What happened to you?

I recently had an encounter with a 3-year-old who had developed a mysterious limp. Dad asked what happened & the kid shrugs. I ask what happened & the kids shrugs. Dad asks "Did you drop something on your foot?" Kid nods yes. I ask "Did you fall?" Kid nods yes. I ask "Did you step on something?" Kid nods yes. Dad asks "Did you close your foot in the door?" Kid shakes head no. Well, at least we established that the kid did NOT close a foot in the door. So we accept that kids will sometimes just be a mystery.


Enter Miss R. "What happened?" Kid: "A wolf bit me."

"Really? Do you have a wolf?" Kid shakes head no.

"Where was the wolf? Was the wolf in your house?" Kid nods yes.

"Well who let him in? Did you let the wolf in?" Kid agrees again. The child also went on to explain "I shooted the wolf though." Whew, good thing that dangerous beast in the house was taken care of. Wouldn't want him to go around biting more kids!


So the moral of today's story is that if a small child won't tell you how they got hurt, you should keep asking or get more people to ask. They may just be trying to hide that they let a wolf in the house.

Thanksgiving Reflections

So this year was the first in 3 years that I got to spend Thanksgiving with my family. Brief recap: 2009 was my first holiday away ever, and I ordered Thanksgiving dinner through the school and it was possibly the saddest event ever. Seriously, I went to bed hungry and lonely. In 2010, I had planned on boycotting Thanksgiving due to the happenings of the previous year. I had every intention of getting Chinese food & pretending the holiday didn't exist. But something sort of awesome happened. A large group of students & families planned a feast, and it ended up being a great time & a true expression of the day. You can see here for more about that.

So anyway, now it's 2011 (newsflash, I know), and I found out in October that I was being gifted the return of a family Thanksgiving since we would have our exams on the day before. Now don't get me wrong, it was nice to be with everyone, but I feel like it wasn't a real Thanksgiving. Throughout the whole day there was no acknowledgement of what we were thankful for. It was actually sort of stressful because, well, you know, you've gotta plan who's going where & what time, and you don't want to exclude anybody, but then you just can't be in 2 places at once. So my parents & I had a dinner at 1pm with my mom's side of the family and another at 3pm with my dad's side, and it felt like more of just going through the motions than really taking the time that the day was meant for. And now I'm going to take a few moments to actually think about the things in my life that I am thankful for, because God is pretty awesome, and crap can happen sometimes, but there's always something good.

I am thankful for:
1. my loving & supportive parents (even though they drive me crazy sometimes)
2. my awesome little furball, Storm, that brings me a smile at least once a day (even though he drives me crazy a lot of times*)
3. the opportunity to learn new things
4. the comforts of home, ie my pillow
5. clean water and the fact that I have never had to go hungry
6. good friends
7. good music
8. my lack of any serious ailments (when you're healthy you don't really give it much thought, but being able to walk & breathe & all that basic stuff is pretty awesome)
9. adventures (see previous posts & read my mind about some of the incredible opportunities I've had**)
10. books & games
11. my contacts, without which the world would be a much more terrifying place where people have no faces
12. hugs & smiles

*for example, I have had to take away my razor from the tiny monster 3 times tonight, in addition to stopping him from drinking my water & apple juice, chewing on the Christmas tree skirt, and falling into the toilet when running & jumping at full speed
**okay, since you may have difficulty breaking into my mind this evening a few of the things I've loved are: a Caribbean cruise, canyoning, frequent snorkeling trips, vacations to Niagara Falls, Las Vegas, Disney World, and repeat rounds of CMA Music Fest... yes, this is a very truncated list

Ok, I'm satisfied with that list. Time to hit the hay. Good night.

A new stage in learning

omg, I'm still alive. It's true. Anyway, I've just completed my first rotation for my 3rd year of medical school, and I thought it would be a good time to update. For those on the outside of the med school world, the 3rd year involves 6 core rotations including 6 weeks each of Ob/Gyn, family medicine, pediatrics, and psychiatry, and 12 weeks each of internal medicine and surgery. That's the order I'm going in, so I started Ob/Gyn on September 6 and finished Friday with the dreaded shelf exam. Now this post is dedicated to what I've learned.

I'll start off with the best part: I got to deliver 3 babies. :) I saw like 12 new people come into the world, but those 3 I actually got to deliver/help deliver.

