Ode to the bladder

Two stories along the same trail tonight, kiddos. One made me think of the other.

1) Somebody pinch me!
The other night I had this bizarre dream. Well, not that bizarre. Just barely past reality. In this dream I was in clinic, and a patient's (adult) daughter was distraught about her mother's pain and how it limited her self-care and how it was just such a drain on her (the daughter) to take care of her (the mother) and couldn't I just please give her mother something for the pain? Like hydrocodone? And the whole time I was trying to tell her how badly I needed to pee and that if she would just let me go I'd come right back and listen to whatever she had to say. But she just kept talking and tried to follow me into the bathroom, and it was terrible. And then I finally woke up and had to pee really, really badly.

2) Boundaries
That dream made me think about this... As a med student, you are trained to follow your resident everywhere. If he/she sees you trailing along, he/she a) knows you're working b) might let you see/do something cool and c) is less likely to forget to send you home at the end of the day. So you just get into this habit of getting up whenever your resident does and following him/her down the hall. Well I've never followed anyone into the bathroom nor been followed myself, but I know people who have. So even though it may seem awkward to you, it's not uncommon (and I do it myself) to announce to your med students when the next stop is the potty. And this latest crop has been really eager beavers, so I've even taken to giving them a play-by-play of where I'm headed in clinic, when I'll be back to the workroom, and whether they need to come. Because if I don't broadcast that I'm simply going to the printer and then to drop the paper off with the scheduler, they'll get up and follow me down the hall like a little brood of ducklings. And there's just not a lot of medical learning to be had during a trip to the printer. So now you understand if when we're together, I ever stand up and proclaim, "I'm just going to the bathroom. You don't need to follow me." It's because I'm just going to the bathroom, and you don't need to follow me.

The time I made a promise I didn't want to keep

The other day I was feeding Ellison, and all she wanted was cheese. Which could frankly be any day of the week because that kid loves dairy. But this was a particular day when she'd already eaten all the cheese I'd cut from the block, and I wasn't in the mood to slice more.

Me: Elle, I think you've had enough cheese.
Ellison: Moh! (=more)
Me: No, no. Let's have something else. How about some banana?
Ellison: Moh, moh! (making grabby hands towards the block of cheese)
Me: OK, fine, kid. If you can say the word "cheese," I'll cube some more cheese for you. What d'ya say? Can you even say the word "cheese?" (She never has, so I think I'm safe.)
Ellison: Chis! Chis! (unfortunately, =cheese)
Me: Big sigh. Fine. Fine. I will slice you off some more cheese. But don't think you can make a habit of this, learning to say the word for whatever you want as a way to get it from me.

Fortunately, she hasn't yet learned "chocolate" or "diamonds," so we're safe from utter ruin for a while.

Reading Rainbow

Guys, I got nothing. So here's a filler post. I spent last weekend with Angela and Cassandra for RR5 (that's Roommate Reunion, surely you should know that by now), and we were discussing movies, books, etc. I was rattling off my recent faves (and by recent I mean since residency ended because you know I did zero pleasure reading during those 3 years), and Angela told me to cool my jets and please just put it on the blog because she couldn't remember it all. So here you go. And I'm not in the mood for italics and underlining for titles. Sorry.

1) The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: My last pick for book club. Autobiographical work from a man with locked-in syndrome (stroke that leaves you cognitively intact but paralyzed except for eye movements). Surprisingly not depressing and really prompted me to reflect on how I'd cope with catastrophic illness.

2) The Man in the Rockefeller Suit: Biographical tale of a guy who spent nearly 15 years posing as a Rockefeller. Crazy, just crazy. And so fascinating. How on earth did he dupe so many people? Simply by looking them in the face and telling fantastical lies. And he was semi-recently in the news related to a decades-old murder charge. Intriguing, no?

3) The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake: I was kinda expecting Like Water for Chocolate based on the back cover blurb, but magical realism (supernatural or magical things happening in reality) just doesn't work in English. Creative story but just didn't live up to my expectations.

4) Wicked: I think I was the last to know how awful the book is. Just see the musical, trust me.

