Feels like home

Dear Texas,

I'm confused. When I was planning on moving here, I was told that the weather is "different" down here. I was told there would be warmth. And sun. And plenty of Vitamin D. All in the dead of winter. I was told that it snowed once every 25 years or whatever. I was also told that the favourite weather expression in Texas goes something like: "If you don't like the weather in Texas, just wait. It will change". I was told oh-so many many things. Apparently, I was lied to.

Because it's cold here. Colder than Toronto actually. I should know. I'm checking. I didn't bring my Canadian winter coat with me to Texas because I thought it was "TEXAS". So all I have is a flimsy fall coat, which again, I was told, would be ALL I would ever need down here (aside from my t-shirts, tanks, shorts and flip-flops). I was ALSO told that if a cold front blew in, it would never last more than a couple of days. Imagine my surprise when it got cold down here. And then it got colder. And colder still. And then yesterday, it got so cold that it snowed.

At first, it was only a few flurries. Flurries that were making all the Texans run outside in glee. Flurries that didn't impress me much. But then, on my drive home, the flurries turned into heavy snowfall. With big snowflakes. It was almost a bloody blizzard. As in a CANADIAN-type snowfall. So I was impressed. So. I ask you.

What's up.

With that?

Hm? Did you lie to me Texas? I think you did! I feel betrayed and lied to. I think this is what's happened. I do. Either that or global warming is turning the north into the south and vice-versa. OR -- a rare possibility -- one tiny Canadian was able to will the universe and bring the cold down with her. Because she wanted it bad enough. Something is definitely awry though. Wouldn't you say? The possibility of a white Christmas waaaaay down here in Texas is actually good this year.

Again. I must ask.

What's up with that?

Needless to say. I don't care. Other than being completely and utterly confused, I am eh-okay. Because for me, it feels like home......eh?

Almost halfway done intern year

At the end of this month, I'll be halfway done my intern year of residency. In a way, that's a good thing because intern year is the worst and it's nice to get that over and done with. In another way, it's frightening because you can no longer use the "sorry I'm new, I didn't know" card. You're responsibilities quadruple from one day to the next and you're expected to do and know a lot more. Which means, I only have 6 more months to learn everything there is to know about Pediatrics.

Heh.

Here are some small practical lessons I've learned so far.

* Two is the worst age for a physical exam. Babies have no clue what you're doing to them and as long as you interact with them, they do great. Most kids older than 3 know and trust that you (or know and trust their parent) and understand that if you say "It won't hurt", then you will not hurt them. Kids around 2 years of age, however, are tough. You can't reason with them yet. They don't trust you. I can distract most of them up to the ear exam but that always seems to throw them over the edge. At that point, they think I'm about to kill them with the otoscope and they hate me. And they fight me. Which makes me have to ask the parents to help me hold them down. Which makes it all seem MUCH worse than it actually is...I have yet to find a good technique for looking into a 2 year old's ear. It's one of my goals actually. To perfect the two year old's exam.

* The Neonatal ICU is a crazy, crazy world. Thankfully, I am done with that world for the time being. I am now back in regular "clinic" Pediatrics which is more my cup of tea. The Neonatal ICU has a lot of sadness. Most Neonatologists seem to be able to ignore the sadness and focus on all the success stories (you know, all the premies who make it out of there and go home with their families and live happily ever after). Me? I seem to focus more on the negative and sad stories. The premies who didn't make it. The ones with the genetic syndromes and ambiguous genitalia...The ones who had a life threatening bowel infection and will never be able to eat again. The ones who will probably have cerebral palsy for the rest of their lives. They are abundant. And it's heartbreaking. Nobody thinks of this stuff when they are pregnant. For most parents, pregnancy is a happy time. They decorate nurseries and throw baby showers. They never consider the fact that something might be terribly wrong. And that KILLS me.

