In February, no one thought life was going to change so quickly when March came.  Within two weeks of its arrival, California ordered a "Shelter-in-Place" and we all stayed home.  The schools were closed and offices throughout the states were shuttered.  Medical and dental offices remained open for emergency cases only.  The pandemic of COVID-19 has taken over the world.  It was spreading faster than we can contain it.  People are dying not just from the disease itself but also from lack of ventilators.  Yes, in the world's richest country, we did not have enough ventilators.
Six weeks later, we are the epicenter of the coronavirus.  But really, can we trust what the Chinese are saying about their numbers?  If you were religious, you would think this is a cleansing.  If you were a naturalist, then Mother Nature is violated so nature will take its course by exposing all the diseases to our world, slowly.  If you were a conspiracy theorist, don't bother.  It has already been proven this is not manmade.  This strain can kill but most will recover.  I just wish people can see that number as well.
So, another month of SiP.  Everyone has to participate to buy time for a vaccine to be developed and more research to be done.  We need to know what we are fighting to fight it.  An invisible enemy is the worst type of war we want to be in.  If people keep dying and we keep getting infected, what kind of world will we emerge back into?  We all need to do our part.  Everyone is suffering.  Everyone.  This will go down in history as one of our darkest days.  So let's do our part and stay home.  Be kind and considerate of our neighbors.  Keeping to yourself is so easy to do.  If we all do it together, then we will all survive this together.  Please stay safe and healthy.  Remember to wash your hands and face regularly.

​On a Leap year day, I taught a course on implant surgery.  I was up by 5 AM and left my house by 6 AM to make it to the venue to help set up.  We had over 52 attendees, most of which were my students from the local dental schools.  But I also had southern California dental school students attend.  I can’t believe they made the drive up.  I was quite impressed as they’re so eager to learn.  We also had dentists from Alaska and Oregon.  It was a full room.
As the day went on, I kept teaching and discussing implant placement.  My throat got coarse.  My executive director reminded me I still have another event to go to that evening.  By 5:10 PM, I was driving back to San Jose.  By 7:30 PM, I was on stage giving a speech about NCAGD to a bunch of Vietnamese dentists who were not paying attention.  I also made a joke and only the MC’s heard and laughed.  By 8 PM, I was ready to go home.  But since my girlfriend was performing at the event, I had to stay to support her.  We were friends back in residency, where she got engaged, married and pregnant in that one fiscal year.  Twenty years later, we’re still supporting each other.  To this day, she still questions me why I work so hard.  I reciprocated the question back at her.  Neither one of us had a good answer.  
By 11:30 PM, I was emailing an executive director about helping a dentist from my bedroom.  At 12:30 AM the next morning, I was in bed wide awake.  My mind was racing and couldn’t shut down.  Somewhere after 9 AM, my son hopped into bed with me and my phone started buzzing with texts from that dentist I was trying to help.  Then my own executive director texts came through.  Needless to say, my day started again, only to end at 10:30 PM.  By this time, my voice was really coarse as we had unexpected guests over.
So that was my usage of the extra Saturday I was given.  I think I can only do this on Leap years.  I hope your extra day was relaxing and enjoyable.  The next Leap year with an extra Saturday will be in 28 years.  
 

FellowTrack students from UCSF dental school.

My girlfriend of 20+ years.  Both Dr. Vu's...I mean...how can we not be friends?

Here she is on stage and getting everyone to the dance floor.  She rocked it.  I was so proud.  Look at all the professional moms on stage...sexy!