Ok, so during my 2 weeks in gynecological surgery I saw/learned about:
-dilation & curettage & endometrial ablation (getting rid of the endometrial layer of the uterus)
-hysteroscopy (a camera that looks inside the uterus)
-total abdominal hysterectomy
-robotic laparoscopic hysterectomy
-vaginal hysterectomy (didn't even know that was possible 6 weeks ago)
-repair of cystocele (cystocele = the bladder losing support & bulging backwards)
yeah, sadly surgery was the most boring part

2 weeks on labor floor, including 1 week of nights:
-preeclampsia (high blood pressure, protein in urine, & swelling)
-HELLP syndrome (Hemolysis, Elevated Liver enzymes, & Low Platelets)
-postpartum hemorrhage
-Cesarean sections (both low transverse & an inverted T-shape)
-twin delivery (apparently most of the time twins are delivered by C-section, but this was a natural birth & the 2nd baby came out butt first/breech)
-ectopic pregnancy
-non-stress tests (to check on how the baby is doing before it is born - when the baby moves its heart rate increases, just like exercise makes your heart rate increase)
-fetal heart tone monitor
-AFI (amniotic fluid index to make sure the baby has enough fluid in there)
-how to tell if a woman is actually in labor or if her water has broken
-aaaand, something NON-related to the Ob/Gyn field: the effects of smoking bath salts (no, it's not really bath salt, it's like cocaine & causes hallucinations, racing heart, paranoia, and suicidal thoughts, among other things)

and during clinic, I did a whole lot of measuring pregnant bellies (fundal height) & using a Doptone to listen to fetal hearts. Also did a few speculum exams, pap smears, bimanual exams, and breast exams. And I learned about colposcopy and got to play with an ultrasound machine a little - much harder than you'd think.

Ok, sorry if that was boring. I'll try to throw in an interesting post about my summer soon. Or something.

Do you believe me?

I recently read a book about a boy with Asperger's (House Rules by Jodi Picoult) that I thought was pretty profound, but also a little disconcerting because I couldn't help but relate to the boy. I marked a passage that actually sums up how I feel sometimes. This boy is being tried for murder and his attorney asks him why he doesn't show that he misses the victim. This is his response:

"If I know I feel it, that's what counts. Don't you ever look at someone who's hysterical in public and wonder if it's because they really feel miserable or because they want others to know they're miserable? It kind of dilutes the emotion if you display it for the whole world to see. Makes it less pure."

While I don't conform to this quite as strongly as an autistic person, I often feel that blatant expressions of emotion can be construed as insincere. A person should not have to prove or insist how he or she is feeling - trying harder makes me wonder if they are trying to convince me. I feel the same way about compliments. Compliments are nice, but when it is emphasized repeatedly I wonder if they mean it or just want me to believe it.

Alright, that's enough of that. It's hard for me to articulate all of my thoughts on this topic. Anyway, good book - I'd recommend it.

My Life in the Future

Hey there, miss me? Ok so I haven't had a whole lot of inspiration to entertain you with. Sorry about that. But since one of my faithful readers has requested my return I figured I'd better not disappoint!

Aaaand today my mother & I worked on cleaning out the terrifying office. If you saw this room you would understand that statement. To put it mildly, the office is/was very messy. Among the deep-cleaning we shredded 1.5 giant garbage bags full of old documents, and then my mom pulled out some of my old school papers. I decided to share with you what I had predicted for my future when I was in 5th grade. I'll bold the words that I filled in & will leave the blanks in so you know what I had not decided, and I'll leave the spelling as it was back in 1996. Enjoy.

"My Life in the Future"

"In a few years I will attend Northern High School. I will be the star of the Basket-ball team. I will join the Drama club, and graduate with an A average. I will drive a Corvet and work after school at Burger King. My best friend will be ___.

After I graduate from high school I will go to Michigan State University. I will become a famous Author. I will build a ___ house in the state of California. It will have 8 rooms, and the best part is that it will have a swimming pool. I will drive a Mustang Convertable. My hobbies will be roller-blading and bicycling. For vacations I will get in my ___ and take off for ___. Once a week I'll go out to dinner at the ___. I will get married when I am 21 years old and have 2 children. My husband and I will make sure they always have fun and I'll be sure and tell them ___. I will retire when I am 50 years old and spend my old age visiting all my good old friends from ---* Elementary School and doing ___."

Please note that at some point I erased "Burger King" and "Mustang Convertable" and crossed out "State" from MSU. Now at the ripe old age of 26 I can tell you that so far the only true predictions are that I did indeed attend Northern and I still enjoy rollerblading. (I recently bought myself a new bike too.) I can also tell you that I laughed hysterically at the idea of driving a corvette in high school and retiring at age 50 (my mom, who is past 50 also got quite the kick out of that one). As for my other predictions, I didn't play basketball beyond that 5th grade team, and I never joined drama. I spent several years writing stories and loved it, but I only finished the short ones. My inability to write a full-length novel sort of killed that dream of being an author I think. Some days I still think I'll go back and finish some of those long stories I started.

