better day

Another disclaimer: I wrote this on my cute little handheld PDA this afternoon (but couldn't post it) and it is awesome except not very good at spellcheck/formatting. So, I did my best but forgive the errors. :)

so, today was a much better day. (funny how that happens) First off,the
weather wasrit nearly so stressful. Chris dropped me off at the
hospital (because he is awesome) and I saw both my patients. I was
done by 8 so I could go to morning report but I Found out it was
canceled! So I treated myself to some cafeteria breakfast(which is
good and unbelievably cheap) then headed to rounds. My Attending
didn't make me feel too dumb and I even got a question right that Jeff
didnt! Miracle! I think it irritated him because he said I guessed the answer.
Actually, we had been pimped on it yesterday and I had felt humiliated
so I just looked the Stuff up & knew it. Anyway, I bought myself a Diet Coke as
a lunch Treat both because the morning was good But also Because Dr .
Wilson said we would have "teaching" session after lunch (which has
never happened before) and I thought some caffeine would be a good
idea. He was really nice and taught us how to distinguish between
"sick'' and "not sick'' which was very useful. Then, we saw a new
patient and got an assignment- to get some medical records faxed
over to us... unfortunately we failed at the assignment but tomorrow morning
we should be set to get them. The most awesome thing? Done by 5pm! On a call day!

Also, I finally (finallyfinally) got my little ''pocketPC''to work
(again, because Chris is so awesome) So I'm actually writing this
entire thing by hand and it it "transcribes" what I write. It's pretty
accurate but this post may need a little editing after all is said and
done.

Unfortunately, I'm waiting on Chris because his boss (who is
allergic to silence) decided they should talk about something. Boo. Oh
well, hopefully I will get home soon. I'll just have to munch on this
chocolate while I'm waiting. I weigh 109 pounds, right?

grumpy

Disclaimer: Whining alert

I'm a grump today. I'm really bitter that, even though the weather is hazardous to CANCEL class at UK (Something that hasn't been done in at least the past 6 years while I have been here), hazardous enough to cancel it for THREE DAYS in a row, being a 3rd year means we still have to brave the weather (and risk falling or crashing my car at 6am) because "Plan B is instituted in an emergency and requires essential staff (Hospital, Physical Plant, Auxiliary Services, IT, etc.) to report to work."

Essential? Me?

I'll tell you what I do all day: Nothing. And I have this awesome team that thinks I should just hang out with them all day watching them put orders into the computer. I asked at least 5 times today "what can I do, what can I help you with?" (I really did want to help) but never received anything to do. Because there was nothing I can do. Because I'm just that essential.

It doesn't help that I've got this cold that makes me groggy and feeling stupid all the time when I get pimped on rounds (even though one good part of today was I finally answered some right questions, woohoo!).

It also doesn't help that I was walking in (in the rain) this morning and stepped in 6 inches of water because it was dark and I didn't see it - and soaked my entire foot in grimy street ice water.

It also doesn't help that they made us stay THE ENTIRE DAY - through checkout - because they didn't know when to tell us to leave, even though we left plenty of hints.

But all in all, I think today would have been fine as long as I didn't have to listen to the interns complain about how terrible life is and how much work there is to do and how she's going to be here all night. You're an intern - it's hard. You work a lot. If you would shut your mouth once in a while and just write your notes you'd be home early. Also, if you don't want to be here, why would I? SEND ME HOME.

I guess it's ironic that I'm whining about how whiny my intern is. Well, I can see how she is "essential" given that she is in charge of 8 lives right now. And she's getting paid. Me? Well, sometimes I walk to the printer to get things for them. And I just paid $11,000 for 6 months of school - over $60 EVERY DAY.

Not only did I get to stay here today all day, but we're actually on call tomorrow, which guarantees me another 11 hour day (of uselessness).

