In Which We Get Our First Sunburn of the Season

Ahh, behold the sun. 'Tis a beautiful thing. Today was church picnic day. Which means church outside, too. So now my shoulders are burnt, and my excuse is "I was in church" and I let all the old people and the babies have the spots in the shade. I shoulda volunteered for the choir today; they were in the gazebo.

Lunch was pretty good--brisket and chicken strips. This is yet another difference between Current Church and Old Church. Old Church, this would have been potluck. New Church, it's catered.

I'll share a little of what I found today:

Enjoy!

In Which We Learn that Easy Gifts Can be the Hardest

OK. Sometimes gift-giving is hard. Sometimes it's easy. And then there's the times when your gift set-up is SO perfect that you're stuck in the badlands.
Take for instance, the following (possibly) hypothetical situation. You're a knitter. Not a half-bad one, perhaps. And you're married to a knitter. A fantastic knitter. Like the kind of knitter who makes breathtaking shawls for his mother and yours for Mother's Day. (pretty cool, huh?) Now imagine that you've been married to said fabulous knitter for 6 years, 11 months, and 15 days. Done the math? That means our hypothetical knitter has 2 weeks and one day to come up with a fun, cool, funny 7th anniversary present. One that fits the theme of the year. You know..paper; cotton; leather; fruit & flowers; etc. 7th is copper and wool. Wool! How's that for a set up?! Only, that's where the problem comes in. The set-up is just too good. I can't buy him wool for his next project 'cause I don't know what he wants to knit next. And I can't very well ask him 'cause that would blow the whole surprise, wouldn't it? Hmm...dilema.

In Which Everything Turns Out OK After All

So, mom had surgery 2 weeks ago now. Everything went as planned. In fact, she has bounced back way better than I expected she would. Back home safe and sound; driving herself crazy with boredom since she can't go back to work yet....you know, the usual drill.
In knitting news, I've been knitting Jeanie (from Knitty) with some Cotton Fleece that I found hiding in the closet. Wonderful how sometimes the Stash Fairy smiles on you. On the other hand, there's this shawl that demands laceweight wool that keeps calling to me...the Mystery Shawl Siren is trhing to lure me in. Too bad my total cash on hand is $5 until payday. Don't think that'll get me a shawl's worth even on Knit Picks!
Also, new stitch markers from Birdy's Knits. Way cool. Camera not handy. Pics later, maybe.

In Which We See That Knowledge Can Be a Bad Thing

My sweet mom is having surgery tomorrow. I've cared for a lot of post-op patients. Most do just fine and go home in 3-4 days. But some don't. I've seen enough surgery patients go wrong in just about every way that you can imagine. And several ways that I couldn't imagine if I hadn't seen them. I'm just a little worried.
It doesn't help that she's having surgery at a teaching hospital. I'm worried about her being taken care of by residents. I know, that's silly. I'm a resident. But the more comfortable I am in my practice of medicine, the less comfortable I am with some of the other ways I see medicine practiced. If I had my way, I'd be at my mother's bedside at 5am every day to pounce on her early-morning resident to make sure she or he is doing things my way. But I can't. Because I have to be here making sure my first year residents are doing ok. Frustrating that work is getting in the way of my family responsibilities. Though in defense of work, they've been great aobut me skipping work. A week and a half ago, when mom got her cancer diagnosis, I left town in the middle of the day to be with her, and work just cancelled all my afternoon appointments for me. Now they're doing it for me again so I can sit with my father while mom's in surgery.
May God have mercy on our souls.

14 weeks, 6 days

Final countdown begins now. Less than 15 weeks to go until graduation. I know, I know. You're thinking I've already graduated. In fact, I have. Three times. This is the last one. I promise. Residency ends 30 June. Then I'll be finished with training. This one won't be nearly as big a celebration as the last one. We'll probably have a (small) party here at the house for friends and family. There's an official graduation dinner, but at $40 a head, turnout there will be limited to family, a few residents, and a few local docs. (Note: these plans have nothing to do with the way we residents want things done. It's the Way It's Always Been Done.) Ah, well. So it goes. 59 resident clinic half-days left.

