Housework

I celebrated Valentine's Day with a phone call from AG and we were able to exchange gifts in the mail. That morning a plumber came to the house and installed a brand new garbage disposal for me (I didn't trust myself around water AND electricity) as part of my getting-ready-to-put-the-house-up-for-sale project.


This weekend I worked a couple of shifts where we were actually overstaffed, so we all just kind of sat around. I am on the pediatric side right now, so I spent a good couple of hours sedating the Incredible Hulk the other night. He was a toddler in superhero pajamas who came in after having his 3rd seizure, so we went ahead and ran him through the MRI machine. The problem with MRI's is that they take FOREVER. A CT scan is pretty quick, but getting a small child to lie perfectly still for 30 minutes for an MRI is darn-near impossible.


This kiddo took dose after dose after dose of ketamine like a champ. He was really cute though, and came out of the machine all wide-eyed and yelling, "Whoa!" Luckily, there weren't any bad things like tumors on his scan.


Today I was off, so I spent the day finishing up painting along the stairwell, and started patching some holes and cracks in my bedroom. I really wish I had gotten this stuff done early for me to enjoy a freshly-painted house, but I think I should be able to get everything done in time, provided I can find a responsible contractor to do some cement work.

Gremlins

AG came back last week. It is nice to be able to talk to him regularly on the phone, not to mention being able to put my arms around him! For once, we both had a three-day weekend off in common, so we seized the opportunity to jump in the car and make a break for it. Our trip was almost ruined before we even got to our destination. After stopping for dinner about 2 hours into the drive, we went back out to my car and it wouldn't start.

In fact, the key wouldn't even turn in the ignition.

I couldn't imagine what the problem could be as I had never had any problem with the key sticking before. We were in a small highway town in the middle of nowhere. There was no Saturn dealership for miles, and it was after-hours on a Friday night. Even if we could get into a dealer early on Saturday morning, our weekend would be wasted.

I was just about to throw up my hands in disgust and call a tow truck. However, tucked inside my wallet I had a roadside emergency key that came with the car in addition to the two sets of keys and remotes. My memory was that it was just a key to be used in the event that I locked my keys in the car, and it would only work in the doors, but not the ignition.

AG suggested we try it anyway, and wouldn't you know it: it worked! It was kind of clumsy to slip the key far enough out of its plastic sleeve to turn in the ignition, but it served us well the whole weekend.

When I got home on Monday, I tried my spare key, but it wouldn't turn in the ignition either. Tired and frustrated, I went in to work my evening shift-- which turned out to be crazy-- 3 GSW's and a bizarre ICU case.

On Tuesday, I got up early to take the car into the dealership. They checked the lock cylinder and said it was ok, that both keys had just gotten too worn down to work any more. The "spare" key was the one that I used almost exclusively for the first few years I had my car, until the remote battery died and I switched over to the second set. However, it worked perfectly fine the last time I used it.

It seems pretty odd to me that both keys would be worn down to an inoperable condition! However, I'll just blame it on Car Gremlins and be thankful that it wasn't a more expensive problem and that our weekend wasn't ruined (pictures later). Just the other day, I had considered removing the roadside key from my wallet because in the 6+ years I'd been carrying it around, I had never needed it. I guess now I will always keep a backup key around.

Sleep to Dream

Last weekend was spent visiting Aunt Ruth. I had wondered why the flight to Indianapolis was so pricey. As it turned out, it was the same weekend as the Indy 500. I perplexed more than a few race fans on the plane when I said I was planning on spending a nice, quiet weekend in a retirement home rather than watching the race.

Last fall, Aunt Ruth suffered a hip fracture from a nasty fall. She made it through surgery, and finally rehab, but she's definitely slowed down quite a bit from my visit two years ago. Since the fracture, she's had three more falls, but luckily hasn't broken any more bones. For me, the weekend was an opportunity to see her at her baseline. With my grandparents, there was always that expectation of an upcoming visit that was canceled abruptly by death. At least for me, visiting Aunt Ruth is somewhat awkward as in my head, I am always expecting it to be our last meeting. Happily, so far she's proved me wrong.