I hope I remember this post when I'm finally a resident. I vow to never leave my 3rd years, to help them feel useful, and set aside a few minutes a day to talk to them and maybe teach them something. Because clearly, some of them have forgotten what it's like to be a student after just 6 months of residency.

But don't mind me. I'm just a little bitter.

109

I know I should be reading about Crohn's disease right now because I will probably get pimped tomorrow (and of course I won't know the answer) but this is much more fun.

Medicine has started off a little like they all do - I feel like I'm too apprehensive and I can't even find my way to the bathroom, much less figure out what I'm going to do with my patient's failing kidneys. I've had a couple interesting cases...

My first patient had an eye infection. I thought "hey, infected eye, sounds pretty straightforward." Well, I have at least learned one thing this week: UK patients never are straightforward and are usually very, very sick. He actually ended up with a MRSA infection INSIDE his eyeball - ick! They injected intravitreous antibiotics and later did a "vitrectomy" (I do not recommend looking that up on youtube, by the). While all this was happening, he also had a MRSA abscess on his foot, a diabetic toe (that's going to need amputation), and to top it all off, his diabetic kidneys started to fail. Like, really really fail. His GFR (the number that measures kidney function) was 9 (and mine is over 60). Fortunately, his kidneys decided to get a little better on their own (whew!) but his GFR is still only 14 or so...but we're inching up each day. Unfortunately, there's no viable tissue in his eye so he's never going to see out of it again. Bummer.

My other patient now is a man with alcoholic cirrhosis who came in with a GI bleed. Today he told me I was skinny and asked if I weighed 109 pounds. Um, not even close, bud. The he asked how old I was! I told him that you NEVER ask a lady her weight or her age, and he told me he thought I was 20. Well, not that off...


In other news, I think Chris and I almost got scammed at Meijer today. We were putting our groceries into his car and a two ladies drove up to us and told us their nephew was in the UK hospital and they didn't have any money to get a hotel room and could we buy their $25 walmart gift card. We almost believed them but I just decided I didn't want to risk getting an empty gift card, so we told them we didn't have any cash. They left, but I really wish that I had suggested the Ronald McDonald house or UK Hospitality house, or told them to get in touch with the social workers at the hospital (all which would have been what a normal person would have done)...but the more I think about it the more I'm convinced that it was just a scam. How slimy!

Anyway, got to sleep...early day tomorrow (like every day).

bleck

Man, I want to update. But I caught a cold. (You would think that with the insane amount of Purell I use on a day-to-day basis I would have absorbed enough to build up a better immune system)

Anyway, Sleep > Blog for tonight.

3 days

Only 3 days into medicine, lots to update on but not much time to do it. Here's a superduperquick update

--Med team 1 is OK, getting better. Medicine patients are hard. I should learn a lot these couple months.

--Hours aren't terrible but definitely not great. Hard to get back into the swing of no free time after ER, break, ICU, and Subspecialty clinic week.

--Been doing P90X workouts (week 6) and getting frustrated with a lack of results. More to come later.

--I'm getting more conflicted with my future plans. Trying to talk myself into loving medicine. Wondering again about peds. Pediatricians just seem so much happier. I want to be happy. Medicine docs seem tired.

--Have to give a talk tomorrow about renal failure (which is happening to my patient because of something we did to him). Kidneys are so hard. (At least they're cute.)

--I'm not getting nearly enough sleep. Not nearly.

--Need to go finish that talk.

Passport

Today I went to the post office to get my passport. Things were moving slowly (like they always do at the post office) but the woman helping me finally got found the camera to take my picture. She snapped one (without warning!) and went to the back to print it out.

She came out of the room and exclaimed "Look at this picture! Look! She looks like a model! Wow! When I retire I need to become a photographer!" and then showed it to her coworkers and everyone waiting in line. Her coworkers were impressed - apparently there aren't too many good-looking passport pictures at the Post Office.

I didn't really know whether to congratulate her on her photography skills, or thank her for a sort-of-implied compliment.

