Memorial Day

Honor your fallen soldiers. And your on-call residents who thought it would be a great idea to take call Friday AND Sunday of a holiday weekend. With a new computer system in the radiology department that everyone in the hospital would have trouble with. With Riverfest dehydrated falling down drunks. With idiot boat and ATV and horse and car drivers. With two cases of carbon monoxide poisoning. Seen it all tonight, folks.

One cool case - bilateral renal abscesses with associated psoas abscess on the right. That's TB in my mind until proven otherwise. We'll see what it turns out to be. He's immunocompromised and has reason for TB. Could be anything, though.

I finally wised up and brought my computer to call. Hooked up the reading room computer speakers. iTunes hasn't stopped since about noon, and it's midnight. Awesome. U2 for traumas, Jack Johson for mellow routine studies.

Let's see, what's news on the homefront. Nobody wants to hear about work. Erica is entering the nausea phase, but today was not too bad I hear. She has stocked up on all things ginger. And we have fresh mint leaves to add to cool drinking water. Maybe this first trimester stuff will pass quickly. I can't believe we're 7 or so weeks already. My cousin Jayson and wife Jennifer had another baby yesterday. Harper Davis is number 3 for them. He needed a little nursery TLC last night but is doing great. We got to see him through the window last night. It was great to see all the family.

Tomorrow, we sleep. Then cookout with the Joheim's, then Meagan Tullos' graduation, then out for her big sister's 21st B-day celebration. I hope I can make it through all that!

On-call dietary today:
Starbucks coffee and cranberry orange scone
M&M's from the nuclear medicine stockpile
Wendy's baked potato and side salad
Nalgene water
Pizza s/p removal of pepperonis
Starbucks coffee (holiday schedule at the hospital means no Gourmet Bean coffee shop)

What a mess!

Winding down

Another late evening post. I'm trying my hardest to maintain focus and sanity with the whirlwind of events and tasks surrounding/swarming. I have this eternal weight on my shoulders about not studying enough. This physics test in September continues to loom, and I haven't done any real reading for it. But I did write the $900 check tonight, so the wheels are in motion. All downhill from here.

The good news is I know how to tell if a 16-day-old has malrotation of the bowel. Among other pediatric radiology topics.

The other good news is that I'm going to be a mom in January.
[If you're finding out this way, don't get mad. I've tried to call almost everyone.]

I don't know how to describe excitement. It's not in my vocabulary. There's nothing else to say. Miracles don't particularly lend themselves to concise statements. I keep having this weird reaction to Erica's first ultrasound pictures. I look at these things all the time, but it's so weird when it's my kiddo in there. I have checked everything I can possibly check over and over again, but I still get excited to think about what it really means.

It's already obvious how loving and caring our friends and family and church family are. A huge part of the fun in this whole journey we've started is sharing the excitement with the people we love. Thanks so much for all your phone calls just to check in. It says a lot when people are instantly happy and full of smiles when they find out. I think people who know gay people are not afraid to be supportive. That's just my take on it.

Dad said my grandmother was fine after her heart stopped and she required a ventilator for a while. Here's hoping a smooth recovery for the older generation.

Who knows? If this kid can heal some old sore wounds, I'm all for it.

It's nighttime

It's nighttime and so quiet except for a few crickets outside and I can hear E and Dory and Mae breathing in their respective dreamworlds and everyone is here in one room and everyone is in her own little comfy tucked in place and life is so good. I'll never forget this as long as I live.

Nothing else matters.

At last

I just uploaded these from the camera. They were taken on our camping trip just a week after bringing Mae home. I can't believe how much she's changed since then! These pictures make me realize how she's grown. She is really lovable, but also really playful. She loves to nip at heels - a born and bred herder (we knew what we were getting into). Dory is handling things so well and tolerating all the nipping and jumping. They're sleeping pretty well through the night. Both have shots this Friday. We can't keep them clean.

