I'm A Radiologist!!

OHHHHH I am loving it.

I'm scared too. I started residency on July 1, and although it is a very, gradual, general introduction to being a radiology resident, I can see my future.

I am also freaking scared to death. There is so much I don't know, and in just a short month I will be doing junior call on my own. That means that plain films (x-rays of anything in the ER, like broken bones, chests after car accidents, nail gun incidents involving limbs, etc.) will be my responsibility to read in the evenings and overnight. That is incredibly frightening to me -- that it will be my job, without an attending physician checking on me, to literally make life and death decisions about what I'm seeing. What if I miss a broken bone? What if I miss a pneumothorax, something that could cause a relatively quick death?

There is a senior resident there if we need them. But we all know how that goes -- who wants to wake up their boss in the middle of the night? Not the best part of my job.

But other than being pretty scared, and realizing that the learning curve I need to ascend in the next month is the steepest I've ever known, I am so excited about learning all of this stuff. So far the program has been wonderful; they are being very kind to us, with no real call for a month, and my days are generally 8-4, with long lunches. The residents are so relaxed and happy. This is definitely the place for me.

B. is having a little bit of a tough time adjusting as I just spent the last 2 weeks spending about every free minute with him (except for the beautiful weekend that Scott and I got away to the lake house in PA, which was so so needed). But since my schedule is currently so awesome, it's a gradual introduction for him as well.

Trying to think of new developments...there are so many, and it's been a month which is like a regular person's year. He went to the dentist for the first time, and he was amazingly well-behaved. Opened his mouth super wide, kept it open for a full cleaning and polish. No cavities (and he got to sit in a banana chair).

His vocabulary now is insane. There is almost nothing he can't communicate to us. I was not prepared to have another person in the house with a nearly full understanding of everything that's spoken -- no make talking over his head for Scott and I. Right now he's very focused on discussing his emotions, telling us when he's sad or mad.

A few annoying traits are there too. For instance, I think his favorite phrase is "Go away." Basically if you say or do anything he doesn't like (and that is A LOT of stuff) he responds with a "Go away, mommy. Go away!!) He may repeat this phrase hundreds of times.

Posting pictures soon...today we're headed to the PA lake house for some 4th celebrating...and B's first fireworks which I'm expecting to make him pee his pants. Oh wait..he's already got that one covered.

Gots To Get My License

Posting will be a bit more sparse again as I have a ridiculously rough week of work followed by the need to prove myself via a 2-day medical licensing exam. That should be fun.

In the meanwhile, awesome dad S. will be partying it up with B. at the aquarium tomorrow so I can take a few practice tests and scare myself shitless regarding my abilities to actually pass said licensing exam.

I Admit It, I'm A Lame Ass

Just sitting around tonight after a long day of work thinking about what a loser I am for skipping out on my own graduation from intern year tonight. It's true, S. needed to get into the city and his mom couldn't take B. early in the day -- so I was needed at home.

I know if I would have planned it better S. could have re-arranged his class but I just didn't get around to doing it, just didn't have the time to plan everything out.

Now I'm texting my co-interns while they're out celebrating, sitting here in my sweatpants. I feel like a total lameass. And I feel like I'm insulting everyone I work with by not being there. Needing to stay home with B. is not really an excuse that flies in the medical community. Firstly, very few of my colleagues have young kids. It's kind of a no-no to have to ever cancel out on work or miss any event due to "family issues." It sucks, but that's just the way it is. Case in point, I have missed not one day of work this entire year due to a sick child/babysitting/snow day/whatever emergency. That's pretty impressive, considering B. has some type of daycare-borne illness about every other week or so. It's also pretty impressive that I work 6 days a week for a MINIMUM of 12 hours per day. It's meant that S. has had to pick up the slack when that kind of stuff happens.

It won't always be this way.

In awesomer news, I had a great night playing with B., running around the house, talking about all kinds of cool shit, and eating french fries. And then we fell asleep cuddling in my bed.

I definitely missed out on graduation, but for some reason, I didn't feel it for a second when B. was with me.

