Confessions of an Optimist

A New Address

2010-01-05T19:49:00.000-08:00

Well, it's finally happened.

I've moved.

Check out my new blog here.

Hope to see you all there.

A Change

2010-01-02T14:01:00.001-08:00

New Year's came and went almost without me noticing. Between finishing another month of internship, a impromptu visit from my brother-in-law and his girlfriend, and catching up on sleep, the new year has started in the same fashion the old one ended.

Not to say that I haven't thought a lot about it.

I've thought about what this last year has brought.

Matching into anesthesia residency.

Hubster going back to school.

Buying our first home.

Moving halfway across the country.

Starting residency.

Potty training.

New schools.

It's been a long crazy year, to say the least.

Hubster and I did take a break from dishes and laundry to toast each other at midnight (his brother was scheduled to arrive in a few hours, and clean dishes and a place for them to sleep were much called for.)

The toast we made...

May many things be just as good, and the rest of them be better.

What more do you need?

Actually, a few more things.

I've been thinking a lot about my resolutions. I went back and looked at the list I made last year. What a surprise. They are all things I still need to work on. Obviously, that went well.

But there is one thing that I am going to add for this year.

Simplicity.

Our lives are in desperate need of simplicity. There are so many things that detract from us having the time we want together. The piles of papers on nearly ever surface. The extra toys. The occasionally ineffective schedule. Our goal this year is to minimize the distractions.

As part of that goal, I'm going to minimize my Facebook use. No more Facebook games. Just checking statuses so I can keep up with friends and family back in Utah.

The other change that has been in the back of my mind for several months now is the need to consolidate my blogs. I have two blogs. Initially, I started a family blog to share photos of my boys and to keep the grandparents in the loop of all our activities. A couple months later, I realized that I wanted to write about things that had nothing to do with family. Books, poetry, movies, and the constant onslaught of random thoughts I was filing away every day. My thoughts about weight loss and vampire books didn't seem appropriate for a family blog, so I created another blog. This one. Since that time, it has been a constant struggle, not just to keep two blogs updated, but to separate my life into two different categories. What blog do I put my marriage rules on? What blog do home improvements go on? I could (and have) posted the same entry on both blogs, but that's twice the work.

I'm tired to trying to divide my life into sections. I am a mother, physician, book-lover, photo-taker, movie watcher, deep thinker, mistake maker, home improver, and silly post writer all at once. I can't put part of my life here and part over there.

So, a new blog is just around the corner. Well, just as soon as I have a name for it.

Now that's embarrassing. I cannot think of a name for my new blog. I think I get close, but then someone else has it, or I change my mind. It's not supposed to be this hard, right?

I hope if you follow me that you continue to do so. Many of you have become just as good of friends as any I have in real life. Your comments, input, and insight have made me laugh and buoyed me up.

So wait for it. A change is in the air.

Traditional

2009-12-26T12:47:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve is full of the anticipation, the waiting, the stories, the candles and lights.

Christmas morning is full of joy, excitement, crinkling of paper, hugs, and laughter.

After opening the presents on Christmas morning, the rest of Christmas Day has always felt a little anti-climatic. An emotional low after the gift-giving high. The presents are opened...now what.

Christmas this year didn't feel like that at all.

From our bedroom door being thrown open at 7 am by bright-eyed children, to the present opening, to the cinnamon smells from brunch, to setting up of marble tracks and watching of movies, to the smells of dinner, to the snowman building (and knocking over) in the backyard, to the stories and kisses at bedtime...the entire day felt like Christmas.

This Christmas had a similar feeling to when we watched the train moved away towards the west, carrying my mom and my little brother, who had come to help us move to Iowa. We felt, that truly for the first time, we were on our own.

This Christmas, it was up to us, and just us, to create those holiday memories for our boys. Memories like the ones we all have. Full of magic, and treats, and presents, and happiness.

This Christmas, we had to be the ones to create the traditions.

Opening one gift Christmas Eve...

Reading Night Before Christmas, My Penguin Osbert, The Crippled Lamb, and the Nativity story from the Bible...

Presents early Christmas morning...

Monkey bread, fruit, and juice for brunch after presents...

Games, movies, playing in the afternoon...

Brown sugar glazed ham with au gratin potatoes for dinner...

It's the first time for many of these things, but it still felt comfortable...and traditional.

When Monkey came in from playing in the snow, he hugged me around my legs and exclaimed, "I'm just so happy!"

That, combined with the joy on the boys' faces, and the feeling of happiness so palpable in our home, let us know that Christmas memories are well on their way.

Wish List

2009-12-23T08:36:00.000-08:00

We finished wrapping presents the other night (all nice and cozy in front of our new fireplace.) As we placed the presents under the tree, we stepped back and looked.

That's when we realized.

We may have gone overboard just a little this year.

At first, Hubster and I looked at each other embarrased. "That's a lot of presents." Yep. And once you realize things might have gotten a little out of hand, the justification instantly starts. We started shopping in October. It's easy to forget exactly what you've gotten when you bought it 2 months ago. It's our first Christmas away from family, so we need to make sure it's a great Christmas.

We are excited for Christmas. It is going to be a wonderful Christmas. I can't wait to see the look on Bug's face when he opens the (can't say yet). I can't wait to hear Monkey's squeal when he sees his new (shhh...not yet.)

Like every parent, I want only the best for my children. It was hard to narrow down what to buy them for Christmas because I want so many things for them.

But ultimately, the things I really want for them, they won't be opening on Christmas. Most of what I want for them, I have a hard time putting in words. It's mostly this overwhemling feeling that causes an ache in my chest, full of hope, and success, and goodness.

So what do I truly want for my children? I want them to...

-know someone is always in their corner.

-feel the thrill of finding the perfect hiding spot for hide-and-seek.

-know where their food comes from.

-watch a catepillar metamorphasize into a butterfly, and then watch the butterfly emerge from its cocoon.

-always know where home is.

-spend a night wrapped in a blanket, watching thunder, and eating popcorn.

-fall asleep next to someone they love.

-lose themselves in a book.

-to finish first at something, and to finish last at something.

-fill a jar full of fireflies.

-know what it is like to not have everything they want.

Part of the Deal

2009-12-21T13:03:00.000-08:00

When I first saw my intern schedule, one of the first things I saw was December filled with the dreaded words. Trauma Surgery.

That is when I knew. I would not have Christmas off. There would be no way to go home and visit family over the holidays. Yes, clinics shut down for Christmas. Why couldn't I have clinic in December? But trauma? That happens every day of the year. Every single day. Just watch some guy in a Santa suit fall off the roof Christmas Eve.

Over a deparment lunch, I was complaining to a fellow intern that I thought I would work over Christmas. She shrugged, non-chalantly, and replied, "Well, we're doctors. That's what we do."

Her statement made me want to shrink into myself and cry. So this is what I'd signed up for. Holidays, weekends, and birthdays away from family are just part of the deal. They don't put that on the brochure for medical school.

But I started thinking about it. Maybe this is what I signed up for. If I have patients in the hospital over Christmas, it's not as if they want to be there either (except for the homeless drunk we admitted two weeks ago. He's as happy as a clam to be in the hospital for Christmas.) And if my patients are going to be in the hospital over the holidays, they still need lab work and xrays and nursing care and food and medication. And the people who provide all that are working on Christmas. I'm part of a system that doesn't take days off.

It turns out that I don't work Christmas. So all the insight and mental preparation were for nothing, right? Well, probably not. I'm not delusional enough to think I'll go my entire residency (much less my professional career) and not work a major holiday. The fact that I got both Christmas and Thanksgiving off as an intern is nothing short of a Christmas miracle. But I remember watching home videos of Christmases over the years, and realized that many of those Christmases didn't happen on December 25th. Many of the videos had the date Dec 24 or 12/26 on the bottom. My dad often worked Christmas. And we adapted.

But I'll work on the acceptance and coping mechanisms later.

When I got my schedule with December 24 and December 25 as days off, I danced for joy. I actually bounced up and down as my schedule printed out. I hugged everyone in the house. I felt like I could finally start celebrating. I've thrown myself into Christmas. I'm more excited for Christmas this year than I have been since I was 9.

It also helps that my co-intern, who is working Christmas, is Jewish. He got the first weekend of Hannukah off. I get Christmas off. We're both happy.

Yes, there will be Christmases where presents are opened the day before or the day after or late in the afternoon. That's what I've signed up for.

But this year? Christmas morning will find me around the tree with my three boys, wearing pajamas and drinking hot cocoa and enjoying the moment.

A Place to Hang Stockings

2009-12-20T17:29:00.000-08:00

Home improvement projects have slowed significantly. Okay, they've actually come to a complete stand still. Except for me exclaiming to Hubster that I've finally found the perfect place to hang the Dustbuster.

There are still projects aplenty. The master bath needs re-tiling. The blue bathtub and tile in the hall bath have got to go. It would be nice to have closet doors, stair hand rails, and lights in the living room. Those are all on the list. For later.

There was one project, however, that I was determined to get done before Christmas.

Do you remember when we finished the playroom/family room? There was a large black box in the far wall. Otherwise known as the fireplace.

The one thing I wanted done before Christmas was a mantle. A place to hang stockings. A gathering stop for the bitter cold Iowa winter nights. A focal place in an otherwise rather bland (but always messy) room.

We started by tiling around the fireplace. We chose a beautiful travertine tile (which we could afford to do, since this particular color was on sale, and there wasn't that much to tile.)

After I tiled and grouted, Hubster installed the surround and mantle. Let me clarify. I came up with an idea in my head about what I wanted the surround and mantle to look like. Hubster then patiently listened and examined my drawings. He then made multiple trips to the hardware store and built our mantle from scratch. By himself. With me playing cheerleader and avoiding anything with a sharp edge.

(There were many pictures of all the steps from start to here, but that would have meant subjecting you to dozens of blurry photos. Which I wasn't going to do. Merry Christmas.)

(And please note Monkey's little wooden tool box at the bottom of this photo. He and his wooden hammer, nails, and screwdriver were helpful at every stage of this project.)

After the (surprisingly large) mantle was built, I then painted it the same antique white as all the trim in the house. And painted. And painted. Repeat this step several more times, turning what should have beeen a one weekend project into a two week project.

Regardless...

Two weeks later, instead of this...

We now have this...

And a beautiful mantle like this is just begging to be decked out for Christmas. Just apply stockings the boys decorated two Christmases ago, free pine branches from the local hardware store, and handfuls of pinecones that the boys are always collecting.

I think the result is just magical.

There was still something missing. Hubster rectified this with a trip to a bait-and-tackle shop by the lake, from which he returned with enough wood to fill half our shed.

Last night, we enjoyed our very first fire in our new fireplace.

It feels more like home and more like Christmas than I would have ever imagined.

A Day In My Life

2009-12-17T11:06:00.000-08:00

Over at Mothers in Medicine, a blog dedicated to exactly that, the most recent topic has been "A Day in the Life of..." These amazing women tell what a typical day is like for them as a mother and a neurosurgeon/cardiologist/obstetrician/pediatrician.

This blog has been a wonderful "support group" for me. It lets me know that there are women who have been through what I have and come out as real people and functional mothers on the other side.

The most recent topic has inspired me to share a typical day for me. The only problem? There is no typical day for an intern. Each month is a new service, a new team, a new job. I can only share what is typical for this month.

A day in the life of an anesthesia intern on trauma surgery...

4:30 am: Alarm goes off. Want to push snooze, but don't.

4:55 am: Toast bagel, pack bag with fruit and snacks to eat later that day.

4:58 am: Run upstairs, kiss sleeping boys and sleeping husband good-bye.

5:00 am: Get in car, drive to work in the dark. Eat bagel while driving.

5:10 am: Catch shuttle in parking lot.

5:15 am: Arrive at hospital.

5:20 am: Get to locker room, hang up coat, put on green hospital scrubs and white coat. Check to make sure I have stethoscope, pager, ID badge, PDA.

5: 30 am: Arrive in SICU for check-out from overnight team. One new admit overnight, 19 year old assault victim, intubated, 2 chest tubes in place. Hemoglobin stable. One of patients on the floor had SVT overnight, beta blocker started.

5:45 am: Pre-round on SICU patients. Neurosurgery taking one patient to OR today; we sign off. Assault victim looks stable, tell SICU team okay to extubate.

6:00 am: Pre-round on floor patients. No further SVT seen on telemetery. Patient reports she had this before, but has been off regular medication. Start home medication back up. See orthopedics team, taking another patient to OR to fix tib/fib fracture. See ENT service, thank them for suturing ear laceration on patient.

6:30 am: Return to team room. Write notes, adjust some orders.

6:45 am: Go with team to cafeteria for breakfast. I don't eat any. I had a bagel when I left home. Sit at table with surgery residents. Can't wait until I'm doing anesthesia. Conversations re-affirm I do not want to be a surgeon.

7:00 am: Head to conference. Topic is interesting: angiography to identify vascular injury in trauma. Still can't stay awake. Doze off in back of auditorium.

8:00 am: Conference is over. Head back to team room to check on chest x-ray for assault victim. No evidence of pneumothorax. Labs back on floor patients. No electrolyte abnormalities on patient with SVT.

8:30 am: Call neurosurgery regarding patient with lumbar spine fracture. Injury non-operable. Order patient back brace.

9:00 am: Meet attending trauma surgeon in SICU to round together. Assault victim has been extubated. Remove one of chest tubes. Put in orders to transfer patient to floor.

9:30 am: Get page to clarify order.

9:35 am: Get page to let me know patient's IV infiltrated. Patient taking good PO. Stop IV fluids.

9:37 am: Get page with update on rehab placement for patient.

9:45 am: Return to team room. Finalize notes, finish orders. Finish discharge summary for patient going to rehab.

10:00 am: Try to read ICU textbook. Read blogs, check Facebook, check e-mail, check weather. Try to read. Check Facebook.

11:34 am: Trauma pager goes off. Activation. Self-inflicted gunshot wound. Go to ER Trauma Bay. Get on lead, gowns, face shields, gloves. Hear helicopter land on roof. Team ready when patient rolls in. Patient intubated. Take report from AirTeam. Listen to mid-level resident call out primary and secondary survey. Enter orders. Call CT. Call Neurosurgery. CT calls back, ready for patient. Neurosurgery comes, says injury is non-survivable. Transfer patient to SICU to wait for family to arrive. Contact social work. Go to SICU to talk to SICU resident. Write trauma note. Feel numb.

12:45 pm: Grab bag from locker room. Eat apple, drink Coke Zero. Wish I could finally lose the weight. Team members eating pizza, hamburgers.

1:00 pm: Answer more pages. Feel exhausted. Day only half over.

1:40 pm: Trauma pager goes off. Alert. Fall from roof. Go to ER Trauma Bay. Get on lead, gowns, gloves. No face shields this time. Ambulance team rolls patient in. Patient awake, talking, groaning from pain. Order fentanyl. Order labs, xrays. Go with patient to CT scanner. Sit in reading room while patient's scan comes up. Lumbar burst fracture. Call Neurosurgery again. Admit patient. Neurosurgery will operate tomorrow.

2:00 pm: Go back to team room. Finish trauma note. Answer more pages.

2:15 pm: Code pager goes off. Code Blue on Neurosurgery Floor. Run up stairs. Think about how I should exercise while I run up stairs. Get to room. Room full, chest compressions already going. Senior resident asks for rhythm check. Monitor shows asystole. Chest compressions restarted. Mid-level resident places femoral line. I do nothing. There are so many people in the room. Feel numb.

2:30 pm: Return to team room. Text Hubster. Feel tired. Try to read. Blog instead. Return a few more pages. Wonder why I can't pull my life together like other people seem to have.

3:00 pm: Go to surgical skills lab. Play MarioCart on Wii. Lose every race. Still have fun. Pause game to answer pages.

5:45 pm: Head to SICU to sign out to night team. Let them know the SICU is going to withdraw care on gunshot patient later tonigh.

6:00 pm: Go to locker room, change out of scrubs, grab coat.

6:15 pm: Catch shuttle back to parking lot. Drive home.

6:30 pm: Pull into garage, door opens. See boys waving and smiling at me. Help with dinner, start laundry. Sit around table as a family every night I am home. Ask about school for boys and Hubster. Feel tired.

7:30 pm: Bath boys. Give them their Advent calander chocolate. They never forget. Help them brush teeth. Hubster studies for test in morning.

8:00 pm: Read to Monkey. Tuck him in bed.

8:30 pm: Read to Bug. Give him piggy back to bed.

9:00 pm: Fold some laundry. Watch whatever is on DVR: The Office, Survivor, Chopped, Mythbusters.

10:30 pm: Turn off Christmas lights. Unplug Christmas tree. Plug in cell phone. Shower. Standing in shower, feel sad for the first time today. Sad for what happened at the hospital. Sad for only seeing my family for 2 hours a day. Sad for missing so much. Sad for myself sometimes.

10:50 pm: Kiss sleeping boys goodnight. Every night I am home I do this.

11:00 pm: Fall into bed exhausted. Asleep before I know it.

This is my everyday. The pager goes off at different times. The traumas are different people, different stories. But one day feels much like the same. Until next month.

Holiday Confession

2009-12-15T13:07:00.000-08:00

I guess every holiday deserves a confession.

Here's mine.

Our children don't believe in Santa Clause. And it's our fault.

We decided, long before we had children, that we would not do Santa Claus in our family.

I could say it is for religious reasons. I could say it is because we want to focus on Christmas being about Jesus's birth. I could say all those things and more. But that's not the real reason.

I don't ever remember believing in Santa Claus. Hubster doesn't either. And maybe missing out on those memories made our decision easier.

The real reason we decided not to support the idea of Santa Claus was due to watching friends stop believing.

I had friends who described the devastation they felt when they realized Santa wasn't real.

The other reason was the whole idea of lying to my child. I have friends who, even now, go through complicated charades and set-ups to keep their children "believing." Setting out cookies, then eating part of them after the kids are in bed. Addressing presents as "From Santa." Even getting on skis and taking a loop around the yard in the snow to make it look like Santa's sleigh had been there. Or using Santa as a way to manipulate children into good behaviour.

It feels dishonest.

I don't want to lie to my children. I'm not saying I tell them everything about everything. Sometimes I omit (How did the baby get in her tummy?), sometimes I simplify (What is blood made out of?), sometimes I just tell them I can't tell them (Why is that person on the news?). But I'm not going to go out of my way to support what amounts to a lie.

I recognize these might be rather strong feelings. Maybe overly strong. And I don't want anyone to think I'm condemning parents who do promote Santa. We've just chosen not to.

There's another thing about Santa that I don't like. The concept of Santa makes me sad. I always wondered how people explained that Santa only came visit children whose parents made money, but that he didn't visit children who were poor, or homeless, or sick in hospitals.

I desperately wish that there was a Santa, and that he brought new computers and PlayStations and puppies to every child. I wish there was someone that made sure everyone had something to open Christmas morning. I wish there didn't have to be children who only got one pair of socks, or a piece or candy, or nothing.

But wishing doesn't make it so.

So my children don't believe in Santa.

Watching their eyes light up this time of year, I don't think this has decreased the magic that surrounds the season. Or given them any less to believe in.

Makes My Day

2009-12-14T11:29:00.000-08:00

Gina, over at Namaste by Day, gave me the Happy 101 award.

This award, meant to be gifted to bloggers who make you smile, has two requirements.

1. List 10 things that make you happy
2. List 10 bloggers who brighten your day.

I'm not sure I've been the "brightening others' day" type of blogger lately, but nothing like a good award to get me back on my optimistic track.

Things That Make Me Happy...

1. Sleeping in. Any day that I don't wake up and have it still be pitch black outside is a great day. Even if it means that there is occasionally a little three year old snuggled next to me. Especially if there is a little three year old snuggled next to me.

2. PhotoShop: I don't have nearly enough time to spend doing this, but it is so satisfying to see some of my less than perfect pictures be transformed into living room wall worthy pictures. And being able to remove the evidence that I didn't wash faces prior to taking pictures is priceless.

3. Christmas: I don't think this one should actually be this far down on the list. Everything about Christmas is so contagious to me. The lights, the trees, the treats, the music. I'm pretty sure I'm the most obnoxious one as work with all my excitement.

4. My house: Even after having lived here for six months, I look around and am so incredibly happy that we have our own home, without downstairs neighbors, with space to put things. I love our house. With apartments, from the day we moved in to the moment we moved out, the feeling of discontent and dislike grew every day. With our house, we fall in love more every day.

5. The end of the day. It doesn't matter how much I've enjoyed my work for the day, I'm so excited to go home. My drive home is mostly along the river, which is pretty at all times of the year. There is very little traffic, and only two traffic lights, so I don't arrive home stressed out from the commute like I used to. And absolutely nothing beats pulling into the garage and seeing the door open and two blonde-headed, blue-eyed faces light up at seeing me.

6. My new turquoise sweater. I love this sweater. It's my favorite color. It's super warm. And I get compliments every time I wear it.

7. Pancakes! I try to make pancakes (from scratch) at least once a week. I'm not sure anyone else in my family likes them as much as I do, but that isn't going to change Saturday or Sunday being pancake morning.

8. Panera Cinnamon Crunch Bagels. I had these for the first time on a call night in the ICU. And I've been hooked ever since. It's a good thing I don't pass Panera on my way home or we would be eating these a lot more. These are seriously the best bagels I have ever had. And now I want some...

9. Reading with the boys. Every night, I read with Monkey, and then with Bug. With Monkey, it's usually Bear Snores On, or A Color of His Own, or The Very Hungry Catepillar (or all of the above.) With Bug, it is a chapter from the book we are making our way through, currently The Shores of Silver Lake. I love this time with my boys that I fit in no matter how crazy the day, no matter how long the to-do list, no matter how tired I am. I will not miss this time with them.

10. Very silly, but anything related to weddings. I love the colors, the flowers, the decorations. I almost always flip through wedding magazines while I wait to check out at the grocery store. I'm still trying to convince Hubster that we need to have a second wedding, because it would just be so much fun. He apparently has different recollections of wedding planning.

I have to tag all my IRL friends.

Emma Lily
Todavine
Trina Bug
The Boy and I

I love these three girls, and they've stuck around with me for years. I love that they have started blogging and we can stay in touch more these days.

Then, people that make me happy every time I read their blogs. If you haven't read these, you should.

Karen at A Peek at Karen's World
Jennee at Cheap Therapy
Christian at Modobject at Home
Tia at Clever Girl Goes Blog
Stephanie at Steph in the City

Let me know what just makes your day.

The Real Deal

2009-12-11T17:00:00.000-08:00

A Christmas tree is not just a decoration in our house. It is a family outing, activity, and tradition.

The first week of December, we load everyone up in the car. We drive to a Christmas tree lot that looks just right, the kind that have a light-bordered sign, a hand-warming station, and rows upon rows of trees. We try to avoid stores. Then everyone tumbles over each other out of the car and spreads out to look for the ultimate goal. The perfect tree.

This was true when I was a little girl, a teenager, then a college student home to visit. And it is still true now, with my own children.

There is usually some debate about who has found the perfect tree. But after seeing them all, everyone tends to fall in love with the same one.

The tree is then tied to the top of the car roof. Everyone piles back in, chilled, but excited. The tree is taken home to be covered with lights, popcorn garlands, baubles of all colors, and a variety of ornaments made at school. Everyone gets to put something on.

The tree fills the house with woodsy freshness, soft light, and a natural gathering place Christmas morning.

Our very real tree this year

Seeing a Christmas tree from this point of view, I'm sure it is not surprising that I am not a fan of artificial trees.

My stand point on artificial Christmas tress is well known. And it isn't just the ridiculous papery overly bright green look of the things.

It is the loss of the entire event that surrounds getting and setting up the Christmas tree each year. To have the Christmas tree lot replaced by the basement. To have the smell replaced by a cardboard box. I have resisted this every way I know how.

When Hubster mentioned a fake tree in the past, I pointed out that we lived in a two bedroom shoebox, and where was he planning on storing the thing for the 11 months of the year it wasn't being used. I've ridiculed fake trees. I've clung to my real tree snobbery.

So, I can't believe I'm going to say this.

Next year, we're going to get an artificial Christmas tree.

