My favorite holiday-Monday

Finished. Just needs a few safety pins here and there and some wooly long johns underneath.

Jack

My favorite holiday-Sunday

Former massage therapist turned osteopathic medical student and mother uses former massage table turned osteopathic manipulative treatment table as Halloween tiger costume prep table.


I would have finished it tonight if I had not run out of thread. Stay tuned...

Old-Timey Osteopath

Sphenopalatine Ganglion Treatment:
Yesterday before I left the clinic early because I felt too snotty and coughy and wasted to be hovering over patients I asked one of the providers to treat me with some OMT (osteopathic manipulative treatment). She did some cranial osteopathy including a sphenopalatine ganglion treatment. Stimulation of this parasympathetic nerve ganglion by the pinkie tip of a trained provider can be quite painful in the back corner of your mouth behind your molars and off to the side a little. But a little pain is better than thick, sticky mudslides of mucus down the back of your throat. This treatment helps to thin secretions. This is the kind of OMT I like the best, for complaints other than chronic low back pain that will really only respond long-term to better physical conditioning. Through my career as an osteopath I hope to develop a skill set of OMT that I can use for things like upper respiratory infections, bowel complaints, chronic sinusitis, colic and reflux.

Colored Queen Anne's Lace and other joys in life

One day this past summer Ms Perpetual Motion and I were walking down the road when she looked over at some QAL and said, "Mama, let's color the flowers."
My Great Aunt Helen used to do this with me.
I thought it was magical.
I do not remember ever discussing this with my wee one. And Nana said she never did either. So with a chill creeping up my spine on a hot August day we collected flowers and took them home to drink the colored potions we lovingly brewed with food coloring and tap water in funky seventies style glasses.

I have Internet again again after six months!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In three days I will be finished with a challenging rotation and in five days will begin a new one at the place I hope to be a resident next year.

I did something nice for myself today, got a physical. It had been way too long. I got to be the one who got to talk all about themselves and have someone interested and caring listen. I got to stop feeling like quite so much of a family medicine/preventive health care advocate/hypocrite. And those ladies at FamPlan are so nice and considerate.

Transformation

Moving from third year to fourth year: Regular people might not realize the significance of this but other doctors and residents and nurses know that there is a difference between third year medical students and fourth year medical students worth noting. Third years are new to the whole clinical scene. Third years are not only learning medicine but they are learning where the bathrooms are, how to write notes and orders, how to get a list of really handy phone and beeper numbers, passwords for all kinds of electronic medical records systems, how to present cases. Fourth years are still learning all of this but they have been through one year of it already and that counts for a lot.

I remember sitting in the ER during one of my first admissions in Internal Medicine and painfully, slowly struggling through trying to figure out how to write the orders this guy would need to get admitted for his heart failure or COPD exacerbation or whatever was going on with him (still not 100% sure). And I remember being aware of the resident and attending who were graciously sitting there with me while I painfully, slowly struggled. They had to make themselves sit there and let me get through it. They had to literally sit on their hands and I am eternally grateful for that.

A few days after that I picked Ms Perpetual Motion up from grammy's at the end of another long, tiring day and just wanted to get home where it would be time to feed the dog, make supper, try to herd a wild child inside while I cooked so she would not drown in the lake while unattended and of course Ms Perpetual Motion wanted to buckle her car seat buckles herself. And she could do it, I knew that, but it would take longer and I had to sit on my hands and let her struggle through it so she could learn how to function in this world and my tired ass would just have to wait (supported by my hands of course).

I will be starting my fourth year rotations soon and Ms Perpetual Motion will be going to an organized preschool type deal soon as well. I am just hoping we are both prepared enough.

I Don't Study Everyday

After a few hours of studying or doing Kaplan Q-bank questions my brain feels like these cups of swirled paint. So this is what I do on some days to reboot.




Wicked good Chocolate with rainbow sprinkles.


Water can be very healing. That was not in the board review book, I learned that on my own.

The Cat Came Back

I walked all around the house and all through the yard cooing, clucking and calling 'here kitty kitty kitteeeeeeeeeeee.' I called down into the heating vents, into the bushes, into culverts and throughout the musty basement. Nothing. It was time to go get Ms Perpetual Motion but I could not give up. Husband had seen her. She was alive. I would get Ms PM and come back. I left the bag-o-tuna out and drove over the bridge to the calm serenity of Ms PM's baby sitter's house. When we returned I decided to try the trail out behind the house. Maybe, just maybe she was out of earshot. I thought it was a long shot but had to try. I got the stroller that we had left in the garage and put Ms PM in it. It would be easier to search for the cat if Ms PM was somewhat confined. We walked a lot further down the trail than I thought necessary but I just needed to clear my head a little, when who should spring out of the bushes with a chirp but the mangy gray cat that was our pet. "Crescent!!!" squealed Ms PM. My cat is no ordinary cat. She loves us but does not know how to show it. I could tell she desperately wanted to come home but she refused to simply come to us. We had to slowly walk back towards the house, continually calling 'here kitty kitty kitteeeeeeeeeeee.' She slowly walked back through the woods parallel to us but about 15-20 feet away. When she was close enough to smell the tuna she took off like a shot across the yard.
Now how was I going to actually catch the cat and put her in the car while keeping Ms PM at bay?
"Ms PM," I pleaded, "Please wait here while I get Crescent."
"No mama, I wanna help."
It went on like this, me pleading and Ms PM refusing to sit idly by.
Eventually I had the clever idea of opening the front door of the house which Crescent could not refuse. She really wanted inside. And I was able to trap her in the tiny mudroom.
Now Ms PM could be of use. While I tried to keep from getting shredded by the scared, hungry kitty I asked Ms PM to please open the car door. She did, but bonked her head in the process. Now I had a crying child and a scared cat getting more and more agitated by the moment by the cries of my child who I could not help because my arms were full of terrified cat.
"Just get in the car," I cold-heartedly demanded. "Just get in the car so I can put Crescent in too." We all piled into the back seat in a sweaty, pained mess. I slammed the door shut. We had her. The cries faded with the excitement of having a cat in the car. I managed to get back out of the car to shut the front door of the house and back into the car without the cat escaping. As we pulled out of the driveway I spotted the stroller.
"Damn, I left the stroller out."
When we arrived home with the hungry, skinny cat and Ms PM doing just fine I asked husband to swing by the house tomorrow and get the stroller.
"Don't forget," I emphasized, "The blanket and sweater Nana made (by hand woven blanket that probably took about 8000 hours and knitted sweater) for Ms PM are in the pocket of the stroller."
I swear to goddess he said, "ok."...