tired

I'm so tired tonight. Add to that the fact that I neglected to change my clock in the living room and so now I find myself with an extra hour before needing to sleep for tomorrow. I start OB and according to one of the attendings, there are days when I don't go into the hospital (other than weekends) but I don't remember the other interns mentioning that. All I know is that it's back to getting up early so I can get from my home to vancouver by 7 am. And since it's raining now, gotta add on extra transit time since oregon drivers seem to go really really slow even though it's only drizzling. Oh well, we'll see how my first day of 2 OB months will be. Then I do 2 months of family medicine service then ICU...then I die. The fatigue I'll have at the end of these next 5 months is scary to think about. Especially when I realize I'll have all of 1 week to recapture that lost sleep.

Christina comes next week for her OHSU rotation so it will be fun to have her here. I think I wrote that already but that shows you how tired I feel right now. Time to shower then sleep I think since I need to give myself enough time in the morning to drive up there and possibly get lost trying to find the family birth center not to mention the thought of delivering babies tomorrow having not caught a baby since November 2004. I'm told it will all come back to me. Um, I didn't exactly know how to catch the baby correctly back then. I sort of grabbed the baby as it came out then pulled it into my arms and tried not to drop it. This approach makes it impossible to do the next step of suctioning out the mouth and nose and then clamping off the umbilical cord. I guess by the end I will be able to catch and hold with one arm and use the other free hand to do the necessary things. I'll also apparently be able to look into the birth canal and somehow identify where the tears are and bring together the tissue to fix it - my last memory of a tear was that it all looked like chewed up meat without any apparent landmarks. Of course, that too was greater than a year ago and my memory is probably fuzzy. It should be fun though. I need to let Renae know when I'll be on duty so she can sign up for her hospital tour. I think Laura will be there when Renae has her baby. Of course, I'm referring to Laura the intern because I'm sure Aunty Laura (renae's mom) and perhaps our cousin Laura as well will be there at some point. That could get confusing.

where was I...oh yes, bedtime.

Here's my cute little niece Payton. She's around 8 months in this photo. My mom brought up a bunch of new pictures since Payton's mommy and daddy no longer have the time to keep her site updated now that they're back home. She's getting so big! The other night I went to Aunty Debby and Uncle Chuck's for sunday dinner and saw my cousin's 3 boys. They're all getting so big. Evan put on his little show. The twins are both very talkative. Elliot is scooting around on his bum. For some reason some people think they look alike...they may need to see an eye doctor. Anyway, I need to read some stuff (aka study). I'm having fun with my piano.

I went to see if I won any money from the lottery...one ticket had 2 matching numbers but it didn't register a win. Oh well. It was worth a shot. Maybe the numbers had to be in the same order to win. Or maybe I was supposed to cash them in on sunday or saturday. My inability to understand lotteries is perhaps the reason why i don't buy the tickets.

Only a few more days on surgery. I still have issues trying to do the damn subcuticular stitches. Maybe I focus too much on finding the point where the epidermis meets the subepidermal layer. I get most of them in at the right spot but I take forever. And then when I try to take small segments, I'm told to take more cause I'm going to slow, then at the next opportunity I'm told I'm taking too big of a bite. For Crap's sake! Make up your mind! The surgeon's been very patient with me though so for that, I am truely grateful or I would have lost it by now. Certainly not the same kind of surgeons I had to work under as a med student.

Piano

Thanks to Kevin, Jodi, Mom and Dad, and perhaps Payton too, I now have a digital piano! Yea! Now I can have fun playing piano when I get home from work. Well, time to have some dessert.

Oh and finally got to intubate a couple of people. It was on my oncall night this week. They both had no teeth so no worries about breaking teeth and were both surgery patients so there was no "life or death" anxiety. I amazingly wasn't very shakey either.