As it turned out, she had full-blown hip replacement last fall, which is kind of shocking given the high mortality rate (up to 35% in the first year following surgery) and her age (105 this past February!). I am sure that she made the decision as she would have hated to be bed-ridden, but it seems like most orthopedic surgeons wouldn't touch someone her age. Now she is clearly having balance issues and the long walk to the dining room now has to be interrupted by rest breaks.

Her remote memory is now being affected. She introduced me to a lot of other residents. Sometimes I was a doctor, sometimes I was a nurse. Sometimes I was from Washington, sometimes I was from Arizona, or Louisiana... it's a good thing we sat with different people at each meal, so nobody caught on!

Our days were full-- with meals at 8 am, 11 am, and 4 pm. In between there were 3 or 4 naps a day. It was a good visit and she reminisced often, sticking to the same memories that she felt comfortable talking about. We talked of Appersons and life on the farm.

Like my grandparents before her, Aunt Ruth is withdrawing from the world around her. The woman who used to read three newspapers a day still has a picture of Ronald Reagan at Camp David from 1984 on her desk.

Luckily, although she never had any children, one of my uncles checks on her several times a week. The staff at the assisted living center also seem to be pretty good about checking up on her several times a day. The day is soon coming when she will have to move to the nursing home wing, and she seems to be all too aware of that, but is putting it off for now.

I prefer to think that her mind works better when she drifts off to sleep, returning to a time of antiquated behaviors and expectations, a world where she makes decisions rather than having them be made more and more for her.

The Short of It

On Saturday I ran a 5K. This one was for breast cancer and there were about 7000 participants. No medals for me this time! This one was much fancier, with bands playing at a few intervals along the sidelines. And there was a chip for runners to tie to their shoelaces, so that they could get their times. However, the time was when the gun fired at the start to when one crossed the finish line. There were so many people ahead of us and the walkers were mixed in with the runners that it took several minutes to get away from the crowd. I came in 839th if I recall properly, with a time of 33:41 minutes. I think I probably did better and was under a 10:30 mile but the slow start messed me up.

My friends, who are much more seasoned runners, said that usually there is a starting strip and an ending strip when one runs with a chip so that the times are more accurate. The guy that came in first ran a 15:40 time. I thought they were being over ambitious when there was a starting point for people averaging a 5-minute mile, but I guess not!

After that, I took a quick nap and then joined the gang for a barbeque before working the 5pm-2am shift. I pushed it a bit too much, as I just felt feverish and out of it the whole night.

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On Sunday, a group of us met up for a game of Ultimate Frisbee. I thought I would be much better at it than last fall, given all of the running. However, it's more of a sprinting game. There was a med student there that kept smoking me, so I ended up just doggedly running after him the whole game. One of the other residents sprained her knee, but other than that there were no casualties.

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On Monday, a group of movers came and removed the playhouse from my backyard. I have been wanting to get rid of this thing because it sits right in the middle of my grass since I moved in. Fortunately, one of the other interns has a 4 year-old that wanted it desperately, so she was willing to pay a crew to come pick it up. It took 6 men over an hour to maneuver it down my driveway, and they still ended up banging into the roof over the side door!

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Today, I met up with a friend to start studying for boards. I will be taking the last part of my licensing exam in July (hopefully only once), and I am trying to make myself just do a little bit every night. Step 3 is not supposed to be as bad as the first two parts, but I have a friend who failed it, and the stupid thing costs over $600, so I am not at all interested in repeating it!

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Only 8 more days left until my vacation! I haven't had time off since September, so I can't wait! A lot of the impetus behind all of this running is for a big upcoming hike with "The Phoenix". Just the thought of not setting foot in the hospital for 9 days has me excited.