Days Begin

My last night float went out with a bang -- plenty of sick people, one guy that I can't believe made it through the night...and then I went straight to working on the floors. That's always fun. There's nothing like 24 hours of straight sick people to make you feel awesome!!

Actually I totally lucked out because my attending took some pity on me and let me out in the late morning. I wasn't quite sure how to take his enthusiasm upon seeing me after rounds this morning :"Jesus! What the hell happened to you last night? Get out of here, will you? Get some sleep!" but I took it, I took it all the way home to my big comfy bed.

Upon arriving I discovered my favorite new photographer, B. He's taken some real interest in using the camera. After a few avant-garde experiments, he took that picture of S. Really!

Not so looking forward to my two weeks of floors, but I'll survive, especially knowing that I'M DONE.

I Miss the Mornings

It's gorgeous out, just before 8am, and I'm just home from the hospital. The most exciting thing that happened overnight was a lady with an insulin pump that kept malfunctioning so I basically had to feed her sugar water and check a finger stick every 45 minutes. I swear, sometimes I feel like I'm doctoring in the wild freaking west with the amount of "ancillary services" that are available to me at night. Anyway, she survived and is someone else's problem today.

But what I mean is that I miss seeing B. first thing when he wakes up. He reminds me of me -- he looks REEEALLY sleepy in the mornings. S. will laugh when he reads this because he will rightly claim that he was always the one up with B. in the mornings, taking him for walks...but I was almost always the one who saw him first, because I fed him and got to look into his sleepy face.

Now he's 10 times as fun in the mornings. He's ready to play, ready to eat, and I get to see him again at this time now that I'm on nights. I'll miss that starting tomorrow, when I'm back on regular day floors schedule (BUT ONLY FOR TWO WEEKS AND THEN I'M DONE, I'M DONE, I'M DONE I'M SO EXCITED I COULD PEE MY PANTS RIGHT NOW). Um, not literally. But kind of!! I'm that excited!!!!!

So looking forward to this last morning with Jack for a little while...really only 2 weeks because then I have a little break before radiology residency starts. No one's up yet. I think I'll be sneaking upstairs soon to make a little noise. Yeah, I'm gonna wake my baby up, what?.

Oh, and by the way, those pretty pretty flowers are in my backyard. Crazy!

I Like Weekends

Whoah, three posts in a month, pretty exciting stuff.

It's recently come to my attention that this blog could have a greater purpose than just to post some pictures now and then for the grandparents and let everyone know I'm (basically) still alive.

S. and I are always whining about how we don't take enough pictures, don't document enough especially now that B. is around.

Then I realized, I have a great diary already set up. Let's be realistic, there are few visitors to this site and the ones that are here just come for a second and check out some pictures. This is really supposed to be a place for me to document what's going on with my life. And a bonus of it will be that I'll have some records of my days with Jack.

I never thought a day would come when I wouldn't remember such significant events as when he first laughed, or first time he called my mama. I have some vague remembrances, but I am in awe of those blogs which have day-by-day accounts of a life.

This sure beats my unicorn and heart-covered locked diary from 6th grade.

So in this spirit, let me talk about the weekend. Weekends on nights are crazy. I get home Saturday morning and try to fall asleep so I can wake up early enough to spend the day with the guys. Um, by the time I woke up (4pm) the boys had already visited a firehouse, a petting zoo, and eaten bagels at one of our breakfast spots. However, I was still in time to take B. to the Suffolk County Fair.

Not the country fair of my dreams, but I get to witness a remarkable event in any mom's life: her little one on rides by himself. It was hard for me; the little dude was just sitting there in a fake fire engine making small mechanical circles. Did I mention he was by himself? Neither of his parents had a hand on him? Adorable...and extremely frightening for this seriously over-protective parent. But, come on, he's barely over 2!! That seems early for rides by himself, right?? S. didn't think so, and B. was surprisingly happy to sit there on his own.

I'll try to post some pics, they're hilarious. He looks very disturbed by all the goings-on on this thing called a "ride" but screams like a maniac when we try to take him off. Just like his dad, he tends to over-think things a bit.