I've lost my "lack of storage" excuse, now that there is both a basement and a garage. And Hubster has shown me some trees that look pretty amazing for fake ones. Ones that have realistic needles and pinecones.

Ones that don't shed needles on the floor everytime Monkey throws a ball at it. Ones that already have the lights on. Ones that don't turn into a crispy brown accident waiting to happen.

I've fought and resisted for a very long time. The dark side has finally won.

Oh, Christmas Meme, Oh, Christmas Meme...

2009-12-10T11:14:00.000-08:00

1. Have you started your Christmas shopping?
I am DONE! This is truly miraculous. Usually we are still shopping the day before and feeling frantic because we still have not been able to come up with an idea for one of my brothers-in-law or my grandmother. But this year is different. No rush. No panic. All done. It is wonderful. And strange. Mostly strange.

2. Tell me about one of your special traditions.
On Christmas Eve, my family would put on the Christmas pagent. Most of the time, this involved everyone actually being in the play and no one in the audience. But that never mattered. My role, being the oldest, was usually to be the donkey. Now, when we have Christmas with my family, I get to watch, as Bug and Monkey are in the pagent. After we do the pagent, we light candles and sing Christmas carols. I known it sounds incredibly Norman Rockwell, but it is completely true. I guess to make it sound more modern American family, I should add that Hubster hates singing as a principle, and he usually sneaks out and plays poker on the computer.

3. When do you put up your Tree?
Usually the first week in December. Sometimes earlier, sometimes later. We usually aim to get it up before Christmas. We've cut it pretty close some years.

4. Are you a Black Friday shopper?
I went shopping on Black Friday for the very first time this year. In the past, I've been oblivious to Black Friday shopping. I have gone out before, and wondered why so many people were also out. But this year, we actually were thinking about shopping at this time of year. So I ventured out. I actually posted the entire adventure here.

5. Do you Travel at Christmas or stay home?
Every since we got married, we haven't spent Christmas at "home." We alternated Christmases between my parents' home, 1 hour south of us, and Hubster's parents' home in Montana, 8 hours north of us. For the last 8 Christmases, we have packed suitcases and slept in guest rooms. This year, we are staying home. Because family is 1200 miles away. This will be interesting.

6. What is your funniest Christmas memory?
One Christmas, when I was about 9 years old, I was more excited for Christmas than I ever was before. My brother and I stayed awake nearly all night long, whispering and talking about what we might get and how excited we were. My parents told us we were allowed to come upstairs to open presents when we heard the grandfather clock chime six. We waited and waited. Finally, we couldn't take it any longer and we snuck upstairs, thinking we were being naughty because we hadn't heard the clock. It was 7 am. My parents had turned off the grandfather clock chime so they could sleep in.

7. What is your favorite Christmas Movie of all time?
It's a Wonderful Life. Classic, perfect. I get choked up every single time.

8. Do you do your own Christmas baking?
I do some baking. Just because it's not really Christmas without some baking/cooking. I usually focus on one thing per year. Some years I make candy. Some years I make cookies. This year, it's going to be cookies, because I saw the cutest thing on Modobject at Home.

9. Fake or Real Tree?
Real, for now. Complete post on the topic coming soon.

10. What day does the actual panic set in to get it all done?
Usually the week before Christmas. But this year, everything is already pretty much done. Boxes are to be mailed this weekend to family. No panic this year.

11. Are you still wrapping presents on Christmas Eve?
Most years, I am. But they are usually my mom or my mother-in-law asking me to wrap presents for them. This year, I plan on being done, well, this weekend actually.

12. What is your favorite family fun time at Christmas?
Singing Christmas carols as a family on Christmas Eve.

13. What Christmas craft do you like the best?
Making paper snowflakes. For as long as I can remember, we have made snowflakes. We make them almost every day. We hang them from the ceiling, tap them to windows and wall. They are everyhwere. I did it as a child, and now Bug and I do them. Bug would like to, but lucky for us, he doesn't know how to use scissors.

14. Christmas music? Yes or No, and if yes, what is your favorite song?
Yes! Although I don't own a single Christmas CD. Strange, I know. But I do set my Pandora station to Christmas music, which works almost as well. My favorite song to sing would probably be Oh, Come all Ye Faithful. But I really like new takes on old songs, like Sarah McLachlan and Barenaked Ladies' version of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. I'm also incredibly partial to Carol of the Bells.

15. When do you plan to finish all your shopping?
Like I said before, Done! Although one box from Amazon did just ship earlier this week, and has not arrived yet.

Do you want to play along?Just simply copy and paste the questions into your blog, and then answer them. Then tag 5 or more of your favorite blogs, and leave them a comment telling them they’ve been tagged.

I am going to tag
Todavine
TrinaBug
Emma Lily
The Boy and I at Speakinathat

And anyone else who would like to do it, feel free! (And let me know if you do it.)

When you post on your blog, please spread some Christmas Cheer, and leave a link back to the blogger who started the meme: Heather at Top Ten Christmas.

I wasn't actually excited about doing this meme at all, but decided to do it because I didn't have the energy to think of a "real" post. But I actually had a lot of fun doing, and it made me think about a lot of other things I want to post about. So look forward to extending answers and more stories at a later date!

Interpretation

2009-12-08T13:55:00.000-08:00

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince came out of video today.

(Or whatever we call it these days, since nothing really comes out on video anymore...but on DVD and Blu Ray. But that's irrelevent.)

Yes, despite the fact that I've been essentially living in a trauma team room for the last two weeks, I know that Harry Potter is now available to own.

This may because that's part of what Hubster is getting for Christmas. (And he already knows this, so it doens't spoil any surprises. )

I have made my love of Harry Potter obvious. I have read these book more times than I have read Pride and Predjudice or The Hobbit.

The amazing thing is, I also like the movies.

It's a hard thing to do, to take a book that is adored and make a movie that is equally loved.

When making a movie from the book, so many different elements need to be considered. First, there is the overall feel, mood, and tone of the story. There are the characters, and how the reader pictures them compared to what they look like on screen. And then there is the plot and storyline. How closely should it be followed and what deviations and variations are okay, and which are simply just wrong?

We all know I love lists. So here is my list of best movie based on a book. I'm not saying best movies ever, or best books ever. But best interpretation of the book into a movie.

1. Harry Potter:

Okay, obviously this was going to be number one. The characters are extremely well casted. When you re-read the books, how can you not see Daniel Radcliff or Robbie Coltrain? The magic of the stories is present at every turn.

All except Prizoner of Azkeban. I dislike this one. I felt that the change of the plot to let you know that Peter Pettigrew was alive in the middle of the movie was a let down and took away all the suspense. Also, what is with the shrunken heads and the singing frogs?

2. Bourne Identity:

I really mean all three movies. This is one of the best triologies out there. Because don't you feel that most trilogies are excellent...until you come to the third movie (Think Spiderman, The Matrix, and X-Men.) However, the Bourne Trilogy doesn't disappoint from Identity to Ultimatum. I loved the movies so much, I decided to read the books. The books are terrible. Horrible. Okay, the first one is okay. The second two...ridiculous. The movies are only loosely based on the books. So this movie makes it on the list by being the rare time that the movie is better than the book.

3. Pride and Prejudice (BBC Version):

If you didn't see this one coming...well, then I've done a terrible job of proclaiming my love for all things Austen. I do like the Kiera Knightely version as well, with all it's beautiful cinematography and heightened sense of romance. But that version fudges over some of the subtleties of character and plot that I feel are essential to understanding Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy. Which is why the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice wins out. Yes it is long. But it so well captures the characters and plot that you can almost (almost) get away with not reading the book. (Almost.)

4. Lord of the Rings Triology

Yep, another triology made the list. Peter Jackson's attention to detail, amazing casting, and mind-blowing special effects and sets make this hard not to put on this list. Any variation from plot is easily forgiven by the adventure and magic that fill this epic.

5. Angels and Demons:

As far as books go, I like Da Vinci Code more than Angels and Demons. But as a movie...Angels and Demons wins out. This movie makes it on my list because it captured the beauty of Rome, and the horror of the events. And honestly, I'm pretty sure that if you hadn't read the book, finding out who the true villan was would be just as shocking watching the movie as it was reading the story.

There are movies based on books I read that I want to see. These include The Time Travelers Wife, Revolutionary Road, Where the Wild Things Are, to name a few.

I'm sure that I should include a list of worst movie interpretation of a book. I'll work on that.

What do you think? Anything I missed?

Days of the Week

2009-12-06T10:46:00.001-08:00

I don't even know what day of the week it is.

I had Monday off, which made Tuesday my Monday, and so I thought Friday was Thursday. I had most of yesterday off, which made that Saturday, which I'm pretty sure it was. But I'm working today, so it's technically my Monday, which makes tomorrow Tuesday, which it's not.

And I'm tired. Getting up at 4:30 am does not agree with me. Given the complete lack of signs of life at that time of day, I'm pretty sure that time of day disagrees with most people.

I roll (or more like droop or collapse) through the door back home at 6:30 pm.

Bug and Monkey are in bed at 8:30 pm. (or 9, or 9:30. It all depends on my level of alertness and motivation at the time.)

I try to catch up on e-mail, some academic reading, laundry, and dishes for a hour. I fall into a dazed stupor in front of the TV for another hour (At this rate, I will never catch up with my DVR). Then I shower, read a little more, and fall asleep around 11 pm.

Only to wake up in 5 1/2 hours and do it all over again.

I spend 2 out of every 24 hours with my children. I spend just over twice that sleeping. It makes me feel selfish. And those 2 hours are spent trying to get them to sit up at the table and just eat two bites, for the love of all that is holy. And where is the math homework? And I've already asked you five time to put your pajamas on, why are you still running around naked? And I'm pretty sure that is plenty of water for tonight.

And that makes me feel even worse.

The confusing thing for me is how much I like the work that I'm doing right now. I haven't once dreaded going to work. I do dread the alarm clock going off, but that's a completely different thing. Actually, most of the time, when I hear my alarm go off, I think it is mistake, and my brain doesn't comprehend that I actually need to get out of bed in the pitch black night.

Last month, the work I did was mind-numbingly boring. The days were so painfully slow that it was all I could do to pull myself out of the house, into the car, and actually go. I was home a lot more.

This month, I'm home less, but the work itself appeals to me more than anything else I've done so far my intern year (except for emergency medicine. If anesthesiology takes a turn for the worse, that it what I would do instead.)

Right at this moment, writing this between my pager going off every 5 minutes, occasionally twice at once, I am desperately homesick. Each sign of a child in the hospital tugs painfully some place deep in my chest.

I feel like I'm caught in some masochistic catch-22. I can either work that I enjoy and been gone all the time, or I can dread every second of each day of work and be home more.

I would pick the second one, if I was forced to choose.

It makes me wonder why I ever get upset with my children. Why would I ever waste a single breath being mad? (Until I find that Monkey has turned off the fridge. Again. And then I have a memory lapse about not being upset.)

Writing the month may be scarce.

With time being my most precious commodity, I'm trying to spend it on my family and get us out of the slump that the last week has thrown us into. That's what I plan doing on my next Saturday...whatever day of the week that may be.

2 hours, 10 minutes later...

2009-11-28T19:45:00.000-08:00

I guess since it's been over a week since I saw it, I should finally share my thoughts on New Moon.

Overall opinion? I liked it.

Even with the over-enthusiastic giggles throughout the theater of girls under the age of 14. Despite the fact there were moments so cheesy and ridiculous that I couldn't stand to look at the screen. Despite the fact that Kristen Stewart had this strange chin movement and grunt noise that irritate me. Despite the fact the movie seemed to want to focus on the sex appeal of the male characters instead of the plot. (Although...can you blame them?)

Actually, maybe the giggling teens made it more enjoyable. Otherwise the periodic gasps at the sight of Jacob's abs, or the jaw drop over Carlisle (why is he so overlooked?) that came out of our group would have been much more noticeable. And who wants to feel self-conscious while trying to immerse oneself into a world of mythical creatures and romance?

As far as the technical aspects go, the larger budget is obvious. The special effects were actually believable, instead of slightly painful, as they were in the first movie. The acting was improved over the first film, as well (as it usually is as actors age and settling into their roles a little more).

The movie caught the feeling of the book remarkably well. A story that is focused on depression and isolation, these emotions come across on screen nearly as well as they did in the book. I felt the movie caught not only Bella's depression, but Edward's as well.

It could be that I'm just easy to please. I enjoy the books and had every intention of enjoying the movie. And it could have been that I was out with other girls and estrogen in that high of a dose may impair my judgement.

How does the movie come across to someone who hasn't read the Twilight books? I don't know. I'll have to wait and find out when I force Hubster to watch it with me when it comes out on video.

The Day After

2009-11-27T18:24:00.000-08:00

I have never gone out shopping on Black Friday. Not at 3 am or any other time. I once did go see a movie with my mom the day after Thanksgiving and kept wondering why it was so busy.

It could be that I'm just not that big of shopper. I am still trying to reconcile that I may have to pay more than $20 for a pair of jeans. It could also have to do with the fact that usually, that particular Friday rolls around, Hubster and I haven't even started our Christmas list. No reason to go stand in lines and fight off aggressive soccer moms when you don't have any idea what you are looking for.

But this year, with my December being consumed by a arduous surgery rotation, the only way Christmas would be successful would be to start early. Not to mention the need to ship most of our gifts 1200 miles, which meant putting things off until December 24th really wasn't going to work this year.

So, one week ago, Hubster and I, much to our complete bewilderment, found ourselves nearly done with our Christmas shopping. We had two gifts (not including each others) left to buy.

Reeling with the shock of this, we found ourselves wandering a department store, looking for winter coats for Bug and Monkey. We had finally unpacked their old ones, which we had thought was a good idea considering it has started to get below freezing overnight. However, upon unpacking said coats, we were a little surprised to find that our boys had grown in the last year. Seriously, who wound have thought? So, a Midwestern winter staring in the front window, we went looking for coats. As we wandered around, dropping overpriced coats as if we had been tazed, Hubster casually mentioned that he had heard this particular store opened at 4 am for Black Friday. Maybe they would have good deals on winter coats so we wouldn't have to turn off the heat to afford them. (Of course I'm kidding. We'd stop buying groceries way before we turned off the heat.)

We decided to check the Black Friday ads before we did any more coat shopping.

And that was the end of that.

I spent hours (okay...many 15 minute intervals) persuing sale advertisements. I was shocked. So this is what drove normally sane people to fight off the effects of tryptophan and stand in line in the dark and cold. We carefully looked for a few things and found that we could get our remaining two gifts and the coats at one store.

So, this morning, I set out early and headed to our selected store.

I thought that was all that was needed.

As I drove, I passed other stores, not opening for a hour, that had lines wrapping down the sidewalk and around the corner. Parking lots were packed to overflowing. People were parked on the grass. Of course, anything resembling a shopping cart or a basket was gone long before I ever showed up. The people surrounding me not only had lists of stores, what time they opened and the must have items at each of those stores, they also had maps of the inside of each store, letting them know exactly where each desirable item was.

I instantly felt under-prepared. I approached a helpful-looking employee. I just need to know where coats are. That's all.

I'm proud to say that I got through the entire ordeal in less than one hour. I did not elbow anyone; I was not run into by anyone else's cart. And most importantly, I left with the coats and the two remaining gifts (which, by the way, were completely gone when we went back this afternoon to return a purchase made earlier this week.)

Hubster offered to go out and do the shopping. I was tempted to let him, because after all, he is much bigger than I am. But, ultimately, I decided to let him stay home asleep while I ventured out. And because he doesn't read my blog, I can tell you the true reason I choose to go and let him sleep.

Because his gift was on sale, too.

Completely

2009-11-25T14:59:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is the day to gather round and say what we are thankful for.

I feel absolutely no desire to be left out.

I am thankful for my family. For Bug, Monkey, and Hubster. They are the true heroes of my life. They have put up with me through the long road to where we are, even though most days it feels like it is just starting. They love me both for me and in spite of me. They have all felt loneliness and uprootings to support me and to strengthen our family.

I am thankful for health. I am surrounded every day by people who do not have this. I do not have the ache of hugging a bald-headed child. I do not have the pain of holding a hand of unresponsive spouse. I can walk around my block without becoming short of breath or having chest pain. I am so very thankful for health, both mine and the people that I love.

I am thankful for opportunity. I may gripe about my job and the difficulties that come with it. But I will forever be thankful for the chance that I had to do this amazing thing. We own our first home, we can provide comfortably enough for our family, and all because of opportunity.

And tomorrow, surrounded by friends and family, I will remember to continue to be thankful.

An Incomplete List

2009-11-23T19:34:00.000-08:00

Give me one hour of uninterrupted alone time, and I know exactly what I will do with it.

There are abundant things that I should do with that hour. Do the dishes, do the laundry, sweep, sleep, exercise. There are countless things I enjoy that I could also do. Paint, Photoshop, catch up on my DVR recordings, listen to music, blog.

But the one thing I choose above all others?

Read.

Since I was little, reading has been my favorite activity. In second grade, I would grab a blanket and sprawl in the sun on our back porch with novels far too advanced for my age. I didn't understand the subtleties of the plot, the emotions were often beyond the range of my own experience. But the adventure, danger, and romance swept me far away from my 8-year-old life. Any given afternoon, I was exploring tropical jungles, settling the West, or attending balls in the courts of France.

AS a teenager, I would walk around the house with my nose in a book. It was propped behind the sink as I washed dishes, it joined me at the dinner table. And often, I would sneak into the bathroom for completely uninterrupted reading, only to emerge, sometimes an hour later, and usually to frustrated siblings. I could disappear for a weekend at a time, curled up in my bed, exploring space, surviving wars, or discovering radioactivity.

I read nearly every book of the reading lists for high school. I made lists of book to read, and methodically crossed them off.

As soon as I had money, I began buying my own books. If anyone draws a blank on what to get me, they get me books.

Now I horde them. Do not ever, ever ask me to throw out a book. It does not matter that our five bookselves are overflowing and stacked every which way with tattered paperbacks from the book exchange or shiny new hardbacks from the chain store. The books are not books any longer. Each one is a character, a personality, well known and well loved.

I even love the smell of books. Open a brand new book and the smell of paper is intoxicating. I used to study on the second floor of the university library, not for the silence, but for the inviting, soothing smell of the rows upon rows of books.

It is hard for me to come up with a list of favorites. I can name my favorite people or favorite songs much easier than I can my favorite books. But I will do my best.

Some are on this list because of the story, some because of the impact they made when I read them, and others, purely from the joy I have every time I turn the first page.

A Tale of Two Cities

In my mind, this is Dickens' best book. The imagery is breathtaking. The strength of the writing and the plot development never disappoint. Not once.

Pride and Prejudice

I love Austen. Her witty, nearly sarcastic view on women's lives at the time appeals to both my feminine and feminist sides. And there is no character that I love more than Elizabeth Bennett. She is both perfect and flawed, and therefore, completely human.

Harry Potter

Yes, I am counting all 7 as one book. I have read these books more than I have any other (although Pride and Prejudice does come close.) Rowlings mastery at weaving a plot that takes twists never expected, her brilliant character development, and the sheer magic (pun both intended and not) of the books make it so they captivate me just as much the seventh time through as they did the first.

To Kill a Mockingbird

Exquisitely painful and beautiful at the same time, the range of emotions of this book nearly overwhelm me each time I read it. There are few literary characters that make you want to stand beside them as Atticus Finch.

Crime and Punishment

Dostoevsky's examination of guilt, conscience, justification, and redemption are both frightening and captivating, without letting you be sure of which emotion is stronger.

The Hobbit

I was sure at one time that I loved science fiction more than I loved fantasy. Now, I'm not so sure. The one thing I am sure of is that I can trace my shift in feelings back to when I first read a story about a hobbit stepping out of his little round door and setting of in search of gold, adventure, and self-identity.

I think I should stop at 6. Otherwise, I will be perusing my library all night, reading through books and deciding if they should be on my list or not.

This is not be any means a complete list. Not even close. Mary Shelley, Ray Bradbury, Leo Tolstoy all belong on this list as well. Nor is it even close to being a list of books I feel are must reads. I'll save that for another day.

What books are on your "favorite" list?

Let me know, so that, given enough uninterrupted alone hours, I can add them to mine.

Girl's Night

2009-11-21T18:08:00.000-08:00

Last night was a girl's night out.

I met three other women and we saw New Moon.

It has been a very long time since I've gotten together with girls, without kids, without Hubster. In fact, after I got home and thought about it, I couldn't remember the last time I had done that.

Estrogen is therapeutic.

I had been looking forward to my night out all week. That morning, I spent a little extra time doing my hair, a little more time picking out my clothes, a little more time just trying to look nice.

When I got to work, I got all sorts of compliments. That I looked nice, that that color really looked good on me, that I should wear my hair down more often. My attending commented she had never seen me wear boots or wear my hair down. I explained that I was having a girls night out and was very excited about it.

She gave me a strange look.

"You get dressed up nice and do your hair for girls, but not for your husband?"

I laughed it off, saying I do look nice when I go out with Hubster, but that spending Saturday afternoons curled up on the couch watching college football together, while one of my favorite things, hardly inspires me to put that extra effort in the my hair and makeup or wear a pair of sexy shoes.

I've always put more effort into looking nice when I go out with girls. And up until yesterday, I didn't really think anything about it.

Maybe I don't feel the need to impress men anymore. I'm happily married to Hubster, and attention from any other male just really doesn't mean anything.

It doesn't mean that I've given up on impressing Hubster either. Although after 8 1/2 years, impressing someone just by doing your hair is a little harder. Although I have been complimented just on managing to get dressed post call, so maybe it's not. Hubster and I have just grown comfortable with each other, like an old pair of jeans or shoes that are the more comfortable thing you own.

But does all that mean I feel the need to impress other women?

I've come to the conclusion that women are much harder on other women than men are about other men. In an instant, we draw conclusion and make assumptions about other women based on their clothes, their body type, their posture, their company. We let other women make us feel self-conscious about ourselves more than any man ever could.

But I don't think that had anything to do with why I word lipstick and heels last night.

I don't think the women I was with last night would judge me if I had come looking like I do every other day of the week, like the harried, fatigued, mother-of-two, 80-hours-a-week-resident that I am. I don't think the women I was with last night would have noticed, or cared, if I had worn my work clothes out. I don't think the women I was with last night judge me for the extra "baby" weight I carry.

No. Sometimes pink and glitter and make-up are just sitting around, waiting for an excuse. And last night was mine.

The Lost Symbol

2009-11-18T19:23:00.001-08:00

I am finally reading again.

Okay, let me clarify. I am reading for pleasure again. I've been reading large quantities of material over the last several months, but it is hardly what I would call recreational reading. After all, "Anesthesia Techniques for Patients with Ischemic Heart Disease" or "Cricoid Pressure Results in Compression of the Postcricoid Hypopharnx" are hardly pleasurable pursuits at the end of long day. You only think I'm joking.

It has been months since I've read a novel. I did reread the entire Harry Potter series over the summer, but I finished that in July. It's been even longer since I've reviewed a book.

What better way to start reading again than with Dan Brown?

I enjoy Dan Brown novels. They fall into my brain candy category. The stories are interesting, the actual reading easy.

The first Dan Brown novel I read was The DaVinci Code. I love this book. The story and the thoughts behind the story captivated me, and I must admit, spoke to the feminist inside of me. Not to mention make me desperate to travel to Europe.

After reading The DaVinci Code, I was excited to read Dan Brown's other books. I looked forward to The Lost Symbol.

But here is the confession.

The book disappointed me.

Since it is new book, and there may be people out there who haven't finished (or started) it yet, I won't put in any spoilers.

The first part of the book was thrilling. I will admit that. There were a few chapters where I just could not put the book down, partially because my heart was beating fast, and I had to know if things turned out okay or risk not sleeping that night.

I felt the book reached it's climax about half way through the book. I kept waiting for this amazing reveal, something that would cause my jaw to drop and my mind to reel, even just a little.

It never came.

As I reached the end of the book, it became easy to see where the story was heading. After that point, the last several chapters became tedious to get through.

Brown has a way of just slightly overstating things in his book. This would change the world. This could effect everyone. I could see that with the themes of his two previous Robert Langdon books, but with this one, I just couldn't see it. The amazing things of the book were in the research done by the main female character, and while Brown describes some of her work, he does not frame it in a way that shocks or surprises the reader.

