anomalous origin of the coronary arteries

I finally started rotations. I'm in the Emergency Room and so far I have felt like I know absolutely nothing. Yesterday, I diagnosed a patient correctly and my attending replied with "well even a blind squirrel finds an acorn sometimes..." I think that pretty much sums up my experience thus far. I am starting to get the hang of it more and more though. I have learned to clean and dress a wound, suture, do a pelvic and swab for the clap, glue a little kids cut together, do a rectal exam, a rapid strep test, even did compressions during a real life code blue. Last night was the coolest night in the ED thus far for me though. I had a pt with a piece of his fathers day steak stuck in his esophagus which we had to retrieve, a pt with a massive collapsed lung that we had to do a chest tube for, a pt with a severely dislocated elbow that we had to set, and a little kid with a salter II fracture that I diagnosed from the xray (boo-yah). This last tid bit was particularly sweet seeing as the attending who called me a squirrel had incorrectly named it a salter III.... This attending is a rock star though. He really does know everything about everything and I am hoping his relentless teasing means that on some level he thinks I am worthwhile. If only I had known that when a new born is crying and sweaty you have to worry about anomalous coronary arteries...blast.  Here's to 6 more weeks in the ED!

Back from the dead....

Whoa, it has been a looonnggg time. I blame two things, PA school and neuropathy caused by PA school. But, yesterday I took my core comp exam which was a cumulative exam covering everything we had learned this year. Considering that we sat in class like 8-6 everyday and took 91 exams leading up to this one it was pretty daunting to even think about trying to prepare and pass. So in my true PA school fashion, I put it off and did as little as I possible could and prayed things would work out. Luckily, I did pass and now I have successfully survived my first year of PA school. It was the most grueling year of my life and I feel like it is hard for anyone who knows me to really understand how grueling it actually was, except for Nate who was here for every meltdown and fiasco. But somehow I made it. There were many times when I seriously questioned my decision to go to PA school and wished I had chosen medschool instead just because Nate's med program compared to mine was a freakin piece of cake, even he will tell you that. But, in the end I think I am glad that I chose this and hopefully I will be really happy with it once I graduate. Now that I am done with my first year my life already feels so much more balanced and I can't wait for my 2 week trip to puerto rico with my family. Congrats to all my fellow classmates who survived this year. I feel like we went into battle together and though broken and bruised somehow made it out alive!

8 Votes

Primary season kicked off last night with the always interesting Iowa caucus. During this campaign season so far, I had completely written off the chance of Mitt winning the Iowa caucus. You see, last time around Mitt spent a LOT of money and time campaigning in the state, visited all 99 counties, had his sons driving around the state for months in the Mitt bus and the state of Iowa shafted him for Huckabee at the last second. So depressing. So this year I was expecting the same kind of ridiculous shenanigans out of the Hawkeye state. Mitt and his campaign must have agreed, because he opted out of the straw poll and spent very little time and money in the state.

Naturally, I was shocked last week when the poll numbers coming out of Iowa began to change. Gingrich dropped and Mitt moved into a very tight lead with Ron Paul, Santorum, and Gingrich close on his heels. Still, I didn't hope. I have tasted the bitter disappointment that comes with getting your hopes up with these kinds of things and I was trying to have a healthy level of skepticism for self preservations sake.

Caucuses began at about 8:00 last night in Iowa so of course I started tuning in to live results online at about 8:00. They had predicted that a winner would be announced at around 10pm but ten came and went and there was only about half of precincts reporting. All night, hour after hour, Mitt and Santorum were in a dead heat. 30 votes here, 15 votes there...it was painful to say the least. At one point Mitt was leading by 1 vote with 98 percent reporting! So ridiculous!

After Nate and I had spent so many hours watching and waiting for the results, we felt like we couldn't give in and go to bed so we ended up staying up for the long haul. Finally, at 2:30 a.m. it was made official that Mitt had won by a margin of 8 votes. 8 votes! Closest caucus in Iowa history. It really does go to show you that every single vote counts and every vote is important.

I am so happy for Mitt and his family. He looked like a happy little boy in his closing remarks last night and he had a right to be extremely happy. He too had written Iowa off and even though the results were 30,015 to 30,007 a victory is a victory and Mitt came out the winner.