Last week, my Uncle Dan passed away.  On what would have been his 83rd birthday, his  family buried him.  The funeral was a Buddhist ceremony.  Uncle Dan has 4 adult children, 8 grandchildren and 1 great granddaughter.  At the funeral, my cousins (his children) and I were asked if any one of us could translate what the Buddhist monk was saying to English for the non-Vietnamese speakers.  Dumbfounded, we all looked at each other.  Uncle Dan's oldest child, my oldest cousin, said he was the only one that could speak Vietnamese in his family but his Vietnamese was at an elementary level.  Then they all turned to me.  I said I can speak Vietnamese well but I don't know if I can translate the true meaning of the monk's words to English without compromising their meanings.  Stalemate.  Then in come my uncle Gary.  Uncle Gary is my uncle Dan's friend for over 60 years.  Uncle Gary said he could translate the monk's meaning to English but was worried his emotions would overwhelm him .  He just lost his best friend.  So with desperation,  uncle Gary was our translator.
He actually did a terrible job but he was so cute.  You can tell the monk's words were getting to him.  He started to lose focus as tears blurred his concentration.  He couldn't get words out and I hand motioned and mouthed a few words to him.  Afterwards, he came over to me in the front row to apologize for his poor performance.  I assured him he did fine as he performed a job that none of us could have done.  Still not convinced, he took his seat.
It's funny at funerals.  People are usually so sad at first then as the day goes on, you see more happiness.  My dad was talking and laughing as he mingles with attendees and checks in on his distraught sister, my newly widowed aunt.  A lot of my relatives from both sides of my families were there.  We all talked and met one another (again).  Some I haven't seen in decades and others, I simply have not met.  They came from all over the world.  It was a touching moment when I realized how loved my uncle was.  What he accomplished in death was an almost impossible feat in life.  He brought us all together to celebrate his life.  He was never an attention seeker but he got all of our attention.
By the time I left, my heart was not as heavy as it was in the morning.  I was actually happy to see and meet a lot of my relatives.  Isn't it ironic how it takes a death in the family to bring people together?  I wonder why we can't just do it when most of us were alive?  I guess mortality humbles us all to make time for each other, no matter how short.

This past weekend, I took my daughter to help volunteer for the Convoy of Hope event in San Jose.  As one of the three planning committee members, I was so elated to see more than 30 dental team members show up to donate their time, skills and kindness.  We had specialists, hygienists, new grads, students, foreign dentists, assistants, and community volunteers serving at the dental section of the event.  Our team spoke 7 different languages and had translations for our guests of honor.  Everyone was working tirelessly to provide the best possible care from what we can offer.  We were in constant motion to keep the line moving.  
Over 106 organizations stepped up to donate supplies and equipment for participants.  With approximately 1000 volunteers from 50 different churches and the surrounding  communities, 4000 attendees were given over 4500 bags of groceries, 7000 meals, 1600 pair of shoes, 300 family portraits taken by 8 photographers, 157 haircuts by 25 hairstylists, and so many more to ease the stress of the everyday life around the holidays.  Hundreds of people were given counseling spiritually, professionally and emotionally.  The event also provided professional help with writing resumes, applying for jobs and connecting people to the right resources.
Our dental team was able to screen for oral cancer, demonstrate proper home care instructions and apply silver diamine fluoride to over 200 attendees. We also gave away more than 300 bags of dental goodies of toothbrushes, full size toothpastes, rolls of floss, and proxybrushes.  With everything happening so quickly, I didn’t get to fully take in the impact of this event.  I saw the hundreds of grocery bags piled up on the tables, the pink group of people consulting and comforting people with (potential) breast cancer, the thousands of lunch bags, and I was still in work mode.  It didn’t hit me until I saw the young boy in the video saying how his mom was in Mexico and they were left alone hungry.  Yet he still had a smile on his face because a shoe company donated 1600 pair of shoes and he got a pair, along with his brother.  I remember the father of 7 getting a dental screening for all of them because he was laid off.  I helped him sign each one of his kids up.  We split them into two groups next to each other to finish the family screening faster.  There was a prosthodontist standing next to me in amazement as he watched the 6 kids walking in front of their parents so obediently.  The 7th was in mom’s arms.  Here is the link to the video from our local tv station: https://cbsloc.al/35moDgu
I see that every little action of kindness helps.  Families were so happy just to get an extra bag of dental goods.  A woman told me she had 2 sons and a husband who couldn’t make it to the event.  She wanted a bag for each of them.  I handed her 5 bags and she was so grateful.  Another family came along but didn’t want the screening. However, they wanted the dental bags.  I gave each a bag and they were so surprised.  I reminded them we were there to help in any way possible.  The grandparents ended up wanting a dental screening after all.    
All in all, it was hard work because it was practically nonstop.  The day started with just 35 degrees but the sun came out and burned my nose.  My daughter stood in the front with me to register people and direct them to the appropriate chair to be screened.  We exchanged paperwork with each volunteer and manage the line of attendees.  She even explained to the registrants what they were consenting to and described what silver diamine fluoride was.  I stood in astonishment because she listened to me and my colleague when we were lecturing about SDF to our peers before the event started.  After the event was over, we helped to clean up. She passed out in the car on the way home.  I was exhausted but beaming with pride as I looked at my sleeping daughter.  She held her own at the event.  Doctors were calling her over to translate for them.  I hope she will continue to do charity work throughout her life and I don’t have to remind her about it.
​