* Parents never ever want to hear "We don't know". Even if it's the truth. Most parents think doctors are all knowing and can solve and treat any medical ailment. This is simply not the truth. Medicine is not mystery solving. It is not black and white. It is confusing, complicated and no two cases are alike. If your child is sick and a doctor can actually tell you with confidence what has happened, this is good. But it is not necessarily what will happen every time. Many times, we have no clue what is going on. Many times, kids just get better. On their own. Many times, we have "theories" but we cannot prove those theories. Parents don't like that. No matter how you try to explain it. It's a very difficult part of what we do.

* Many parents also think all doctors know each other. And that all doctors should be responsible for each others' actions. If they came to the hospital a week ago and their child is now sick again, this may be your fault. I tend to accept this and let them vent on me, but at times, it can be difficult to be the punching bag. Especially when you really do have their child's best interest at heart.

* Kids are volatile. But they are also resilient. They can turn on you and go from "sick" to "dead" in 3 minutes. But at the same time, they can go from "almost dead" to "walking out the door" in a matter of weeks. It's like watching a miracle.

* I am SO glad I chose to practice Pediatrics. I didn't have it in me to deal with sick adults all day. Some people do (my husband being a good example). But I can't. I like the little guys. I like that most of them go home healed. I like how innocent they all are. I like how cute they are and how they can make you smile with their "isms" at 3am.

Anyhoo - that's all for me today. Must run to work. We have interview candidates coming to scope out our program today. I may blog about that later. I like it when they ask questions. It always weirds me out when candidates come to interview at our program and have ZERO questions about the way we do things. To me, it means either:

a) You're painfully shy (which is an endearing quality but one that may be a problem in the future).
b) You're not interested.
c) You don't care.

Have a great day everyone. It's Friday! Woohoo! (Even though I work all weekend).

13,000 hits

Wow.

My website has had 13,000 hits. I am truly amazed. February 24th will mark the one year anniversary of this site. Time flies, right? Thank you so much for your loyalty! Thank you for tuning in, for reading my words daily, for leaving your comments and opinions and for refreshing the page over and over again! I hope this blog has given you a little bit of entertainment and I thank you for sharing part of your day with me. I hope you will continue this tradition.

For New Year's 2010, I have several resolutions when it comes to this blog. I will share them over the next few years....For one, I only have like 17 more months to get on Oprah so I have to find creative ways to get her attention!!! Any thoughts?

Plus, for the one year anniversary of this blog (February 24th), I will aim to get to 17,000 hits on this blog. I think that's a decent goal, right? Two months to get another 4,000 hits? You with me? Yeah? So tell all your friends. Bring on the advertisement. Bring on the input!

Not to mention that 2010 will bring on more talk of Milestones Volume 2 (that won't be the name though) and the possible release too! Did I fail to mention that part? :)

So stay tuned! The best is yet to come. In the meantime, thank you (thank you!) for being a loyal reader of my blog.

Laughter

Okay. I'm a little pressed for time but I had to share this little incident with you. Actually, this incident is about 2 or 3 years old but it still brings tears of joy to my eyes (to quote Tropic Thunder, it makes my eyes rain). Remember in yesterday's blog post, how I mentioned something about my friends Andrea and M visiting me in Grenada? And how Andrea managed to "excite" one of the male beach dogs and he followed her around all afternoon? Well, that wasn't the only funny thing Andrea did that day. Actually, to give more background, we had taken a day trip to an island called Carriacou (you should google Carriacou on googleimages)..It's phenomenal. But I digress.

At one point, we were sitting outdoors at this restaurant that was on the beach....We were the only customers and I'm not even sure how or what happened exactly, but one minute Andrea was standing (like a normal person) and the next, she was showing us her best impression of how a tree falls to the ground after it's been axed. I mean, she just tipped over and fell flat on her face for no good reason. No arms to break her fall. No crumbling motion. Just one straight plank, taking a nose dive to the ground. Leaving me and M dumbfounded and confused. And then she oh-so-casually said, "Ow. That really hurt" and really meant it (because tears gathered in her sparking green eyes). And you MUST know that M and I tried REALLY hard to be the good best friends that we are. We tried to gather all our motherly instincts and be concerned for her. We tried to help her up and dust her off and put the Andrea pieces back together again. We tried. We really ddi.

But the truth is, we failed.