Back to School

This week is our first "intraclerkship week" which means we're sent back to a classroom for a week to get lectures, powerpoints, etc. There are a few differences between this and last year, including:

1) There's only about 30 of us, so lecturers like to make it more "personal" by calling on you (which I do not appreciate very much!)
2) The topics are much more clinically relevant, which means that it's a lot more interesting (for the most part)
3) Unfortunately since I'm used to being up around the hospital, sitting in a classroom makes me stiff and have major attention problems. I even brought coffee the past two days to school! (I haven't had coffee regularly since before rotations started in August!!)

Anyway, the lectures have been OK so far, and this week is a nice relaxing week for me to catch up on reading (which is hard to do when I have a wedding to plan and friends to play with!) and catch up on sleep (which is also harder to do than I thought!)

I was thinking of some of my favorite stories from the first four months this year, and here are my top two:

There was an older man who came in who was a poor historian when it came to his medical history and had an accent that sounded like he was from the deeeeep south and his tongue was too big for his mouth (I think he only had about five teeth). He said he was otherwise healthy other than some swelling in his legs and a surgery that he'd had recently that had been very painful. When I tried to elicit more information about this surgery he sort of blushed and said something that sounded like "weh-deh-hada-roda-ruda-ma-peda" and I had to ask him to repeat himself - multiple times - before I finally translated "well, they had to roto-rooter my peter!" I realized he'd had trans-urethral resection of his prostate for BPH. Needless to say, I was pretty embarrassed at that point! Of course, it did seem like a pretty good analogy...

I was working in the peds office in Bardstown and the doctor and I were seeing an infant who'd just started eating baby food. The doctor asked the dad "How are you doing with his feedings?" and the dad paused a moment and said "well, we do them with a spoon."

Engagement Chicken

Chris and I have always joked about making "engagement chicken" ever since I stumbled upon it while surfing the internet. The thought behind it is that an eligible female makes it for her beau when she wants him to commit by cooking a chicken dinner "like a wife would make" that's so tasty that he just has to propose to her. I never made the actual recipe (I think it was a roasted lemon chicken) but we made up this recipe the other day and decided that it's too delicious to not be engagement chicken. Of course, we were already engaged, but you get the point.

Our Spin on ENGAGEMENT CHICKEN

2 large chicken breasts

½ c bisquick

2 tbsp Italian seasoning or McCormick Salt-Free Seasoning

1 tbsp salt

½ tbsp freshly gound black pepper

2 large red peppers, sliced into long thin strips

1 small onion, chopped

1 cup sliced button mushrooms

6 vine ripened cherry tomatoes, quartered

3 tbsp EVOO

2 tbsp basil pesto

1 tsp salt

1 ½ c chicken broth

1 tbsp bisquick (dissolved in 2 tbsp water)

2 c brown instant rice

1 ¾ c water (or according to directions on box)

1. In a ziplock bag combine the dry ingredients and shake to mix

2. Rinse chicken, place in bag and shake to coat; grill until inside of chicken is no longer pink

3. Meanwhile, heat olive oil in skillet over medium heat and chop veggies

4. Sauté peppers, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes before adding basil pesto, salt, chicken broth and bisquick; continue to let simmer and thicken

5. Boil rice according to instructions on packaging

6. Plate chicken breast on bed of rice, cover with sautéed veggies

Happenings

This was Chris' specialty pizza he made for New Years - chicken, artichoke hearts, and fresh mozarella! YUM!

This is my ROOMIE who came all the way from Peru to eat cake with me on January 1! How about that! I made an extra special cake for her...next time I'll put daisies on it 'cause they're her favorite. :) I'm very sad that I didn't get a picture of the both of us that night (what was I thinking?!) so she's just gonna have to come over and play again the next time she comes up for a visit.


It was a white cake with strawberry-rhubarb jam and icing filling, funfetti icing, and my delicious marshmallow fondant - oh yes, this cake has an entire bag of marshmallows and a ton of powdered sugar...all on top!