Quiet Sunday (woke up at 1pm) and we headed to Port Jefferson to walk by the water and eat burritos. B. had a blast climbing on the stone turtles and dolphin by the docks, claiming he was "driving" them. Damn it, I knew we should have left the 'burbs before he could speak.

I would finally like to document my son's blossoming emotional development. Last night as I lay in bed with him, preparing him to head into his room and his crib, with the sweet words "Okay, baby dude, it's time to go night-night," he responded with "Don't talk mommy. You're making me sad."

I have that effect on a lot of babies.

Seriously?

I just love this look on Jack's face when we want him to do something he considers, how shall we say, "unsavory." For example, in this case his poor dad was trying to get him to sit with the babies for a class picture. Um, B. would like everyone to know that he is a big boy now. Although, as S. discovered, if you refer to him as a "big dude" he will promptly reply with "Daddy, I not a big dude, I a baby dude" which totally brings the house down at the playground. The other dads love that routine.

Nights continue...done on Tuesday morning. Getting so close to the big dark room with pretty pictures!!!!

Still here...sort of

Alright, no excuses for the lameness of my posting. I'm busy. I work A LOT. Have I not made that clear? Extra time = for B. and S. But I see light...end of tunnel approaching.

I'm on nights right now, it's a love/hate thing. It's a bit more relaxing, but at the same time it is punctuated by moments of sheer adrenaline rush. I tried to take some notes on what I did in the course of an average quiet night covering 60+ patients on my own at night and I'll try to post a brief summary so that my other doctor friends (especially those gearing up to start their intern years) can kind of see what it's like, what you deal with on a typical night.

But for now, here are some pictures of a baby who is really kind of a little boy.

And then the MICU happened

Yeah, it sucked. It kicked my ass. But I survived...there's really no need here to recount the misery and pain. It's just a lot (A LOT) of hours with bad things happening to what are probably really good people but you never get to know because most of the time they're pretty out of it. I've moved on...

to the VA! A slower pace, but a facility with its own inherent difficulties. Like, getting a cardiac troponin actually drawn within 3 hours of requesting it can be an insurmountable task. Generally I just wander around with a butterfly and collect all the blood I can on my own. Then I go down to the lab and run the CBC, Chem 8...then I build an elevator and ride back upstairs. Okay, I kid...kind of.

I am feeling the definite pain of being SO close to done with intern year but so far...one more week of VA, one and 1/2 months on the general medicine floors, then a dreaded months of nights...and then done! Off to radiology, to sit in the dark...and relax...and get home in time to see B every day!!!

On the home front, B. is freaking talking. I mean, talking. The other day he said "I want to go to the hospital and visit mommy, but I can't." Stop!!! Too much!! When I came home last night and kissed S., he piped up with "I want a hug too!" Two-way conversations are over in our house, we're realizing. It's crazy. I totally need to develop that "child is present" filter that somehow parents develop.

I'm also getting to the point in the year where I REEEALY miss my friends that I haven't seen in forever...Alisa, I want to know how the wedding plans are going...Ben and Joanna, I want to talk to you and hear how the babies are! And I want to see some pictures and compare horror stories from this year, and I want to visit!...Jenny, I'm sorry I missed you this weekend but I will come in again soon...Anna, I am so happy I got to spend that awesome day with you and can't wait to see you again...Cat, B. is still talking about Radek and how he shared his toys...Karen I bet the next time I see you it will be at Alisa's wedding, but maybe sooner???

Total Bitch Session

It's about that time of year when many interns get super pissed off, exhausted, and stressed. And I am no exception. I'm more than half-way done, and THANK GOD.

I mean, this is not a healthy way of life. After my 14th chest cold, I started to realize that maniacally washing my hands 40+ times a day just isn't enough -- I have no immune system left BECAUSE I AM SO STRESSED OUT. I don't eat enough, I probably take in about 40cc of fluid every 24 hours, my back is aching, I haven't exercised in 6 months...the list goes on.

Okay, I thought I was done but I have to bitch some more.