As soon as we realized she hadn't broken anything, one of us giggled. It was M. I blame M. But then I giggled. And then we laughed. And laughed. And laughed. And poor Andrea looked at us (still sitting on the ground) with her mouth half open, her arm reaching out, shocked that her best friends sucked so bad (recall that I also did what we call a Superman dive when we all went to Cancun and at that point, the laughter was directed towards me). It was one of those moments that goes down in our friendship history book. M and I laughed for about an hour. Maybe longer. Every time we thought we were done laughing, we'd start up again. Eyes tearing, stomach aching, snorting intermittently...It was classic. Poor Andrea went through stages of anger, then shock, then if-you-can't-beat-em-join-em-laughter, then anger again...telling us over and over how much she hated us (which made us laugh/cry even more). She even ended up taking pictures of us laughing our butts off. As evidence of what crappy friends we are.

So I give you Exhibits A (me laughing), B (M laughing) and C (her injury, status post crazy timberland fall).



It was the ugly, snorting, crying, drooling kind of laughter.



Like I'm telling you: she didn't even TRIP on something. Well, okay. Maybe she tripped on her own feet.



And maybe, just maybe, you had to be there. Or maybe this reminds you of a time when you had a crazy laughing moment with YOUR friends. Aren't those moments precious? Wanna tell me about it? :)

Trip down memory lane

If you've been around me (or heck, even talking to me lately), you'd probably know I'm itching for a vacation. I do get a week off at the end of December (yay!) but unfortunately, I wasn't able to fly anywhere so thankfully, my bestie is coming to see me and to rescue me from the mundaneness. Hm. Is that a word? I think so, right?

One of the worst parts of my intern year has been how little I've gotten to see my husband. We have gotten a day here and there together, but most of the time, one of us is post-call or one of us has some work commitment to adhere to so it really feels as though we haven't gotten to see each other in about 6 months. The reason being, he's an intern too (but in another program), and we wouldn't even have the slightest clue about how to coordinate our three days off per month together. By some stroke of luck though, it looks like we will have an entire weekend together in a couple of weeks. Our very first one. We plan on taking a little road trip and hibernating from the world.

So since I can't take a real trip with him right now, I decided to take a trip down memory lane for today's blog post. I've been glancing at old pictures and have becoming quite nostalgic of our time in the Caribbean. We really did enjoy ourselves when we were there, despite all our complaints about the lack of modern amenities and the stress of having to study for our board exams and whatnot.

First things first, our biggest "souvenir" from the two years we spent down in the Caribbean...I give you....*drumroll please*.... Miss Carrie Bean Hodges. Our pup. She's almost 3 now (yikes! That's 21 in doggie years). She was clearly a rescue, as you can see from this picture in which she is giving you the same pathetic puppy dog eyes she gave us. And we so love her. Never, in the history of dogs, has there been a weirder dog than Carrie but I can't imagine our life without her. She doesn't do normal doggie things. But she is so smart. She understands english, basically, to the point where you have to spell the word "walk" when she's around , otherwise, be prepared to take her for one!



One of our many mini-trips to the neighbouring islands. This picture was actually taken the weekend we got engaged. We took a small boat trip to a bunch of the islands around St. Vincent, saw some of the Grenadines and some places that I refer to as hidden treasures of our planet. The only problem with that weekend was that I was scared for my life because our boat was EXTREMELY small, rickety and was balanced by half-filled water jugs and kept threatening to tip over.... and my biggest fear in the world is to get eaten by sharks so you can see how uneasy I felt. Still. Just LOOK at the water behind us. You could see 50 feet right down to the bottom of the ocean where starfish would be cruising around. The water was SO warm.



Oh, the monkeys of Grenada. They were so much fun! All you had to do was walk to the edge of the forest (their home), wave a banana in the air and yell "Here Monkeys!" (okay, that last part was my personal touch) and before you knew it, something was tugging on your banana from behind you. There were SO beyond cute. So much fun. So friendly. And made for some of our best stories.



