July 1 = The Medical New Year

This year, I was actually on the wards when the infamous "JULY 1" occurred. It was interesting, and a bit terrifying.

One of our new interns was from my medical school, the other, from a state in the North East... a foreign man in a very foreign country. He had the unfortunate "luck" of getting one of our most complicated patients for his first day EVER as a REAL DOCTOR.

Poor thing, to say he was a bit discombobulated is putting it lightly. His first presentation was probably the quality of a third year medical student in their first few months of school. Granted, as I said, this patient was VERY complicated, but he was not able to calm himself enough before hand and get collected over the whole thing. His order was wrong, he left things out, included things he shouldn't have, and said the name of each electrolyte before each of their values in the BMP. Needless to say, by the end of his presentation, there were beads of sweat on his brow. By the end of rounds, he was kneeling down, muttering unintelligible phrases and what I think were a few curse words as well.

In the next few days, he seemed to rebound, but his rebound came in the form of assertiveness about things sort of ancillary to the beef of the presentation. I'm sure he'll be fine, but to see his thrashing, treading, and near-drowning the first day was a learning point.

Lesson Learned--
1. July 1 stinks
2. Remember to breathe July 1, 2009---this could very well be me (and will probably be me in 2009)
3. Consider staying the night of June 30, 2009 in the hospital, just to get ready
4. Do whatever it takes to prepare for the morning of July 1, 2009
5. Remember to breathe July 1, 2009

What It's Worth--
It will probably be worth not feeling as if my entire previous 4 years of medical education weren't wasted, and also be worth some self-esteem that first gut and mind wrenching day.

Like a Knot on a Log

I used the wrong criteria with which to choose a husband. Instead of choosing a loving, caring, handsome, smart, faithful man, I should have chosen based on one thing.... Is he a lighter sleeper than me? His alarm is forever going off in the morning, NEVER bothering him, and keeping me up with the constant snoozing and snoozing and more snoozing.

This morning was the worst--his alarm went of 1/2 hour before mine, and continued to buzz for the next 30 minutes, every 5 minutes. Needless to say, I was less than happy with him. So, I thought I'd exact a little revenge--after getting out of the shower, I flipped the overhead light on, hoping he'd wake up.

NADA--not so much as a squint.

So then, I decided to stomp through the house.....not a FLINCH! Then, I decided to pull the covers from his body............THE BOY DIDN'T MOVE! By this time I was incredulous at how much of a heavy sleeper he is, and truly wanting to strangle him in his sleep for it. I decided to dry my hair and leave the bathroom door open.....shortly thereafter, he rolled over and opened his eyes, but I'm pretty sure it was just a coincidence, not me being successful at waking his butt up. From now on, I've decided I'm just going to roll him from the bed in the mornings, and let the floor wake him, he he he.

Lesson Learned: Pick a husband based on who is the lighter sleeper (j/k)

What it's Worth: An extra 30 min, 45 min, whatever of sleep each night.

God Sent a Rainbow

In the span of two days, I've seen a real rainbow, seen a picture of a double rainbow (on the screen at church), and heard somebody as I was walking by mention the word rainbow.

I think it's a sign.

When I saw the rainbow, I did think it was a message and a promise from God. It sent calming, peaceful feelings, and I had a sense of "Don't worry, this won't happen again." I hope I'm reading the signs correctly.

Today in church, they had a rainbow up on the projector just because. So I decided to look up the part of the Bible where God explains His meaning behind the rainbow.

Genesis 9:7-17

"...As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it." Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: "I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you--the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you--every living creature on earth. I estabilsh my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth."

And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come:

I have set my R A I N B O W in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never agian will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth."

So God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth."

I've had a flood recently, and been found wanting of a rainbow. I finally got it this weekend, literally.

Lesson Learned--God does send us messages to say "I'm here, I love you, I'm watching, and here's my promise."

What it's Worth--Security

Addendum

For those wondering if I'm dying of cancer or something, be relieved, I am not. This something I speak of which is going on is not something that would threaten life or limb, just a something that was acutely painful and will be remembered the rest of my life as such. I'm doing ok, I'll be ok. Just taking some time.

Definition

Well, I've been dealing with something that I really don't want to describe in detail online, but let's just say that it's been emotionally and physically difficult. Some people know about it, others have absolutely no clue, and for those who don't know about it, I'll probably keep it that way as I don't necessarily want to divulge the info in anything that might be construed as an attempt at pity or sympathy. At this point, I feel if I were to tell somebody about it, then it would feel to me as if that would be the purpose of telling somebody--just to have them feel sorry for me.

