Weekend Biking and the Elevation

Today I went on the longest bike ride of my life.

At least I'm pretty sure. I've never been a distance biker, just a commuter and then there were all those bike rides with my family as a kid.

Anyway, today John and I went out for a ride and came back 22 miles later! I know cyclist people out there might not think anything of it, but I'm proud, and I'm on a fairly heavy hybrid bike, not a zippy road one, so it's safe to say my legs are going to be exhausted tomorrow. Of course I love Nora (yes, the bike has a name). Remember when I first brought her home with my tax refund? 

Hard to believe it was over 2 years ago. I don't think I have those jeans anymore.

So here's the loop we did: 

We headed through Downtown, up the Bosque trail next to the Rio Grande, over on Paseo del Norte and then back down the Diversion Channel - which was flowing well because it was raining on the east side of town, but not so much on us. 

The box beneath the map has the elevation info. Sometimes I forget, but as you can see we're at almost a mile of elevation here in Albuquerque. As exercise has sort of fallen off in the past couple months I can't say I've noticed a difference. I blame all my difficulties on being woefully out of shape.

The day was full up with other activities too. 

We started with a brunch with the Chiefs in my program which was really fun, then went to a new church. The message was on Esther and I really liked it. We had Chipotle leftovers for lunch:

If you slice a burrito in half, it makes a perfect 2 meals. And yes this is like the 3rd time I've used this same picture on the blog. Not sorry.

Then the bike ride was in the afternoon. Afterward we found a dog that had run away and returned him to his happy family. Shortly after that kids came to the door asking for donations for some weird program that seems to be in every neighborhood we live in. 

Sometimes I wonder, if I put a sign that says "We are hundreds of thousands of $ in debt" on the door, will people stop knocking and giving us a hard time about not donating to their bizarre programs? Probably not.

We had potato and corn soup from the slow cooker for dinner (I didn't take a picture, but it was very, well beige anyway, not exactly appetizing in appearance.) Tasted great though.

This week I'm on nights in the Intensive Care Unit starting tomorrow, which means 5:30 PM to 6:30 AM, and I have to try to sleep during the day. I'm up typing even though John's already asleep in an attempt to shift my clock a little, but I think it's just going to be rough. 

Also I'm going to try to register my car tomorrow so wish me luck as I have to brave the DMV. 

Vacation

This past week I've been on vacation. Although I've only been a Resident for 2 months, I was pretty ready for a break and it was an amazing week. We went to Oregon and Washington for a reunion with friends and got to see my family as well. Unfortunately taking a break this early means I have no other breaks until New Year's. Still, worth it.

A huge thanks to all my friends and family for making my break so great.

Oregon is my homeland and while I'm getting used to my new life in the New Mexican landscape, coming home to so much beauty and friends and family makes it really hard to come back. 

We hiked in the Columbia Gorge, went swimming in waterfalls, went to Downtown Portland, over to Seaside, and spent a lot of time being together and enjoying our time. 

We went blackberry picking and made some homemade pie.

Lunchtime at the Brewery in Seaside.

Lackamas Lake

I jumped in and it was pretty icy.

Line around the corner for ice cream.

John made this photoset about a Pop Tart ice cream sandwich that they tried. Is this something people like?

The perfect overcast Oregon Coast.

Miss you all so much!

Now I'm back in Albuquerque. John and I have really been trying to enjoy the weekend and while we've been getting ready for the week, we're also trying to pretend it's still vacation. Yesterday we went to this used bookstore in Downtown. There were books everywhere. It was awesome.

Work starts again tomorrow and on Tuesday I transition from clinic to the pediatric intensive care unit. 

For the moment though, my dog Luna is sitting here with me, John is still asleep and I have one last vacation day ahead of me.

Photo Credits in this post: Eric & Arisa Conwell, John

Settled In

The Children's Hospital.

We moved here to Albuquerque over a month ago and I think it's because of the long work days that it feels like even longer. I'm now a Pediatric Resident and John got a job as a Structural Engineer at a firm here in town.

All the free time of the fourth year of medical school is long gone and being a Resident is starting to feel real.

For my first rotation I worked on the Hematology-Oncology service and it's hard to believe that month is already behind me. It was a busy month full of all kinds of new challenges of learning the new hospital and being tested emotionally as I figured out my new role and dealt with lots of remarkable kids with cancer and blood disorders.

The schedule of the month was pretty great in that I had all but one of my weekends off. This let me spend plenty of time with John and getting finished settling in here. The weekday hours were pretty typical for inpatient, usually from 6:30 AM - 5:30 or 6 PM every day. I had great senior residents who did their best to make sure we got out on time or early.

During the month we got a chance to explore the area, and we made an addition to our family:

This is Luna!

