Lipizzaners

After a week of a new, great rotation how better to celebrate than acrobatic, dancing horses? This is how pathetic I am though. During intermission while waiting in line at the snack bar for some juice and water I found myself visually inspecting a large skin lesion on the upper back of the person standing in front of me. Then I found myself looking around for one of the attendings I had seen earlier who was also watching dancing horses with her son because I really wanted a preceptor at that moment.
DDx:
giant seborrheic keratosis
melanoma
giant nevomelanocytic nevus
epidermal nevus
burn
french clay mud (on the upper back)

I was able to accept the fact that I would have to let this one go and return to being an attentive mother.

My favorite holiday-Halloween

Tigers prowled around our neighborhood stalking little old ladies holding baskets of goodies.
After the kill.

My favorite holiday-Tuesday

Treat bag. Getting closer. Lucky for us our town is full of nice witches and nice monsters.

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.