I mean, is this any way to treat people that are responsible for taking care of hundreds of patients (sometimes at one time, like for instance when I'm covering nights for the medical floor???) Let me tell you, I am not at my best on a good day when I've had 6 hours of sleep. Can you imagine making a crucial decision about someone's health after being awake and working in a high-stress environment at hour 23? Because that's me several times a month. You do not want me deciding on which antiarrhythmic to push on you at hour 23.

The hospital I'm at is part of the problem. We are under-staffed and disorganized. There is no way that I can take good care of 12 patients on a good day, 24 when I am by myself on a weekend. It's just not possible, no matter how much sleep I deprive myself of. Every morning I come in to 8 new patients, half of whom I will inevitably discharge that day, and it's stupid and exhausting. Like I said, poorly organized. I'd like to know what it's like at other hospitals -- I have a few friends that I'm in touch with that are in their intern year of medicine, but not many. Most of my friends were smart enough to enter other medical fields, or are at least are at excellent medicine programs. Me, I just have to get through this year before entering my happy, happy radiology program (which, don't get me wrong, will still be tough, but nothing like this torture).

Okay, I think I'm done. I've just had a really stressful couple of days. Sigh, back to the jungle tomorrow...

Reality Tastes Good

You know what? My kid loves McDonald's, or Big M as he calls it (which invariably sounds like BM, which invariably results in my laughing every time he asks to go there).

This is something I did not plan for, or expect. For god's sake, I used to pride myself on my ability to cook and eat healthy foods. I hadn't actually eaten fast food in OVER 15 YEARS before I was pregnant with B. And I'm not trying to sound like one of those annoying people you're afraid you'll run into at Whole Foods, but I did plan on only feeding B. primarily organic, homemade foods.

Let's just say my standards have slipped a leetle. For one thing, B. has been a small guy from about 6months on. We were at one point encouraged to just get ANYTHING slightly resembling a food-like substance into his mouth, and the fattier the better. My poor pediatrician was like "Give the kid a doughnut, already!" He was an underweight little dude, despite our best efforts.

So when I discovered that he would slam a nugget in 2 seconds flat, it was a happy day. At first. B.'s percentile changed gradually over the course of his first year, and he is now 10% for weight, which is a great improvement for him -- he's still a skinny dude, but partly because he's tall for his age.

But the kid remains addicted to BMs(ha, ha, snicker). And you know what? I'm over being worried about it. I do hope that gradually he will not be so attracted to the place, and that he'll want to eat what we're eating for dinner. Not that we're health nuts, either...we eat a variety of pretty much everything, meats, tofu, lots of vegetables.

But for now...Saturday Big M is something I can't stress over.

And okay, have any of you tried a Big M fry lately? THEY'RE F**ING DELICIOUS.

Almost one year ago...

We had a birthday party for B. who turned 1...and that means (oh my god) I now have an (almost) 2-year-old.

Sadly,my first thought was...I am so old.

And then I thought... second year was easier than the first. Baby-wise, that is.

I know why my first thought was about aging; it's because intern year has definitely aged me. There's no way around it: the long hours, the regular daily stress, the additional add-on stress of codes and emergencies, the no-eating thing. There are ways to do this better, and I'm slowly figuring them out. But today, I'm feeling the pain.

I'm also totally convinced that interning is turning me into a reeealy boring person. I literally have to struggle now to have a conversation with anyone outside of the hospital. I have no topics -- I haven't seen a movie or read a current book in forever (and I'm totally not counting my DailyLit subscriptions that I sneak read on my Blackberry during rounds).

For the next two weeks I'm on the renal team. That essentially means taking care of patients whose kidneys have failed and are now tied to an endless cycle of weekly dialysis with all of the medical problems that go along with it. I'm embarrassed to admit that I kind of like the renal team; I have fewer patients to deal with because they are so dang complicated, and we round early in the day so I have some time to actually like, take care of them. I am also somehow very attuned to the sadness of being a dialysis patient. There are some conditions where, I'll admit it, I cannot completely (okay, even moderately) empathize with the patient -- drug abusers come to mind, as well as smokers who are admitted for heart disease or COPD. I'm not proud of it, but I tend to have less patience for these situations. But I do feel pretty bad for anyone on dialysis, even if you were just a diabetic that couldn't put down the oreos and that's what caused the problem...because being tied to a dialysis schedule for the rest of your life, man, that just sucks.

