West Virginia, Mountain Mama

Oh my, West Virginia was beyond our wildest imagination. Green mountains as far as we could see. Dense, rolling fog each morning. Small yellow wildflowers surrounding the Smile Wagon. Greetings from each person we passed. Sweet corn and cucumbers from our neighbors. And too many cookie dough blizzards to count.

Chad described this as "being hugged by wildflowers each morning," and I couldn't agree more.

July and August seemed like an extra busy time for us. We traveled most weekends, whether it was home to the Midwest for a conference and wedding (yay Kaley & Kyle!!!), to a workshop I had in Arizona, or to a wedding in Minnesota (cheers, Madeline & Drew!!!). We became very familiar with the tiny airports of WV and had the pleasure of becoming frequent flyers on the lovely Contour Airlines, which usually felt like a private jet.

Our trip back to the Midwest turned into a family tour spanning Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri. We spent the time in awe of our growing nieces and nephews, cruising along the crystal clear waters of Grand Lake, watching the KC Current win, and hugging our friends & families. It’s always a whirlwind when we go home, but we are so full of love when we leave.

When we weren't traveling or working, we were able to enjoy all the activities that West Virginia has to offer. We explored New River Gorge National Park -- newest National Park, changed from a National Preserve in 2020 -- with our pal Meg. She was officially the Smile Wagon's first overnight visitor!!! Thankfully, she left us a 5-star review.

We also went to a shooting club to learn how to hit clay pigeons (brb still panicking about this), as well as biked the Greenbrier River Trail. Twenty-five miles of lush greenery, impressive mountains, a running river, and making sure Chad was still alive behind me? What a dream this place is.

You may be starting to wonder if we actually did anything for work. We promise we did! Some of my reflections:

I walked into Pocahontas Memorial Hospital on a very foggy, damp, Tuesday morning. I was greeted by smiling face after smiling face, so excited that a student was there to learn in their little critical access hospital. The kindness didn't stop at the welcome -- every day I arrived to people who were excited to work at PMH and serve the people of the community. People bought me lunch, shared stories with me, and worried about the wellbeing of my heart. How important it is for medical students to feel cared for, and what a low bar we've set for them.

This was also a place where people loved their community. In case you haven’t recently googled Pocahontas Memorial Hospital in Buckeye, WV, just know it has 4.7 stars. FOUR POINT SEVEN STARS. FOR A HOSPITAL. My jaw hit the floor. Every review mentioned how excellent their care was and how kind the providers are. How lucky am I to have been able to learn there!

I learned a bunch of stuff, but probably most importantly was that if you mountain bike, you best be wearing elbow pads.

Handing the blog over to Chad for some reflections from jail:

West Virginia was wild. The jail I was at hadn’t had a dentist in over 2 years. I walked in to find the dental room had essentially become a storage closet. Many materials they had were expired and unusable. I had to figure out how to use an old x-ray processor probably from the 90s, which uses old x-ray films and takes over 10 minutes to develop each one, but nobody there really knew how it worked. I was starting to think I'd have to work without x-rays. After lots of trial and error and tinkering, a usable x-ray finally developed. It was truly a highlight of my dental career, and allowed me to feel much more comfortable chasing after broken teeth.

Although I drove the longest commute I've done so far, I enjoyed the people I worked with and the patients I served. I mostly did extractions and SDF (a fluoride treatment that stops cavities from getting worse) due to the limited resources available. Every single patient was incredibly appreciative -- I've never had so many thank you's and fist bumps after ripping teeth out.

The craziest thing I saw was the last patient on my last day. The woman came in with one of the worst abscesses I've ever seen, and she legitimately thought she was going to die in jail because of it (rare, but possible if the swelling closes the airway). I was able to drain the infection, which drained pus for over 5 minutes. She was sobbing out of relief and appreciation the entire time. I wasn't originally planning to work that day, so I'm very glad I did. It was quite the way to end my time there.

On my days off, I was able to tap into my photographer side quite a bit, which I haven't done in awhile. I typically left for work a little early to go on photo adventures, as the sunrise came at the perfect time. The West Virginia landscape quickly became one of my favorites that I've ever photographed.