It feels so funny to focus on yourself sometimes, am I right? Like, why do I need to write an about me page? It feels so forced. But I know that when I read other people’s blogs, I like to know about them. So for anyone reading out there, here it goes:

 I was born and raised, and still currently live in beautiful, amazing, oh-wonderfully-sunny San Diego. Many people I met are jealous that I am a naive San Diegan. Why? Because it’s awesome to live here! I feel so blessed to have been raised here. Most of my family still lives in San Diego, or is about a half days drive away. I know, blessed right?

I have been married for almost six years now. I married my night school sweet heart. He’s funny, he’s smart and he’s a hunk, so I married him knowing he’d make adorable babies. And he did not disappoint ! We have two gorgeous children, Eden is 2 years old and baby boy Asher is 7 months. It is so fun to be a mom! It has its tough moments, but man, it’s freakin’ cool.

I graduated from dental hygiene school in 2009 from San Joaquin Valley College in Riverside County. I loved dental hygiene school. Maybe because it was my first time living away from home. Or maybe because THIS IS WHAT I WAS BORN TO DO! Dental hygiene just felt natural to me, not that it came easy. But it was so interesting and hands on, that it ignited a fire in me to keep going and keep pursing different avenues of dental hygiene.

While I was in dental hygiene school, I truly loved to stay involved with volunteer opportunities. In my dental hygiene school there was a minimum requirement of volunteer experiences you needed to graduate. Each experience was worth 1 or two points depending on how many hours the volunteer job was. We needed about 8 points to graduate, I accumulated 30 points. What can I say, I loved helping out.  It was the new experiences and helping people that was so gratifying to me. So after I graduated I applied and was accepted onto a Naval Ship to do humanitarian work aboard. The Ship was called the USNS Comfort Ship, and it was one of the best experiences of my life. I traveled to Haiti and the Dominican Republic to do dental work there, along side our military servicemen. You can read more details about my experiences of this trip here. And for the record, our military service men and women are awesome-thank you if you serve, or have served!

When I went to Haiti and the Dominican Repbulic, I had such a humbling experience working with people whom do not have access to healthcare. I wanted to make sure that traveling to do dentistry was something that I would do again. So in 2014, I traveled to Kenya, Africa to do dentistry with a church group from a church called Cornerstone, in Pleasanton California.

Being fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to travel for work, helped me begin to see the mouth body connection. The American mouths I see on a daily basis vary greatly from the patients I saw aboard. My patients in America have routine dental care, yet their gum tissues and teeth are often times in bad conditions with chronic inflammation and cavities. Whereas, the patients aboard mostly had never had dental care, yet their teeth were strong, and their dental caries, when present, grew slowly, in comparison to my American patients. The oral health differences I witnessed made me determined to see what I could do to help.

I never thought I’d be a writer, (errrr blogger). But, I am writing this material because I *KNOW* that it is vital to get the info out there about the mouth body connection. And I am almost certain that YOU are not here because of my amazingly fancy website, but rather you believe there is a true connection too. So please, stay tuned as I help make the mouth body connection more understandable, and give easy ways to make healthy living a priority in your life.