Like The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons, Brown's description of the architecture, art, and history of the settings is breathtaking and detailed. I went to Washington D.C. for a class trip in middle school and reading about the buildings and art in this novel brought back vivid memories of that trip. However, it may have been that desire to maintain historical and cultural accuracy that may have caused the story to come up lacking in the end. I felt it would have been okay to exaggerate just a tiny, tiny bit. Maybe not. Maybe that would defeat the purpose, whatever that may be.

There is also the issue of character. I can easily overlook a slightly poorly written book if I connect strongly to the characters. I do genuinely like Robert Langdon. He is a great main character: logical, sceptical, with phobias included. (Although does anyone else just keep on picturing Tom Hanks?) However, the rest of the characters are 2-dimensional. The main female character in The Lost Symbol could have been interchanged with the main female character in his other novels. Attractive, intelligent, but not much more. The villians, while especially unexpected here (althought I figured it out halfway through) are not complex, but literarily complete evil.

I do not think that The Lost Symbol was a bad book. I rather enjoyed reading (most of) it. But I felt that it fell short of its potential.

A little bit early

2009-11-15T21:50:00.001-08:00

Christmas comes earlier and earlier every year.

When I had a retail job during college, I would go back to work the day after Thanksgiving to be welcomed by Christmas music and decorations that had been hung the night before. It was after Thanksgiving that the Christmas season started.

This year, there was a Christmas display up when we were getting candy for trick-or-treating.

I used to fight it. I would tell myself (and more importantly, Hubster) that I wasn't going to do my Christmas shopping until after Thanksgiving.

There's only one problem.

I love Christmas. I love everything about it.

I would look longingly at the displays of wrapping paper, decorations, and cinnamon scented candles, but drag myself past them to continue with more practical shopping. I would hold off until after Thanksgiving, but it was always so hard.

Part of the reason for waiting is that I always thought Thanksgiving must feel left out. Yeah, the only reason you're looking forward to me is that it means shopping deals the day after. And I do love Thanksgiving as well. The traditions, the family, the hustle and noise, and candied yams and the pies. I love Thanksgiving, and it always felt like I was slighting the holiday by preparing for Christmas too early.

This year, we've started to prepare for Christmas a little earlier. We've already finished over half of our shopping. Partially because I convinced Hubster that Christmas would be so much more enjoyable if we weren't stressing out about gifts and crowded malls right before hand.

We'll still wait until after Thanksgiving to put up lights and the tree and wrap presents.

But already there is a hum in our house, the hum that Christmas is coming. And the fact that the joy and wonder of Christmas is slowly filling our home already doesn't bother me a bit.

Intuition

2009-11-13T21:24:00.000-08:00

"I imagine parenting is fairly intuitive."

This was told to me by someone who is not a parent.

I guess the statement itself would make that obvious. All I could do was stare at the person. Really? Intuitive? That would not be the first word that comes to mind when I think about parenting.

Your child has just rammed the shopping cart into a complete stranger. You put him in the shopping cart and he promptly flings out a package of tortillas, which hits another stranger in the head. What does your intuition tell you to do?

Your baby has not stopped crying for three days. You've been to the pediatrician, and everything is "fine." The crying has made it so you haven't slept for three days. What do you do?

You go running upstairs in response to a loud crash to find a dresser has been toppled over and the culprit has locked himself in the bathroom before he can be interrogated. 15 minutes later you run downstairs in response to another crash, to find another child climbing up a bookshelf and the globe in pieces below him. What are your instincts in this case?

(All of these represent true, first hand accounts of parenting. Ask me how I know.)

I feel like most of parenting has been about overcoming my instincts. I want to scream, yell, spank somebody, or just turn them into the customer service desk and say that someone really needs to keep an eye on this child. I've done more than my fair share of screaming. There have been occasional spankings. As of yet, no one has been left at a store. Maybe I'm a bad parent, but nothing about parenting has been very intuitive for me.

Well, other than thinking that my kids are cuter than everyone else's kids. Even with above mentioned stories.

I've run into people that have very well-defined parenting styles. I don't think I've been doing this job long enough to have good sense of exactly what it is I'm doing. For one thing, I knew that I was never, ever going to raise picky eaters. Because picky eaters are one of my pet peeves. And wouldn't you know it. Bug is the pickiest eater ever. He does not eat food that is red. Or things that he hasn't already had. Or things with milk. Which leaves us at French fries and....yeah.

As someone who has only been doing this for 7 years, I'm still a novice.

I listen to other people. Half the time, I feel desperate for advice. I'm still waiting for someone to tell me to please control my children, just so I can ask them earnestly, "I would love to. Please tell me how!"

Parenting styles come in more varieties than there are parents. There is no right answer. Finding a system that works is a delicate balance of multiple personalities, schedules, and plain old trial and error. There are some things that are definitely wrong. And there are things that almost always work.

One person once shared their parenting style with me. "I don't raise children. I raise adults. Just like you don't raise puppies, you raise dogs. You don't raise chicks, you raise chickens."

At first I liked this. That my parenting should be focused on instilling in my children the skills that would be most beneficial to them as adults.

But my children are not dogs or chickens. They are children. They have value in what they are right now.

I hope that I do prepare them to be amazing adults.

But I am also going to allow them to be children, and I'm going to enjoy every moment of that time I can.

Maybe it is all more intuitive than I thought.

The healing process

2009-11-07T18:08:00.000-08:00

Years ago, someone very close to me hurt me in such a way I thought I would never recover.

I'm not going into the details, because now, years later, the details themselves mean very little.

At the time, I felt angry, betrayed, neglected, and above all very, very sad. Heartbroken.

I know that this person never intended to hurt me. I understand that the circumstances surrounding the event may not have been possible to change. Even then, I knew that most of what happened was the perfect storm of bad events.

Knowing all that, I could have forgiven the person and moved on. However, one thing prevented me from doing this. It has prevented me for years from doing this. I have carried this hurt inside for a long time and it has severely influenced my relationship with this person.

The thing that prevented me from ever getting closure was this person's refusal to acknowledge what had happened. We both knew things probably couldn't have been different. However, in this person's mind, because he couldn't change things meant he didn't have to recognize the damage it did. Every time I tried to talk about it, all I was met with was justifications and excuses and even accusations. Why couldn't I recognize that it was the best he could do, and that should be good enough for me?

I eventually stopped talking about. I eventually stopped crying about it. I eventually stopped thinking about it all the time.

But it was always there, a giant gorilla that stood in place of our relationship.

I don't want anyone to think that I have spent the last many years carrying a grudge. It is not a grudge. It is such a big event for me that I needed to talk about it, and have only been met with resistance. And because of that, I felt I have never been able to start to heal.

My least favorite movie all all times is Love Story.

I felt it was less of a love story, and more of story of people using love as an excuse to treat each other badly.

"Love means never having to say you're sorry."

I don't believe that.

I think we are only truly sorry about hurting someone we love. And admitting a wrong and truly apologizing to a loved one is one of the most difficult things to do. Being able to say sorry, and mean it... now that is love.

Many people think that an apology is just words. That it doesn't do anything to change the action that happened. It's true that it doesn't go back and erase what happened, but it is not true that it doesn't change things. A true apology can be one of the most healing things there is.

During conversations with patients and patient families regarding bad outcomes, many of them say the same thing. They knew that things probably couldn't be different. They knew everyone did their best. But still bad things happened. The one thing many of these people wanted was an apology. Just to have their physician recognize what had happened and just say they were sorry. No defensiveness, no excuses, no justifications. Just an apology.

I had long given up on an apology.

Several days, I was on the phone with this person. We were talking, as we often do, about things that are "safe." Our families, our jobs. Then, out of no where, this person said apologized. Things have been rough for a very long time. And I'm sorry for that.

It was the first time in my life I have ever heard this person say "I'm sorry."

I'm not exactly sure what the apology was for. I'm not sure it was a recognition of the hurt I have been coping with for years.

What I do know, is that now, for the first time, there is a chance to start healing.

Plow Ahead

2009-11-06T18:18:00.000-08:00

Oh blogesphere, how I've missed you! I've fallen woefully behind, not just in my writing, but also in reading so many of your blogs that I love so much. I've been trying to leave comments, just to let you know I really am still here, but even that has been spotty.

There are times when I really, really don't like my job.

The pre-dawn mornings, the frequent all-nighters, the constant crises, the eating every meal by myself, the potential for true disaster around every corner, the fatigue, the stress.

All of this is part of my job. I know that. I knew it before I ever decidedto go down this path. And there are days when none of it phases me. And then there are days when it overwhelms and crushes me.

Originially, when I was thinking about this post and trying to decide exactly what to say about my feelings, it was going to be a post about choice and having a say in the direction your life took.

But that is not what this post is going to be about.

There are mornings, when I wake up warm and comfortable. The sky is just turning from black to gray outside my east facing bedroom window. Hubster is sleeping next to me. The house is still. All I want to do is stay in bed next to Hubster, get a few more hours of sleep, wait for the boys to wake up and have breakfast with my family. I think to myself that maybe I'll just quit residency.

And then I think about how much I like our house. And if I quit my job, we'd have to live in an apartment again, and Hubster would have to go back to work, and then he might not be able to go to dental school like he so desperately wants to. I think all these things. Fine! I'll go to work, I yell at myself in my mind.

On one of my call nights, I was feeling particularly sorry for myself. I was missing my family a little more than normal that night. It had been a busy night. Finally, at 1 am, I managed to find time to run down to the cafeteria to grab my first food of the day. The hospital was quiet, most of the lights off, all the doors to the clinics shut. All that made me feel even more sorry for myself.

Then, around the corner, I saw a man cleaning the carpet in the deserted hallway. He does it every night.

It wasn't just me working in the middle of the night. It wasn't just me away from my family. Here was a janitor, working in the dead of night, alone.

The cafeteria was staffed at 1 am by people who are also away from home. Some of these people may be working their second or third job and be away from their loved ones more than I am.

Sometimes, you just have to suck it up and plow on. The majority of us who work don't do it purely because we love our job that much. Or because we get so much personal satisfaction for what we do that we can't live without our job.

Okay, maybe some people do. I'm just saying I don't.

We go to work because we have a house and a car. We work because we need food and clothes. We go to work because people depend on us.

My views on work have completely changed since I know that I have three people back home that depend on me. I can't quit, even if it isn't exactly what I want to do (which would be sitting at home, playing with my children, and having time to read a good book.)

To be honest, my job is a pretty great job. Yes, it is exhausting. It is more demanding than many other jobs out there. Seriously, they had to implement laws to make sure residents didn't work more than 80 hours a week or 30 hours on one shift. People can be seriously injured if I have an "off" day.

But it is also a job that can be amazingly satisfying.

As long as I just have to suck it up and plow ahead, which I plan on doing, I'm glad I get to do what I do. People have it worse.

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-30T19:12:00.000-07:00

Other than the occasional tantrum and evidence of sugar withdrawal, this will be the scariest part of our holiday. Enjoy yours!

(Compliments of the amazingly talented Hubster)

Two Options

2009-10-28T17:54:00.000-07:00

Everyone can be an optimist when things are easy.

Okay, not everyone. Hubster is proof of that. I'll comment on what a beautiful day it is, and he will respond with something about how hot it will get, or how it won't last, or something else entirely pessimistic.

But it is easier to be optimistic when things are going the way they "should." When the boys are well-behaved, the cars both work, the weather is beautiful, and work is enjoyable.

This month has been none of those things. This month has pushed my ability to be optimistic to it's very edge.

My work this month has been more demanding than anything I have done previously. The people I am working with are some of the most difficult personalities I have ever encountered. My hours have been some of the longest I have ever put in, leaving when it's dark, coming home when it's dark practically every day.

The boys have reacted to my longer hours and other changes in their schedules by fighting more with each other. Monkey has had some regression in terms of sleeping and potty training. A lot of work around the house has fallen to Hubster, including the task of coping with the unwelcome changes in the boys' behavior. So Hubster has been a little more grumpy as well.

I've been so exhausted that my temper has been shorter, my desire to help cook and clean at home as been less. I come home and fall asleep shortly after, leaving little time to play with the boys (and even less time to blog.)

I dread going to work, mostly because of the people I'm currently working with.

I feel like I have every reason to fall into a pity party. There are days when I would just like to stomp my foot, and yell, and give up.

But I haven't.

I'm not saying that I haven't been grumpy. I'm not saying I haven't cried several times on my way home from work.

But I can't give up. I have to keep plodding on. And I have two ways I can do it. I can either cry, or I can laugh.

I'm doing my best to go with option 2.

And would you like to here something good about this month?

It's almost over.

Autumn

2009-10-24T13:15:00.001-07:00

Strange, that less than half way through fall, it feels like it is already over.

Where we come from

2009-10-22T16:33:00.000-07:00

I spent most of middle school and high school dreaming about attending an Ivy League school.

Of the onslaught of college recruiting material that arrived during the early fall of my senior year, the most treasured and poured over where pamphlets from Harvard, Yale, Brown, and Stanford. (Okay, I know Stanford isn't technically Ivy League. But still...it's Stanford.)

I kept those particular recruiting packets long after I accepted my full-ride scholarship to the local state university.

I graduated Summa Cum Laude from my local state university, with the highest GPA earned by a female in the college of science. And I dreamed of attending medical school at UCSF, Mayo, or John Hopkins.

I applied to one medical school, and enthusiastically accepted a spot at a state medical school.

I worked hard during medical school and graduated with honors and Alpha Omega Alpha (or AOA, the national medical school honor society.) I had spent all of medical school picturing myself attending residency at Stanford (yep, there it is again), Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, Mass General, or Mayo.

And then I matched into my top choice at a state program in the Midwest.

The decisions I made, compared to the ones I dreamed about, were made after weighing what was best for our family. There were times that I felt deeply disappointed. I had worked so hard, and had the ability to attend undergraduate, medical school, or residency at some of the biggest, most prestigious schools and programs in the country. But, for the good of my family (and ultimately even for the good of myself) I chose to attend less well known, more affordable state schools.

I wonder...does it really matter?

I attended public high school. I did not attend a rigourous, private, college prep school. But I still managed to get a full ride scholarship to a respected school. A state school, yes, but a good one.

I attended a state medical school. Many of my classmates had done their undergraduate at Stanford, MIT, Cal Tech, Yale, and Princeton. Those classmates had attended prestigious private programs while I had attended a state school. (And yes, I have on multiple occasions seen people say "state school" with a air of disgust or as a joke of mediocroty.) And yet, we had arrived at the same place in our lives.

I attended a state medical school, and now I attend residency along side individuals who trained at Brown, Hopkins, Cleveland Clinic, and UCSF. They did go to the prestigious programs. And yet, here we are, at the same point in our lives.

I never attended any of the places that filled my academic dreams as a teenager. And yet, here I am, the initials MD behind my name.

Does it really matter where we come from?

I don't want to belittle the experience of attending an Ivy League university. The culture and surrounding probably run deep and inspire.

But in the end, does it really matter?

Because in the end, where we go depends more on who we are then where we come from.

No Right Time

2009-10-14T15:09:00.000-07:00

I come from a large family.

And when I say large, I mean "could have our own TLC show" type of large.

I'm the oldest of 10.

Yep, two whole handfuls of children. 12 of us all together, once you remember to count the parents.

I'll give you a while to take that it.

.
.
.

There are some downsides to being in a big family. There never seems to be enough space forever one. Never quite enough money for everything. And occasionally not enough time.

But the challenges never beat out the joys of having a large family. There are always enough people for board games (just sometimes no enough pieces, and then you improvise. I'll been the top hat, you be the shoe, and you can be rubber frog.) Happy birthday sounds so much better when sung by an entire choir (except when the choir consists of a couple of teenage boys, and then you just take what you get.) And there are enough for two teams in soccer, baseball, or basketball. And with that many birthdays, most of the year is spent in celebration. I always had the largest cheering section at all three of my graduations.

Most importantly, we always had friends. I'm not implying we always got along. Some sibling rivalries were more obvious and intense than others. I had siblings I always fought with and siblings I never fought with. But we never felt lonely.

I love my huge, crowded, loud, talented, chaotic, supportive, drama-inclined family.

But one of the strange things about growing up in a large family is the mind set that starts to set in. We felt bad for children in small families that only had one or two siblings. Or, heaven forbid, no siblings!

I grew up viewing parents who had one, two, or three children as selfish. They valued their time, money, and leisure more then their children. Career or pleasure topped the priority list above family. Small families were created by horrid people who valued peace and quiet more than they valued providing siblings and friends for their children.

I was determined to never be selfish. I was going to have a half dozen of my own children and create as many happy family memories as I had growing up.

(Remember, I was young, and like many very young people was prone to black and white images and a slight inability to view things for others point of view.)

I realized very soon after Bug was born that I was never going to have a huge family. I seemed to lack the pulled togetherness, resourcefulness, and patience of my own mother.

I love my two boys with a fierce, mother tiger like love. I am intensely proud of them, and nearly worship them.

But I came to realize that I was not cut out to be a leader of a very large flock.

And this is where it gets difficult.

I would really, really like another child. Monkey is three. And I can start to feel the baby hunger set in. I haven't felt that, well, since we decided to get pregnant with Monkey. Even when Monkey was two years old, I could hold other peoples newborns, cuddle and coo at them, and not feel one twinge of envy or baby hunger. But since Monkey is now mostly done throwing fits in the grocery store, nearly sleeping through the night, and for all intents and purpose potty trained, my brain has starting letting those TV commercials with wrinkly babies get to me.

Hubster and I have started talking about what our schedules look like over the next couple years, trying to get a good idea about when would be a good time to have another baby.

But I'm looking at 50-80 hour work weeks for the next four years, laden with overnight call at the hospital. Hubster is just finishing up some last minute requirements for his application to dental school.

If we were to have another baby in the next four to five years, that baby would spend a lot of time the same way Bug and Monkey have spent the previous four years. In daycare.

And then we ask ourselves...who's being selfish now?

Is it more selfish to continue with our plans for our careers and future and be content with our two boys? Or at least postpone baby number three four years until I am done with residency, have a stable job with some control over my schedule.? (That would make Bug 12 and Monkey 8 before we had baby #3, just to do some math.)

Or is it more selfish to give into the baby hunger and the theoretical chance of a much wanted girl (who would be just as wanted if they were a boy, just to make that clear) when they would be raised 8-10 hours a day by someone else? Just because we want another baby and would love her (or him) passionately and intensely, could we provide what is best?

Bug and Monkey are turning into well adjusted little boys, who play well with each other and others. Bug does amazing in school. They love each other and know that they are loved. They have done this even with years attending daycare behind them and in front of them. So I'm not saying daycare ruins children, or damages childhood.

But is it best?

When people ask why we decided to have children while still in medical school, we always replied: There is no right time to have children. There will always be reasons to postpone, put it off, delay it. There is no right time.

But maybe there is a wrong time.

I'm not exactly sure what time it is now.

"Not all who wander are lost." J.R.R. Tolkien

2009-10-08T19:04:00.000-07:00

I have done little wandering in my life. The majority of my life has been a straight path, one foot in front of the other, to a predetermined destination.

I've done little wandering. But I've spent a great deal of time feeling lost.

I used to feel so swept up by my life. That somewhere, long ago, I made a turn, a decision, chose a path. And everything else has just been the next step, the next logical decision. The steps felt so close together that I never got a good chance to look at them. Once I got on the path, for a time, everything stopped feeling like a choice.

During medical school, I kept thinking that I ended up there because it was the logical thing to do after college. Residency loomed ahead, like the next logical thing after medical school. My life felt like dominoes, falling one by one. Inevitable. And out of my control.

I felt like Frodo. Frodo made the decision to take the ring. But was anything after that really a choice?

There had been so little wandering.

I went straight from high school to college. Straight from college to medical school. The straight path, while not easy and exhausting most of the time, was still easier than veering from it. Deciding between the unhappiness looming in front of me or the fear of the unknown off the path was nearly impossible.

I felt afraid to be happy.

I ended up going to residency.

Which I guess means that there has still been little wandering.

But this is different. The crushing unhappiness I foresaw in front of me is gone, as if I came through a fog.

I could have not gone to residency. No one made me (besides the $200,000 worth of student debt. But other than that, no one made me.) I could have graduated medical school, and then done something different...stayed at home, graduate school, teaching. We talked about all those options.

And maybe that's why this is so different. It was actually a choice.

So there may still not be a lot of wandering. But I am also no longer lost.

Ugly Shoes

2009-10-06T14:48:00.000-07:00

When Hubster and I first started dating, I loved everything about him. His humor, his honesty, his work ethic, the way he treated his mother.

Okay, I loved nearly everything about him.

He did own a gray and blue plaid shirt and a hideous pair of black loafers. Both of which he wore a little too regularly. Sometimes together.

I'm sure someone out there is going to shout, or at least think to themselves: Shallow! How could any one let clothes even be an issue?

I didn't. Obviously, they weren't that big of an issue, because I've been happily married to the man for 8 years.

But, seriously, if you could have seen these shoes and shirt, you would understand.

During the first year of our marriage, the black, now holey loafers, and plaid, now stained, shirt, somehow "disappeared." There is still no telling, even to this day, exactly what happened to them.

That shirt was not the only shirt to get lost, misplaced, or removed from the closet. Sometimes, Hubster knew. Sometimes he didn't. I justified the removal of holey T-shirts, lumpy sweaters, and strange patterned button up shirts with the fact that I replaced them with new, nice shirts. Gap, Eddie Bauer, and Express. Clothes any guy should love.

It took me two years to realize exactly what was going on. I was madly in love with Hubster. While not perfect, he was an amazing husband, and then father. He never complained. He never yelled, he worked hard, and whenever someone needed help, he never said no. Even with all that, I was falling into the trap that so many women do.

The hope we can change our husband.

Women who marry abusive men, who think if only they love the man enough, he will learn to be kind and gentle. Women who marry party boys, positive they can "domesticate" them. Women who marry workaholics, convinced that this is only a phase, that that someday, when they are successful, there will be time for children.

It also happens in the littler things. A woman wants her husband to be a reader of classic novels, or a travel enthusiast, or cooking show watcher. Women, who marry men with ugly clothes and think they can turn them into J. Crew models.

It took me a while to realize that I was trying to change Hubster into someone he wasn't. He was always going to be more comfortable in a pair of jeans and a old T-shirt than he ever was in a pair of khakis and a button up shirt with the sleeves rolled part way up. Fashion was never, ever going to be a big deal to him. I could have kept pushing. I could end up like the woman I knew who bought all her husband's clothes and laid them out for him each morning, because it was that important to her.

Or I could realize that I loved the person Hubster already was.

And that included his overly casual fashion (seriously...I've had to tell him that jeans were not appropriate for a wedding.) He continues to be one of the best people I know.

Even if he is still missing one pair of loafers.

On the move

2009-10-03T17:43:00.000-07:00

Last week, it was Parent's Night at Bug's school. We love his school. The walls are painted floor to ceiling with brightly colored murals done by the children. The classrooms are everything you could imagine for an elementary school.

Near the front door, there is a bulletin board labels "Welcome to our new students." There are only five pictures on the bulletin board. Two children from schools across town. Two siblings from Michigan. And Bug, from Salt Lake City. Only five new children in the entire school (not counting the kindergartners, obviously.)

Talking to our neighbors, I initially got the feeling that people here stayed put longer than anything I was used to. All our neighbors sent their children to the same elementary school, the same high school, and still live here now that the children are in college.

Then I realized there is nothing strange about them.

There is something strange about me.

When people ask me where I'm from, I say Salt Lake City (or Utah, depending on how familiar they are with the geography). I didn't always have a good answer for that question.

I attended four different elementary schools, not including a year of private school, and two years of home schooling. In addition, I attending one junior high and two high schools. The longest I have ever lived at one address was five years. And that happened once. I have 16 moves under my belt with my family by the time I was 18 and moved out on my own, only to start the process over again.

After a life where moving vans and cardboard boxes are as routine as the beginning of the school year, the whole thing begins to develop a sense of normalcy.

Hubster and I have moved 7 times in our 8 years of marriage.