So I will be tending to kidneys for a little bit, and celebrating B's two (two! amazing!) years in about a week. Hello, terrible twos...

Hopeful

Today was a pretty big day for the country -- and I'm sorry to report that I spent it lying on the couch in agony and running to the bathroom roughly every 8 minutes. Yep, it's that time of year for me again. I have no good idea why, but in Dec-Feb I become VERY susceptible to any tiny GI bug that's around.

And, with, um, working in a hospital and having a baby in daycare, that's a lot of bugs.

It's been pretty horrible, since SATURDAY, for god's sake. I'll lay off of the details for now so as not to ruin anyone else's happy Obama day. Let it suffice to say that Gatorade is my bestest friend.

I'm not too sick to be happy and thrilled about the start of a new era for our country with our new president. I feel so much better about the future, especially for B., and even the future of healthcare. Everyone in the field knows something major needs to change. People like to joke that one of the reasons I chose radiology is the big bucks, but I know that the system is broken -- we can't be reimbursing 10 times as much for an MRI than we do for a primary care doctor visit to deal with multiple and complicated medical issues like diabetes and hypertension.

Anyway, that's my daily soapbox, I have to get off now to visit the ladies' room. I just want to say one more time that I'm so happy and proud of our country today, and I'll be thinking of things that I can do to help get the US back on track.

Not exactly what we meant by the phrase "Use the big boy potty"

Ahh, kids...I can't even believe we're approaching the age where B. will be out of diapers. Not that we're super close, as you can see from the photographic evidence. Jack was SO excited to get a potty...we were so excited that he was excited! We thought, what a milestone!! No more diapers, soon...our boy is growing up!!

Until we realized that his new obsession with the mini-toilet has to do with the fact that when you remove the white insert and put it on a toddler-size head, it (apparently) greatly resembles a fireman's helmet.

?

Yeah, we were not convinced either, but B. loves to parade around with his "wheeooh wheeooh" hat. Classy.

In other news, I am kinda getting the hang of this intern/mama thing. (Kinda.) I am SO super fast now. As my wonderful med school friends (hi guys!! That was so much fun seeing you last night!! I super celebrated by finishing off the other bottle of wine and passing out on the couch and waking up just in time for rounds today!) know, I was bitching about having to show up to 24 patients to take care of all on my lonesome today. Well, I DOCTORED those patients, damn it...pre-rounded, rounded, wrote all of the notes, tucked everybody in, got the heart attack/broken hip lady taken care of...and got home by 3:30pm. And, oh, did I mention I found a little time to do some board review?

Yeah, I'm figuring this out.

Note to over-confident intern self: try to keep today's events in mind tomorrow night, when I am stuck in hospital for 17.5 hours, struggling to just get patient electrolytes replaced by 7pm.

Holiday Blur

It's been quite a rough few months...but we still managed to get together with family and have a brief holiday. We had to reschedule it for the 27th, but I have wonderful and accommodating mom and sister who didn't mind moving our Hanukkah/Christmas a few days so that I could see the look on B's face when he opened up the robot he was hoping for, and what he refers to as a "blue wheeoo wheeoo." (Translation: police car with siren).

It's even better to see the look on my mom's face. She doesn't get down here to see him much, as she's a busy working lady, but it's so nice to see them together. And now B. thinks that he has a grandma that lives on a boat, as she takes the ferry to get here and back, which is totally awesome. She's like a pirate grandma.

Anyway, much affection to everyone out there keeping in touch by reading the sparse updates here...I'm halfway through this crazy year, and keeping it together somehow.

It's oh so quiet...

Well, not really. I'm on nights again, and it's always a little bit busy. Mostly as soon as I walk in...that's when the patients like to go apeshit. It ranges from "um, doctor, this patient is bleeding from their tracheostomy. Like, a lot." to "I need an urgent order for lactulose sent up! This patient hasn't had a bowel movement in two days!!"

It's up to me to triage the above...and just try explaining to a covering night nurse that her poor constipated patient may not get that order for a little while, at least until I'm able to remove both of my blood-soaked hands off of bleeding guy's spurting trach...it's a delicate balance, this night float thing.