Tomorrow mom and dad head home - it was a quick visit but at least I got to see them and hang out for a couple of afternoons (2 post call afternoons). THey leave super early tomorrow but I guess since I have to get up early for a 7:30 operation anyway, I can handle getting up at 4 am for a brief moment to say goodbye.

bergy comes next month so that will be fun. We can explore portland on the rare day we both have off at the same time. It will be nice if she ends up here for residency since she also kind of got tired of the late night bar scene towards the end of med school.

Surgery

Well, now I'm on my surgery rotation. And I think I have PTSD from doing general surgery with Jaffe as a med student. Anyway, I get all nervous about messing up when suturing and so I go pretty slow at it. I mean, really, the last time I sutured anything was in november of last year! And the surgeon I'm with has done this for years so I suppose I shouldn't be too concerned at how fast he can do the same task. And I have memories of interns going just as slowly as I do so I suppose I'm still on the right pace. Okay, time for breakfast then off to surgery clinic. Didactics this afternoon so hopefully that will be interesting.

Piano

Well, costco has the 88 key digital piano that I want. It costs $540 which mom was shocked at cause she thought it would only be $100 or $200 I guess but that price is VERY cheap since similar products that I had researched easily cost $1000 and that often doesn't include the bench, stand for the piano, pedal, etc. It's a steal. Well, I guess I need to save up since I'll probably be paying for at least half since I was promised this piano for christmas but the price was unexpected by mom.

My internal medicine month is coming to a close. Tomorrow I have to call the surgeon I'll be working with to find out the schedule. I'm hoping that weekends are off but we'll see.

time to eat then study a bit.

it's a boy!

Renae is having a boy! She is supposed to deliver at the hospital where my fellow interns and I do our OB rotation so I guess I'll have to butter up the nurses so that they'll be super nice to her when she freaks out during her delivery in february...cause renae does not deal with blood very well. Though I suppose the excitement of the delivery will perhaps distract her from the amount of blood and other fluids that come out with the baby (sorry for description dad). I'm hungry.

what's up

I did my first death pronouncement yesterday. It was a DNR/DNI situation so there was no code that preceeded the event. Just me and our team's excellent sub-I (4th year med student). We went and looked at pupils, listened for a heart beat for a minute, looked for signs of spontaneous respirations for a minute, then wrote down a time. Doesn't seem like much of a way to state the death of a person who may have had such an incredible life experience. Formalities I guess.

Apple - PowerBook G4

I wish I could spend money without worry. If so, I would buy a new ipod nano just cause it would be handy to have music with me at work when all I'm doing is writing my progress notes...without having the larger ipod i have now. I would also buy a new powerbook g4. I don't know why I torture myself like this. I look at it online and I swear I start salivating over the thought of a new computer. Oh and I would probably buy a desktop computer too...you know, just cause I have the money to spend. Oh and I would buy a new car too. just cause. Not to mention a digital piano...a real piano would be nice but there's no space and um, it would be pretty difficult to get a regular piano up the stairs into my home.

sigh...it must be nice to be stinkin rich.

huh?

I think someone actually put a spam post on the comment section for my previous post about spamming my comments section. huh? did you follow that? Argh!

Spamming my comments?

I seem to be getting spam on my comments section for my blog! What the hell! If you're going to spam my comments, don't bother commenting. I plan on reporting this to the blogger admin folks and then also deleting them promptly from my blog. Losers... go promote your crap elsewhere

In other news, I survived overnight call. Yea!

Nap time.

interesting email

Well, I guess I must still have my epocrates registration address as new orleans since I just got an email from the company hoping that I was safe and that since I may be dealing with medical issues that are rare and so I have a code to get 3 months free of epocrates essentials. I, of course, no longer am in new orleans and thus have no need for the code. I'll probably see if any of my buddies down in the trenches in louisiana don't have epocrates. I actually already have the program since I paid for it using my tulane coupon. Anyway, tomorrow is my overnight call shift and I don't need to be in there until 10 am. Not bad. I wonder how sunday will work since there's nothing specific on the schedule in terms of being on call or anything like that.