This is the finished product. My mom says I can't bake my own wedding cake but I sure think it would be fun. And just as delicious as any old baker. And not $4 a slice! what the heck?!

Anyway...

The wedding date may be set for October 17! Our priest has to check with the other priest to make sure they didn't double-book...but so far it looks like it will work out perfectly. Tax day (the other tax day) is October 15 so my mom is busy until then, and she would be quite unhappy if we decided to get hitched before then. Also, if I take October as my vacation month, I have a comfortable 2 weeks to finish up the wedding details and possibly take Step 2 (Blech. I already dread that.) and another couple weeks after the wedding to go on a honeymoon (YEA!) and get settled into the real world for a bit before returning to the hospital.

I'm meeting with the dean of student affairs tomorrow to discuss my plans, and make sure she thinks I can pull off getting all the right recommendations, board scores, and everything to make sure that I can be a good candidate for residency because I NEED to stay at UK for residency. My husband (heehee!) and I would be quite unhappy if he was here finishing up and I was stuck in, say, Oregon or something.

I also have contacted a wedding planner to find out what the heck they do, and if I need one or not. Should be meeting with her soon.

There's a bridal show on Sunday...Good thing I'm a professional bridal-show-attender. Hey, it's not my fault they give out free cake, chocolate fountain goodies, and other tasty morsels to any passersby! I've been at least 4 times, maybe more. Yes, just for the cake. And chocolate fountains. The first time I went (as an amateur, you know) I got THE WORST stomachache afterwards! Caitlin and I had been studying genetics all day and our lunch consisted of popcorn and a row or two of oreos. That doesn't mix with 5 different flavors of cake, 3 unlimited white, milk, and dark chocolate fountains (and peanut butter fountains!) and more. But I know better now. The only difference is this time I'm actually interested in talking to some of the vendors (instead of seeing how many times I can walk by a booth and pick up a piece of cake and not talk to them before they give me the hairy eyeball).

Anyway, things are moving along (even though I have no idea which direction they're moving). I'm not qute as stressed now even though I probably should be! And I definitely should begin studying again, but I am having a hard time starting up.

Today was the first day back at school after the break, it was pretty uneventful. I'm still on ER and I had a shift from 6-midnight this evening. I actually left at 9pm because I was sick of it...I know that makes me a horrible student but we were "on divert "meaning there are basically no beds available which = no new patients and nothing for me to see or do. Also, "on divert" means that the ER is PACKED...beds lining every wall, in hallways, etc. I got fed up with not having a place to sit or anybody acknowledging my existence, so I just walked out. We don't get graded on our attendance or performance, we just have a checklist to fill out (and I've already got 390/400 points finished, and I have 18 more hours in the ER scheduled this week).

We did have a lady come in who had been kicked in the face by a horse and another guy with a gunshot wound, this time in the abdomen, and he was doing much better than my first gunshot wound. They took him to surgery pretty quick. Both patients sound much more interesting than they were, and there's not much more stories to tell. Bummer.

Anyway...I have nothing to do tomorrow except for sleep, as I work the midnight-6am shift tomorrow night. That one kind of gets to me...especially around 4am...bleck! We'll see how that goes. It's going to be hard to talk myself into going in at all since I just need 10 more points. Surely I can stick one more guy with an IV on Saturday's nice noon shift, right? ;) I may go in just for the stories I can tell afterwards. We'll see!

Break in Review

In chronological order:

Chris went home for a few days as soon as break started and I had "Smith family Christmas" (my mom's side). We always have an exchange of gifts and there are plenty of good times. Sometimes I wonder if I'm really related to these people, but it's okay because they're good people, just crazy. We also celebrated my uncle's 50th birthday by giving him the infamous pair of XXL black panties that somehow have been passed around for at least 25 years. 25 years! My grandmother also had received a racy apron that she made him try on...I don't really understand the significance of this other than it made my grandmother laugh so hard tears rolled down her face.
You can see my grandma on the right side of the photo cracking up. We almost got the apron on Patrick until he looked up and saw that I'd whipped out my camera phone and he ran out of the room faster than Grandpa could say "Patrick, you look like a sissy!" (Which he did say, totally out of the blue, and the highlight of my night.)