Things I can't change but wish I could

This afternoon I had one of those patient experiences that makes me want to scream. I was the only provider in my team area this afternoon, so all walk-ins are automatically mine. The two patients we had walk in (show up wanting to be seen without an appointment) were assigned to me, so I would have seen them, anyway. One of them was a pregnant lady who is not doing well since she stopped her psych meds because of her pregnancy. Not such a hard visit, really, despite the tears. Yes, psych meds do carry some risk of harm to the fetus, but trying to grow inside a mom who wants to hurt herself isn't real healthy, either. So we re-started the psych meds, and I'll see her again next week and see how things are going.
The encounter that made me so upset was the 10-year-old Boy who presented with Aunt to be seen for "head injury." Not usually the sort of thing that one takes care of in the family doctor's office. Well, when I got a chance to go talk to Boy, Aunt wasn't even in the room with him. So the only story I got was from Boy. Apparently, Uncle had been driving Boy and Cousin home from school yesterday afternoon when he ran out of gas. He told the boys to start walking home, and he'd catch up with them after he got gas. Along the way, Boy and Cousin ran across some Hoodlums. Not especially hard to do in the neighborhood where Boy lives. Hoodlums were angry at Boy for something (noble) he had done earlier in the week, so one of them (age 9) hit him in the back of the head with a large stick. I asked Boy if he passed out, and his answer was "I didn't pass out completely--I was only out for a few minutes." He, predictably, had a headache after this incident, but Grandpa (with whom he lives) didn't have any medicine in the house, so his plan was "If it's still hurting you tomorrow, we'll take you in to see the doctor." Well, guess what. It still hurts. And when I went to check Boy's pupils, he wouldn't let me shine the light in one of his eyes. It hurt too bad. So right off, we have at least two bad markers: head trauma with loss of conciousness, and photosensitivity. I sent them off to the ER--do not stop, do not pass go, do not collect $200. I tried to explain this to Aunt, but I think she was so drunk she didn't catch much of it, so I made sure Boy understood what I needed him to do. I think he's the most responsible person in his life, anyway. When I explained to Aunt that Boy REALLY needed to go to the ER for a Cat scan of his brain, all she wanted to know was "can he get his flu shot?" Well, of course he can have his flu shot, but THAT'S BESIDE THE POINT!!!!!! I just hope they actually show up to the ER. I hope the ER takes him seriously. I hope some adult in his life grows up in a big hurry. I hope Boy doesn't end up like his dad.
Happy Thanksgiving.

One down, a million to go

Well, after all the procrastinating I've been doing lately, I finally finished something. No, not something important like my licensing application or the presentation I'm giving to the state SLP convention in March. My mom's pillow. But since I was supposed to give this to her for her birthday (August) and it's now November, I still think this counts as finishing something important. And I closed all my charts from a half-day of clinic in about an hour. Pretty cool, considering that today I had a third-year's clinic session that actually felt like a third-year's clinic session. For the last month or more, it seems like my clinic template has only been about half full. Not that I'm complaining, mind you......it's just that all those half-full days make me doubt myself. Does somebody Upstairs think I can't handle a full half-day? Or worse, do my patients not want to come see me? Arg. Self-doubt strikes again.
On a brighter note: plans for Thanksgiving. I'm so excited, I'm about to pop. I can't wait to have time off to spend with my family. This is the same anxious, I-can't-get-anything-done-for-wanting-to-be-somewhere-else feeling that I always got at the end of the semester in undergrad. Which is sort of inexplicable, as I haven't really been doing anything that strenuous. And it's not like I don't see my parents about twice a month, at least. Point is, I'm ready for the holiday to be here. Food, family, fun, shopping....what's not to love? And for once, I actually have ideas about what to get DH for xmas.
Happy hunting!