, Taylor had a cook out and had some friends over. Taylor is such an awesome cook, the meal was delicious. I completely pigged out! After that, Doug and I went camping. I had previously got 2 jungle quality Hennessey Hammocks for my trip to the Costa Rican jungle... and loved it. If you've never seen these hammocks, let me tell ya, it is the coolest adventure camping equipment you will ever own! My hammock weights less than 2 lbs, fits into a tiny sack, setup/tear down in about 5 min, and its environmentally friendly! I will not camp without it. So, Doug wanted to test it out...

Jeeping and hiking in...

Check out our set up! It was so nice and compact... we camp right next to a creek... looking up to see trees and stars.

Doug hoisting all our food to get it out of bear's reach.

I was told to avoid these... 3 leaves of terror... poison oak; and the hairy ball... hum... no comment.

Ok, so, we both convinced each other to go bare bone... minimalist camping, no sleeping bag, only a jacket and a thin blanket... Ouwy... we were both up for most the night thinking of ways to get warm... we were both SOOOOOOO COLD! I was shivering and thinking about the warm Costa Rican beach water and then my thoughts would shift to dreaming about my warm foot box of my 15 degree Marmot sleeping bag... Then, I would start thinking about what if I started packing and hiking out... then I felt it was forever long and looked at my watch hoping its about 4-5am so to tough out another 1 hr to get up and warm up... AWWW its only 2:30am! So, I started getting into fetal position and trying to do everything to warm up my legs... then, I decided to put the rain tarp on my hammock... well it worked... probably raised about 10 degrees in there... as I hear the leaves rustle and creek water churn, I fell asleep into the starlight. Then, I woke up at 6:30am, Doug was already out heating a pot of green tea... what a warm encouragement for the day. What a night! I will never do that again without my sleeping bag.

I am 30!

Today is my birthday and I am now 30. Wow, time flew! My family had a nice meal at a local Chinese restaurant and then came home to a beautiful cake with the planet Saturn on my cake! It was a multi-layered yogurt cake. Very delicious!

Yummy birthday breakfast, special fresh omlet from the garden, and a yummy 'framboise jello heavenly goodness' dessert!

Special yogurt cake mom bought, and Korean BBQ in fresh romain lettus wrap that Taylor made for me... well, Elias looks like he liked it!

Medical Acupuncture managements of COLDS and VIRAL FLU!

***With the news of the infamous 'Swine Flu,' this may interest you***

Ok, I am getting pretty excited about acupuncture, and since I got back from Pittsburgh, I've had a many opportunities to treat people using Acupuncture and OMT. So, I was pretty excited about one recent treatment that I did to myself, I want to tell you about it.

So, in Acupuncture, a 'cold' or 'flu' is called a 'wind invasion.' In Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture, our body is designed in various layers: from surface to deep. Therefore, when 'wind' invades our body, it invades also from surface to deep. Here is how the depth of body works in the acupuncture vernacular. These are Chinese names for various Acupuncture Meridians that are arranged from Surface --> Deep.

1. Tai Yang: Surface, support, structure, back, posterior areas
2. Shao Yang: Lateral body areas, movement, joints
3. Yang Ming: Front of the body, digestive tract
4. Tai Yin: Lung function, respiration, skin, sinusis, digestion
5. Shao Yin: Functions of excretion and elimination
6. Jue Yin: Emotional/spirit aspect of a person

So, as the 'wind invades' from surface to deep, it can progress from symptoms mentioned in #1 to #6... usually when it gets to #4, it causes enough respiratory symptoms such as cough, congestions, fever, sometimes pneumonia, patients usually end up in a doctor's office seeking help. So, that's when we usually see patients.

Let me describe a typical 'wind invasion' for you, and you can see how much coorelations there are to 'Western medicine understanding' on what a 'flu' or a 'wind invasion' to 'Eastern Medicine understanding.' So, a 'cold = wind invasion' usually starts on our neck/head/back as myalgias, or muscle aches. Then, it moves to our joints as aches. Then, it as it progresses, it invades a layer deeper to our intestines and stomach, causing gastroparesis, bloating, diarrhea/constipation, belly aches, and indigestion. Then, it moves to our sinusis, our throat, our lungs causing us to cough, produce phlegm, runny nose, ear aches, sinus headaches, and wanting to just crash to sleep. At times it may present more as a gastrointestinal issue than respiratory, or vice versa. That's what we usually called a 'flu' vs. 'stomach flu.'