Even though the mainstream media is and will continue to tout Santorum as the victor because of his meager budget and come from behind finish, his performance was no more impressive than Mitt's was. Mitt took a very evangelical state which is no easy feat for a member of the LDS faith.

Aw.....such sweet, sweet vindication. Four years in coming, but still..oh so sweet.

On to New Hampshire!

Urban Tree Adventures

Since I left home in 2005 I have never had my own Christmas tree. College, and lack of funds always seemed to interfere. Well, this year I decided that despite our lack of funds and CrAzY school schedule, that we were going to have a tree, no matter what. Of course I wanted a real tree and luckily they sell them at the Christmas Village over by city hall. So on a Saturday morning Nate and I trekked to city hall and picked out the perfect tree. I went into it expecting to get a smallish pine tree (because I saw some that size there last year) but this year they only had one size, BIG. But none the less, we found our perfect guy after a lot of eyeballing, testing branch strength and yes even smelling.

Once we selected him we had to start the 1 mile journey back to our apartment with a seven foot tree. We each grabbed and end, turned it horizontally and began the llooonnnggg walk. We got lots of funny looks as we were carrying a giant tree down the busiest street in Philly but we also got lots of "oooh and ahhs" from little kids which made it worth it :). After six blocks my arms and back were dying and my pants and hands were sticky with sap but we made it. Next we had to head to Kmart to get a tree stand, lights, saw and a few accessories. We were trying to do everything on cheap so we bought some simple plum colored bulbs and glittery icicles and decided to craft the rest of the ornaments.

Once at home we set about getting our tree trunk sawed off and getting him in the tree stand. I think this was the most tense moment of our marriage thus far haha. After about two hours our tree was still no where near straight, my little hands were aching from turning those stupid screws and we were both extremely frustrated. So we gave up on it for the day. The next afternoon, I realized that we needed to saw off some of the lower branches so that it could sit more stable in the stand. Once we had that done, it was much, much easier and only took about an hour.

Next came the lights and then we started to try our hand at crafting. I really own no crafting supplies but I did have some left over felt and origami paper that I had bought for a primary activity so that is what we decided to use. We made about 16 felt ornaments. I did the cutting and Nate did the sewing so that he could practice his suture skills.

Then we started folding origami stars which we first had to learn to make from an internet tutorial. Not as easy as I thought it would be but it turned out alright in the end.


Then we had to make a star for the top using some cardboard and gold spray paint we had hanging around. Then came the best part, decorating it! We were/are so proud of how are little tree turned out.

We spend most of our time in the family room so that we can gawk at it. It has made this month of tests so much more bearable and filled our little decoration-less apartment with Christmas Cheer! Nate and I have both commented that we have NEVER listened to so much Christmas music in our entire lives. I can't wait until next year when I will have a little bit more time and money to add some new craftlings to our tree.

Splashes are REAL!?

Picture a scene in a movie, a romantic comedy for instance. A girl is walking down the sidewalk in the pouring rain carrying a pan of scaulding hot baked goods in one hand and attempting to wrangle an umbrella in the other. She is slightly frazzled and wondering if this walk in the rain is really going to be worth it. As she approaches the corner to wait for her chance to cross the street she sees an SUV hauling down the road. She realizes what is happening but it is too late. A wall of water hits her and drenches her from head to toe. She has to take off her glasses because she can no longer see through them due to the dirty street water plastered on the lenses. She desperately blows air out of her mouth just to try to to rid her face, nose and mouth of the nasty water. We have all seen it before...



You see, until last night I thought this only happened in the movies. In Idaho we never get enough rain to set up this kind of scenario. But yesterday it rained for like 24 hours straight and I ventured out in it to go to a party. Scalding hot pan of lemon bars in one hand, umbrella in the other. You know the rest.... I almost turned around at that point. I stood there on the street corner for a good minute totally in shock. An old black woman saw the whole thing happen and barely avoided it herself. She stood there with me for that minute or so muttering things like "so inconsiderate, peoples don't even pay attention! Oh my goodness". Since my hands were totally full, I didn't even get a chance to wipe the water out of my eyes and face for 6 more blocks.

Moral of this story, This CAN happen to you, consider yourself warned...