Anyway, Chris came back, and we hung around...sort of cleaning, doing nothing, enjoying one another's company. We've been following a workout program for a few weeks now and so we got more into that, did some cooking, and generally had a great time.

Christmas Eve we had a big Twist dinner (with Chris, of course) and went to Midnight Mass for the first time in my life (and the first time in my dad's life too!) We always went to the kids Mass earlier on Christmas Eve, but this year Patrick had to work (at Abercrombie, no less) so we went to Newman Center. Chris really wanted to go to the Cathedral because he thought it would be prettier, but my dad was lame and said he didn't want to.

By the way, did you know that Abercrombie sprays the "abercrombie scent" from little boxes in the light fixtures?

Anyway, Christmas day came, I got more presents than any person should (I'm spoiled, I guess!) and was quite content playing with my new apron
and other assorted gifts. We hung out, ate plenty of delicious food, and had an overall awesome day. Chris and I wanted to head out to Indiana that night, so we went back to the apartments to shower and get packed. I was all packed up and out the door (taking out the trash, so romantic!) when Chris wanted to go back into my apartment to "make sure we got everything"...

You see where this is going, right? :)

I bounced back inside in my new pink jacket (and matching cap) when Chris took my hand and walked me over to the 2 foot Christmas tree. He said "what if I told you I have one more present for you?" I think I giggled at that point, I wasn't quite sure what was coming and didn't want to jump to any conclusions! He then told me that I was his best friend and he didn't want to wait any longer to tell me how much he loved me. He said a lot of other things that neither of us really remember...Then he handed me a little box with a bow on it! I giggled some more (a little teary eyed of course) and opened the box...

and it was empty! He laughed at my surprise then got down on one knee, and you of course know how it ended! I got down on my knees too...next to the pathetic little Christmas tree. Then we headed over to my parent's house for Christmas dinner, and a celebration! My mom even had a Bridal magazine waiting for me in my dinner seat! She'd been storing it until Chris popped the question, apparently!

Later I found out that Chris had initially intended to propose at Midnight Mass (with just the two of us there) but because Patrick was working and my whole family went, it was hard to find a spot where just the two of us were alone together. I told him it was just as well, since I wouldn't have paid attention to Mass at all! :)

That night, we headed to Indianapolis to celebrate Christmas with his family and hung out there for a few days. We came back in time for New years, spent it catching up with my Peruvian roomie, Amanda (yeah! pictures to come).

I also got to play with Sabrina one day who coincidentally got engaged on Christmas as well! She called me and squealed "I got engaged!" and I squealed back "that's so awesome, me too!" If two engagements weren't enough, Chris' roomate Kateri ALSO got engaged, I think it was on Christmas eve night.

Since then, I've been wedding planning - blech! It sounds all fun until you look at the price tag and actually try to make decisions. My mom has had some differing opinions and since she's the one with (the most) money, I feel like she gets a good say in what we do. But, it's our wedding! Stress!

Right now we're looking into having a small-ish ceremony sometime in October, which I think will give me enough time to get my letters of recommendation, Step 2 taken, and all the necessary planning that is involved in this shin-dig. We'll see how that goes. Currently, my questions are as follows:
"Do I need a wedding planner?"
"Can I bake my own cake or am I crazy?"
"When is this going to be? - pray that it works for October 17th!"
"Will I get step 2 and everything school-related done in time?"
"Who will the attendants be?"
"Will I go crazy trying to plan and study and everything all at once?"
"Do you know anybody that does anything wedding related? Flowers, cakes, dresses, decorations, photos, etc etc etc???"

My head is spinning...that's enough for now!