More good news

I just got an email from Bergy and she had evacuated prior to the storm with her boyfriend and their dog, Monkey. Their cat is still in NOLA with their stuff but she's not sure if the place is still there since the levee broke. Kind of a theme I guess. I got a link to a yahoo group for Tulane folks and found out that of my friends who were in the code gray situation (stayed in NOLA cause they had to work at the various hospitals), all are still doing well. They finally evacuated University Hospital. Well, Bergy will be visiting later in the year to do a rotation in Portland so it will be nice to see her then.

oh nooooo!

So my computer is showing signs of deterioration. As you know, it's first injury was earlier this year with a separation of the screen from the casing. And now, one of the USB ports is dead. So I can either just use the one port (annoying), buy a 4 hub usb thingy (bandaid), or buy a new computer. Now, financially, the hub is my best option as a new computer probably isn't a viable option right now. What a sad moment.

friends

I just got an email from one of my med school friends. She and her husband flew out of NOLA on one of the last flights to texas. She's not too hopeful for the house and all her stuff since the levees broke. The phone lines are busy so my calls to those with cell phones have been unsuccessful. I guess email may be the only option for now.

Days quickly passing by

Well, the days of my easy rotation are quickly coming to an end. Tonight I'm going to have dinner with gramps. Prolly the olive garden since he likes eggplant parmesan.

New Orleans missed the big hit this time around. There still was pretty bad damage but it could have been worse. I'm going to try to call some of my friends down there today.

There's now a flash flood warning here.

oh one more thing

Did I forget to mention that in a few short hours the city of new orleans will cease to exist? The category 5 hurricane katrina appears to be heading straight for my former home. Good thing we sold the condo in july! Hopefully my friends back there are okay and safe. I wonder if they were allowed to leave now that they're residents and not just nonessential med students. Though one could argue the point of having interns there when we, as a whole, know less than our more experienced upper levels and attendings.

Relaxing weekend

I had a nice weekend. Saturday I watched tv and the little league us champ game since hawaii was playing. Those are some big 12 year olds! And then I read a little and finished up my cross stitch project. On Sunday I watched the Little League World Champ game since hawaii was playing and that one was a bit nerve wracking since I wanted the hawaii kids to win. One of those kids was abit worked up and seemed kind of scary with his glare he was shooting at the opposing team's players. Yikes! Hawaii won in the end though so that's great. Then Chris and I went to a nickel arcade to play this dance dance revolution game from japan. I wasn't too great at that one since it was going kind of fast. Then there was a similar game where all you had to do was use your hands with the same idea. I did slightly better at that until the skill level was bumped up. Then some skee ball cause I love that game and dinner at a japanese restaurant. It was okay food. Lots of onions in my dish. Now to wash up and do some reading. My easy month is wrapping up and so it will be back to harsh hours for me. It's supposed to start raining this week which means I won't have to worry about watering very much.

oh well...

So due to a scheduling snafoo, I'm no longer the star of "difficult patient interactions." Oh well...it actually opens up my day for other things to get done. And hey, Melinda said I'll have a role in her little project. Time for dinner.

Ho hum

Well, I'm up late cause I had to work on my clinic notes and there was a dinner for the OHSU med students interested in our residency program. And yours truly had to speak in front of all in attendance. I had to talk about my background and why I chose the program. I was appropriately freaked during the entire process. Oh and for more performance anxiety jitters, I get to have the starring role in the short documentary: Dealing with difficult patients - the drug seeking patient. And it's a real patient interaction that will be videotaped and then shown at a conference in chicago in the fall. Why me?!? Anywho, I need to get some rest.

I'm back!

Well, my vacation officially ended yesterday and to celebrate, I bought a new bicycle. It's blue...and so is my helmet. I also bought a new heavy duty bike lock and a fun seat cover to reduce bruised bums syndrome - the result of riding a bike after a long period of not riding one. Before I can ride at night, I have to get a head and tail light. I think I'll look at fred meyer or somewhere cheaper than that store. Well, I think I'll eat some lunch, mow the lawn, and then ride around my neighborhood for awhile.