I have to admit I've never in my life seen a cuter puppy.

EHS

I had my England High School reunion "meet & greet" (how cute) Friday night. Not that I finished high school there, but they were nice enough to include me. What an event. I loved getting to see those people. Even though I haven't lived in England for 16 years (WOW!!), it really was like being around family. Isn't that weird? Not really family, but some other undefinable relationship. Anyway, it's the people I grew up with and spent ALL my time with. I was the girl in jeans then. I would have been the girl in that school who refused to go to prom. In fact, I skipped out on my own to go drink Rum and Cokes by the 20-oz styrofoam cup at Sewanee on a perfect spring weekend. But that's beside the point. The point is that I am still the girl in jeans who wouldn't go to a prom but who gets along with all the popular people, has a ball, and wouldn't trade my life and upbringing in a small town in Arkansas for forty million bucks.

To me, everyone had grown into carbon copies of their parents. I was doing all these double takes. They loved calling me Doctor - for about five minutes. Then everyone moved past that. We all had a lot to catch up on. One guy is an NFL star. One guy "maintains the estate and vehicles" for Jack Stephens. One girl is a massage therapist. A soldier stationed in Germany. A female LR cop. A classmate who works at the Pentagon - nobody knows what she does. Interior designer. PhD in something having to do with chemistry. Nurse, teacher, housewife, parent. Pretty amazing.

We may all talk about each other, grow apart, and change. But I do know that that group of people cares for each other and would hang together come hell or high water. They really impressed that upon me. I left there when I was a kid, but what a neat set of adults. See, it pays to be raised in a small town.

Thanks to E for letting me stay out late drinking beer with old friends.

Germane to a recent adventure

What is the best way to remove a tick?

Recent research indicates that some traditional methods of tick removal are ineffective and may even be dangerous. Medically acceptable procedures for tick removal are as follows: grasp the tick as close to the skin as possible with a pair of tweezers and apply an even, upward pulling force. If tweezers are unavailable and fingers must be used, they should be protected by disposable rubber gloves or, at least, facial tissue. Do not jerk or twist the tick; this action might tear the head and mouth parts from the tick's body and expose the feeding wound to the tick's body fluids.
Removed ticks should be saved in a vial or jar labeled with the date and location. This information will aid the physician in the diagnosis of spotted fever or Lyme disease should an illness develop.

Hey from us

Mayday

I am on information overload. Does this happen to anyone else? I think I'll invest in one of those centering weekends, where you pay to go sit on a hill by yourself and have some quiet time. Thing is, life isn't even that busy these days. But between studying, working, and trying to read, I can't keep up. Here's what comes across my radar in a normal day:

Mail
E-mail
Check the blogs
Runner's World
New Yorker
Pediatric Radiology: The Requisites
Online peds modules (way behind)
iTunes
More e-mail
Bills, online and otherwise
Car tag renewals
Malpractice insurance
Erica's progesterone and various other levels
Church media organizing
Church everything else
The Rep
Filing all of the above into the appropriate places
The dogs and their food, bathroom, medications

The list goes on an on. I guess these are just the hazards of being alive in the year 2006. Anyway, so an update is again in order. Still trying to get pregnant. Still loving our jobs, house, life, dogs, friends, family (at least half of it), church, and all the other wonderful things in life. I'm enjoying radiology at Children's, although we had vacation last week and caught up around the house. Quick camping trip to Petit Jean with buddies a weekend ago. New dog. You name it, we're living it!

It's been three years since Bush declared a victory in Iraq. Our work was done, apparently. Should we even tell him "Told ya so"??

I'll be working on recent pictures from camping, new puppy, etc. Mae needs to be publicized. And I've been reminded that I never posted pictures from the ceremony we had at our house. Hello?! What was I thinking? They're not even on my computer yet, so I'll be working on that soon. Promise. After I accomplish my daily list of information overload tasks.