D.O.N.E.

(sorry this is kind of long, I didn't mean for it to be, but oh well...read if you want or just skip to the pics!)

We have come to the end of the dental school journey...I'm glad it's over, but I know Mark is THRILLED! He finished up classes mid April, but then had to take the WREB (licensing exam) this past weekend. Talk about stressful...I got to experience it first hand too. For this particular exam they have to get patients and complete certain things on them. I was Mark's assistant for the exam, it was neat to see him in action. It also made me realize how much stress he has gone through and I gained some serious respect for him. So back to his experience this weekend...

The first day went smoothly, he did a cleaning on a lady and two root canals on previously extracted teeth. The second day he had to do two fillings on this guy. Luckily the guy showed up (he was worried about that). So Mark is almost done with the first one and lets the guy take a break. But the guy never comes back! Seriously who does that?? Especially on this important of an exam. Without a patient you can't complete the requirements and you only have 2 1/2 days to do them. So Mark calls the guy several times, he never answers. At this point it's 2pm and if he doesn't complete one filling that day there would be no way he would have enough time to do two the next day. Luckily he has some awesome friends/classmates that helped him out. One of his friends happened to finish early with his patient, ran to find her before she left, begged her to stay and let Mark do another filling on her after she'd already had two done that morning. So he gets that one done. Another classmate was able to get his patient to come in the next morning for Mark. It's seriously amazing that everything worked out the way it did. Thankfully he completed all of the requirements and feels like he did pretty good. We will get the results in a few weeks. If he hadn't got those last min patients he would have had to retake the exam in Aug in Oklahoma, plus it would be much harder to find patients since he wouldn't be in school any more. I don't know how he survived through all of that stress, but he did it. Now all that's left is graduation.

I'm so proud of him for making it through these past 4 years. I know it's been a lot of work and stress for him, but I'm glad he was able to get through it. I really don't know how he did, I know I wouldn't have been able to.

Some random pics from the last day of the exam. These are cell phone pics, so they may not be the best, plus I was trying to be discrete when I was taking them.

Mark in action...

Me in my lovely glasses, mask, and gown....got to do my fair share of suctioning spit that weekend. Glad I never became a dental assistant...

Our badges we wore during the exam , we had to turn them in at the end, so I needed a pic of them.

Now he is currently in South Dakota interviewing and checking out the area. He will be going to Minnesota tomorrow and will be there until Tuesday. We have submitted the application for IHS (Indian Health Services) and are just waiting for the government to take forever to process and get to the next step. Hopefully we will know soon where we are going to move to. It will most likely be one of those places, but nothing for sure right now. It sucks being home without him and I can't wait for him to get back!!