Look who's coming to see me! All the way from California. It's the Hot Air Balloon Festival starting this weekend and Becky's coming to visit.
I'm so excited.
Also it's work Day #9 in a row, and I finally get a day off tomorrow. I have to work the weekend, but at least I get Friday with my friend. I've definitely worked longer stretches, but I'm really ready for the break.
And...I still haven't written the post about the gym. Sometime soonish.
Every month on the first of the month I think, "Oh I should write a post, start the month off right."
So, Happy October!
I'm so excited it's Fall, it's my birthday month, the holidays aren't that far away and that is all great.
This isn't a real post technically.
Just a "Hi, happy October!" post.
And here's a picture of me at the gym this morning - teaser for my post about my current fitness quasi-plans/goals and how I recently joined a gym for which I actually pay for the first time in my life.
An alternative title for this post: I got peed on twice today.
Both of the babies we circumcised today peed on me. It's like they knew.
This weekend is one of those residency ones where you just work both days of the weekend and you get the blessing of a weekday off instead and you take it and enjoy your business hours and don't complain about not having part of your weekend off because this is life and it's beautiful the work that I get to do.
I'm in a sentimental mood.
Maybe it's because it's super late at night - I'm not sure why I'm not asleep. I didn't have any caffeine today so I can't explain it but I tried to sleep and I couldn't. I don't like to stay in bed when John's sleeping and I'm not because I worry that my awake-ness disturbs his rest so I tend to get up and read or get sucked into a YouTube hole for 3 hours at a time or whatever until I'm tired.
This evening I rewatched this from about 4 years ago. It's a documentary about students at my medical school from when I was a first year. I'm not really in it but lots of my friends are and I felt like it was a good reminder of how hard I've worked to get here. It made me more thankful.
I highly recommend it for pre-med students - it's not too long and an honest look at what it's like.
Anyway, because I'm working this weekend, I got Friday off this week and I wanted to share how I spent a regular day off:
1. I ate breakfast. Okay. Not new.
2. I stood in line at the Apple store on release day. I know, like a crazy. I shattered the screen on my 4S with one too many clumsy flights through the air and it really stopped working a couple days ago, so it was perfect timing.
The fingerprint scanner works just like it's supposed to and I love it. I think the new operating system is gorgeous, but all you have to do is upgrade your current iphone for that.
3. After a fair amount of shopping around and price comparison, I joined a gym. A separate post on that coming up.
4. I took our fur child to the dog park. Albuquerque has a fair number of these that are fenced so Luna can be off leash, get some exercise and hang out with some other dogs.
5. I did some studying. I just want to say that not because it's interesting but because I don't want anyone to think I'm having too much fun in residency.
6. I figured out who to give some of my loan paperwork to. This may seem like a silly task, but it was stressing me out and with as much debt as I have, really anything to do with my loans freaks me out.
7. I watched Maid in Manhattan. J-Lo at her most mushy-romantical. Exactly as I remembered it.
And today I went back to work in the Newborn Nursery. Healthy babies make me happy and I feel like it's work I can love. PICU was getting kind of dark there and I think I was really ready for this switch. After our last couple deaths I just wasn't feeling excited about work, so it's been really affirming to go to a different service this week and be reminded that PICU isn't everyone's life's work but I do still like this whole medicine thing.
Since last post I've made it through the transition back to days and made it another 10 days in the PICU. I only have one week left before it's off to the healthy babies in the Newborn Nursery - a population of significantly less sick patients. I'm not really in a rush to switch, as I feel like I've just now gotten a better grasp on the flow of the PICU but that's the way it always is. We switch every month, often with a week of nights somewhere in there, so it feels like constant transition. It really used to stress me out when I first started doing clinical rotations, and I still get a little nervous about starting something I've never done before, but I think we get used to being in flux.
Meanwhile, I've been trying to figure out my life outside of work. Some days it feels like I have too much time and not enough planned and other days I can barely get everything done.
This is my list of things I would do in an ideal day with plenty of time (besides work, as that is a given):
1. Exercise
Neon Run Shoes
2. Spend time with John
Oregon Coast August
3. Spend time with other friends
Miss you!
4. Study
Oh wait, study medicine. I should have specified.
5. Cook dinner/eat
A recent meal from recipes in Appetite for Reduction: Blackened tofu, butternut squash coconut rice, lemon green beans
6. Go out to a community event or volunteer or some outside-of-work commitment
Isotopes game here in Albuquerque
7. Walk Luna
Looking pretty scruffy on the day we brought her home.
The problem is, while some of these can be combined, it's really hard to fit them all in every day. At least, I haven't been able to with the natural flow of time. I think it would take a lot more advance planning. I think I didn't notice it so much in the months before residency because I had plenty of time off to do other activities so days when I worked all day there wasn't any pressure to fit in lots of other things. Now though, it's really work - I get 1 day off per week and that's not enough time to feel like I have a life outside work if I never do anything but stay home on weekdays.