Sometimes it takes stepping onto solid ground to realize how much the boat was rocking. Our home feels steady. For the first time, we feel like we've reached port. And only in the looking back, have we come to realize how rough the ride has been.

We plan on staying put for a while. Bug, and maybe even Monkey, will complete the elementary school at one school.

I'm not going to make any promises that we will be able to put forever. There may be moves that mandate school changes. And I'm sure that those will provoke the same tantrums and tears that I put up every single move. But I am determined that those disruptions will be few and far between.

Because it feels good to be still.

Screaming Inside

2009-09-30T21:18:00.001-07:00

The last couple days have reminded me why I blog.

My thoughts have been running through my head so fast that I'm being whisked along behind them right onto the express towards crazy. They bounce around against my skull, getting louder and louder that I'm not entirely sure people around me can't hear them.

When Hubster and I were dating, I'd often ask him what he was thinking. Turns out, guys don't like to be asked this. And without fail, he would say "Nothing."

I don't ask he what he is thinking anymore. I can read his mood better than the TV menu. And as our relationship has grown, he shares more and more.

But I always wondered about the "Nothing" response. Is it the same as when someone asks me what's wrong, and I say, "Nothing." Because I don't what you to know. Or is it really "Nothing."

How could anyone be thinking "Nothing" when my mind is constantly going. When I'm not thinking about what's for dinner and did anyone get the clothes out of the dryer, and we still need to get plastic bins for the things in the garage before winter, I'm thinking do I really want to fellowship in Pain Management or should I just stick to general anesthesia, and how long would it take to tile around the fireplace, and does Monkey like his new daycare and why haven't I started saving for retirement, and it's been a long time since I've painted, maybe I should try to work in some time.

It's like this ALL THE TIME.

So I blog. I'm not always to get everything out, but at least a little. A pressure valve. At least to thin out the internal crowd.

----

I'm never sure how much to share about work. Because I work in medicine. I feel that I can't just talk about my feelings and experiences, because I'm "representing my field." Can I talk about depression rates and the horrific grind of residency without you wondering if your doctor is depressed and therefore should they be taking care of you?

If I talk about doubts and mistakes I make in my training, does that make you trust medicine less? If I were to say that I felt 100% my senior was wrong about something, and so I went ahead and did what I thought was right and practically saved a patient, is that good or bad? Interns shouldn't be acting without supervision. What I did would not have hurt the patient, and definitely helped her, while doing nothing may have been devastating. But should I have acted of my own accord? Or should I have listened to my senior? Telling you this, do you trust the system less?

I believe in medicine.

I don't think we always make the right decisions. I know that people are hurt by poor decision making. Bad things happen, both due to unavoidable side effects or due to blatant over sight or negligence. It is one thing when your mail is delivered to the wrong address. It is another thing entirely when medicine is delivered to the wrong patient. Or procedures are done incorrectly.

But I still believe in medicine.

Western medicine doesn't have all the answers. I've seen more patients' pain managed with massage and acupuncture than I have with pain medicine and invasive procedures. I've seen patients defy all odds. I've seen families and patients alike get more benefit from prayer, blessings, meditation, and even withdrawal of care, than they would have from ongoing treatment.

But I still believe in medicine.

I may not agree with my training. I don't prescribe to the old school thinking of complete dedication to the exclusion of the rest of your life. I disagree with the hierarchy that's been created in the system. Training shouldn't involve humiliation, degradation, and exhaustion until mental breakdown.

But I still believe in medicine.

I've seen children walk who shouldn't have, because of surgery. I've seen women hold children they never otherwise would have had, because of medicine. I've seen people get a new lease on life after a heart transplant. I've seen infections cured, pain treated, bones set, and lives saved. Because of medicine.

I believe in medicine.

What I write is my own experience. I have bad days and heart-breaking moments. I battle egos as frequently as I do fevers and low blood pressure. I have been through bitterness, depression, and fatigue.

But none of that will change how I treat you in the hospital, with the best care I can provide.

Play Space

2009-09-26T11:58:00.000-07:00

I have a day off today, and am doing my best to not think about what happened at work this week.

So I'm going to get back to what's gone on at home. Because my life involves just as much paint, plaster, and finish nails as it does IV fluids, blood, and lab results.

Probably the biggest change in our house has been our family room.

When we first moved in, this room was terrible. Damp carpet, with moldy tack strips and carpet pad underneath. Seriously disgusting.

Now, it is probably the most used room in the house. Which is funny, considering it doesn't have any furniture.

The first thing to do was remove the disgusting carpet and seal the walls to prevent any more water from coming in. The last thing I ever want to see is more of this...

Worst new home owner surprise: Water damage and mold!

Then Hubster showed his brilliant construction skills and installed a new raised subfloor and the same Pergo that we have since installed in the kitchen. How fast this all happened was mind boggling. Less than two days from carpet out to Pergo in. Amazing.

The walls are the same creamy color as the kitchen. I thought about doing a darker accent wall on the fireplace wall. But when I mentioned it, Hubster gave me that look. So no accent wall.

However, the ceiling is blue. I love the blue ceiling. At first, you almost don't notice it, but when you do, it's hard not to smile. It adds such a playful, fun touch.

This room is truly a family room, meaning a place for the boys to play. So toy storage is a priority. The storage shelf is from IKEA. And I love the red accents.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Notice the blue ceiling?

We plan on adding more red accents. Some red bean bag chairs for the boys. A row of Mondrian prints to the wall.

I love the idea of Modrian prints,
because of the primary colors and
the linear lines echoing the storage unit.

Oh, and a couch. We've already found one we love. A comfy chocolate brown one that even Hubster loves. Now we just have to wait for the red maple in the front yard to start growing money.

We've installed new oak plank stairs that (nearly) match the Pergo.

We are going to tile around the fireplace, hopefully next month. And add a big beautiful white mantle, perfect for Christmas stockings.

I wish I could say that the room is still clean, and organized, and full of simple lines and red accents. But like I said before, it is a true family room. A true play room. So it spends most of its time looking like two boys and no parents live here.

Grief

2009-09-23T10:21:00.000-07:00

As a medical student, I never had a patient that I was taking care of die.

Patients I had taken care of died, but I had transferred off service, days, months, before that happened.

This last month has been pushed and pulled at me more than I thought possible. I have had three patients die this month.

Every single time, I could have kept them alive. Their blood pressure had been stabilized, they were breathing easily on the ventilator. But every single time, despite the fact that I had done my best, despite the fact the patient was "stable," despite the fact that my attending, myself, and the rest of the ICU team had gone over every possibility and treatment plan, the patient was not going to get better. They were lying in the ICU bed with tubes and wires snaking off their body, surrounded by monitors with multicolored blips and beeping fluid pumps. They had everything medicine could give them. And it wasn't going to make a difference.

Every single time, the families requested that we withdraw care.

Devastating strokes that happened in the middle of the night. Traumas that left the families angry and confused. A combination of a million little things that left the patient and the family with no way out.

When it is just me, a handful of ICU nurses, and the patient, I'm fine. The patient, a middle age woman with a non-functioning brain stem, or a young man with a traumatic brain injury, is quiet, sedated, breathing rhythmically with the ventilator. I adjust medications, watch clear fluid and dark blood flow through tubing to the patient. I listen to breath sounds, feel pulses, watch as the medications slow the heart rate and raise the blood pressure. It is quiet, the patient is stable, and I am fine.

Then the family comes in.

They must have just talked to the surgeon, or the neurologist, or the trauma physician. They are crying, some loudly, some silently. Occasionally, there is yelling at the bedside and someone is asked to leave. There is more crying down the hall, because patients can only have a few visitors at a time.

It is no longer quiet, and I am no longer fine.

The nurses are talking to the family, to the weeping mother, the pale sister, the blank-faced son, so I slip away to the back hall, between the linen carts.

I did my job, and it doesn't matter. I can't fix the brain, I can't save the kidneys or heart. I can keep breathing for them, but they will never breath on their own again. I am crying. I approach a breakdown of my own. And it isn't my grief. Everyone I know and love is still alive and healthy at home, and I will go home to them when I am done with this terribleness. I will finish my shift and leave their grief behind me. It isn't my grief, but still I am crying.

I can only allow myself seconds for the wave of sadness. I return to the silent patient and the aching family.

They wouldn't want this, everyone tells me. The surgeon says there is nothing more they can do, they say to me. Yes, they told me the same.

Two at a time, they say their goodbyes. It takes a very long time, yet not nearly long enough.

Three times, we have taken the breathing tube out, turned off the monitors, pulled the curtains around the bed.

Three times, I've watched someone die. It is never my grief, but still I am crying.

The High Point

2009-09-18T19:40:00.000-07:00

I'm approaching the point in residency I've been dreading.

The point where I'm constantly fatigued. I'm so tired that I can't think about doing dishes, or helping prepare meals, or managing the boys school papers. The point where I'm away from home too much, taking overnight in-hospital call every third night. The point where I feel like I will never know enough, never be able to study enough.

I've known this time was coming. I'm not sure if knowing helps me be more prepared or if it just becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

During intern orientation, we are shown a graph of rates of depression during intern year. The rate in June is near zero. By January, the rate is near 75%. Everyone looks at this graph and points to the high point in January. We are then given talks about how to cope during the midpoint of the year, the increasing stress, higher expectations combined with the lack of sunshine.

I am scheduled to be on Trauma service at that point.

Although impressive and terrifying, the peak in January isn't what concerned me most about the graph. The red line we were shown never went back to baseline. The rate of depression, so low among incoming residents, so happy after completing four grueling years of medical school, never returned to zero. The lowest it got was 20%.

The funny thing is that even as I approach that January peak, and boy, can I ever feel myself rushing towards it as my confidence and ability to stay awake while standing are every tried...the funny thing is that this is still better than medical school ever was.

Room For Boys

2009-09-15T12:41:00.000-07:00

One of the things I felt I missed out on raising the boys in apartments was the chance to decorate an nursery. Bug's "nursery" consisted of his crib at the foot of our bed in our first one bedroom apartment.

I did give in once, and painted a beautiful room at one of the places we lived when he was nearly three years old.

Bug's 2 year old bedroom, at apartment #3

It was promptly painted over the minute we moved out. (I knew it would happen...but still...)

So the chance to create an amazing boys room at our new home was exciting. For everyone. Bug had no shortage of ideas.

I want my walls painted like a tiger. I want really, really, really dark green. I want a Batman room. Can I paint one wall orange?

I'm all for letting children have input into the design on their own room. But some of these ideas were just a little too bold for me.

Then one day, Bug announced he wanted a red room. Once he decided that, there was no changing his mind. Although I wasn't sure I wanted an entirely red room.

So I told Bug we would do a red stripe in his room. At first, he was incredibly disappointed. He'd been counting on floor to ceiling, all four walls type of red. Even trying to sell the stripes as "racing stripes...you know like race cars have" didn't make him happy.

Until we found the bunk bed. We weren't even looking for one, although we had discussed it, since Bug and Monkey were going to share a room. We walked into a wholesale furniture store, looking for a coffee table. And there it was. A red bunk bed. It was beautiful. I fell in love with it immediately. So did Bug. I said that we couldn't have red walls and a red bunk bed, because then we couldn't see the bunk bed very well. "That's okay. Maybe we could just do a red stripe instead."

Just like it was his idea all along.

The BEFORE: Just a typical bedroom

The AFTER (part 1):
We used the same warm tan in all the bedrooms. The trim got the same antique white color as found in the living room and kitchen. We installed new darker brown (clean!) carpet. And then, of course, there are the stripes.

The red bunk bed makes its appearance.

A home for Monkey's entourage

Bug's art desk

The boys' room is the most finished in the house. I think it is a style that works well for two little boys now. And hopefully for two bigger boys in the year to come. And while the walls are not head to toe red, the room definitely is Bug's much wanted red room.

First Signs

2009-09-14T19:00:00.000-07:00

Fall comes slowly here. It has been creeping up on me for weeks now. The hint of yellow between the green. The droop of flowers. The tinge of red along the river.

Fall in Utah was so different. First the trees would change, nearly overnight, on the mountain sides. The frost and snow would come soon after. Suddenly the color and crispness of fall would be gone, sidewalks covered in the crunch of brown leaves, trees bare against the sky. And I always felt like I missed it.

Here, it has a slow gradual pace, as if autumn is enjoying itself. Flowers change from purple and blue variety to a yellow and red. Trees take their time, trying to be inconspicuous about the small piles of leaves forming underneath them.

Fall has not yet descended in all her glory. But every day I see more of her.

An Entry Way

2009-09-12T11:23:00.000-07:00

The entry way to a home sets the stage for what else is to come. It is just a taste, an introduction to the rest of the story.

I'm not exactly sure what ours is saying, but I like listening.

I don't have any good "before" pictures, because who thinks to take pictures of their unpainted front door before hand?

I have always wanted a red front door. And it's not (just) the Feng Shui tradition of a red door bringing luck. A red door says home, welcome, and happiness lives behind there. I'm sure other door colors could say the same thing, but a red door just seems to say them a little bit louder.

I found the mirror at an antique store years ago, and it appeals to my Jane Austen shabby chic side. It was dark brown when I bought it, and I repainted it white and then antiqued it with a raw umber glaze.

The shelf came from IKEA (custom fit courtesy of Hubster) and appeals to my clean, simple side.

The pears...well pears make me happy. They are such a pretty, artistic fruit.

(All the pears are turned with bite marks towards the wall. Because sometimes, three year old little boys just can't help themselves.)

I still imagine a large turqouise vase with tall curly willow branches in it on the shelf. And maybe a apple green and blue glass bowl for keys and spare change.

(I found this one on Etsy, here
The turquoise vase was also on Etsy,
but it is sadly sold out)

But since currently everything in the entry way is unbreakable, we may just leave things how they are. For now.

The World We Know

2009-09-11T11:45:00.000-07:00

Everyone I know remembers where they were when they heard that an airplane had hit the World Trade Towers.

It will be the question that our children ask us when they have homework to interview their parents about growing up. Just like how I asked my parents where they were and what they were doing when they heard JFK had been shot.

We talk a lot about how our lives changed that Tuesday. About the war waged since the following March. About the more complicated security in airports. About level yellow and orange security levels. About How America changed in the view of the rest of the world. About how we came together for a moment.

We talk about a pre 9/11 world and a post 9/11 world.

For my children, their entire lives are post 9/11.

They will never have any other context than a world without the Trade Towers. A world with a war in Iraq. A world where people continue to be afraid of Muslims and Middle Eastern men.

I will never be able to give them the world before.

Just like they will never know a world before Columbine, where parents sent their children to school without worrying if that school would be the next one in the headlines.

While our world and our world view changed forever 8 years ago, the world for my children did not. The change we live in and still feel every day, is the only world they will ever know.

One Year Later

2009-09-05T17:23:00.000-07:00

I will get back to posting about my exhausting, long drawn out home renovation. Promise.

But another thing has come up.

My blog is one year old today.

I actually started blogging about one month before that, one what I now call my "family blog." Because that's what it is. It is all about my boys, and Hubster, and family activities and get-togethers. It is a stereotypical mommy blog.

I started blogging because I thought it was the best way to keep my family up to date with our lives. The grandparents could see darling photos, my friends could see what we were up to.

But soon, I realized that I wanted to write, and not just about my boys, or the latest trip to the lake. Those things, while still important to share, did not fulfill my desire to share my thoughts. My opinions about books and photos I loves and the complete randomness that is my thought process sometimes felt out of place on an otherwise linear family blog.

So I created this place.

One year ago, I never could have imagined how much this blog would come to mean to me. Many times I've turned to here as a safety valve. I've been able to express, maybe not the darkest, most intimate inner working, but definitely parts of me I felt were worth sharing.

Above all, I never expected anyone to ever read it. Especially not 21 someones, and the occasional wanderer who shows up looking for someone who hated Wuthering Heights. Every single reader has meant so much. Every single comment makes my day.

So, for the little celebration I'm having for my blog, I would like to introduce myself to you. In a much more succinct way than you've been introduced in the past, which has been wandering, rambling "getting to know" process.

But in exchange, you must let me know something about you. I don't care if you are a family member I've known my entire life, a friend I've known for years, a reader who leaves comments, or someone who has just stumbled for the first time across my attempt to be optimistic. I want you to introduce yourself to me. Because it's polite.

And fun.

So here we go.

Hello. I'm Katherine. I'm a 27 year old mother of two. I spent some of the happiest years of my childhood growing up across California, tagging along with my Navy father and my ever growing family. When I was 11 years old, my family moved to Utah. I lived in Utah for most of my life. In fact, when I turned 23, Hubster told me I had to stop telling people I was from California, because I had lived in Utah for longer than I had ever lived in California. I met my husband when I was still in high school. Nearly two years and one year of college later, we got married.

In the eight years that have followed, my life has been a mixture of happiness, chaos, hard work, and magic. We have two darling boys, Bug, age 7, and Monkey, age 3. Not their real names, obviously. But for all intents and purposes, they might as well be.

During the time that Hubster and I were raising two darling boys, I also applied to medical school, got accepted, went to medical school, threatened to drop out of medical school, and then one year ago, graduated medical school.

3 months ago, my family of four packed up our 2 bedroom apartment life and moved 1200 miles away from the mountains of Utah to the corn fields of Iowa, so I could start my anesthesiology residency training.

So, if you're keeping track, I'm a 27 year old, happily married, mother of 2 boys, first time home owner, anesthesia resident-physician.

I also have a serious age complex. I haven't determined whether I'm too young to have all those titles, or too old to still experience the emotions that come with those titles. Or just crazy. A lot of days, we just go with that one.

So now it's your turn. I don't care if it is one line or an entire paragraph.

I've been here a year and I would love to get to know the landscape a little better.

Game Day

2009-09-04T11:45:00.000-07:00

I must interrupt my regular programming for a very important update.

I've already mentioned my sadness about the passing of summer. Even now, looking out my office window, the flowers across the street are looking slightly wilted and there are now, not just yellow leaves, but red leaves too in the trees around the school yard.

Someone else out there must have felt the same pain that summer was over. Because they did the very best they could to ease the transition between warm, carefree summer days and the nip and chill of autumn.

They invented college football.

Last night, watching Boise State beat up on Oregon while checking the progress of the Utes game on the computer (Oh, the sadness of leaving our beloved Mountain West conference and living in the land of the Big Ten) I once again realized how much I love football.

Image "borrowed" from ESPN

I'll be honest here. Before I met Hubster, I didn't know a pick from a fumble, a tight end from a running back, a play action pass from the option. But then, just as I introduced Hubster to the wonderful world of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, he introduced me to the beauty of college football.

I've tried watching the NFL. While I will admit that I do love the occasional Monday Night game, and that I enjoy a good Super Bowl party as much as anyone, I just never was able to get that into. The NFL is more about super egos, trades, and politics.

College football, on the other hand, is all about the love of the game. Most the boys playing college football will not go on to play professionally. While most of them do get some compensation for their playing in the form of scholarships, it still requires a lot of them. We joke about paid test takers and easy majors, but the truth is that sports gives college opportunities to many who wouldn't have any otherwise. These kids play with their hearts. And you see it with every ecstatic cheer after a win and every look of heartbreak after a loss.

I'm going to miss my Utes something fierce. After two perfect seasons and two BCS appearances I have high expectations and higher loyalty. Because of a poorly thoughtout decision to have a conference TV channel, I will not be able to watch very many Ute football games here in Iowa.

But Iowa is doing its best to ease our pain. College football, depending on who you talk too, comes just after, or just before, God and church out here. During game day, the local university stadium becomes the fifth largest city in Iowa. We hope to make it to a game this year.

Because it doesn't matter if it is your alma mater or not. It doesn't matter if you cheer for the home team or not. It doesn't (always) matter whether you win or lose.

What matters is the game.

Big Reveal, Part 2: The Kitchen

2009-09-03T19:20:00.000-07:00

When we first saw our home, we loved the Pergo that was in the living room.

The adjoining kitchen has blue linoleum, which we imaging being replaced by the same Pergo that was in the living room. We thought it would make the main floor feel more open and light having the same flooring throughout.

However, given our limited budget and time, we were never that serious about replacing the kitchen floor.

Until the home inspection revealed some rot underneath the kitchen floor by the back door. The subfloor needed to be replaced, which meant tearing out the existing kitchen floor. While we knew this would be a labor intensive project, we were still excited, because it gave us the perfect excuse to extend the American Beech Pergo flooring of the living room into the kitchen...just like we had imagined.

But before any of that could happen, the popcorn ceiling had to be removed. That involved days atop ladders and stools, wearing masks, equipped with spray bottles, scrapers, and sanders. We've tried to completey shut that portion of the home renovation out of our mind. It was more miserable that I will ever be able to convey. But worth it. Now, a home that had popcorn ceilings through out (and when I say through out, I'm including closests and bathrooms and every single other surface that could be interpretted as a ceiling.) Like they say, things must get worse before they get better.

Replacing the kitchen floor turned out to be just a slightly bigger project than previously anticipated. Turns out, the previous home owners had installed the blue linoleum right over the old linoleum, which had be installed right over the original linoleum. Between the layer of blue linoleum and tan linoleum, and then again between the layer of tan linoleum and original red, orange, and avacodo green checkered linoleum, was an additional subfloor. So, if you're keeping track, that's five, FIVE, layers of old flooring that needed to be removed before we could reach the damaged original subfloor. We discussed not fixing the subfloor and just laying the Pergo right over the five other layers of flooring. However, the kitchen floor was already raised nearly 1/2 inch compared to the living room floor due to previous homeowners taking this same approach.

So, we gritted our teeth and did it right. Well, Hubster did it right. I mostly watched between naps recovering from night shifts and overbearing senior residents. I will say this. When you come home to scenes like this, it can be slightly overwhelming.

The paint color was another challenge. I had thought about doing a lighter version of the living room color. But because we had to work around the existing countertops, I thought that it would be too much blue-gray in one room. Then we thought yellow. A yellow kitchen is so cheerful and friendly. However, after we starting painting the kitchen yellow, we didn't like how it felt next to the calming blue in the living room. The contrast was too much, and even though we had chosen a very creamy yellow, it felt much too bright.

One evening, as we were sitting there, staring at our very yellow wall, I confessed that I thought it wasn't the right color. Hubster chips in with, "Well, I always thought the yellow was a bad idea." Well, thanks.

After more paint cards stuck to the wall and more discussions, we decided on a warm cream. The color reminds me of antique parchment, comfortable linen, and Florida beaches. While quite neutral, it is warm and welcoming and works so nicely with the antique white trim that we extended in from the living room.

Between the new floors and new paint, our kitchen is mostly done.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

This room also suffers from lack of accessories. But just imagine a giant iron clock on the wall behind the table.

And a larger table that would actually have room for guests to sit at it. I love the idea of a table in the same dark espresso wood we used in the living room, surrounded by cross-back chairs in white, to pick up the color of the trim.

But even without those, our kitchen is nice. It is bright with so much light coming in from the large back door over looking the back yard.

It is also a place where extremely competitive games of Phase 10 are played and new attempts at cooking are both enjoyed and, um, declined.

The Big Reveal, Part 1

2009-09-01T15:59:00.000-07:00

The last few months since the Big Move have been busy.

It wasn't just the move, it wasn't just residency starting.

We also had a home to remodel.

Hubster and I have lived in apartments ever since we got married. I had lived in an apartment with three roommates a year prior to that. Hubster had lived in apartment for many years before that. We had spent all of our time together and our time as a family of three and then a family of four with people above us, and people below us, and people on the right and on the left.

We watched our friends buy homes and nearly made ourselves sick with envy.

But we were willing to wait until it made sense. We had thought about buying a few years ago, but then the housing market turned south, and we were grateful that we hadn't. Otherwise, we would have found ourselves in the situation we saw some of my classmates: homes for sale and unable to see before the move for residency had to be made. We moved to Iowa without the stress of selling a home.

We had spent years imagining what our home would be like. What we wanted the rooms to feel like, the mood we wanted to create. And we were sure that after years of living as a family of four in a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom 650 square foot apartment, we would appreciate our home more than anyone else ever had.

We've been working on the house since day one.

And I am finally ready to start sharing some of the work.

Well, kind of ready. We still have an lack of furniture and there are still many boxes that have not been touched. (And I would like to apologize for the slight blurriness of the photos. My camera's auto focus has gone haywire. I know what I want for Christmas.)

