eh

It's my second beginning to a new year in a different country. A few years ago it was spent in Malawi with friends and coworkers, and this year it was with a whole mess of Canadians. There were many smiles, much laughter, and great food! All-in-all good times.

just us

Neice and Bro Christmas Eve 2007

sunny side up

I am on vacation and it is beautiful. I love not waking up to an alarm, and then being able to go back to sleep after you finally have woken up. I'm like my own snooze when I'm rested - I wake up every nine minutes for about 10 seconds. :)
There is a lot of family here in this house. I count 10 family members in this very room at the moment.
I have eaten too much food
Laid around too much
Smiled and made small talk with way too many people
Exhausted my desire for sweets
Spent too many hours looking at my brothers new computer screen (it's huge)
Taken too many photos. (Is this possible?)
Laughed a lot... there's never too much of this
Ridden horses
Walked up mountains, and run down them
Driven on wild curvy roads
Seen the ocean
Played in the sand
Hugged a gazillion people
Smiled for photos
Tried to hide my gigantic cold sore to no avail
Played with dogs
I've had a good time - and it's only Christmas eve!
~nancy

Welcome to Ardmore, OK

My car made it! I've started to get used to the wiggle in the steering wheel. Anyway, I'm here for Internal Medicine/Preventive Health. I think I am going to learn tons! I'm already seeing my own patients! Today I saw a patient whose temperature had peaked at 107.7 - WOW. That was yesterday. Now she's feeling fine, well relatively fine. :) It sure is lonely here away from y'all... but I'm fixing to bury myself in learning the books to forget the pain.

clunk clunk wiggle wiggle

My steering wheel is wobbling now. I'm not very happy with it being like that. The pressure in my tires is equal. I hope that I can figure out what is wrong. :(

I'm a Farm Girl

I'm a farm girl, through and through. I've been craving some good 'ol farm time for weeks now. I was on call this weekend and on one of the many occasions that I was in the ER, I mentioned how it would be nice to ride a horse. The friendly ER nurse called up a friend of hers and today (tuesday) I was blessed. I thought it might be awkward - going to a farm to hang out with people I didn't know, but my craving overpowered my hesitance and I'm so glad it did. There is nothing like feeling the massive hunk of horse muscle under me tight and ready to run on my command, asking over and over again "Can we go now? Can we go now?" and then release him to fly down the pasture with pounding hooves and the wind whipping through my hair. Who knew that sweat combined with a little horse dirt could smell so good and be so inviting?

Big Guy and me October 9, 2007

rewind

I realize tonight as I sit in a strange town on a strange bed that I haven't slept in a place with no one around for a looong time. My two apartment-mates left for the weekend to go home and I'm here, on call, all weekend, by myself. Normally new places, meeting new people, and being alone don't affect me this way. I usually have the ability to buck up and be fine. But I'm sick of meeting new people and sick of never feeling like you measure up. Being a student, I seem to be always under pressure to perform, give the right answer, anticipate the next move. Can I go back to how my life used to be? Where it didn't matter that you didn't know what nerve is always sacrificed in a radical mastectomy. I miss those days.

Welcome to Holdrege, NE

I'm supposed to be on an OB/GYN rotation. I was at the office at 8am Monday morning to find that my doc was out all week, except Wednesday. Hm. So I ended up working with the PA and another doc. Learned a lot... about migraines, spinal problems, gastric feeding tubes, and wart removal! Today I saw my first lady patient that was there for lady things. Finally! But alas, it was only one. Tomorrow will be my first real day of OB/GYN! I'm getting nervous all over again!

On another note today I saw a duck. I saw a duck because I went on a walk out by a lake and it was beautiful. This duck had two little ducklings and they were so cute. They sure follow their mom wherever she goes with no hesitation. Funny how human children don't do that.