In Western Medicine, there is nothing you can do about it. As a physician, we recommend 'supportive care', which means, other than rest, drink water, and take tylenol for fevers and aches, continue feeding, at most, we can give you 2 different types of anti-viral medicines, other than that, there's nothing else we can do. Just allow tincture of time and let your body heal. In Osteopathic Medicine, we can offer lymphatic drainage techniques and various other techniques in conjuction to the above therapies to help speed up and alleviate cold symptoms. In Chinese Medicine and acupuncture, it is possible to treat and gain immediate relief of symptoms. Many times, the 'cold' would just LEAVE! Can you believe that? Well, I was skeptical until I acupunctured myself. Since then, I have done the same treatment on many patients and physician, that yielded the same result... Here is what I did.

So, the course of my 'cold' usually starts with a scratchyness in the back of my throat, then it progresses to muscle aches, head aches, sinus aches, cough, chest congestion, sometimes gastrointestinal symptoms... and then after my 'cold' symptoms go away, I usually am left with a lingering dry cough for a at least 2 weeks...

We were taught several protocols we can use to 'break the wind invasion' to 'extract the wind invasion from deep to surface,' therefore, getting rid of it. I did it, and it involved 1 needle on the leg, 2 in the arm, bilaterally... with electrical stimulation. I added a few needles for sinuses on the face. 10 minutes later... after I pulled all the needles out, my sinuses were completely clear and my cough stopped and I haven't had the usual lingering dry cough since! Amazing.

Mixteco - Feliz Dia Del Nino

Have you heard of a people group named the Mixteco? They are an ethnic indigenious people group from Oxaca, Mexico. The Mixtecs were a major group of people in pre-Columbian times and also served an important role in the Aztec Empire. Currently in California, there are a large population of Mixteco people in Ventura County, who came to the US as migrant farm workers. Their legal status depends mostly on if they were here before 1986 or after. Most migrant workers who came before 1986 were given opportunity to become legal residents, but not after 1986.

As a people group, they experiences many unique challenges. They usually are much poorer than most poor people who are receiving State or County aid. They usually work very hard, both parents, and having to leave children for others to take care of. They usually have no choice but to seek health care at a later stage of illness or pregnancy, because they cannot afford to take days off. A good majority of them also do not speak Spanish or English, they speak Mixteco. In our Ventura County health system, there are only a few translators who speak both Mixteco and Spanish, and only 1 who speaks English, Mixteco, and Spanish. Can you imagine the problem that can cause?

There are also numerous challenges in the way they approach healthcare, namely doctor visits when they get pregnant. Usually, it takes 4 seperate appointments for someone to have a pregnancy follow-up (Doctor, WIC, MediCal, Ultrasound/Lab). These hard working Mixteca women cannot afford to take off even 1 day without getting paid, nevertheless 4! Our healthcare system is not conducive in addressing their needs... and think about it, the clinic that I work at, sees a majority of Mixteco patients! You think something should change so they can see the doctors earlier for health needs! You think that somebody already has this figured out! NOT. Actually, many problems still exist, and Mixtecan patients still only get to see doctors way later in their pregnancy for check ups and for doctor visits. Difficulty in accessing healthcare has direct correlations with personal health complications! This is a huge issue! WE NEED CHANGE! And, we don't need Obama to do it! We need regular people like us to step up!

So, I went to an event today that benefits the Mixteco community. Once a month, a bunch people get together and bag groceries for 270+ Mixteco families. We placed many fresh fruits and vegitable into a bag along with several canned-foods. Many Mixteco families also get large tube of tooth paste, soap, diapers, and a good ole time gathering together with other Mixtecos during this event. Here are some pictures for your browsing pleasure. If you would like to know more or to get involved, you can contact me. Leave me a comment with your contact information, I will get back to you. Thanks.

Look at that roll of bags!; 2 of our Mixteco translators, Sabina and Nico.

How I wished to have some!

Arts and crafts, making a fruit loop necklace!

Look over there... look at our major sponsor!

Look at that line, and helpful volunteers!

Taylor, Kavi, Elias, y Jorge! We all enjoyed this event :)