I wanted to have a week of reveals, but doing call every third night prevents that. So, I will have a series of reveals, done as quickly as my schedule and lack of sleep allow.

Today: the living room.

The BEFORE:

When we bought our couch three years ago, we bought a nice neutral tan sofa. I knew that this procluded me from ever painting the living room tan. Which is a good thing. Hubster and I decided that we wanted a gray-blue slate color in the living room to complement the dark wood and green and turquoise accents we love.

The AFTER:

The color is a little bluer that we anticipated, but we love it. (Also, after painting for weeks, there was no way we were repainting any room.) It is such a relaxing color.

The trim used to be brown. We painted it all a lovely antique white.

We hung the photos up last week.

Now it finally feels like we live here.

Body Image

2009-08-26T18:10:00.000-07:00

Have you seen this picture floating around on the internet?

I don't normally post pictures of scantily clad (or not clad) people on my blog. But I felt that this was good enough, and maybe even important enough to write about.

I have self image issues. Major ones. Maybe, reading between the lines on my Wednesday Weigh-Ins, you've already ascertained that. I've been plagued by self image issues that have made their way into self esteem issues. I've fought my battles. Someday, maybe, I'll get brave enough to talk more about those battles. Today is not that day.

This picture was originally just a 3 inch by 3 inch photo in a major fashion magazine. When I saw this picture, it was amazingly refreshing. A woman posing for a major magazine who looks like a normal woman. She has a normal looking tummy. She has normal looking thighs. Nicer ones than mine, but still normal looking. She is a size 12-14. Not a size 0, 1, or 2. A normal healthy size.

And she is beautiful.

No matter how we would like to deny it, we compare ourselves to other women. We see covers of magazines, stick thin mannequins, impossibly thin actresses, and we do compare. We tend to focus on the thin women around us and think they are the ones we are supposed to look like. We tend not to notice as much all the perfectly normal women.

I'm not talking about wanting to be a healthy weight. I am not at an ideal BMI. When I exercise and diet (which I'll eventually get to. I promise you and me that.) I'm not aiming for a dress size or pant size. I'm aiming to be healthier.

Have you see this commercial?

When I first saw this commercial during the Super Bowl many years ago, I was brought to tears.

Hopefully, the media becomes full of pictures of real, healthy, happy women. And the next generation of girls will have an easier time of it than I did.

Teflon

2009-08-23T16:31:00.000-07:00

The patient goes into a long train of profanities, hoping to portray the amount of agony he has been endured since his failed back surgery three years ago.

I wish I could say that I learned some new words and phrases. But I've heard everything variation on the theme from other patients.

He suddenly falls silent and looks at me, probably realizing for the first time that I am half his age and female.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to offend you."

I reassure him that he didn't. That I understand how frustrating his condition is and how discouraging it can be to have dealt with it for so long before finally getting a referral to our clinic.

When I come back with my attending to have the patient sign the consent for the procedure we hope will ease his pain, he launches into the same stream of profanity, only to apologize again.

My attending disregards it with a casual wave of his hand.

"Don't worry. We're all Teflon-coated here."

Maybe that's true. And maybe that's the problem.

Our training teaches us to be accepting and empathetic. Yet our training also teaches us that we can't become too involved. I used to think that this was harsh. Of course I want to be involved! my newly trained self would shout. But quickly, we learn that we can't.

I can shrug off a patient's accusations or crudeness or flat out rudeness and act like a professional. I can provide the best possible care without prejudice or criticism. I treat IV drug users and parole violators and moms on meth with the same carefully thought out decision making process I use for university professors and preschool teachers and stay at home parents. I can Teflon-coat myself to be immune to the emotional and, occasionally, moral onslaught that occurs daily.

But like most things in medicine, this non-stick coating is a two edged sword. Yes, we can treat your cancer, but you will be sick and weak and bald. Yes, we can treat your pain but you may end up addicted to the drugs we prescribe. Yes, we can fix your problem but it will take you weeks, maybe months to recover from the surgery and you will always, always, have the scar.

Self-protection is no different.

The rudeness and insults an unhappy drug-seeking patient hurl at me as she storms out of the exam room do not bother me.

But neither does telling a patient that their diabetes had completely ruined their kidneys and we need to start talking about dialysis.

I can stand by the bedside while we, as a team, tell sobbing parents that their teenage son will not wake up again. I don't make a sound as we tell a young mom that her once cooing, crawling, smiling baby has had a stroke and will not do any of those things again.

Let me take that back.

Yes, it bothers me. It all does.

I have hunched on the floor behind the coat rack of the locker room and sobbed. I have escaped to stair wells to break down. I have walked away from yelling patients shaken.

But we must not be involved.

We can be empathetic, yes. I can sit with a patient while they take it all in. I can answer their questions. I can occassional provide answers, and hopefully, comfort and reassurance.

But I can't be involved.

The amount of hurt and grief and anger that spins past me everyday is enough to grab me, take me under and never let me surface again.

But I must surface. I must go home everyday where I am greeted by the sound of little running feet and happy blue eyes.

And so I'll take it. I'll take my Teflon-coating, the good with the bad.

Avoidance

2009-08-19T20:18:00.000-07:00

I got an a-mail recently, asking about my diet. To be more specific, wondering what happened to those weekly posts about my weight and what I was doing to finally lose it.

There's a reason it's been months since a "Wednesday Weigh-In."

It's because I've been avoiding the scale.

Between the Big Move, the constant work on the house (pictures to come very, very soon), adjusting to a new city, and my anesthesia residency, time for me has been in short supply.

My drive to work follows the river. Next to the river is an amazing running/biking path. As I drive to work at 6 am, in the early morning grayness, the path is full of old ladies walking in groups, cyclists in yellow spandex and helmets, college girls in tanktops and headphones. And I wish I could join them. But while they are out walking, cycling, and running, I'm already headed to work. I pass them again in the evening on my way home. And I think maybe I could fit it in. But at home, there are textbooks and journal articles, and dishes, and meals, and home renovations, and the two most darling boys ever. And I don't go out. I stay put and work hard.

And I'll admit that I haven't been eating as healthy as I should. We've allowed ice cream back in the house. It was for rewards for Monkey completing potty training, but I'll admit I've had at least my fair share (if not a little more). The short evenings and heavy work load have translated into more meals of pizza and fast food. Breakfast is a bagel or English muffin. Then I get home after 12 hour days, not having eaten all day. And I'll break into a box of crackers.

During all this time, the scale has remained pushed back as far as I can get it into the back corner of my closet.

I can't bare to look. All the hard work I did earlier in the year surely is gone.

I'm not sure I foresee a time when there will be more time to take care of me. I've got more balls than I can handle in the air, burning the candle at both ends, hanging by my teeth, whatever you like.

I'd like to say I'm doing the best I can, but I know that's not true. Everyone can always to better. I could eat healthier, even when I'm stressed. I could stop blogging and pull out my stationary bike.

Someday, I'll get brave enough to pull out the scale. And then someday I'll stand on it. And someday, I may even look down and read the number between my feet.

But for now, I'm just going to keep plowing along.

Corn Country

2009-08-18T19:53:00.000-07:00

They grow good corn here in Iowa.

At least that's what we've heard.

And if quantity is any sign of quality, it must be true. Because corn fields flank nearly every road and make up much of the scenery.

We decided to try the local corn out. Because honestly, Wal-mart corn just wasn't cutting it.

We made our way to the local farmer's market. I wish that I had brought my camera. The tables of heirloom tomatoes, and new baby squash, and jars overflowing with fresh cut bundles of herbs, and the backs of trucks filled to the rim with corn was beautiful.

We bought our dozen corn and went home and peeled it on the back porch, enjoying the evening.

Turns out, they're right.

The corn here is mighty good.

Behind the curve

2009-08-13T19:18:00.000-07:00

I have a brother-in-law that buys new technology the moment it hits the shelf. He is always the first one with the newest iPhone, the latest movie-viewing machine, the most recent gaming system.

We take turns making fun of each other.

He reminds me of that scene from "The Wedding Singer," when Glenn buys a CD player for $700. If my BIL would wait, even a couple months, many items would be cheaper and better.

He makes fun of me for waiting so long. When I mentioned the Wedding Singer scene, he asked if I would wait 20 years to buy new technology just so I could get it cheaper.

And I'll admit it. When it comes to technology, I'm usually behind the curve. And it really doesn't matter what form that technology comes it.

I didn't get an e-mail address until I was a freshman in college in 2000, well after all my friends had e-mail. I was the last one of my friends to get a debit card, and it was getting fed up carrying a newborn Bug into the gas station to pay for gas that finally convinced me. We had dial-up internet forever! Well after high speed dial-up, DSL, and then cable internet came along, we were still trucking along with our good old NetZero account. I don't have a laptop. I just got an iPod.

Some of it because I'm cheap (or frugal. Yeah, let's go with that). I'll admit it. It was hard to imagine that paying $30 plus dollars a month just for internet would ever be worth it, when we were getting our dial-up for $6.95/month (we had gotten a special deal by threatening to change services.) So what if I spent much of my undergraduate career wanting to throw things at the computer while waiting for pages to load...at least my frustration was cheap!

The other part of it is I'm always a little skeptical if the new technology will really make things better. Maybe it's just another way to brag about how "with it" you are.

But this week, we've made a change that would have my BIL cheering for joy.

We got DVR.

I wasn't sure we needed it. After all, we had a VCR. I could just set it to record shows while I was at work or at the lake. I had even gotten quite good at setting multiple grograms on the VCR. Yeah, it was inconvient. Yeah, sometimes we misjudged the start or end time and never knew how LOST ended. Yeah, the quality of the picture was lacking (nowhere near as amazing as the HD picture Hubster insisted we sign up for the minute we bought a new TV.) But still, we already had the VCR.

(But now that I think about it, I'm not exactly sure what happened to our old, boxy, non-LCD-flat-panel. I'm beginning to think it may have had some help meeting it's untimely demise.

Anyways.)

So, I wasn't convinced.

But we have crazy schedules. Now probably more than any other time. And I've started the nasty habit of falling alseep during the season premier of Psych, or before the champion is named in Chopped. Hubster doesn't really have time to constantly be programming the VCR, especially now that fall premiers are right around the bend.

I was sold on the DVR within 2 minutes of having it. I could record all the new episodes of America's Got Talent. And watch it whenever I want. In HD! We can record two shows at once. No more conflict between Survivor and LOST. And recording is easy: just a push of a button. No more timers, making sure the VCR clock is aligned with the TV clock, worring about how much tape I have left, wondering if I really turned the TV to the right channel.

I thought the cable menu was the best thing that ever happened to TV watching (seriously, how does anyone do it without it?) I've decided now that DVR is going to take TV watching to a whole new level.

I think I'll call my brother-in-law and let him tell me "I told you so."

Monkey

2009-08-08T12:06:00.000-07:00

I'm just going to come right out and say it.

Monkey has been a difficult child.

It nearly kills me to say it. Because he is so ridiculously cute. But nearly everyday, Hubster and I look as him after he has finally fallen asleep, and just stare at the occasionally still dirt-smudged pile of smooth blond hair, little nose, and dimpled elbows and knees, and wonder. How can he possibly be so darling, but so exhausting and frustrating at the same time?

From the moment he was born, the personality differences between him and Bug were apparent. He was always awake, more social, and grinned at every object within view.

Little did we know, that was just the beginning.

Bug, now 7, was always content to just read, draw, or do nearly anything that would allow him to be busy, but by himself. He was usually quiet. And although occasionally moody, he was usually quite well behaved.

This, of course, allowed Hubster and I to clap ourselves on the back, foolishly thinking it was our exemplary parenting skills that had lead to such a wonderful child.

Monkey, on the other hand. Well, we thought our house our house was child proof...

The minute he could crawl, he would go to the cupboards and try to open them. Of course, he couldn't get past the child locks, but this did not stop him from trying everyday. Just like a velociraptor on Jurassic Park, he would daily try the locks on the off chance that one day, he would get around them.

He would follow his older brother every second, and destroy anything Bug tried to do. Block towers, beware. Train tracks, doomed. Puzzles, not a chance. He even enjoys a little independent destroying. There are only a handful of toy cars that still have ownership of their tires, the rest having been chewed and pried off. Books that made it by Bug unscathed met their untimely demise during the moments we suddenly realized we hadn't heard Monkey making any noise for 2 minutes.

We have an ottoman that no longer resembles a piece of furniture, after being used as a chew toy by Monkey.

Once, when he was about 18 months old, I was cooking dinner. I turned around to see Monkey holding a huge ball of dryer lint that he had fished out of our (covered) kitchen garbage bin. He was chewing and shuddering. In the half second that I had been frozen with the horror of it all, he took another bite. I immediately became unfrozen and extracted the fuzzy gray mass from his chubby hands, and held his still lint covered hands under the facet. And the whole time, despite the screaming I was being met with, wondering why, WHY, did he take a second bite?

The terrible twos have been especially terrible. We haven't escaped a store without a display being knocked over, the shopping cart being pushed into some unsuspecting shopper, a fit in the middle of an aisle (all for unknown reasons, as he never asks for candy or marshmallow laden cereal), or some content of our cart being chucked out and occasionally hitting an innocent passer-by. We've even contemplated giving up food shopping and living off the grass in the backyard. (Of course, we've tried just not taking him, but sometimes circumstances just don't allow it. And leaving your two year old child in the car like a golden retriever is frowned upon.)

I've been asked to leave a shoe store after Monkey was discovered licking the entire front window of the store that was within his reach. All within the time limit it took me to turn my back on him to look at a cute pair of red pumps and think, just think, about trying them on.

Not everything is difficult. He is a better sleeper than Bug was (or is.) He's not a picky eater. He is happy 90% of the time. And we try to focus on these (and his overwhelming cuteness) anytime we start feeling our nerves being stretched a little too far.

We've had months of frustration, wondering if any of us would survive this time period. But then, he curls up on my lap, smelling of sunshine and grass and stuffed animals, asking for a story, and my heart just crumples inside. He looks up at me with his amazingly wide blue eyes and tells me I'm his best friend and I wonder how I ever get mad at him. I walk in the door after a 13 hour day and he runs up, grabs my legs, and says "I missed you and I've been good!" And I get an ache in my chest from the love I feel towards him.

Monkey turns three in a few weeks. We're not sure if we will be leaving the terrible twos behind or just entering the terrible threes.

What we do know, without a doubt, is that we are in for an adventure.

Slipping Away

2009-08-03T21:02:00.000-07:00

The days until the start of school tick down. The evening comes sooner and dusk is shorter. Sun no longer pours through my bedroom window at 6 am. There are yellow leaves in the backyard, just a few, hiding away between the crowd of green, but they are there, just the same.

I can feel it.

The end of summer.

The days are still warm. The mosquitoes are still plentiful. The corn is still tall and rippling in the endless fields as we drive to the lake.

But it is still there.

The end of summer.

Summer ending makes me sad in a way nothing else really does. It is not the heartbreak of losing someone dear. It is not the twinge of sadness I get when I watch Finding Neverland. It is not the nearly crushing sadness that overcomes me when I'm sorting through boxes and find a picture of Bug or Monkey when they were just weeks, months old and I wonder where the time has gone and what did I do with it and how, why did I waste a second of it.

Summer ending is a diluted emotion compared to many of these. But real regardless. I feel some of the same ache that I wasted any of the sun laden days. That I will soon say good-bye to the hum of the evening insects, the rustle of the leaves, the glow of the fireflies, and the soft hush and ripple of the corn.

The season, that like so much of my life, I take for granted until it is gone.

I love fall with all the dynamics fall offers, everyday different. I can't help but smile when the first layer of quiet silver snow finally obscures the starkness of empty branches and bare ground. And I enjoy the energy and growth that each spring gives.

But summer...summer is my dearest friend.

Relaxed. Mellow. Good for me. Reassuring me that if I don't get to it today, it's okay, because it will still be there tomorrow. Tomorrow will still be warm, sunny, and happy.

But gradually, daily, I can feel it slipping away. My mind immediately jumps to fall, winter, spring. And now, even now, with the thick humid air still around me, I'm already looking forward to next summer.

Discoveries

2009-07-30T19:31:00.000-07:00

One of the good (and bad) things about moving is the opportunity (or requirement) to go through every single thing you own.

(Or in some cases, just sweep everything off the desk and figure that you can take the time to sort it at the new house.)

With the walls painted and the new carpet just in, we can finally start unpacking.

(Yes, that's right. Nearly two months of being at our new home, and we are just starting to unpack.)

As I was moving boxes to the master bedroom, I came across my collection of old journals.

Yep. That's right. Collection.

As a pre-teen and as a teenager, I was a prolific journal writer. I wrote every singe day. I filled at least a dozen journals full of my scrawling, ever changing handwriting. I poured my dreams and ambitions, insecurities and heartbreaks onto those multi-colored lined pages.

(Maybe that's why I love blogging so much. A new forum to share those same emotions. Hopefully in a slightly more articulate manner.)

When I met Hubster, the journal writing slowed. It's gotten now to the point that I haven't filled a page in nearly 7 years.

Part of the reason, I think, is that I didn't need the journal as much. I had finally found someone that I could share all my fears, hopes, and joys with.

At the bottom of the stack of journals was a thin yellow book with a cluster of orange poppies on the cover. The first page reads, in my best calligraphy...

Discoveries

I had forgotten all about this book. I started it when I was about 17 years old. I was growing apart from many of my childhood friends, for multiple reasons, many of them due to my lack of self-identity at the time. I had started this book as a chance for me to discover what was actually true in life and what was just peer-pressure and popular.

I continued to write my "discoveries" in the book until just after Bug was born.

Re-reading, as it always is re-reading things your younger, less-experienced, naive self wrote, is both painfully hilarious and reassuring at the same time.

I've decided to occasionally share the discoveries my younger self made that I find to still be true now.

This does not include entries such as

"Letting others be the idiot sometimes will save you from being one," or...

"Plants to not handle stress tests very well,"or...

"Sometimes, all it takes is white fluffy socks to make your day."

Yes, apparently my teenage brain thought these were fundamental truths that should be documented.

Okay, enough of the funny (or painful) ones.

Turning the pages, there were things that still resonated with me.

"Despite what the magazine covers say, weight gain does not automatically make a person unattractive."

"Not every single thought I have needs to be deep."

"Allow room in our comfort zone for those close to you to grow in their own ways."

"I do not need to apologize for other people's mistakes."

"In the long run, I will be the only one responsible for my decisions."

When ever my blog material is running dry (as it has been with the mental fatigue of residency) I've decided to turn to my little book of Discoveries, to see if any of the realizations I came to as a teenager as still true now.

What do you think?

What discoveries have you made along the way?

Confidence

2009-07-26T09:56:00.000-07:00

Even after four years of medical school, I feel like I know very little.

And I've forgotten at least half of what I used to know.

That's what residency is for. To re-establish and build up the knowledge base that eventually will become second nature.

But everyday, I feel overwhelmed. I feel that I just don't know enough. I'm not always sure how to approach a patient's problem.

It probably doesn't help that this under current of anxiety is coupled to my personality. I'm not a very outgoing person. When I'm with a group of people and someone else is willing to lead (or even dominate) the conversation, I'm more than willing to let them. I'm not a person who will chime in with a thought or opinion. (Note: this is referring to public settings, not interactions with my family, since in those cases I'm more than willing to blurt out my opinion at any time.)

I'm worried that this combination often comes across as a lack in confidence.

I watch my fellow residents (and as much as I hate to admit it, the medical students working with me.)

Everyone acts so much more confident than I feel. So much more sure to make suggestions or even act on decisions.

However, I know for a fact that most of them do not know more than I do.

When we undergo "pimping" sessions, I am able to answer more questions than most. (For the lay person, to "pimp" has no sexual connotation in the medical field. It refers to attendings or senior residents asking questions with the sole purpose to show a junior resident's or medical student's weaknesses in their medical knowledge. It is a very unpleasant experience.)

I did extremely well in medical school and received very high board scores. I spend a lot of time studying.

So, by my calculations, I know at least as much as most the people around me.

So why does everyone else appear so much more confident? Even the medical student who can't come up with a decent differential diagnosis?

My conclusion...

They're faking it.

Settling In

2009-07-20T17:39:00.000-07:00

It's been over a week since my last post. The last time something like that happened was when I had no access to the internet and moved across the country.

This time, I don't have the excuse of no internet and a Big Move.

My only excuse is being flat out, beat down exhausted.

While my current residency schedule is not overly demanding, currently just 9 hour shifts 4-6 times a week, the mental fatigue is surprising. Decisions I make actually matter. So I put a lot more thought into every decision. Not that I always get it right. My attending physicians correct my treatment plan just as often as they agree with it.

But don't worry. No patients have been injured in the training of this physician.

If the mental fatigue I feel at the end of each shift isn't enough, there is a home renovation waiting for me when I get home. Between tearing out shrubbery and invading vines, laying floors, and ripping out carpet, I'm physically exhausted too.

Between the two I've barely had enough energy to read a few pages of Harry Potter each night before falling asleep. Let alone blogging.

But I realized today that I haven't shared my thoughts on my new home/town/state.

Salt Lake City is by no means a "Big" City. It's got nothing on LA, Chicago, Dallas, or New York. But it is definitely an up-and-coming city, with many of the amenities of much bigger cities: pro sports teams, aquariums, art museums, ballet, theatre. Costco. IKEA. And it is definitely a city and not a town.

My new home is technically a city. Although the hospital is the tallest building. There are no 20 level business buildings. Farmer's markets are held "down town" (down town in quotes because down town is two streets lined with cute boutiques and amazing restaurants. But no big buildings.) It may be a city, but it feels like a town. The fastest I've driven in a week is 35 mph.

I do miss some of the amenities I had grown used to in bigger Salt Lake.

But I think I like this better.

It is easy to live here.

City living can feel high maintenance. The worry about traffic, the crowds, movies being sold out, restaurants being crowded. All together it just adds a layer of stress that I almost didn't even notice. Until it was gone. The worst traffic I have been in for the month and a half I have lived here is when there were 6 (yes a whole 6!) cars in front of me at the only traffic light I go through on my way to work. 6! Versus the usual 1.

I love where we live. Our home is next door to Bug's new elementary school. The school is in front of a reserved green space. Which means no homes can be built in the heavily wooded area that lies just the other side of the school.

Our neighborhood is very quiet. The people we have met so far have lived here for 15-20 years. People move into this neighborhood and then stay put. There are not a lot of young couples with young kids. I'm a little disappointed about that. I had partially hoped for a neighborhood swarming with kids, yards cluttered with their toys, where Bug and Monkey would have easy access to potential friends. That's not how things are. We don't see many other children. But I'm sure that will change when school starts back up in a month.

And I love our neighborhood, even without herds of children.

Everyday, when I drive up this road, I feel happy about where we live.

Road leading to our neighborhood

We have fireflies here! Before we moved here I had never seen a firefly. I could go on and on about how much I love them. We often sit as a whole family on our back porch and watch them. The boys are slightly squeamish about insects and so they don't run around catching them in jars. But there is still nothing like fireflies.

Our yard is also frequented by cardinals, goldfinches, robins, rabbits, chipmunks, and squirrels. Every morning, there is some new wildlife that causes the boys to call for me, while they alternate between squealing with excitement and hushing each other to not scare it away.

We are happy here. Life is easy here. We are definitely settling in.

Back of my mind

2009-07-11T20:02:00.000-07:00

When I was an undergrad, and then again when I was a medical student, I spent most of my times thinking about my children. Nearly every second was spent wondering if they were okay. How long Monkey continued to cry after he was dropped off at daycare? Were the other kids being nice to Bug? How did Bug's spelling test go? Did Monkey get his nap on time? What time was Hubster able to pick them up? Did they get dinner on time? It's bath night, did Hubster remember? Did they get read to before bed?

I resented every minute that medical school kept me away from my children and my husband.

Even when I took several months off and was home with the boys, I would think about Hubster a great deal. Wondering how his day was going, when he would be home, how that project or meeting went.

Since residency starts (a whole 11 days ago) I found myself realizing that I wasn't thinking of them as much.

