Medicine

It's been a while since I've written, mainly because I haven't felt like anything noteworthy has happened. I'm currently doing my medicine rotation and enjoying it far more than I thought I would. I'm not sure where I came to the conclusion that I wouldn't like medicine, but I carried that prejudice with me for most of the first half of this year. I have done one inpatient rotation at a local private hospital, as well as an acute care rotation at the VA. I have to say, the VA rotation was pretty cush. 8-330 everyday is a pretty nice schedule. It's going to be hard to get used to getting up early and rounding all day again.
Medicine has been a pretty pleasant surprise. In fairness, however, I was at an outside hospital with residents who let me act somewhat like a sub-intern, so I learned a lot without having to spend all day rounding. I doubt that I will enjoy the endless cogitating and head scratching that constitutes the in-patient medicine at our university hospital.
We are currently in the midst of planning our fourth year schedules which is pretty daunting. All of a sudden I have to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. Since before starting med-school, I've always thought I'd be an anesthesiologist and am still about 90% sure that's what I want. There's a nagging 10% though, that is thinking hard about cardiology. We had a really cool grand rounds lecture this morning on the physiology of the heart and it was more interesting than anything I"ve heard in a long time. I'm thinking hard about putting a cardio elective early in my 4th year in order to muddy the waters. Cardiology has a few problems with it, however. It's a longer road than anesthesia by 1-3 years (depending on if I do a fellowship after anesthesia), and I have to outcompete my other fellow Medicine residents to make it in. I'm pretty tired of competing and jumping through hoops. On the up-side, however, it's really fascinating, acute, and heavy on physiology.

I have one more month of medicine before I start my two three week anesthesia electives this spring. I guess after that I should have a better idea of whether I want to spend my professional life doing anesthesia.

Drug of Choice

I couldn't fall asleep last night. For two hours, I tossed and turned in the bed next to Spiff, who was sleeping as soundly as I have ever seen him. The more I tried, the worse it got, and the madder I got that Spiff was sleeping so peacefully as I thrashed around next to him.

I finally gave up trying and in my desperation, I took some Tylenol PM, the miracle drug of my pregnancy with Gunner. During said pregnancy, I took one pill almost every night to fight off the insomnia that haunted me for 9 months. Last night, I took two. And sweet relief, I slept like a champ for the rest of the night.

The recommended dosage on the box is two pills. But Wowzah! Two pills! I'm chasing Gunner around this morning, feeling like I could fall asleep every time I blink.

Poor Gunner has an impatient, tired mommy. Oh, so tired.

A Few Things

Here are some things I've been doing and thinking about lately. Not very interesting (or positive, really, because that's just how I've been feeling lately), but here you go anyway:

I am training for another half marathon. I have been struggling with finding the motivation and a good schedule to run. Spiff has been working early in the mornings most of the year, so I have had to resign myself to running at the gym in the evenings. This is double hard for me since I'm not really a treadmill runner, and it is hard for me to exercise in the evenings. But I'm grateful to have a membership at the gym to give me a place to run. And I ran with a group of girls on Saturday at the park, and I felt like a piece of my soul that had been missing from my life was handed back to me. I guess I really do need this, and that will be my motivation.

Gunner is going through a new phase. He is finally making the transition from two naps to one, and it's a tough one. He has really been struggling with sleep in general. I think it's a combination of teething, coming down with a cold, and sleep deprivation, but it's causing some very poor behavior from an extremely grumpy child. I can't figure out what to do to help him.

Also, it is high school instrumental festival time again. I have accompanied for some students in this event for the past few years, and I have enjoyed working with the kids and their super duper nice teacher. However, I'm feeling a bit tired of it this year. I'm just not excited about doing it. I'm not excited about the music itself, which tends to be difficult for me to play, unpleasant to listen to, and difficult to put together with the kids. Plus, this is the schedule I just received for the kids' performances on festival day:

8:18

8:59

9:17

9:30

9:45

2:32

3:42

Anyone else notice the LARGE break before the last two students? I have a baby and just can't be available all day like this! And it happens every year. Grumble grumble.

I have committed to doing it this year and can't back out, but I think I'm done with this event for a while.

On the plus side, I just read a gloriously good book. It was the kind of book that is so good that I read it really slowly, just so it would take me longer to finish it. It was also so good that now I'm really sad it's over and just want to read it all over again.

I also made a really yummy dinner yesterday and shared it with some friends. Gunner enjoyed destroying my kitchen while I cooked all day, and I got the benefit of doing some service and enjoying good food.

And my sister-in-law, Mhana (for those who read her blog), is coming to visit us in a month! I can't wait!

Now I guess it's time for me to go clean up my kitchen and think about which book to read next.

Pick-Me-Up

So, I have had a pretty rotten day. My feelings were hurt in a way that made me question my abilities and spirituality. I'm dealing with it.

And in so doing, I found this blog entry that made me laugh out loud, several times. I bet that the "Voice of Reason" had no idea she would be the pick-me-up I so desperately needed today.

Make sure you read the comments. My favorites are the ones about the squirrel, Mormet, and the "recipies".

I'm sinking

Appreciating My Two Hands

Spiff and I went ice skating last night. It was pretty much an awesome night to go ice skating at the outdoor rink in town. It was snowing (a fairly wet, slippery, sloshy snow), and so there weren't a whole lot of people out and about, which means that there weren't a lot of people at the rink. But it wasn't very cold, and it wasn't snowing very hard, so it was really quite awesome. Spiff is a pretty good skater (surprise, surprise), but I have only been on ice skates a handful of times, the last time being two years ago. I was surprised last night to find that it wasn't as hard as I remembered. Plus, my rental skates seemed to fit better and were way more comfortable than the last pair I rented, and it left me feeling all empowered and daring.

So, we skated a bit, and we even tried a few tricks. For me, that includes turning around in very large, slow circles, and then feeling super triumphant. I even tried skating backwards. And as I doing these bumbling tricks, I thought, "This is so fun! And I'm probably going to end falling on my face."

Not two seconds later, I fell flat on my face. A kind rink-worker dude saw the whole thing and came right over asking me if I was okay. Sadly, Spiff missed it, and turned around to find his dear, sweet wife on the ground, and he came rushing right over. They helped me up (yes, I needed help up), I brushed the snow off the entire front of me, and sporting a nice new bruise on my chin, I tried putting on my brave face.

I wish I could say that I hopped right up and continued to skate because, seriously, how embarrassing is it to break into tears after something like that? But I did something to my left wrist when I fell, and it left me feeling like an weepy, insecure eight-year-old, for the second time in two weeks. With my newly hurt wrist, I hobbled off the rink to have Spiff take a look at it. (Somehow, hurting my wrist causes me to hobble.) We did continue to skate for a while, and it really was very fun. I skated more conservatively, and Spiff was the perfect gentleman and held my hand so I could keep up with him and so that we could skate around the rink together.

So, my wrist is not broken, but it sure does hurt a lot. Little things that I take for granted are so very difficult today. Like picking up my son. Putting on gloves. Getting dressed. Grabbing and holding on to anything. Anything that involves twisting my arm or grasping in any way.

I'm just feeling so grateful for my general health today. I'm grateful that I have two hands and two arms to help me with my daily tasks. And even though I'm frustrated that my stinkin' wrist hurts and that things are difficult for me today, I'm grateful that I will heal and be able to go back to taking advantage of that fact that I have two working arms. And then I think I just might carry Gunner all day long, just because I can.