I guess this just goes to show that life doesn't always work out quite the way you planned.

*I removed the name of my elementary school so that you cannot travel back in time & kidnap me.

Things my cat will eat...

I've come to the realization that this whole blog thing is really just for my own entertainment anyway, so if I get the whim to post something insignificant.. whatev...

My recent life (ie the past month) has been 90% (ish) dedicated to studying for this silly little test. You may have heard of it: USMLE Step 1. In any case, this severely limits my opportunities for experiencing truly post-worthy events. However, in my days on end that I spent locked in my apartment with my cat at least the cat does things to lighten the mood. Although, often times his activities are incredibly irritating.

For example, Storm has taken to chasing his tail while standing on the window sill, which makes the vertical blinds bang around insanely. During daylight hours this is an immensely hilarious show. Why he picks narrow spaces to perform his feats is beyond me, but he's also attempted to chase his tail while standing on the back of my office chair... he has fallen off of that a few times. Anyway, the unfortunate thing is that sometimes he gets the burning desire to perform for me quite early in the morning, say 5:09am. Yeah, don't ask which day that was, but I definitely looked at the clock & groaned. Yesterday he waited a little later to play at 5:30, quite generous of him.

One of his other favorite activities is investigating my desk.

He has learned that I impede this process in my waking hours, so he has decided that said early morning hours are the best time for this as well. Much less noisy, but I still feel compelled to turn on the lamp & try to stop him from tearing things up. I've had to relocate my necklaces because they are far too awesome of a toy for him to ignore no matter how many times I squirt him with the water bottle from my nice warm bed. Exhibit A:

Aside from the early morning shenanigans, my precious little monster has many adventures that simply make me laugh because I'm awake. His recent favorite hobby involves attacking the ball that hangs from the ceiling of his little cube bed (which is pink because it was a hand-me-down from my cousin's girl cats. He doesn't mind). He gets soooo into this that there's no telling where the cube will end up or in what position. He flips it all around & sometimes gets trapped inside with the opening to the floor. Most impressive though is this precariously balanced moment:

And throughout his hardcore play sessions, I've discovered that without careful monitoring he will sometimes ingest things that just aren't meant to be eaten. If I drop burger on the floor when I'm cooking he ignores it, but these are the things I've noticed the little weirdo has eaten:

• the cotton off of Q-tips that he steals from my bathroom trash (I don't throw them in there anymore)
• Kleenex
• random small pieces of paper: ie 1/3 of a post-it note attached to my window sill
• ponytail holders - he plays with them until they break & then before I know it half is missing...
• bits of feathers & fur off of his toys
• tiny carpet fibers that he pulls off of his condo
  
• and as I typed this blog he bit off some plastic from another toy... which is now going in the trash before more disappears

However, I suppose I should be glad that unlike my aunt's cat who seems to seek out weird things to eat, Storm only eats that which he has hunted & consequently destroyed. "Oh, what am I going to do with this now?" Gulp.

Note to concerned animal lovers: Yes, I take away things or stop him from eating things that are not food, and watch him closely for any signs of distress when he does manage to ingest something like that half a ponytail holder that could cause an intestinal blockage.

Reflections & Resolutions

So I've been in a rut for a long time. Anyone close to me has to have been able to see that. I've turned into a mean & bitter person, and mostly secluded myself from others. I've pushed away people that I love. And I haven't been taking great care of myself anymore either - physically or spiritually.

It's time to change. Who says resolutions have to be on January 1?

• be nicer - I'm not outwardly malicious, but my anger can tend to flare up. I'm going to try not to get so angry at little things, like drivers that cut me off & don't signal or my neighbor's bulldog howling ALL the time. I'm still not going to accept loud music in the middle of the night, but that's just inconsiderate & actually interferes with my life.

• forgive & move on - I hold on to a lot of negative feelings when I think people have mistreated me. I know that I'm not perfect & would appreciate a second chance & forgiveness from those that I've wronger in some way or another. On this same note, I'm apologizing to people that I know I have not treated fairly. There is one that will be a huge step for me. I may have my reasons for my behavior, but that doesn't make it less rotten.

• exercise - aside from the fact that I've packed on some weight since returning from the island (yeah, I don't walk up hill both ways to school every day anymore, and I don't get my salsa lessons every Friday [sad!]), physical activity is just GOOD for you. I'm starting with baby steps & plan to play my Dance Praise at least 30 minutes a day 4 days a week (or substitute another activity).

• get closer to God - I've been reading The Purpose Driven Life, and that's helping some, but my Bible has been neglected for a while, and I haven't had a home church since I lived in Marion, IN and graduated in 2007.

Sounds like a good start, right?