Plus, late hours like this invariably get me to thinking about why anyone is assessing constipation at 4am...oh wait, hold that thought. Getting a page.

I kid you not: real time page to let me know that a patient refused their senna tonight. And could I come down and do something about this travesty. FYI, senna is another med given for constipation. When asked why the patient is refused his senna, I was told "because he's having normal daily bowel movements." I can't make this stuff up. I'm thinking of asking the patient to cover for a few hours so the nurse can just get into his bed and sleep off whatever she's been smoking this evening, because she is clearly alert and oriented x 1 tonight.

oooh, another page. Hold on.

This one was to come up and correct an order written by an esteemed colleague, so that the patient could have their thyroid meds tonight.

Just a minute in the life...and meanwhile, Scott and B. are curled up resting in their beds...wish I could join them!

More pics

Reign of Terror

So yeah, I've been gone for a while. I mean, life was still going on in the way that intern year does...every week I'm marking off a little box to check my progress.

And all the while, as you can see, Jack grows into a little boy. I've been able to spend a remarkable amount of time with him, I mean, remarkable to me. I thought I'd never get to see him. But it's been okay; I'm making it work at the expense of sleep.

We've had some amazing Fall days, and each weekend we pretty much try to get to a different farmer's market to get yummy stuff and let Jack hang out in a wagon, his newfound favorite pastime.

He's such a little boy now. He's driving me crazy -- in every way possible. I'm crazy in love with him!!

But he's also driving me insane with his crazy almost-two-year-old antics. He's such a little tyrant...just try handing him the wrong juice box, or suggesting that he might want to put on a sweater. You will feel his wrath. We're also having this little problem with hitting. If there are any other moms out there that are experiencing this, let me know! He hits me! And his dad, but me mostly. And I mean, in the face. It's bad, I know. When he gets angry, he runs right over and tries to hit you as hard as he can. Now, he doesn't do this to anyone but his closest family members (um, and his most beloved daycare caretaker). But it's really making me a little stressed and sad and um, SO embarrassed to take him out in public!

So there's the good and the bad...I'm just hoping he grows out of this stage.

One Week Down...

and one more week of vacation to go. So I've managed to do some small things on this break (change doorknobs, unpack the guest bedroom, clean up the playroom) and some bigger things (play with B. at least 8 hours a day!)

It's going by way too fast. When I get back, I start on nights. In the ICU (that's Intensive Care Unit to you lucky readers who know nothing about such a thing, or who never watch Gray's). That's going to suck. And then I have two weeks of the Heme/Onc team (which is basically treating cancer patients). That's not going to be much fun either.

B. and I have had some fun at the nearby Ecology Center. He looks pretty danged excited to stick his head through that piggy. By the end of the day, I couldn't tear him away from those stupid cut-outs. Beware what you ask for, mama...

Out of retirement

Wow! I haven't posted in a month! Okay, so maybe the above picture will help. It shows what I was working with here in this new house. Gross, wall-to-wall green carpeting. And look at that overhead light!

So we've done a lot -- new hardwood, etc...but still so much more to go.

And it appears that apparently 100+ hours a week is here to stay for this year...so I'm doing little things when I can.

And I miss Bean! Now that I have a little vacation time (my last until June) I am trying to spend every minute with him. I was gone for so long, it took him a little bit of time to get used to me again. That was hard. He would get SUPER excited the second I walked in the door, and then a few minutes later would get suddenly angry and start acting out. It was pretty clear that he knew I'd be leaving him again, and he didn't know how long it would be until I'd be back.

So that has been a struggle so far this year. When I am able to be home and spend some time with him, he gets comfortable with that. Then I have to leave again and I worry that I'm damaging his sense of security. Thank god he has his dada, his bestest friend in the whole world. He is LOVING on Scott lately...it's pretty wonderful to see.

And just this past week, after a few days of being home with him, he totally broke my heart (in a nice way!) by looking up at us while we were jumping around on the bed with him and saying a new word :"Happy, Happy!"

Isn't that so cheesy? I love it.