We adopted her from the shelter here and she's about 2.5 years old. She's already house trained and we've had no trouble with her chewing things up - it's been a remarkably easy transition. She does like to pull John's socks out of his drawer and carry them around. We'll find them in the oddest places.

Albuquerque is a very dog friendly place so we often take her with us when we go out and walks/hikes are her favorite thing in the world.

Satellite Coffee is the local favorite coffee shop. On the day before my first real day in the hospital we went. I was nervous and cracked open the hematology-oncology section of one of my books. It's much easier to study in the context of the real patients I see, but the outing did help. Maybe it was the coffee.

We also had a great time checking out the local baseball park with some of John's coworkers. The Isotopes are a AAA team that feeds into the Dodgers. I'm not that big a fan of baseball as sports go, but it's fun to go and hang out in the local community. 

Some nights of the week they have concerts at the Botanical Garden or Zoo. We went to one with Max Gomez and had a great walk around the garden. 

In other news, I have portable access to all my internet needs because John won me an iPad Mini in a raffle:

He came home from a conference and told me he got me a little present. I assumed it was a hot air balloon trinket or something because that's where his conference was held. He then wrapped it up, hid it and I had to find it. All the buildup was worth it because it's been really useful. I use it at works to look up labs etc. while we're rounding and of course it's great for blog reading, note taking and playing games. (I'm so stuck on Level 135 of Candy Crush Saga).

Now for this month I'm working in the Urgent Care. There's a rare Saturday shift and sometimes late clinic until 7:30 instead of 5 PM, but I have most weekends and don't start until 8 instead of 6:30 like last month. Since I cross-covered nights last weekend yesterday was my first real day off in 12 days - that certainly won't be nearly the longest stretch in the years to come, but I was ashamed to find how tired I got and Saturday came like such a blessing.

We went hiking in the Sandias yesterday and it was beautiful. We've been wanting to go all month but it's been closed because of fire danger. We finally had some crazy rain storms so they opened it up. There's an amazing view of the whole city. Of course Luna loved it.

We've also been meeting new people and trying to find a church. It's been a transition for us both professionally and geographically, so the settling in still feels ongoing. 

Thanks for reading such a long update post. I big "We Miss You" to those of you we moved away from.

Know anything about Albuquerque? I'd love to hear about your experiences or ideas.

Welcome Home

Since graduation at the end of May, it's been a busy couple of weeks. We spent a little time saying goodbye in Loma Linda, and then packed up a big truck and said farewell to my hometown of the past four years.

We made the trek New Mexico, a drive we did in two days with a stop in Flagstaff, AZ with some invaluable help from John's mom. 

Then after one day of unpacking, I hopped on a plane to Oregon to see my last sister graduate from high school. She was a valedictorian and she's headed far away to the East Coast for college in the fall, and I'm very proud of her. 

EEEE congratulations Nicola!

We went on a gorgeous hometown run.

My sisters are way faster than me. 

The view from the house.

And Mom made vegan waffles. She's the best, thanks Mom. 

Following my weekend trip to Oregon, I returned to my new house in New Mexico and kept getting settled in. John's job started last week already, but I had a few extra days, so I'm finally feeling unpacked and ready to start work. I think I've had enough free time, I'm glad orientation starts tomorrow. 

Our house is a little older, but it's nice and I think we're going to be happy here. 

It hasn't been entirely flawless though. One of my first days here I was shaving my legs with a toe on the little soap ledge attached to the side of the shower. (Ladies know what I'm talking about, when I tried to describe the situation to John he didn't understand me.) Anyway I was not being forceful with it, but all of a sudden in the middle of my shower, the ledge along with all the surrounding tiles tumbled off of the wall and into the tub. The property management company is being good about fixing it, they're just replacing all the tile, so there's a guy named Ernesto and a lot of crazy hammering and crashing going on in my bathroom right now.

A run I took recently here. Those are the Sandia mountains and this is a long running/bike trail that's near our house. 

It's hard to know what's in store in the next three years (minimum) here, but I'm enjoying it one day at a time.

I'm an M.D.!

The past four years have been great and crazy and I feel so blessed to have now graduated with my M.D.

I'm so grateful to everyone who's been there with me the whole time, for 12 years as I've been dreaming about this and going to school and figuring out who I am. I never would have landed here without you all. 

I started this blog during my second year of medical school and it has been a great resource to me to use another part of my brain, learn from others and create a record of this great time in my life. 

I'm looking forward to continuing as I go through my residency in Pediatrics.

I've just moved to New Mexico, so more on that later. We were without internet for our first week in this new place so I'm enjoying finally feeling settled.

And to all my friends now moving into other parts of the country, I MISS you, but you're doing great and I'm so proud of you.