This time has been spent trying to take care of myself and still deal with school, and I feel that I'm stretched and challenged by walking the fine line of paying too much service to either one. I know that people might find it ridiculous that I feel guilty for paying too much attention to myself, but it's an ugly truth as to what school has done to me. Feeling this way has somewhat opened my eyes as to how much pathology is involved in school... I've been consumed with it all my life, and I often am enveloped in the idea that focusing everything on school is in effect focusing on myself, but really, this is an illusion. I've felt that school has left me a flat, one-dimensional person who is only capable of having life defined by school.

Perhaps I'm being too hard on myself-- after all, I have a husband, an active role in my church, two dogs, I play soccer and softball, and I occasionally get to do one of my favorite activities--riding horses. But I do feel that I often have a hard time defining myself outside of school, a hard time in finding meaning in my life outside of this educational process which will turn into a career which will define me as well.

If I had any readers (haha) I'd pose this question-- how do you find balance? On Oprah's re-run today she was talking to Justin Timberlake (one of my FAVES!) about celebrities having a hard time not letting "What you do" define "Who you are" I don't think that it's just celebrities that have a hard time with that---I think everybody does...how does one find definition outside of "what you do" to help answer the "who you are"?

This post is getting really long. Perhaps I'll return sometime soon, I'm still pondering.

Learning Point--sometimes life comes in and awakens us to what's going on, instead of us just floating along the merry way

What it's Worth--I'm sure the worth lies in not having to wake up one day at 50 years old and realize that you've wasted your youth and vibrancy without knowing who you are and what you're truly doing.

The Meat Truck Men

I was just awoken from a nap by one of those Meat Truck Men...the ones who have a cooler in the back of the truck and then drive around the neighborhood acting as if they "Only have a few steaks left that I really need to get rid of-- I'll give them to you for a really good price. I'm practically giving these away to unload the truck."

Who ever thought this was a good idea? Who actually is willing to trust some random truck driving around to sell something better than Quality F meat? And you know, the men on these trucks are always well-put together, clean shaven, and wearing clean, crisp uniforms with a trustworthy appearance and a great sales-pitch....cough *sarcasm*

These aren't the Swanson men--and even then, I mean really, do we not live in a country where there's a SuperWalmart within 30 miles of EVERYWHERE? It's called a GROCERY STORE people!

Ok, I'm starting to sound a little worked up. Maybe this concept of driving around is just a leftover from a simpler time, where the iceman delivered the ice, the milkman delivered the milk, and the meat man delivers the meat (ha ha). I think I'd personally rather have a toilet paper and milk man coming by my house--- I'd probably be buying every time!

Motion Proves Life

So it's been a while. Now I'm procrastinating doing some more reading this morning--what better way than to blog!

I've got to write about this patient that I had at the VA though--and how church the next Sunday made me think about him again.

So, there's this guy who came in for something totally unrelated, but when we were going through his medical history, part of which includes history of transfusions, his wife goes, "Oh yeah, I'm sure you had some transfusions in Germany, right?" And then she proceeds to say that....

He was in a car wreck and "The coroner found a pulse."

I immediately respond with, "The coroner? Was he in the morgue?!"

They respond, "Yes, he was pronounced DEAD at the scene, was taken to the MORGUE, and then the coroner found a pulse on him--then he went to the hospital."

The patient: "Yeah, I didn't know who I was for about 11 days."

Just like that, matter of fact, they didn't seem too impressed by the whole thing, but geeze, how many people can say that they've met somebody who took a trip to the morgue in a body bag and then survived to tell the tale? CRAZY!

So then, in church, our minister is talking about a passage out of James-- 2:14-26, and about how "Motion Proves Life"--that we have to have both our faith (the part without much motion) and works (the motion part of our Christian life) to prove that we are alive in our faith, alive in the promises that God has given us. Proof of life is the guarantee that death has not occurred, and motion is usually the proof of life needed.

My patient was motionless (almost) and then his heart was able to say, "Wait, I'm still moving! I'm still alive!"

I've felt alot of times that I'm like that patient as far as my faith and works go. I feel like there's barely anything there, and I'm in the morgue, but then somebody may come around and at least check for a pulse--and feel a faint one. I'm glad there's a faint one there, but I know that a faint pulse doesn't usually last too long on its own. I want to show that I'm alive, and I hope that I do. I spend alot of time on the morgue slab of school though.

Lesson Learned--Check for a pulse (maybe multiple times). Patients have weird stories to tell us, usually stories completely unrelated to what they're being treated for currently. Look for opportunities for those stories to connect to some real-life things

What it's worth--It's worth is in being reminded that I shouldn't just merely let a faint pulse just get me by.