5 portable dental chairs and units supplied by AG Neo dental company.

The Vietnam vet in wheelchair along with his friend, getting their check up.  The funny stories they shared about their time in Vietnam were entertaining because they told part of the stories in Vietnamese.  Even after decades of being in Vietnam, their Vietnamese was still pretty good.

Most of the dental team for Convoy of Hope 2019.  Thank you for all you do.

This week, I have to apologize to patients who were rescheduled due to my schedule.  My youngest broke his arm in gymnastics and we were at the ER, then the doctor's office, and finally the surgery center...all 3 days in a row.  Surprisingly, the ER was so busy on a Wednesday night.  The doctor's appointment the following morning was also busy.  Then the surgery center was horrific.  They did not have clean instruments for my child's surgery.  The charge nurse tells me there will be at least an hour delay.  That was followed by the surgeon coming by to say..."a longer delay" because he has other surgeries that he has to do as well that day and took off.  He was upset.
The facility manager, Steve, tells me they're humans so they make mistakes.  But he will "take it for the team" as I'm sitting there questioning how a surgical center was not prepared for a surgical procedure that was set a day before.  
Steve: I'm not directly involved but I will let you take it out on me.
Me: You're the manager, right?  You manage the facility?
Steve: Yes, but the charge nurse was supposed to take care of these things.  I'm trying to protect your child.  This is implant surgery.  We need the instruments to be sterilized.  Dr. Kanel doesn't use this facility regularly so we need the instruments to be brought in.
Me: You don't think I want to protect my child?  I know how implants work.  
He continues to talk down to me like I don't know what implants are.  Only after I told him I was a dentist, placing implants in the jaws, did he start to tone down his aggressiveness.
I don't understand people.  Why do some think they know more just by assumption?  I saw the guy delivering my son's instruments to his surgery.  Does that even look  safe to you as he walked across the parking lot and into the surgery room?  The room, in theory, was supposed to be "sterile", instruments coming from the parking lot and through a room filled with people kinda take that sterilized factor away.  Ugh!  My point with Steve was:  I understand mistakes are made BUT your facility made the mistake.  First, the anesthesiologist was late.  He ordered the medical assistant over the phone to administer the oral sedation dosage.  Then the nurse wasn't informed about the  instruments so she had to push my son back after she started to take him to the OR.  The surgeon came in upset and walked right back out after 2 minutes with us.   The instruments arrived through the parking lot and across a reception area.  There were so many places to correct on this day.  Don't tell me you're protecting my child when I'm trying to make sure everyone knows what they're doing on him because of all the things I saw in 3 hours of being there.  It is disheartening and the surgery has not even started.  
In the end, the surgery was done and his bones have rods in them.  For that, I am grateful to the surgeon who made it happen.