I would have a quiet moment to sit down and get a drink of water and work on a patient's note, and suddenly realize that I hadn't thought about Bug or Monkey for several hours. Or nearly my entire shift.

And that realization bothered me.

Hubster and I have talked about this before. I would tell him that I thought about him and the boys practically all day long. And he said that he didn't. It wasn't anything against us or mean that he didn't love us or care about us. He just...didn't think us at work.

He thought about work.

I used to chalk this up as one of the many differences between men and women. That men were able to compartmentalize their lives easier than women were. That women worried more. That women were more attached to the people they loved.

And suddenly, I'm faced with the reality that that might not be true.

I've been trying to figure out why. Why, after I've spent years being angry about being gone and worrying about my children with every passing breath, am I suddenly not constantly fixated on how they are doing.

Hubster and I talked about this as well.

For the first time in my professional career, I'm actually responsible. I'm actually making decisions that can affect patients.

I'm also very busy. I've only had the chance to go eat lunch (or breakfast, depending on the shift) once out of my 10 shifts. I see 6-12 very sick, complicated patients a shift. And then there are the consults to call, the labs to order and review, the prescriptions to order, and the notes to write.

And, for the first time, I am the one responsible for providing financially for our family. It really makes a difference when you know that you are being paid for the time you put in. And not paying for it with student loans. There is a lot less resentment there when you are being reimbursed. (And I know, I know...I signed up to be a medical student, I asked for it, it was what I wanted. But that doesn't mean that it is a very difficult, degrading, humiliating, exhausting process.)

It could be any of those things. Maybe just one of them, maybe all of them.

Hubster agreed. He said that when he was doing his job, that's what he was doing.

But I thought of another thing. In the first time in 6 years, our children are being taken care of, at home, by someone who is truely invested in them.

I think that knowing Hubster is home with Bug and Monkey has taken some of the worry that constantly nagged at the back of my mind. He knows that Bug likes only peanut butter and not jam on his sandwich. That Monkey needs to take a 2 hour nap at 1:30. That Bug has a special shirt he likes to wear on Saturdays. That Monkey needs his stuffed dog to fall asleep.

To know that my children are safe and loved and happy takes a lot of weight off my shoulders. Weight that I didn't even recognize I was carrying until I noticed, suddenly, that it had disappeared sometime over that last 11 days.

I don't think this means I'm a bad mother.

I need to be focused at my job. I need to learn everything I can to be a better physician.

My children may not be in the front of my thoughts constantly like they used to be.

But they are always with me.

Which group are you in?

2009-07-05T18:03:00.000-07:00

When I first started this blog, I didn't want something that was just about parenting, or just about medicine, or just about books. I wanted my blog to be pretty much like me. A little bit about everything and a whole lot of love and passion.

In an effort to keep things that way, I am not going to talk about how intern year is going (all 5 days of it.) Because that would have made four posts in a row about internship and medicine, and that is plenty.

So, I'm going to talk about Harry Potter.

I like to put people in categories. People who are readers and people who are non-readers. People who like where they live and people who don't.

I think people fall into three general categories when it comes to Harry Potter. They love Harry Potter, they are completely neutral about Harry Potter, or they hate Harry Potter (either because of the social hype or from some other issue: and believe me, there are people who have issues with Harry Potter. Even though I think that is a waste of time: be concerned about the economy, or global warming, or AIDS in Africa. Let's not get all out of sorts about children's literature... I'm not saying don't have an opinion about it. Because I love opinions. Just, whoa, calm down! But like always, I digress.)

I happen to be in the first category.

I love Harry Potter. I was first introduced to him in college. That's right. College. My roommate was reading the book, I teased her about it, and she basically said "Don't judge until you read." So I read.

And now I'm convinced that everyone would be in the first category, if only they would read.

When I first met Hubster, he was definitely in the category of "non-reader." He hadn't read a novel since his required 12th grade English reading. The last novel he read for pleasure was probably in elementary school.

I convinced him to take me to see the first Harry Potter film when it came out. After we saw the movie, he bought all the books that were out (it was four at the time.) He read them all.

And he has since gone on to move into the reader category. He reads all the time. I've said it before: Sometimes just reading is more important than what you read. I would rather my family read lighthearted novels all the time then a serious book once in their life. (I'm not saying that serious books aren't important: they are. But first, let's just get people reading!)

Before each Harry Potter movie comes out in theaters, Hubster and I both re-read the entire series.

Which makes this my eighth time reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. (Because I read it a couple times before I saw any of the movies.) It is just as entertaining and engaging as the first time.

J.K. Rowling is a superb story teller and creates vivid characters and shocking plot twists. Often dismissed as "just children's literature" her writing is strong enough to hold its own for any audience.

The sixth movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, comes out next week.

Considering I'm still reading the first book, I don't think I'm going to get through the entire series before I see the movie. (But maybe the same craziness in my life that has prevented me from reading more may prevent me from seeing the film until I've read all 7 books again. Stranger things have happened.)

But regardless...

I'm excited to see the movie. And I'm thoroughly enjoying what may be my favorite books of all time again.

(And believe me...this is not the end of my posting about Harry Potter...there will be more.)

The second first day of the rest of my life

2009-07-01T18:32:00.000-07:00

I had hyped myself up to expect the worst of today.

I had images of being a third year medical student all over again. Lost, confused, intimidated by every other person around me, scared out of my mind, and overwhelmed by the slightest thing.

It wasn't like that.

I did have to ask stupid questions. Questions like, "So, are we really diagnosing her with constipation?" "Um...is that normal?" "How do you print discharge instructions?"

Stupid questions are part of every learning curve.

As far as first days go, today was awesome. I felt on top of my game. I charmed the nurses, impressed my attending, had a patient tell me how wonderful I was. Not bad.

About halfway through my shift, I had a revelation.

I like medicine.

I've been trying to convince myself for years that I hate it. That medical school was the biggest mistake that I had ever made. That it was never going to be worth the sacrifices I had made. I've been depressed. I've been angry.

But today...I was happy.

I enjoyed seeing patients. I got excited over radiology reports and lab results.

For a moment, I was able to forget about the Power Point presentations about depression and suicide and divorce rates among resident physicians. I was able to forget about my bitterness about the things I've given up and missed out on.

Today, I felt like a doctor. And today, it felt like a pretty amazing thing to be.

(Although it will never be better than my real job of raising Bug and Monkey.)

During busyness of the emergency room, I was approached by a medical student who had come down to admit one of my patients to the hospital. She asked, rather timidly, about the patient's history. I started telling her about the patient's cancer, how the diagnosis was made, and about the complications she was currently experiencing.

Suddenly, I recognized all the emotions I experienced yesterday. All the feelings of being scared, overwhelmed, intimidated, lost, and confused were painfully obvious on the wide-eyed medical student in front of me.

"Hold on. What year are you?"

"I'm a third year medical student...And it's my first day." She looked like she was ready to cry. I could already see the signs of stress and sacrifice in her face.

"Okay, come sit down and I'll tell you exactly what your resident needs to know. Here are the patient's outside records. It's going to be okay. It's my first day too. And I'm pretty sure we're feeling the same way."

We talked about the patient. She thanked me. Then she left to report to her senior resident.

I learned two things from that interaction.

First, that I should always take the time to make someone's day a little easier. I sure wish someone had sat me down and said "Okay, this is how you do it." That a welcome smile and a little guidance can make a big difference.

And the second thing...

Wow, I've come a long way.

It Begins

2009-07-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

In just a few minutes from now, I am heading off to my first day of intern life.

I start in the ER.

I'm not sure if I feel like "so it begins" all doom like, or "Let it begin! Let it begin" all enthusiastic hamster like.

Right at this moment, I'm more worried about acting more like a medical student than an intern. As in "Don't leave me! You want me to do what?"

I've finally decided that I am excited (and nervous. Horribly nervous.)

But regardless of what I am, it begins...

Now.

Scared Stiff

2009-06-25T21:10:00.000-07:00

In a world where people live and die from decisions people make, where 80 hour work weeks are considered merciful, and you are asked to give up sleep and family time without a blink, we're supposed to be tough.

But I'm feeling anything but.

I am scared. Probably more scared than I have ever been in my whole life.

I realize now that all those other times I thought I was scared, I was just nervous. (Well, except before Bug was born. I was actually scared then. But completely different.)

This time, I'm so scared it is difficult to swallow. I walk around with this strange feeling in my stomach that alternates between a dead weight and a hole. I find myself looking at the ceiling when I thought I was sleeping.

Starting July 1st, I am actually going to be taking care of patients. Not medical student patient care. Not "go see this patient, write a note, tell me what you think, and then I'll take care of the rest" type patient care.

This is the real thing.

Obviously (and probably a huge source of relief to all you reading this) I am supervised. Closely.
There are people very invested, for my sake, their sake, the hospital's sake, and mostly the patient's sake, very invested in making sure I don't screw up.

But for the first time, I can sign my name with an MD behind it. And if I write an order in a patient's chart, it will happen. For the first time in my professional life, I have real responsibility that has real consequences. Never will the transition be so enormous.

As a medical student, we can interject our opinions or thoughts, but in the end, we are not responsible. Now, I carry the title "Intern." And that means I am responsible.

I love patients. I love the feeling that I am in a field where someone, voluntary or not, puts their trust in me to take care of them. To treat them. To ease their pain and their worries.

Only in parenthood do we see that some type of trust.

And the thought that I might hurt someone, unintentionally of course, but still hurt someone none the less, scares me.

During medical school, we study nearly endlessly. We take exam after exam. We sacrifice for that opportunity.

To have the trust of a patient.

And I don't want to do anything to lose it.

My boys are lucky

2009-06-21T16:29:00.000-07:00

Hubster is a great dad.

When I tell him this, he just shrugs and mentions the times when he gets frustrated with the boys, or is too tough on them.

I didn't say he was a perfect dad. Just an absolutely fantastic one.

He loves being the father of our two boys. He wants to share everything that he did as a kid with them. From learning how to shoot a slingshot, to catching caterpillars, to watching old cartoons.

One of my favorite things is to see all three of my boys on the couch together, giggling loudly to Tom and Jerry.

After Bug was born, and Hubster offered to take him for a diaper change, my mother-in-law stated she was surprised that he was so willing to be involved like that. I guess after raising him as a teenager that did everything he could to get out of chores, seeing her son willingly change diapers, warm bottles, and supervise bath time would be surprising.

But it has never surprised me. We love being a family together.

It may not have surprised me, but it sure makes me happy.

Happy Father's Day, Hubster!

Far from the Maddening Crowd.

2009-06-19T08:33:00.000-07:00

It's been a very long time since my last book review.

And this particular book has been sitting on my side bar for a long time.

But, okay, here's the confession...

I didn't read it.

I tried. I really did. The title, Far from the Maddening Crowd, just sounds so intriguing and appealing. It was another 1800s English literature book, which I usually just love.

So I really did try.

But I was only able to get about 5 chapters in before I called it quits. Which makes this book only the second book that I have started to read and not finished. The other book is Lord Jim, by Joseph Conrad. I still plan on reading that book, mostly because I loved Heart of Darkness so much. But when I started reading Lord Jim was in the middle of my clinicals during third year of medical school, and I did not have enough reserve brain power to devote to the book at the time.

But I digress.

Why did I not continue to read this book?

Because it was the most tedious thing I have ever tried to read.

Long, drawn-out descriptions of dogs, or farming, or tools. Pages upon pages of conversations at taverns. With so little character and plot development by chapter 5 I just couldn't take it anymore.

It had none of the appeal and entertainment of Austen, or moodiness of Bronte, or wit of Dickens.

Plus, it also had a chauvinistic thread through it that grated on my nerves.

I'm sure that there is someone out there that has read this book. And possibly even liked it. If you know of a reason I should pick this book back up and finish it, let me know.

How may I help you?

2009-06-18T07:20:00.000-07:00

I think Lowe's is failing its customers.

(Home Depot probably is, but as there is no Home Depot here, and I've never bought anything from them, I can't be completely sure.)

Lowe's really needs to add another layer to their employee training.

The skill to size up a customer's ability to actually do the project they are buying materials for.

Let's say, hypothetically of course, that a Lowe's employee has a couple come through their check out lane. That couple is buying 7 blank doors, a hinge and lock drilling kit, the hardware for said doors, and about 20 gallons of paint.

The appropriate thing to do would be to say, "Have you considered pre-hung doors? It's doing to take you hours upon hours to drill the holes for locks and chisel the slots for hinges. And then when you're done, you're going to find out that the door is a quarter of an inch too big anyways."

Or when the same couple comes through the next day with 30 boxes of Pergo flooring, someone should at least mention Lowe's installation services. Or mention the hours of frustration that couple has in front of them.

Yes, Lowe's offers how-to books. Yes, Lowe's offers (quite pricey) installation services.

But when a person is standing in the flooring, or lighting, or paint section of the hardware store, they are filled with sugar plum plans for their new home. They get excited about the possibilities. The more excited they become, the more confident they become in their own skills.

The Lowe's cashier could be their last link to reality.

Re-wired

2009-06-12T23:48:00.000-07:00

We made it to Iowa safely. On Sunday. We just got internet today.

And there are so many things that I could write. About how much we already love living here. About how nice it is to have a house.

About how the home renovation is already a complete disaster and I just want to curl up on the floor and cry.

About how many posts I've missed on the blogs I'm following that I'm never, never, never going to be able to go back and read them all.

But we will save all that for another day.

Because my arms hurt so much from holding a paint roller that I can't type.

The road before us

2009-06-05T13:08:00.000-07:00

The boxes are full. The rooms are empty.

We leave in the morning.

We have a lovely (flat) long drive ahead of us.

I'm not going to have access to the internet for a few days, but don't worry, I didn't forget about any of you.

But just in case you do want something else to read, here are a few of my favorite posts. Because some days are better than others.

My Secret Love

Speeding Up

I'm done with waiting

Another Year Older

Change of mind, not a change of heart

Enjoy (hopefully.)

And I'll see you all soon. From 1200 miles from here.

Just before the drop

2009-06-04T20:08:00.000-07:00

I love roller coasters.

I wait in line excited, watching the people riding before me envious that they have already made it through the line and onto the ride.

But every time I'm in my seat, harness clicked in place, and moving slowly, slowly up the hill, I start to get a little panicky. I know the ride will be fun, but the slow clanking ride upward makes me nervous. Right at that moment I want off.

I'm getting that feeling now.

We pick up the moving truck in the morning. We hit the road the day after. I don't think I've been this excited about something in a long time.

But tonight has the feel of the chain clanking under my feet as I reach the summit.

And I'm scared.

...

...

I tried to think of a nice tie in to this next part, but couldn't. So here it goes. This is less of a confession and more of a...confidence. I don't know. You read, and then you tell me.

I don't really have any friends.

(Okay, don't sit there reading this and say "Oh, the poor girl." Or "Great. I smell a pity party.")

It's not like I've never had any.

I had a lot of friends during high school. But as high school friends, we lost touch as we went our separate ways.

I was friends with my roommates during undergrad. But I was a science major living with three music majors and we all had such different personalities, I think we were glad to let things slip when we moved out.

Out of my group of childhood friends, I was the only one who went to college. I think that decision put a little distance between us. Not purposefully of course. A few of them talked about going to college.

There was always a lot of talk.

It was medical school that really put the nail in the coffin of many of my childhood friendships. Some of my friends were not that subtle about that fact that they were not interested in continuing our relationship.

At first I just thought it was because between raising two boys and working on my medical degree, my schedule just didn't allow for as much time together as it once had.

But after a few obvious snubs, I began to think it might be more.

I blamed myself mostly. I wasn't there enough. I wasn't trying hard enough. I just wasn't a good friend.

Hubster has always been of a different mindset. He thinks that most of my friends were intimidated by what I was doing. That suddenly all their talk couldn't hold up to my actions.

I had always dismissed this.

Until recently. I read an article that female physicians have a hard time making friends in general. Some of it is self-induced seclusion. But not all. Women have talked about negative reactions they have gotten once other women have found out that they are doctors. Soon, they just stop telling people what they do for a living. They try to avoid conversation about work so they won't be asked the question that will stop all future conversation. Many have guessed at possible reasons. The other women are intimidated by the title. Others don't think they are "worthy" (huh) of physician friends. Whatever the problem is, apparently I'm not alone in it.

Medical school was the most emotionally demanding, physically exhausting thing I have ever done (and that is including surviving two newborn phases of 1 am-3am-4am-6am feedings). However it offered a respite from the loneliness that I had felt before that time. I had the most amazing friends in medical school. People that were working towards the same goal I was. People that were coping with the same challenges. People that weren't offended if you didn't make it to a party, because well, they didn't make it either, because they were home studying for the same exam.

But medical school ended and my friends are scattered across the country. We still talk occasionally. But, obviously, it is not the same.

Blogging has helped. I get to have conversations. I've reconnected with people I hadn't talked to in years. Some have even gotten to see that I haven't turned into the emotionless controlling "stereotypical" doctor. And I've made bloggy friends.

Which I get to take with me regardless of where I live.

I've been asked if I'm sad about moving. Scared? Yes. Sad? Not really. Yes I will miss my mom only being an hour away.

But I'm not really leaving anyone else.

I think being lonely in Iowa will be about the same as being lonely in Utah.

Closing Time

2009-06-01T20:36:00.000-07:00

We closed on our very first home today!!

(Okay, actually, Hubster and I had signed the papers in front of a notary and FedEx-ed them back on Thursday. But that's a minor detail.)

Today, the house is officially ours!

About time!!!

I've said it before. We hate apartment living. But before now, there was never a good time to buy. We didn't buy when we first got married, because we just couldn't afford it. And then we didn't buy, because we didn't know where I would go for medical school. And then we didn't buy because we weren't sure where we wanted to live. And then we didn't buy because we didn't know where I would go for residency.

You get the picture.

But now, we are going to be in one place for quite a few years. We get the opportunity to settle down.

And we couldn't be happier.

Things we are looking forward to

- a back yard!!! Monkey and Bug will be able to run outside when ever they want. And kick balls and blow bubbles.

- more space. Seriously, our apartment is about 700 square feet. And we've got four people in here. It's just a little bit crowded.

- a garage. Now we don't have to basically draw straws for who gets the covered parking during the winter. We both get covered parking!

- a garden. I can stop growing things in the window sills and start growing them outside.

- creative license. We get to pick paint colors, carpet, etc... Yeah!!!

Of course, there are things about the move that make us sad.

Things we will miss include...

- people. My family is here. And being 1200 miles away will make the casual weekend at my mom's just a little harder.

- the mountains. Never thought I'd hear myself say that. But I've become slightly attached the last couple years.

- the familiarity. It's going to be tough getting to know a new city after having lived in this one for so long.

But we are excited!

Things we will NOT NOT NOT miss...

- the downstairs neighbors. Wow, they've made our life miserable, what with their broom and all. I drop up cup putting away dishes. Bam bam bam. Monkey rolls a ball in the kitchen. Bam bam bam. Bug falls over in a fit of laughter. Bam bam bam.

- the cramped space.

- the smokey smell the maintenance man leaves behind everytime he comes in to fix something.

- the downstairs neighbors.

- the upstairs neighbors and their love of Guitar Hero.

- the downstairs neighbors.

- the downstairs neighbor's broom.

- the lack of outdoors space.

Need I go on?

Rules of Engagement

2009-05-30T21:54:00.000-07:00

Hubster and I don't fight.

When I tell people this, there is usually the reaction that either I am lying or delusional. Some people have gone so far as to say that if we don't fight, it must mean that our relationship lacks passion; that fighting is "healthy" for relationships.

I disagree. Fighting is not necessary. Or beneficial.

When I say that we don't fight, I don't mean to imply that we never disagree. It would be unrealistic to think that two individuals would agree on everything. There are a multitude of things that we disagree about.

But we don't fight about it.

It's not always easy. Probably more for me, because I get very worked up over things and cry easily.

But we have rules. Rules for disagreements that have prevented us from fighting.

I'm not calling myself a relationship expert. And I'm not bragging. Or trying to say that my relationship is better than someone else's. But these rules have worked well for us. And I wanted to share them. Just in case.

Here they are..

1. Keep on subject. Don't bring up old arguments. Don't add, "And do you know what else bothers me...?"

2. Don't call names. Ever.

3. Don't attack the other person's occupation.

4. Don't attack the other person's education.

5. Don't attack the other person's family members.

6. Don't break things. Or slam doors.

7. It's okay to leave the room. But don't storm out.

8. If you need to, take a time out. If the conversation is getting heated, just stop talking, wait until you are calmed down, then try again.

9. Avoid talking about topics you disagree about in front of other people (related or not). It may just embarrass the other person and add more emotional fuel to the fire.

10. Don't yell.

I'm sure that I'm making this sound overly simplistic and easy. I'm not saying that. But it gets easier with practice.

Using these rules, we've gone eight years of marriage without a fight. (And please note: I did say fight, not disagreement. Just wanted to clarify that point one more time.)

I'm working on a list of rules about how to approach my children. Because I can get grumpy with them. More than I should. I've raised my voice to my children. While Hubster and I have never raised our voices to each other.

(However, it is true that Hubster does not color with marker on the furniture, or hit his siblings with baseball bats, or dump bowls of applesauce on the floor. He also does not try walking as slowly as possible when I am in a hurry. Or lick windows in stores.)

I realized just the other day that I need rules for me regarding them.

That's a work in progress.

There is one more things. For when all other rules fail. I love the person sitting across from me. Is winning this disagreement really more important than their feelings?

The goal of our marriage was not to sacrifice things we believe in or feel passionately all for the sake of just being able to say that we've never had a fight. I could just start agreeing with everything Hubster says, for no other reason than to keep the peace. But that would make our relationship less meaningful.

The goal was to be able to trust each other enough to feel that we can express our opinion, even if it differs from that of the other person, without being attacked.

That in this world, so full of people treating each other so horribly, that our marriage can be a safe haven.

Maybe I shouldn't, but I do

2009-05-29T09:42:00.000-07:00

I'll admit it.

I get a lot of inspiration for writing from other people's blogs. I don't think this is cheating by any means. It just that people have ideas that get my mind going light speed, and then I need to write.

I read in several blogs lately about regrets.

Mostly, about how people were claiming that they didn't have any.

Not that they thought their lives were perfect or mistake free. But that they couldn't regret anything because it had made them the person they were today.

What's wrong with me?

I've finally gotten to a place in my life where I'm pretty happy with nearly everything.

But I still have regrets.

I've made it through medical school, and I think that I finally have stopped regretting going in the first place. But I will always regret how difficult I made the process for my family. I spent so much of medical school being completely miserable. And it didn't make it so I had to work less, or that people were nicer to me at work. All it did was make it difficult for my family.

I have a wonderful relationship with my boys. But I regret every time that I've lost my patience with them. There is never really a good excuse for it. And I know it didn't ever make me a better person.

I regret losing so many friends along the way. I could have done a better job keeping in touch, trying to be there for people, or just showing up.

I regret nearly every doughnut I have eaten on call nights and morning rounds. I might not have to work so hard to have something to report on Wednesdays if I had just eaten a few less of those glazed temptations.

I regret being so hard with myself when I was "younger." (It feels stranger to say younger when I'm only 27 and already young, but yeah, you know what I mean.) I beat myself up over how much I studied, about what I looked like, about how much I could get done in a single day. If I had just learned to relax and accept me for me, I would have not lost so much time being unhappy.

Maybe I'm over-reacting. Maybe none of these things are worth regretting. Maybe I need to work on letting go of these regrets and accepting that they have made me the person I am now.

But I don't think that any of those things benefited me. Just made me and those around me miserable.

And the regrets keep my eyes open to how to prevent those mistakes in the future.

Like my goal for residency.

My goal is to just suck it up. Yes it will be horrible. It will be much more miserable than third year or my fourth year sub-I could ever be. Will I want to quit? Yes. Will I probably cry? Yes (no probably about it.)

But I'm going to try to not be miserable. Because I have to do it. And being miserable won't make it so I have to work less, or my senior residents be nicer to me. And it won't make the process easier for my family.

I guess this is just a reiteration of my thoughts on guilt.

I don't dwell on my regrets. But I don't deny that they are there.

It was good while it lasted

2009-05-27T20:08:00.000-07:00

It finally happened. I knew it had to someday. But I was in denial.