Sabbaths

I love Sabbath. A day of worship, reverence, time with friends, nature. I sure love it. It allows me to breathe after a long week. It makes me a happy person. What would I do without Sabbath?
Last weekend my brother and I went out with some friends to Consetoga lake where some went canoing, some fell out, and others sank the boat. Fun times. Logan the dog went with us too. He had a really good time and was real tempted to jump in the water like everyone else, but after we made fun of him for his notorious lack of swimming skills, he calmed down and didn't let the urge get him wet (and us, for that matter). Here are a few pictures

The Best of NC

As the sun rises


I'm back from my adventures in the south. I miss the southern hospitality and the fun people I worked and played with every day! Since NC I've been traumatized by quarterly exams, informed by peer presentations, humbled by exam results, and am now in Omaha doing a ER rotation. It's great! I was there for no more than 30 minutes before I saw my first stab wound! With air bubbling out of the side of the patients chest, my mouth was gaping open. Wow. Then I watched as they expertly slipped a chest tube in to drain the blood building up around the lungs. Wow. Wish I could have taken a picture to share, but alas. HIPPA.
Here are a few more pictures of NC. Just to finish out the trip!

My facility of learning


The office


My office! (for the first 2 weeks, then I got booted by the new partner ;)


Me and the Doc


The Papa of the PA program



Ode to cardio


Me and the priest - Messiah's Mansion Tours!



Another view from the office window - do you see why they are called the Smokey Mountains?


My first whitewater rafting experience took place in this raft



A map of pure fun



My NC mama!











High falls - I downclimbed that!


On top of high falls

more reasons why I like it here

Out by Chimney Rock





This one is for Shelli

nuke

Cardiology is pretty amazing. I love nuclear stress tests with imaging and the picture that it gives you of a heart! You can see heart wall motion as well as blood supply in color and 3D. Wow.

life in NC

I love this place. The rolling hills, the neverending trees, the abundance of green. Yesterday we went to the top of Mt. Pisgah and had dinner overlooking the whole valley, then drove around on Blue Ridge parkway to see the sights - various waterfalls, famous mountians (cold mountain being one of them) and rock formations, and potentially great hiking trails. We hiked for just a few minutes down to a waterfall down a trail that was surrounded by bushes, no, by a thicket, it's like it was cut out for us (ok, well, it was). I love the smokey mountians - and it's so easy to tell why they call them the smokies.

Hendersonville, NC

After about a 19 hour drive (I think it might have been more) I finally made it here. Praise God my car is still alive!

Park Rapids, MN

I love this place. I've been here for just over 24 hours now and I love it. Our cabin is just a hop-skip from the lake. The lake is clear, sun bright, jet ski fast, atmosphere relaxing. It's beautiful. This is the cabin that I'll be staying in for the next week.

NE Club

God really answers prayers. Let me tell you my story:
About a month ago I realized that the tags on my license plates were expired (Dec. 06) and wondered why no one had reminded me about it. After I realized there was no one else to blame but me (like I look at my license plates often), I thought that I would somehow miraculously be able to get to the DMV in Lincoln before it closed. I'm working an hour outside of town. I finally realized that I am never going to get off work soon enough to visit them in person, so I called the DMV myself last monday. When they pulled up my file they told me that I would have to pay for a whopping 2 years of registration as a penalty because I'd been driving it while it was expired. $92.36 :( Then they told me that the fine for having expired plates was $100. I told myself this must be pretty serious and decided to balance my checkbook and send them a check. But Thursday had come and I still hadn't sent for my license plate tags. I drove to Lincoln that night and parked in front of the US bank building downtown where I was attending a program sponsored by the pharmaceutical rep at the Nebraska Club (very nice place by the way). Great program, great food, great information, great contacts. I return to my car afterwards to notice a little pink envelope stuck underneath my windshield wiper.
Blast it.
I was confused. when you park downtown in the evening you don't have to put $ in the meters, right?!
$100 ticket
Blast it.
So I drove back to my apartment here in Lincoln and cried. Now not only did I owe the DMV $92.36 for new registration, I also owed the Lincoln police, or whatever $100 for a parking ticket. This would affect me negatively at any time, but especially this month when things aren't as liquid as I'd like.
This all happens the night before my last day at work. My preceptor was to evaluate me, I owed people money ($193.36), I had to pack up all my stuff and have it ready to come home, I was distraught. I prayed one of those prayers that a person feels guilty for - "God, I know it's my fault, but can you help me?" I slept 3 hours that night.
I was tired Friday. I think I fell asleep while we were in with a patient.
He gave me a good evaluation though, and everyone told me how wonderful I was (I love that)! Then as I was saying my goodbye's the doc pulls out an envelope and hands it to me. It was a check. God bless them. How did they know? Later when I opened it, it was more than enough to cover my ticket. God really does answer prayers, I am so thankful. Praise God!