So this is my challenge right now, to figure out how to fit everything I want into my life.
I guess maybe that's everyone's challenge. How do YOU do it?
Happy Birthday husband! We just celebrated our one year anniversary at the beginning of last month and my life keeps getting better because of him.
I felt really guilty because coming off of night shifts (I'm done yay!) meant I slept through most of his birthday, much as I wanted to stay awake and make his day awesome. Fortunately, he's remarkably considerate and also good at enjoying time alone, so he claims it was still a good birthday. That doesn't keep me from hoping I'm working day shifts next year though.
Before I passed out though, we went out to breakfast. The place I originally picked to take him was surprisingly closed for all of Labor Day weekend, but we did get to walk around the grower's market. I tasted this red chile jam that was amazing. P.S. everything in new mexico has chiles in it. Everything. Like burgers, pizza, chocolate, everything.
So after a quick walk around the market we went to the Grove Cafe. I got oatmeal and he got pancakes that were actually crepes. And my coffee was decaf because I was about to go home and sleep.
After we got home at about 9 I fell asleep. Although I woke up to have some lunch, I then went back to sleep at like 2 and slept until it was time to go to dinner at 7.
What does an omnivore who's married to a vegan want to eat on his birthday?
Steak of course.
We went to Marcello's, which is a nice chophouse in Uptown. He got the Chef Special Manhattan steak. Look how happy he looks. A man and his meat.
And here's another question:
What does a vegan eat at a chophouse?
I'll tell you, I ended up too full. I order the Chopped salad, no cheese no meat, a baked potato without the toppings, and the seasonal vegetables made without butter.
Sorry for the low light. Everything was amazing. I put the veggies with the potato and the salad was really good. It had pine nuts and kalamata olives in with your standard salad ingredients.
After that we came home, watched some TV, hung out with our fur baby and enjoyed some time together after this week of only seeing each other for 20 mins a day between me coming home and him leaving.
Happy Birthday Husband! I'm blessed to have you.
Also happy September and Vegan Month of Food! Get excited, it's going to be a great month.
It is 2.5 hours to the end of my shift. The respiratory kid we just got from the floor is comfy and the kid who jumped out a window is looking surprisingly good, so I'm keeping an eye out for the dictation I did a few hours ago - hoping it'll come in before I go home and sleep. If it doesn't I can edit from home when it pops up. The problem is that the day team may want the story earlier and may then listen to my dictation instead of waiting to read it.
"the patient. Um. Physical exam. Um. Bleeding. Um. Oh wait. Go back. What comes next? Labs? I dont even know what we're doing for this kid. *long pause* oxygen."
Suffice it to say it's an embarrassing proposition having my colleagues listen to me stumble over the words of the medical history.
So here's some work sharing for you all:
The workroom. That tiny couch I love so much is there in the back. We don't really hang out here most of the time always, depending on our work. Sometimes it's much more efficient to sit out on the unit.
The coffee maker. Lifesaver.
The breakfast I'm looking forward to. Cereal with peach and strawberries.
The view of the medical campus as I walked home yesterday. My senior was really nice and sent me home an hour early so I made the journey before the sun came up. I thought I would get to see a little more of John but really it meant that I passed out early on the couch and woke up to him taking a picture of me.
And here's me right before I came to work tonight. Luna of course wanted to come over and not be left out. Sweet scrubs right? I did find one of the machines that lets you pick different top and bottom sizes so they fit me slightly better now. I know that pictures kind of distant, you can thank our weird propped up bedroom mirror for that. I'm not complaining though cause it really takes off the pounds.
The sun had just finished rising when I was walking home this morning.
I put on some music and walked home quick so I could see John for my 20-30 mins for the day. It was pretty out and still cool.
I was totally starving and grabbed a big bowl of cereal with peaches and strawberries and then I was completely passed out by 7:30 AM. I did a better job of day sleeping today and even though Luna did her best to wake me up, I managed to sleep until 2.
I think maybe that's enough sleep since I was able to nap overnight in the workroom for a couple hours.
If you're thinking, "Are those really big books or is that a really tiny couch?" The answer is it's a tiny couch. There's a call room with a bed but there's more than one of us residents on so one of us gets the couch in the workroom.
I'm an average height girl, so I can perfectly bend my knees over the armrest and it's a reasonably comfortable sleep for about 2 hours. Longer than that though and it's not really worth it. So if you add it all up, that's like 8 hours of sleep. A little broken up, but still I feel pretty okay.
Before going in tonight I had a big Asian salad with edamame, cabbage, lettuce, carrot, cucumber, cilantro.
Eating overnight is a whole other post. I never really know if I'm hungry or what but it's a good idea to have a meal at like 4 before I go because sometimes the work starts right away and we don't really have everything tucked in to eat dinner for a few hours.
Time to go put on some scrubs and get some coffee. Happy Wednesday!