My brother-in-law finally asked for his Wii Fit back. There is not emoticon strong enough to express how sad I am about this.

I lost nearly five pounds using that balance board.

I've gained 2 back in the week since he took it. (Okay, it's not just because the Wii Fit is gone. It's also because I've eaten out twice, gone on a road trip that involved marshmallows, and visited my mom.)

Unfortunately, our financial situation does not currently allow us to replace his with one of our own.

However, the Wii Fit is no longer enough for me.

I have a new lust object.

The Wii Active.

I.

Want.

It.

Until then, it is back to my stationary bike and the sidewalk for me.

For Better or For Worse

2009-05-26T17:10:00.001-07:00

Today is day that Hubster and I have been married for eight years.

Those years have flown by. Hopefully by saying that, you can tell how happy I've been during these eight years.

It is no secret that we are blissfully happy.

I've very lucky. I'm sure that there is no other person in the world like Hubster. No one else would have put up with me this long. He makes me happy every. single. day.

The way things started out, you might not have guess it.

And when I say started out, I don't mean how things were when we were dating, or when we were engaged, or when we were first married. We were just as blissfully happy during those times as we are now.

When I start "started out," I mean just that.

The wedding day.

Hubster and I don't go to a single wedding or reception without thinking of our own. And what a complete disaster it was.

Oh, my handmade dress was wonderful, the flowers divine, the flower girls darling, Hubster dashing in his tux, the cake delicious, the location beautiful.

I know, it sounds great, right?

Well, let me set the stage.

My parents filled for bankruptcy around the same time. Both Hubster and I were in college. There was no money for this whole affair. We briefly talked about postponing the wedding, but decided there was no real benefit for us in doing that.

So we did the wedding on a shoe string. As in, so little, I can't really mention it here (you would die of shock.)

And we did it mostly by ourselves. Make the food, set up the ceremony and reception location.

Which resulted in us walking down the aisle an hour late. After many of my friends had given up and left. In 100 degree weather.

The guy doing the ceremony talked about making up after fights and forgot the rings.

My dear mother in law had invited some of Hubster's relatives to sing (unknown to either of us.)

When we were going around greeting guests, people kept complaining about the weather.

Do I wish that things could have gone better? Yes. Do I regret some of the decisions and circumstances around the wedding? Absolutely. Do I feel sad every time I go to someone else's exquisite reception? Yeah.

After all, the wedding day is the one that nearly every girl plans for the moment she is five years old.

Would I trade what I have with Hubster, trust, support, and love, for the most amazing wedding of all time?

Not a chance!

100

2009-05-25T14:01:00.000-07:00

I feel that for my 100th post (which came faster than I had anticipated) I should have something profound to say.

I'm sure I could think of something. I could thank everyone for reading. I could talk about how great a release this blog has been. I could say that the best is yet to come.

But instead, I think I'll just share this with you.

Change of mind, not change of heart

2009-05-21T21:39:00.000-07:00

It has come to my attention as we make the round, saying goodbye to friends and family prior to our big move, that many are unaware of the change in my career path.

The majority of people still think (or thought, prior to being corrected) that I am going into pediatrics.

And when I tell them that, no, I'm actually going to be an anesthesiologist, there is the unavoidable explanation.

I'm always met with variations of the same conclusion.

"So, now you hate kids?"

I thought I would take this opportunity to explain why I changed my mind.

When I first went to medical school, I thought that I was going to be an anesthesiologist. For all of two weeks.

We had a lecture series for first year medical students that taught us about different specialties. I was very excited for the anesthesia lecture. But the physician giving the lecture ruined it for me. He kept saying how great it was because you got to be a doctor, but you didn't have to talk to people. I knew that I wanted to interact with people (if I hadn't wanted this, I could have just stayed in my plant lab.) So I left the lecture and never thought about anesthesia again.

After my first pediatric rotation, I was sure that I wanted to be a pediatrician. I loved the children. And the normal hang-ups that people have about pediatrics didn't bother me. Sick children didn't depress me. Demanding parents didn't irritate me.

(Okay, I also really wanted to be an OB/GYN for a while. But I had vacation right after my OB/GYN rotation, and realized how much I liked my time off.)

I also strongly believe in primary care. Being the portal into health care and the first point of interaction, continuity of care, and care of vulnerable populations all appeal to the idealist in me.

So, I created my schedule to best prepare me for pediatrics.

I took pediatric neurology and pediatric IV team. Then I took my pediatric sub-I. (Background: a sub-I is an opportunity for a fourth year medical student to act similarly to an intern (or first year resident) They get more autonomy and more responsibility.)

My sub-I was the most miserable experience of my entire medical school. I was abused by the other interns. I never got to sleep on my call nights. I was told that no one would cover my patients if I went home early on post-call and "golden days" (paperwork only days.) I was so emotionally beat down that I was close to a mental break down. I told my friends, my adviser, and my family that I was going to quit. I couldn't see any end in sight to the emotional disaster that my life was becoming.

One day, near the end of my rotation, I was rounding on a patient that had a severe intestinal condition. His parents had been at the hospital with him every single day since he had been admitted 13 days earlier.

I suddenly realized that I was envious of those parents. Yes, their son was sick. But at least they got to see him. I hadn't seen my children awake in over two weeks.

I came to a realization right there that I liked my children much more than I would ever like anyone else.

I knew that I couldn't do pediatrics. But I didn't know what else to do - besides quit.

About a month later, I rotated in anesthesia. I immediately was drawn in by how happy everyone seemed. Yes, they worked hard. Yes, the work was stressful and demanding (but honestly, in medicine, what isn't.) But they didn't have the same beat-down, lifeless look to them that other residents had. And they had a life outside of medicine. Residents and attendings would talk about movies during cases. Residents had time to see movies?!

And at the end of one day, when I was told that I could go home, I was shocked by how fast the time had gone. I hadn't been constantly checking the clock. I wasn't resentful of the time I had to spend at the hospital.

A week later, Hubster asked me what rotation I was on. Anesthesia.

"Well, you should do this. You haven't asked to drop out for weeks!"

Since then, I have completely fallen in love with anesthesia. The procedures, the physiology, the pharmacology. Everything was intriguing.

When I first told some of my classmates that I was going into anesthesia, there was disbelief. "But you have such wonderful bedside manner. It will be wasted in anesthesia!" "But, what about your feelings on primary care?"

I still get to talk to patients. The better the bedside manner, the fewer sedatives required before surgery. I'm the last one they get to talk to about their fears before going into the OR. I'm the last face they see as they fall asleep.

And I realized although I love the idea of primary care, it wasn't the right avenue for me. I may not ever practice in a small, rural clinic, taking care of people no one else would otherwise, but I still get to be an advocate for my patient. I can make suggestions for better pain control, for better nausea prevention, for faster recover.

I can still be there for them.

Something's Gotta Give

2009-05-20T12:47:00.000-07:00

I'm going to write about something different this Wednesday. Because honestly, you can only hear about someone's weight loss (or lack there of, or gain, etc...) so much before you want to completely skip the whole thing.

(And this isn't because I've given up on the diet, or I'm not having success. I'm still working at it. And I've lost 1 1/2 more pounds. Putting my total at 11 1/2 pounds so far. )

(But that's it. That doesn't make much of a post.)

So, this week, I'll talk about other things somewhat related to health.

And I'll start with a confession.

I shop at Wal-Mart.

This is either met with "So? I do to." Or "Gasp...How could you!?"

A little background.

A friend in medical school was married to an economist who studied the effects of Wal-Mart on small communities. He found a lot of evidence that after a Wal-Mart moved into a small community, mom-and-pop shops shut down at extraordinary rates, unemployment rose dramatically, and quality of life decreased slightly.

I also disagree with a lot of Wal-Mart's business practices. (Although this is not the time to get into all the details. There are plenty of links if you're interested: read here and here and here.)

Everyone knows that Wal-Mart sells a lower quality product than other chains. I would rather buy things for my home at Target than Wal-Mart any day.

And don't even get me started on their produce. I hate the commercials that say how wonderful Wal-Mart's produce is. Have you ever actually looked at the poor fruits and vegetables? Good luck finding a ripe avacodo. Or a non-soft cucumber.

Once I sent Hubster to grab some canteloupe for a party. He came back with canteloupe from Albertson's. When I asked why he had gone all the way to Albertson's when Wal-Mart is 2 minutes away, he said this.

"You know how grapes turn into raisins, and plums turn into prunes? Whatever canteloupe turn into, they're selling at Wal-Mart."

So despite all this, I shop at Wal-Mart.

Why?

After Monkey was born, I was lucky enough to stay home for six months with him. During this time, I decided that I was going to work on getting my family healthier. No more eating out. No more junk food. I was going to cook every meal. We were going to eat all organic, and local when we could. Everything was going to be whole foods.

I started shopping at this local grocer that sells primarily organic food and local products when there are available. The food was beautiful. Local corn, local heirloom tomatoes, organic onions, free-range chicken, certified hormone-free milk, wild fish.

In two weeks I had spent what we normally spent in two months.

It was not sustainable.

Our family budget is tight. There is not often room for luxury, and never room for extravagances. We just couldn't keep it up. I tried buying cheaper, not top-of-the-line organic. Still our budget wouldn't allow it.

So back to Wal-Mart we went. Back to where onions are 47 cents/pound instead of $1.75/pound. Back to where milk is $2.00/gallon and not $3.50/gallon. Back to where chicken is $5.00 for four boneless, skinless chicken breasts and not $8.00 for the same product at the beautiful store.

Do I miss it? Yes. I would rather feed my family the healthiest, most natural version of food that I can. (Even though Hubster is still a sceptic when it comes to organic food. He hears organic and he thinks carbon containing molecules and not pesticide-free food.)

I still try to cook at home every chance I get. I try to use fresh ingredients as often as possible. They don't say organic on them very often. And a lot are Wal-Mart brand. But we can afford them.

I guess this means that I'm a hypocrit. I put my budget before my ideals.

But sometimes, something's gotta give. And it's not going to be dinner.

Writing for Real

2009-05-19T13:12:00.000-07:00

I know that every blogger, wait, every writer, has the same problem. Do you write what you really want to? Or do you edit yourself from what seems most popular?

In blogging, where the number of followers and comments you have often speak to your blogging "status" it is easy to feel the pressure to write what is popular, even though none of us are being paid for this. We don't really have anything to lose, except followers.

(Which, by the way, this isn't saying that I don't appreciate those of you who do read. It means a lot to me, and gives nearly every day a pick-me-up.)

But thinking about the blogs that are popular, although they vary dramatically in content, have striking similarities. The people who write them are either funny or sarcastic (which can also be funny.)

I'm not really that funny.

I try. But usually my funny lands on its face while people stare.

And I don't want to be sarcastic.

Although this is becoming more and more prominent a trait. Part of it I blame on Hubster, who is the most sarcastic person I know. It has worn off a little.

But the other source of sarcasm has been my training.

In medicine, idealism, optimism, and daydreams are quickly checked at the door for better survival skills. Namely, cynicism and sarcasm.

We see a lot of bad things. Things don't often turn out the way I would like them. Children don't always go home with their parents and families don't always get time to say goodbye. Inequalities and poor decision making become glaringly obvious. Bottom-lines replace ideals.

Five years ago, I would have described myself as idealistic, optimitic, and hopeful. Now, I am just clutching at those in an attempt to not let more warped characteristics completely swallow me.

Another thing that most bloggers seem to avoid is politics. I'm pretty sure that we all have strong opinions about one aspect or another. I've avoided politics on my blog, despite down right passionate feelings. And I think I do this from example.

If you avoid politics on your blog, why?

I started this blog to hopefully reconnect with traits that seemed to be slipping through my fingers as I progressed through my training. I'm not sure I always do a good job. But I'm going to here and now make a re-commitment to write what I came here to write.

A better introduction

2009-05-17T16:46:00.000-07:00

Residency is just a little over a month away.

I've been trying not to think about it. I've been so happy during my time off. Playing with my boys, picking Bug up from school, reading to Monkey every night, catching up on my own reading.

I knew that it, like all vacations, wouldn't last. But it is so easy to pretend.

My first year, or intern year, contains a variety of clinical experiences. So that I have a broad variety of experiences on which to draw when I start dedicated anesthesia training during my second year.

I start in the emergency room.

I think my biggest fear about starting residency is being taken seriously. It never really happened during medical school. No matter how often I introduced myself as "Katherine, the medical student on the team," I was consistently called something else by patients.

Nurse.

Now, I'm not trying to belittle nurses or say that I'm better. Because without nurses, there could be no doctors. But the point is, I'm not a nurse. I'm a doctor.

Many school makes their medical students wear short, hip length white coats. This was to help differentiate medical students from residents and attendings. My school didn't do this. I wore a long white coat like everyone else. But despite this, I was never once "accidentally" called doctor.

Only nurse.

When people would ask what I was in school for, I would respond, "I'm in medical school." I got the same reaction from acquaintances, relatives, and strangers on the bus. "Oh, you're going to be a nurse!"

No. I'm not.

Once when I was admitting a patient from the emergency room, his cell phone rang. He answered it, talked for a moment, and then said, "Sorry. I need to go. There's a really pretty nurse here asking me some questions."

I know which emotion was stronger. I was flattered that he had referred to me as "very pretty" and not "nurse who looks like she hasn't slept in days, had time to comb her hair, and has the biggest, darkest circles under her eyes I've ever seen." But I was frustrated that he just assumed I was a nurse, despite my careful introduction.

It's not just my gender that have worked against me being taken seriously. It's my age. Or more accurately, my perceived age.

I think I can sum up this problem accurately with a single patient encounter. I had entered a room to place an I.V and take a patient back to the operating room. The patient turned to me before I had time to introduce myself and patted my arm.

"It's so nice they let high school students volunteer here."

Aww, thanks.

In the past, being seen as something other than I was and younger than I was made me timid. No one took me seriously, so I stopped seeing myself seriously. It wasn't until the end of medical school that I started to get a little confidence back.

This time around, I'm going to try to not let this past experiences hinder my confidence in anyway.

And this time, I can actually introduce myself as "Doctor Katherine." Maybe that will help.

Soundtrack

2009-05-14T11:30:00.000-07:00

Part of why movies are so great isn't the story or the characters. It's the background music. It always lets you know what to anticipate. Is someone about to be kissed or killed? Just listen and you'll have a pretty good guess.

I always wished that my life came with background music. Not only would I have a better idea of what to expect in my own life, it would just be cool.

So, I've created the soundtrack to my life.

This is not necessarily my favorite music, or what I listen to on a daily basis. But rather, it is the background music of where I've been, who I have been, who I am now, and what I (hopefully) am becoming.

(I also had to cut quite a few songs out. Because after 27 years, that would be a lot of music. And no one would buy a CD that had 462 songs on it.)

1. Lemon Tree- Peter, Paul, & Mary: My parents would sing PP&M songs as we road-tripped between California and Utah. I always remember sitting in the back of the car and falling asleep to the sound of Lemon Tree, Where Have All the Flowers Gone, and If I Had a Hammer. My dad also would play them on his guitar, whether it was around campfires or in the living room after dinner.

2. Annie's Song- John Denver: If there is a singer that reminds me of my dad, it is John Denver. When I was little, my dad had a list of songs taped to the back of his guitar. This one was on it. It was one of my favorites. He would play it and my five-year-old self would dance. Years later, he played it at my wedding, and I cried.

3. I'm Only Happy When It Rains - Garbage: I know: a big jump from PP&M and John Denver to Garbage. Besides that this song is "about" rain, and I love the rain and songs related to it, this is just a good song. It reminds me of my period of teenage angst. Bad days and good days and drives with my friends at night. Don't we all have that song?

4. I Love You- Donna Lewis: I asked some of my friends what songs reminded them of our time in middle school. This song was on all of their lists. I guess it reminds all of us of sleep overs, way too much sugar and nail polish.

5. You're All I Need- White Lion: This was the first (and only) song that Hubster sang to me. Just once. Back when we were dating, on the way home from a road trip. In the darkness of the car, lit by the instrument panel, him singing to me. One of the moments when how much I loved him hit me like a tidal wave.

6. Can't Help Falling in Love- Elvis: There was no way a soundtrack of my life would not have an Elvis song on it. Enough said.

7. Cable Car (Over My Head)- The Fray: No kidding, the first time I heard this song was after a very hard day in the hospital. Now, regardless of what the song is really about, it has become an anthem to the moments that I'm not sure I'm going to make it. (And you all thought I would choose another The Fray song.)

8. Unwell- Matchbox 20: There were days during medical school that I was sure I was falling to pieces and was never going to make it. I would sit on the kitchen floor and cry and ask to be allowed to quit. While I'm glad (I think) that I finished, it's hard to speak to how difficult those days really were.

9. If I had $1000000- Barenaked Ladies: Every time Hubster and I start talking about all the plans we have for our future, it isn't long before one of us says this. And we can't never hear this song without looking at each other and smiling and thinking how much we want for each other and our family. This is truly an everyday song.

10. Suddenly I See- KT Tunstall: The perfect song for all of us overly-ambitious, dedicated females. I felt that I could hear this music in the back of my head when I walked across the stage to receive my medical degree.

11. I Don't Love You Much, Do I-Guy Clark and Emmylou Harri s: Okay, like I said, a little cheesy. But still perfect. I hum this song to my boys, because it is true.

12. When You Dream - Barenaked Ladies: I can't listen to this song without getting a little teary-eyed. Being a mother to two little boys had been the most amazing thing that I can imagine. And it is hard to find songs that speak to the hopes and wishes and insecurities and successes that parenthood provides without them being a little cheesy. But this song is perfect.

13. Closer- Better than Ezra: Every time I hear this song, I get that tingly feeling and I want to run and hold my family and thank them for everything and tell them how much I love them. This song, every since I discovered it one day among a bunch of songs Hubster had dumped into my iTunes, has become the current theme song for my life.

I know that it is an eclectic (although not random) collection of music, but isn't everyday like that? It was hard to sift between all the songs that I love and those that have strong memories and emotions tied to them, but in the end these are the ones that made the cut. (I'm sur that there will be a sequel sometime in the future.)

Music speaks to me (or at least I pretend that it is). These songs in particular always have something to say.

Give it up

2009-05-13T21:24:00.000-07:00

Like always, it's two steps forward, one step backwards.

I've gained 1 1/2 pounds this week (which is amazing that it is so little considering the amazing food I enjoyed over Mother's Day.)

But at least I haven't even approached what I started at.

A little weight gain like this doesn't extremely disturb me. Unless it is more next week. But I'm working on that.

Last night, curled up on the couch watching Taken, I decided to enjoy the movie with a huge bowl of popcorn.

I love popcorn. LOVE. Especially with lots of butter. It could be my favorite food of all time.

But I've really cut down. I don't even it is once a week. More like maybe twice a month.

And I don't feel sad about it. By only eating it occasionally, I don't feel guilty when I do eat it.

Other things that I have almost completely cut out of my diet are beef and ice cream. I still have ice cream, but we don't keep it in the house anymore. Which makes eating half a gallon of butter pecan right out of the box while watching When Harry met Sally... much more difficult.

However, I'm not willing to give up pancakes or waffles. Seriously, they're probably the best thing I cook, and I just can't give that up.

What are things you are willing to give up? And more importantly, what are things you aren't?

Our Problem Now

2009-05-12T11:50:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, our dishwasher broke. As in pouring water out the bottom and forming the equivalent of Lake Michigan in our kitchen.

But we didn't stress too much. We grabbed several towels and a mop, mopped up all the water, and made a call to our apartment manager. 6 days later, we had a new dishwasher.

Yes, I know that it is slightly ridiculous that it took 6 days. But the only real inconvenience to us what that I had to do dishes by hand for those 6 days.

Things won't be like that soon.

In our new house, everything will be our problem. There won't be any apartment manager to call. There won't be any groundskeeper who shovels all the walks and mows the lawn and rakes the leaves.

There will only be us.

Mentally, I think we are completely ready. We've been ready for years.

But the thought that if the water heater goes out, or the dishwasher floods us out, or the air conditioner goes kaput, it is our problem.

I don't think I would be so worried about this if our budget wasn't so tight. I also think that knowing that I am going to be the only source of income also stresses me out.

Hubster has been the main money maker for our family, exclusively so for the last five years. And although I helped with the budget and took care to keep expenses in check, it never weighed on me like it does now.

Hubster has done such a great job providing for our family. I am just hoping that I can do nearly as good of a job as he has.

And I don't want a rogue dishwasher ruining it for me.

Risen

2009-05-10T13:55:00.000-07:00

Just tall enough to see myself,
a blue-eyed reflection on a large metal bowl,
waist high to the magical woman
that raised me, and bread.
That now raised me onto the cool ceramic-tiled counter top,
to sit cross-legged,
and watch.

Watch her floured hands
turn, knead, work that yeasty golden globe.
The same hands that mended the roof
when it leaked, and my heart when it cried.

Through the Nevada window, sunshine
buttered the flour air and afternoon
waited for dinner.

Mimicking the magic, I pound floured fists
into the sticky, smooth dough,
training my baby hands to raise
children and bread.

Appreciation

2009-05-09T21:15:00.000-07:00

Back when I was newly married, I had a job taking orders for national florist. (By the way, worst job ever, but not the point.)

Before this job, I always thought that Valentine's Day would be the busiest time of year for florists and flower shops. But, turns out, it's not.

It's Mother's Day.

Because not everyone has a significant other, but everyone has a mother.

My mom is spectacular.

She's the one who told me my kids wouldn't hate me if I wasn't there every minute of their lives. She's given me so much support during the years.

And the fact that she has been there when I need her is amazing. Because I come from a big family.

And when I say big, I mean "could have our own TLC show" big.

But even with all the "competition" for her time and attention, none of us ever felt slighted. She was always there when it mattered.

Now that I am just keeping my head above water with my own small family, I appreciate everything she does even more.

Thanks, Mom.

What Matters

2009-05-08T12:03:00.000-07:00

Nothing seems to make women more defensive than a conversation about stay-at-home mothers versus working mothers.

These "Mommy Wars" have inspired books, TV shows, and blogs.

It is a mix between what women see as judgment from other women and our own self-imposed guilt.

If we are a stay at home mom, we think that working moms are judging us for not having a career, for giving something of ourselves up. We also have our own guilt that we could have done something else or more with our lives.

If we are a working mom, we think that stay at home moms are judging us for picking something else over our children, for having our priorities wrong. And we struggle with the guilt of not being there for our children ever moment.

I used to think that the perception of being judged by other women for the choices I had made was just that: my perception. No one was really judging me. It was just my own guilt that I projected on others.

However, that's not complete true. I've had conversations with other women, relatives, and friends. I've heard a lot of things.

Example: "I don't see how you do it all. My children are way too important for me to be able to do work and take care of them." So, are you saying I don't think my children are important?

Example 2: "I'm surprised you choose to have children at this point in your career. How can you focus on getting a good residency?" I don't know. How do you explain that you don't have kids and you didn't even get a residency spot?

Example 3: "I feel bad for your kids." Yes, they have spent time at daycare. But we have game nights and weekly outings. They are read to every night, given horsey rides to bed. What exactly do you feel bad about?

I can't understand why women aren't more supportive of each other, regardless of our choices. Motherhood is hard. Maneuvering through the professional world as a women is hard. Why do we have to make it harder for each other by heaping on the guilt?

I never wanted to be a stay at home mom. All I saw it as was a lot of repetitive thank-less work. I did not want that for myself.

Until I had my boys.

I love my boys so much, it approached Old Testament idolatry.

Given the choice, I would stay home with them every day, just playing, reading, throwing balls, racing cars, going on outings.

But I don't want to stay home with them in a tiny apartment, living paycheck to paycheck, knowing that the next time the car breaks down our savings will completely disappear.

So I'm doing my very best to have the best of both worlds. I'm hoping that when I'm done with residency and fellowship and all that goes along with it, life will be more comfortable for us. I should only have to work 2-4 days a week.

Hubster also loves our boys a ridiculously huge amount. He wants to be with them as well.

I don't think it would be fair for me to get to spend more time with them at his expense. I could be a stay-at-home mom, even now. But that would involve him working extra hard, including evenings and weekends (which he has had to do in the past.) I would get more time with the boys at the expense of Hubster having almost no time with them.