I miss our sunsets. This was the view from my balcony. (Ps. Hey LB, if you're reading this, got your email, LOVED the pictures and will write back soon! Promise!). LB was my roommate. We killed many interesting bugs together, watched many episodes of American television on our laptops and tried many times to be good and go for a "run" (but usually decided against it and stayed home and ate chocolate or something).



This is me on campus. I know. Not exactly your stereotypical med school, is it? Although, I have to admit, that "hill" you see me standing on, was a killer to walk up every day of the week. But then again, every school campus has a killer hill, doesn't it? I know my undergrad University did.



Another beautiful sunset. I have yet to see a sunset parallel the ones we witnessed in the Caribbean. Man, I am making myself sick here! Every night, you could look forward to it. The beautiful colours, the lovely breeze, the sound of weird bugs coming out to play...If you were on the beach, there would be stray dogs sitting on your lap (at least, that's what happened on my first date with my husband). When my besties Andrea and M came to visit me in Grenada, Andrea even managed to "excite" one of the male dogs. He basically stalked her for hours afterwards. Man, did my stomach ever hurt from laughing so much.... Good times...Good times...



And finally, it wouldn't be school in the Caribbean without its quirks. Stray cows on campus. Goats outside your home window. You know, that kind of thing. I miss it all!!!



And finally....our beach. Grand Anse beach. The most perfect beach in the world. It has totally spoiled me. I lived on this beach for 2 years. In our first term, Hurricane Ivan destroyed our dormitories so the school put us up in a resort (right on this beach). After that, I lived within a 2 minute walk to this beach.



One more. Just to make you (and myself) sick. Looks like a postcard, doesn't it?



Happy Monday everyone. I can't believe it's December tomorrow. How weird! In a way, time flies, doesn't it?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!! I'm still not used to having Thanksgiving so close to Christmas (Canadians celebrated thanksgiving over a month ago), but who cares? Today is a Holiday, I get to see family, I get to eat turkey (mmmmm, stuffing....mmmmm, cranberry sauce.....mmmmmm mashed potatoes....) and I get to be thankful for stuff! Speaking of which, how come southerners call stuffing "dressing"?

Some quick things I am thankful for:

* My family. All of them!
* My husband who got up at 3am in the morning to go to work.
* My best friends. Yesterday, we were able to have a 3 way phone conference call. A rare occasion but something I am SUPER thankful for.
* My health.
* My job.
* Everything really....There is SO much to be thankful for.

Sometimes we forget, don't we? What are some things you forget to be thankful for?

Well, I am also off to work now too. But I'm really hoping (*fingers crossed*) that I can get out at a decent time so I can enjoy Turkey day with the rest of country.

Ciao for now! :))

Office Space

Do you ever just have one of those days? I'm having one of those days. I can't explain it. I'm just....frustrated. To the point where it affected my sleep last night. To the point where I'm consumed by something that I should just be able to let go.

Have you seen the movie Office Space? If you haven't, you're missing out. I think it's an absolute classic. For anyone who has ever had a job (present or past) that they couldn't stand, or a co-worker they didn't understand or just had trouble getting out of bed in the mornings, it's a must-see. I used to work in a bank and it was definitely not the job for me. Watching Office Space, I cracked up right from the opening scene (when the main character sits in traffic) all the way to the end of the movie. It's the "funny because it's true" type of humour. I forgot but Jennifer Aniston plays in the movie too. Probably one of her best movie choices, honestly.

Anyway, there's this scene in Office Space, where the main character forgets to add a cover sheet to a "TPS" report he submitted. Thing is, he has three bosses at work so all three of his bosses approach him at different times and lecture him, in different ways, on his mishap. He finds it extremely annoying (rightfully so). He got the gist after the first lecture. I'm having a TPS report moment. Not necessarily with work or anything. Just with life. And I'm frustrated.

What do you do when you're having a "grrrr" moment you just can't let go of? How do you deal? What do you do? Do you meditate? Exercise? Sleep on it? I'm open to all kinds of advice here.

Anyway , here is the trailer for Office Space. It doesn't do the movie justice in my opinion. Love the part where they beat up the office printer though. Seriously. It's a classic.