p.s. how is it that after I had expired plates for 7.5 months already, I get a ticket no more than a week before I would have new stickers? Ironic? I think so.

hope you're not eating

Today we drained a cyst behind a guy's ear. When we cut into it all this pus came bursting out mixed with blood. It was about the size of a really large grape. So gross. Then we stuck this long q-tip with hydrogen peroxide and iodine on it into the huge hole (after squeezing it like a pimple) and cleaned it all out. After placing a piece of cloth-like flattened string half in and out (so as to let the wound drain) we put 4x4's over it and sent the guy home. Wow. I love my job.

Before and After

My friend Justin woke up swollen on the 4th of July. Not all over his body, thankfully, but his face was a little puffy. Here he is in the afternoon. If you know him, you can probably tell his face is a little larger than normal...the picture doesn't do him justice. Can you tell?

After fireworks and a little antihistamine. Doesn't he look better? (what happened to my eyes?)


On another note, I'm taking suggestions on what I could do for my two weeks of vacation. Any ideas?

Catch up from the 4th

stitches

Today in the office I took out stitches. There were about 17 of them from an ATV accident. He had a total of 52 stitches! But they weren't all ready to come out yet. This guy wasn't even a patient of ours, in fact, he was a drug rep! How about that.

On another note, it looks as though I'm going to have 2 weeks vacation coming up soon! Oh boy!

~nancy

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

life in the day

Monday
12:25am - set alarm, go to bed
5:50am - alarm goes off, snooze for 10 minutes
6:00 - jump in the shower before my roommate
6:10 - dry, pack, eat, iron
7am - leave for Friend
8am - the clinic opens, patients start streaming in
MORNING - Patients with hypertension, heart failure, diabetes, compression fractures, prosthetic mitral valves, depression, lacerations, ear infections
1:20 pm - Holy cow... it's that late already? I haven't eaten lunch. Run to car, find munchies.
AFTERNOON - see patient with dog bites, ingrown toenails, more hypertension, swallowed pennies, recurrent urinary tract infections, headaches, peripheral swelling, stitch removals, ulcerations on leg, wheezing, ovarian cancer. allergies, sinus infections.
5pm - whoa... we still have patients.
5:30 - finish up some paperwork
6pm - make soup for supper
6:30 - watch star trek (or something) with my supervising physician
7:30 - head outside for some fresh air, read some papers on lipid meds, make some phone calls
9 pm - feel sick, take shower and put on comfy clothes, crawl into bed, start entering my SPEED data from the patients that I saw today. Get distracted
10:20 - got blocked out of myspace. Does that happen? Apparently I'd been phished, and because of that... I'm blocked? Well, whatever. I need to go to bed. Tomorrow will be oh to early. nite nite

The Happy Couple

Vanessa and Chad - the Newlyweds



Isn't that a great getaway?

Missouri

Last weekend I went down to Missouri for a friends wedding. It was an amazing weekend! It was sooo good to get away and hang out with friends for a while. I'd only been on rotations for a week. I didn't realize how much I missed my friends already! My friend Danny drove down with us (Rojane and I) as well. It was a grand time. Here are some pictures from the weekend.


Danny and I touring the happening town of Falls City while killing time.


Don't I look weird in glasses? You like them? They're new!


The Girls


Self proclaimed best picture of the weekend


My roommie and I - Sultry


The Arch of St. Louis - It's bigger than you think!