Neither of us wants that.

It's going to take a while for us to get to where we want to be. But when we do, things will be great.

Yes, it probably is unfair that my oldest son will have spent is youngest years during this difficult time. But he is happy. He knows he is loved.

And THAT is what matters.

Ta-Da!

2009-05-07T13:53:00.001-07:00

(I know that this post should have been up yesterday, but I had internet problems which led to me doing all sorts of things I neither understand nor am qualified to do. But I do now have internet again. And I just can't wait a whole week to post this.)

Drum roll please.

I have now lost 10 pounds!!!

After my little temper-tantrum last week, who would have thought? But it's true. I had just reached a plateau, and although I knew that mentally, it was hard to cope with emotionally. But I'm now off that plateau, and back on the thrilling ride downwards.

I talk about my weight quite a bit. I think about it even more. But there is a good reason for this.

My oldest son will be turning 7 this summer. That means in the last 7 years, I had gained a lot of weight. Between two pregnancies, medical school, and all the stress that goes along with those, I had gained 50 pounds in 7 years.

50 pounds! That is a lot.

It was enough for me to not feel at home in my own body. I have spent the last several years not even recognizing myself. I felt like someone else. I had gained the weight so fast that my self-image didn't have time to keep up with my real image.

I was critical of my body when it was 50 pounds lighter. But this new body was one that I didn't even know. And I hated it.

My mom didn't keep any of her baby weight until her sixth pregnancy. My sister was back to her pre-pregnancy weight less than six weeks after her daughter was born. My grandmother probably weights as much now as she did when she was 18.

It hurt being the only fat one in the family.

The dieting and exercising have been demanding, both physically, but even more so, emotionally.

This 10 pound weight loss is a big deal for me. It's evidence that a lot of hard work is starting to pay off. That I'm on my way to being a little bit healthier.

I still have some more to go. Now I'm only 15 pounds over my medically ideal body weight, instead of 25.

During this process, I've come to look at myself a little differently. I've become a little more forgiving of myself. I'm starting to accept what I see in the mirror. To appreciate my new curves. To be less critical.

I know that I'll never be back to that size 4 girl I was before this whole process began 7 years ago.

And I'm starting to be okay with that.

Season Finales

2009-05-05T20:21:00.000-07:00

Many of my favorite shows are rapidly approaching their season finale. Although this means a lot of excitement, it also means a summer full of re-runs.

(Although Psych will be starting up with new episodes this summer. So at least I have witty 80s references to keep me happy.)

I used to say I was a fan of reality television. This was back when Survivor was about the only reality show there was. However, I don't watch "American Idol," "Dancing with the Stars," "So You Think You Can Dance," "Big Brother," or "The Bachelor." Since these are the first things that people think of when they hear reality TV, I don't say I'm a fan of reality TV anymore. I leave it at being a fan of Survivor and Amazing Race.

Amazing Race ends next week. And this is the first time I don't hate at least one of the teams in the final three. I'm really hoping that Tammy and Victor will win. After all, they've completely dominated most of the race. They deserve it. But if Luke and Margie win, I'll still be pretty happy. Come on, being in the final three of a uber-competitive race, both physical and mental, doing awesome, and being deaf? That's a big deal. It's so nice to see people not using disability as an excuse, but a reason to push themselves harder. It makes it so I just expect even more from myself.

Survivor is also approaching its finale. I would just like to say that while none of the contestants are as hot as resident physician Marcus for last season, this is shaping up to be an amazing, amazing season. The contestants are crazier than ever (um, Coach, you're a big liar!). The blindside votes are better. The alliances are more surprising. Personally, I'm rooting for J.T.

Marcus from Survivor Gabon

Lost will be ending in a couple weeks. I'm very broken up about this. I watched the first three seasons of Lost on DVD. Hubster and I watched 4 episodes a night, every night, until we had seen all three seasons. During the approximately three weeks this process took, we were extremely exhausted, but so intrigued by the story, we just couldn't stop.

So for us, only one hour once a week has been a tough adjustment. But the time in between seasons is akin to torture. What will we talk about at dinner?

As for this season, it's been pretty good. I really missed the flashbacks, so I'm glad they've gotten back to those in the last few episodes. But I'm too broken up about Daniel Faraday's death to be very happy. Lost always does this. Create characters you love, and then kills them off. Charlie, gone. Eko, gone. Daniel, gone. But pure-evil, master-manipulator, horrible Ben? He's still alive. I'm hoping next season brings a little more justice.

But I'm not going to dwell on the inevitable sadness of the time after season finales. I'm going to just sit down on my couch with a huge bowl of popcorn, and enjoy the time that we have left.

The Bell Jar

2009-05-04T10:36:00.000-07:00

I was terrified to read this book.

Having studied the poetry of Sylvia Plath during high school and college, I was familiar with her writing, and also knew her tragic life story. I was worried that the book would make me so sad that I wouldn't be able to shake it.

Now, I wish I had read this book earlier.

(I know that a lot of you read this book in high school, but really, there are only so many books you can read, and this one didn't come up. And I think I can appreciate it more now than I would have been able to then.)

The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel, follows Esther Greenwood, 19 years old and a stellar academic, through her descent into depression. Plath refuses to let her character wallow in self-pity. She doesn't want you to feel sorry for her, doesn't want you to pity her. But in the end, she nearly breaks your heart.

Set in the 1950s, at the height of "traditional gender roles," a large struggle for Esther is what is expected of her versus what she wants for herself. She wants a family, wants love, but feels disillusioned by the women around her. She wants to be successful, a poet or a teacher, but has no proof that this is not incompatible with her other desires.

The writing is both simple and provocative. Full of the metaphors that Plath is famous for, the story is both straight forward and poetic. Esther sees her life as a fig tree, each possibility, each choice a ripe fig at the end of branches. But instead of feeling that all these figs are within her reach to harvest, she feels stuck at the trunk, as the figs blacken and fall to the ground.

Told exclusively through Esther's mind, the book offers no relief from the stifling, oppressive air she experiences while under the bell jar. But I have never read a more chilling, accurate, or believable account of depression.

This is a must read for anyone who has dealt with depression on any level, or known anyone with depression.

I came away, not pulled down by the story as I had thought I would be, but amazed and impressed by how fresh the air really is out from under the bell jar.

Through and Through

2009-05-03T13:56:00.000-07:00

Whenever Hubster and I hear anyone refer to themselves as geeks or nerds, we just laugh.

Because we know the truth.

They have nothing on us.

It took a while, but we have completely accepted that we are true nerds, through and through. And now, honestly, we are quite proud of it.

I was a biology major with a minor in chemistry. Hubster got a double major in mathematics and physics. I was president of the science club in high school, winning silver metals in state competition. Hubster led his class to a championship in the "Knowledge Bowl."

And we are doing the best we can to instill these precious attributes in our boys.

They have a model solar system hanging from their bedroom ceiling. We encourage them to "play" on Google Earth for computer time. We spend afternoons at museums. Family movie night? Your pick: Planet Earth or Blue Planet. And for fun...

"Guess what we're going to do today?"

"What?!!!"

"Grow salt and sugar crystals!!!"

And that's what we do. And each day, they would oh and aw about how much the crystals had grown. Until finally it was the day to take them out and eat them.

And then I saw these flash cards on Uncommon Goods. And I WANT them for my two year old!

This is all for their own good.

With a physician mom, and a dad applying for dental school, being a nerd can really pay off. Well, we hope so. Someday.

City of Ember

2009-04-30T21:53:00.000-07:00

It's a kid book. I know that. Give me a break. I've been a little tired, and all the heavy literature I've been reading lately have made my brain feel heavy.

So I needed a good dose of brain candy. And I have to say, this was a delicious serving.

I first heard of this book the way I'm sure most people did: after they made the movie.

And since the book is written approximately for ages 10-12, I doubt any of you have read it. But if you write a book, and less than 5 years later, it is a movie that included toys in many fast-food kids' meals, you've done something right.

If you're looking for a fun, super fast (I read the entire book in about 6 hours) young dystonian/adventure book, this fits the bill.

The city of Ember is surrounded by darkness. No one ever goes out into, and no one has ever come to Ember out of it. The darkness within Ember is held at bay by lights attached to every building, at every corner. All the lights are powered by an ancient generator. But the lights are beginning to flicker, leaving the city and all its occupants in the dark, for longer and longer periods.

Two young children, one motivated by dreams of a city of light, desperately search for a way to lead their families through the darkness.

I enjoyed the book. There are two other books in the series. Which leads me to my feelings on series. As far as movies go, they are usually just disasters (unless we are talking about Jason Bourne, and then there could not be enough movies.) But as far as books go, I just love the story to keep going and going and going. I'm always excited when there is another book.

But the reviews for the next two books weren't very good.

Have any of you read them? Any opinions? And what about the movie? I kind of want to see it now (because yes, I enjoy kid movies.) If you saw it, did you like it? And could I watch it with my six year old?

Throwing in the towel

2009-04-29T22:22:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm not really going to quit.

(After all, an active overweight person is healthier than an inactive thin person, and blah, blah, blah...)

But I sure feel like it.

I'm starting to remember why I've never been successful on any of my weight loss endeavors.

Because THEY DON'T WORK!!!

Exercise is eating up all the time I'd rather be doing other things. Like watching the long list of movies I'm dying to see before residency starts. It's eating away time for naps, and books, and photo albums, and walks with my kids. I feel better when I exercise. I feel better about myself. I have more energy. But less free time in which to use that energy.

Dieting is turning me into a guilt ridden monster. I can't take my two year old out to lunch and share a hot dog without thinking about how much the scale is going to make me regret it later. A six year old sharing jellybeans with me shouldn't make me feel like a bad person.

But the complete lack of new weight loss means I'm doing something wrong.

And I DO NOT want to hear the words of encouragement that everyone tries. "Oh, you're just gaining muscle, which you know weighs more than fat." Well thanks. Thanks a lot.

Sorry you had to hear all that.

I just needed to vent. And now, I'm going to go have some meaningful time with some carrot sticks.

Where we come from

2009-04-28T19:54:00.000-07:00

I think that people generally have two feelings about the place they grew up.

That place can become the most wonderful, idyllic place to have grown up. It is a source of perfect childhood memories. No place will ever be able to compare. People who feel this way want nothing more than to get back to where they grew up.

The other option is that the place becomes something to escape from.

For a long time, Utah has been that second type of place for me.

I moved to Utah from California when I was 10. My dad had been serving in the Navy and we had lived some amazing places. I loved my time in the high Sierras. My time in Southern California by the beach.

I resented the move to Utah. And even since then, California took on that idyllic image in my mind. I would tell everyone I was from California. I always planned on moving back there.

Even as I grew, and Utah became where I was "from" and everyone I knew was here, I still, tucked away in my mind, wanted to get away.

Hubster has had the same feelings. He spent his high school years in small-town western Montana. Utah always felt like more of the same.

We have talked for years about how nice it would be to leave, to start over, to get away.

It's funny that it takes the getting away becoming a reality for the place I grew up in to take on that childhood beauty.

I never once appreciated the mountains until I realized I would be leaving them.

The Handmaid's Tale

2009-04-27T22:58:00.001-07:00

I guess it's time for another confession.

I love me a good dystopian novel. Being a rather optimistic and cheerful person, this usually surprises people.

Maybe they cater to my sarcastic side. Maybe they are a way to cope with all the gloom-and-doom-end-of-the-earth possibilities my dad fretted over at the dinner table. After all, at least nothing could be as bad as what happened in the books I was reading, so what did I have to worry about?

1984, Brave New World, The Giver, Fahrenheit 451 (to name a few) are among some of my favorite books.

A surprising number of dystopian novels are assigned reading during high school. Maybe this is where I get my love of them. They felt like some of the first grown-up books I read.

So, after reading the back of The Handmaid's Tale, I was surprised that 1) I hadn't read it earlier and 2) I hadn't even heard of it during high school (which, it turns out is a good thing. This is NOT a book a high schooler should crack open.)

After reading this book, I feel like it is a book I'm expected to hate. With all its descriptive language, demoralizing situations, and almost dismissal of the concept of ingrained humanity and dignity, I feel that few people I know would enjoy the book. Most would probably not even finish it.

So, even though I "should" hate it, I don't.

Margaret Atwood's sparse and austere story follows a woman through the overthrow of the United States and the implementation of a militant theocracy.

It is a time where the oceans and air are toxic from pollution, nuclear energy has gone awry, women are over-zealous on birth-control and abortion. All these factors have lead to a precipitous drop in the birth rate. Healthy infants become the most prized commodity.

The main character, found to be one of the few women healthy and uncontaminated enough to still bare children, is stripped of her relationships, her dreams, her right to read, even her name, to be farmed out to high-ranking families, in hopes that she will conceive and bare that family a baby.

Marginalized, but highly valued, the Handmaids only role in society is to be shipped from infertile couple to infertile couple in order to "replenish the earth."

The new government spends a lot of time talking about how modern society had taken away everything of value to women. They no longer felt child-bearing was important. They no longer viewed their bodies as sacred, subjecting them to surgery and vulgar fashions. Relationships no longer had any meaning, as both men and women jumped from relationship to relationship.

But, like all great dystopian novels, that is where the great irony lays. Through helping women "fulfill their greatest potential," the women are stripped of identity and worth. Sex loses all of its intimacy and meaning, and becomes purely a commodity, a business transaction.

Although this is the prevelant theme throughout Atwood's book, I was just as intrigued by her commentary about other social issues. Accused on only being "man-hating propaganda" I felt that the arguments were infinitely beyond the supression of women.

The new government touts itself as a more holy, pure religion. This new belief system is forced upon each individual. Conform, or die. It is the eptimoe of religion without spirituality. Prayers are called in, not said, not felt.

What matters more? Freedom to, or freedom from. The argument in the novel is that in order to guarentee freedome from, any freedom to must be restricted or eliminated.

The nameless main character glides through all these morality issues, nearly too numb from her own losses to react. Mostly, she can only observe.

I desperately wanted her to find her happy ending. To find her daughter that had been stripped from her. To once again feel a connection to another person.

But, once again, like all great dystopian novels, the Handmaid's Tale givens no answers.

Another Playoff, Another Headache

2009-04-23T21:21:00.000-07:00

So, you may or may not know (and based on who is most likely to be reading this, I'm going with not knowing) that the NBA playoffs are going on right now. (As in basketball, for those who are already lost.)

Years ago, I probably would have been in a similar state of oblivion. Sports were just not part of my life until I met Hubster.

Actually, let me revise that. Sports were not part of my life until I married Hubster.

Because for the couple years we dated, we never watched sports together. We did go to one basketball game with my dad and brothers, but that was it. Never once watched a single game on television, never talked about draft possibilities, never talked trades.

I knew that Hubster loved sports. But I didn't quite understand until we got married. And football season came.

There were moments when I thought, who is this crazy, screaming, foul-mouthed, couch-slapping, jumping fanatic I've married? Sports turn my normally mild-mannered, soft-spoken, laid-back Dr. Jekyll into a screaming, name-calling Mr. Hyde.

Our living room, no, the whole house, is filled with "Worthless!!" "Overpaid slackers!!!" "Suck wads." "Sorry excuse of a point guard!" (Oh, I failed to mention that most appearances of maturity go out the window as well.)

And playoffs are the worst.

Because everyone gets their hopes up, even though they know that their team has no hope of getting beyond the first round. But playing a team much better than yours is apparently no excuse for losing.

Hubster's NBA team is the Jazz. For obvious geographical reasons. And in this season's playoffs, the Jazz are playing the LA Lakers. And one thing that you should know about Jazz fans. They hate the Lakers.

Don't get me wrong. I love the NBA playoffs. I love that the Jazz are in the playoffs so that I can cheer them on, and hope for the upset. Although I do it without the screaming, couch-hitting, name-calling, and jumping.

I've gotten used to Hubster's game-day rants. In fact, I've come to find it somewhat enduring. That he actually has a venue to act like that is wonderful. (Unlike me, who thinks pretty much occasion is okay to act in an overly emotional way.) And I don't take it personally anymore.

And although I hope the Jazz do well, I really just appreciate it when it's all over.

Not in my job description

2009-04-21T16:18:00.000-07:00

Last week, I wrote that Hubster and I did everything equally. That we shared all tasks, and willingly made up the slack when the other was stressed out of their mind and unable to function (which we take turns at about every other week.)

Well, I lied.

There are things that I simply will NOT do.

And I'm not talking about cleaning up puke, defusing exploding diapers, or cleaning up "what on EARTH is that?!!" stuff on the floor.

We both do that.

What I'm talking about it much worse.

I DO NOT smell suspicious food in the refrigerator.

Is that milk still good? I don't know, you smell it.

How long has this casserole been in here? I don't know, you take the lid off the tubberware container and look at the stuff.

Do we have any tomatoes? I don't know, you go digging around in the back of the produce drawer and tell me if everything is still recognizable.

I just can't bring myself to do it. I have puked into the kitchen sink after opening a three-day-old bottle. I'm pretty sure that smelling a may-or-may-not-be-expired gallon of milk, and then tasting it just to be sure, and having either one of those prove that, yes, indeed, the milk is bad, would ruin my ability to cook for at least a week.

And that would be bad. Because cooking is the one thing that Hubster does NOT do.

(Oh, and I don't kill spiders.)

Because it's Monday

2009-04-20T23:00:00.000-07:00

Or it was.

And Monday is as good as anytime to start something new.

I was going to post this earlier. But a incredibly grumpy pair of boys and an incredibly invigorating round of Wii Fit have delayed me until right now.

I've been thinking about how to incorporate quotes into my blog. Because I love them. I avidly collect them. Anytime I come across on that I love, I must write it down. Books I'm reading, billboards, plaques at museums, commercials, the internet. The source doesn't matter. I scribble them down either in the notebook I always carry around with me. Or an scraps of paper in my purse. On on the back of envelopes on my desk. They are tacked up in random spots around my house.

So, if I haven't made it clear...I LOVE quotes.

I thought about doing something on my sidebar, but when I would change the quote, the previous would just get lost in the internet void.

So, I've done some posts with quotes in them (Which also allowed me to give my opinion about the quote and the person who said it. Because I do like to give my opinion.) But those posts just get lost in the archives, so really, it was no better. And there are so many other things that I would rather write about than quotes. I just really want to share my favorite ones with you.

So, I'm going to do a weekly quote. On my sidebar. (First, because daily is too frequently, and monthly is way too spread out, and secondly, because it is just easier there.)

So, tell me what you think of my weekly quotes. Sometimes silly, sometimes serious, sometimes famous, sometimes obscure.

And if you know any good ones, send them my direction. I'm sure I can find a blank piece of wall to hang them up on.

Wuthering Heights

2009-04-19T13:35:00.000-07:00

I'm sure that most people read this book sooner in their lives than I did. But the occasion just never came up. Unlike most of Austen's books, I wasn't surrounded by people who had read and loved this novel.

The only person who has told me anything about the book was my mom. And she HATED it! Which didn't motivate me to run out and read it.

But after some thought, I decided I really should. After all, it is a classic. And can I really call myself of lover of classical British literature without reading Wuthering Heights?

My first thought about the book was the odd voice that the story is told through. Not first person, not third person. It is not told by one of the main characters. But rather it is told as a story, the housekeeper/nanny related the going-ons of Wuthering Heights to an individual who is new to the area. The entire story is slanted by the housekeepers personal feelings towards the characters, and thus it was difficult to develop my own opinions of the different people.

Heathcliff should be the villan that all villans are compared to. He is the standard of all villans. Bitter because of his childhood friend, Catherine, bestowed her love on someone else, he sets out to destroy the happiness of everyone related to her and her new family. He sets out by financially ruining Catherine's brother, but does not stop there. He manipulates everyone until he has complete physical and emotional control over everyone around him.

The dispair that he brings with him is tangible in every page of Emily Bronte's story. The oppressive presence of Heathcliff is unsurpassed by any book I have ever read.

Nearly done with the book, I felt that there was no way for the story to end happily. Nearly everyone had died, many purely because of the lack of a nurturing hand and the hope of joy. The "heroine" had also come under Heathcliff's powers and slowly I watched her change into a bitter, detached individual instead of the vivrant, caring girl she was.

But happiness came, just as it always should. It came for the heroine and her love. But it never comes for Heathcliff, despite his desperation for it. He never feels the peace and serentiy that love can brings. Even to the end, everything was extreme, desperate, and wild for Heathcliff.

Most literary villans have their redeeming quality. But Heathcliff had none. He could have used his love of Catherine as a redeeming quality. But he never did. He treated his own feeling of love as a weakness, as a reason for revenge.

For the other characters, it was their love that became their redeeming quality. How they used it to be long-suffering, self-less, forgiving, and sacrificing. And in the end, peace came to them.

In the end, it is not what we have, but what we do with it that determines what we are. And no where is there a more powerful allegory of this than Wuthering Heights.

About Time

2009-04-18T18:18:00.000-07:00

After a few more snow storms, I'm beginning to think that finally, finally, spring is on its way.

I spent the day strolling through gardens with my family.

Enjoy some glimpses of spring.

Take two and call me in the morning

2009-04-17T10:33:00.000-07:00

My oldest son woke up with a high fever this morning. Not high enough to rush to the emergency room. But high enough for him to feel achy and for me to call his school and excuse him.

I know that it is most likely some virus that he caught from school. And that he will probably be over it by tomorrow.

However, both my medical training and my panicky parental side worry. Could he have meningitis? No, he has a slight headache, but no other symptoms. Could he have pneumonia? No, he couldn't have a cough. Could he have this, or that, or this other terrible thing? No, he's just got a bug, and it will pass.

But should he not get better, or his fever get higher, or he have other symptoms that scare the crap out of me, it is nice to know that the emergency room is less than 10 minutes away.

We hear a lot about the "good ol' days." But in terms of medicine, there never was never anything good about the old days.

150 years ago, if a child woke up with a fever, there was nothing to reassure a parent that it wasn't that child's final moments. No way to differentiate mild from serious. And if it did turn serious, what was anyone going to do? Bleed them? High childhood mortality has been an extremely common thing until recent times.

It is only thanks to leaving behind the "good ol' days" that we can, for the most part, feel secure that our children will make it through childhood sniffles, fevers, and aches, and reach adulthood.

I am grateful to live in a time where I can give my little boy Tylenol, cuddle with him on the couch in front of our favorite Pixar movie, and trust that he will be fine in the morning.

Perfect Fit

2009-04-15T18:16:00.000-07:00

Last week, I got a lot of great advice about things I could do to my diet/exercise plan.

And like always, I thought of excuses about why this one and that one wouldn't work for me.

The one that I know what true was that I needed variety in my exercise plan.

A little background on my approach to exercise:

I have been to a gym once. That was during high school as a guest with one of my friends. Yep, a whole ONE time.

I've had lots of reasons for this. Financially, things have always been a little tight. There just wasn't the cash for a membership that I may or may not have used. After I had kids, I was away from home so much of the time, that I felt too guilty to be away from home even more just to work out.

My exercise equipment has been the sidewalk when Hubster is home and a stationary bike I bought 5 years ago when he's not.

But I am limited to those no longer. I have a new outlet.

Wii Fit!!!!

My brother-in-law brought it over last week, and then seeing the covetous look in my eye, asked if we wanted to borrow it for a while. (So, actually I have a new outlet until he wants it back.)

We can't afford a Wii system right at this time. But it is now of the list of "Must Haves!"

I'm sure that I'm a little late on this bandwagon, but this thing is amazing. The first day after doing a full workout on it, I was sore everywhere. Which was great!

It is like having a personal trainer at home. And with the variety of exercises, I don't get bored. I can do this thing for hours (instead of pushing myself for a full 30 minutes on my stationary bike and hating every minute of it.) Yoga, strength training, aerobics! I have to talk myself into stopping, mostly because someone wants to watch TV or someone else wants a turn.

And there is a competitive aspect to it. Everyone is trying to beat other people's scores, which pushes them (and me) to work harder.

And, according to the Wii, I've lost another pound (although my home scale says it's just half a pound, but I'm only listening to the Wii now.)

So, if you can't tell, I'm pretty excited about it.

So, excuse me, I've got to go and beat Hubster's boxing score.