5) A Lesson Before Dying: A classic that was on sale cheap one day so I picked it up. I don't even really remember how it ended, if that tells you anything. Overall fine, but I'd read To Kill a Mockingbird or The Help instead.

6) The Devil Wears Prada: More different from the movie than I expected. A little darker, which isn't that surprising. But I think the ending was more satisfying. I even re-watched the movie, thinking I'd like it more. I didn't.

7) The Poisonwood Bible: I couldn't put this book down when I read it. The plot isn't that gripping, but she just made everything seem so real. It's on my to-re-read list for sure, if I ever make it through the to-read list first.

8) How to Talk to a Liberal if You Must: Meagan recommended this to me years (many years) ago, and it just took me forever to purchase and read. Therefore, some of the examples are a bit dated, but it's still hilarious. Well, it's hilarious if you have right-leaning political views. If you're a leftie, please just don't tell Nick.

9) This Present Darkness: My favorite oldie-but-goodie. The juxtaposition of the angel/devil stories with the human plot line was very thought-provoking. It makes you look over your shoulder.

10) The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay: On my nightstand right now, by which I mean for the last 8 months. It's an interesting story and well-written, but just soooooo long. And the fact that I've stopped and started it multiple times doesn't help. But I recommend the first half. :)

Unanswered questions

So sometimes you take care of a patient in the hospital or follow him in clinic, and then he just... poof, disappears. And you wonder what happened to him. Did he fire you and get another doctor? Did he move? Did he, ahem, have a more heavenly disposition? I'd been wondering that about one of my clinic patients just a week or so ago. And then, as fate would have it...
I saw her at my Pearland HEB, tooling up and down the aisles with her family. I don't know if she saw me. If she did, she hid it well. No eye contact, no facial twitch. Nothing. But she looked pretty good in an LGFD* kind of way. And that was it. We passed like two ships in the night without further ado.
So now 1 down, about 6-7 more to go. I guess I need to go trolling the grocery stores of Houston.


*LGFD = looks good from door; often used in mocking to describe surgeons' assessments of their patients

The end is near

Can you I believe I finish fellowship in 22 days 2 hours and 40 minutes? Me either. It's just so crazy that after going to school (pretty much) every day since I was 4, there is no more school. Ever. I just can't wrap my head around it.
But wait, it gets weirder. My job won't (tentatively) start until October 2. Therefore, I will spend 3 months faking my way through stay-at-home mommy-hood. It's almost too good to be true - 3 months with just me and my favorite baby. Here's the rub; I have my rheumatology board exam October 1. So it won't be all fun and games. There will be studying. But mostly fun and games. And hopefully more crafty stuff and baby pictures.
I can't wait!

The thrill of my day

Pre-requisite medical knowledge before you read on: When renal failure patients go on dialysis, they get a procedure to prepare an artery and a vein as the portal for dialysis. Essentially, they sew together an artery and a vein in the forearm, which results in a buzzing sensation over the fistula (where the artery and vein connect). We call that buzzing feeling a "thrill."

Now that you know that, I can tell you this. I was in clinic today, and one of my patients happened to have a fistula in her right forearm, which I already knew. As I was examining her hand and wrist, I noted a weird vibration coming from her wrist. I thought, "What on earth?! What is wrong with her wrist?!" Then I remembered her fistula. Duh. It was her thrill.

Me: Ha, I couldn't figure out why your arm was buzzing.
Patient: puzzled look
Me: Then I remembered your fistula. I'd forgotten about it for a second.

She laughed at me. I don't imagine she often forgets that her arm buzzes.

Rules were made for following

This one's about my kid. Consider yourself warned. Ellison is turning into a typical toddler, testing boundaries and all that. But she's quite the little rule follower. For example, she's gotten used to us taking things away when she picks random stuff up from the floor (like tiny bits of paper or twigs), so she now picks them up and brings them straight to us. The same with the remote. She still goes for it, but once she snags it, she makes a beeline for Nick or me to turn over the prize. And shoes. If we kick our shoes off in the living room, we usually toss them over the edge of the baby perimeter. Now Ellison picks them up for us, carries them to the baby gate, and uses all her tiny baby strength to fling them over the gate into the dining area, safely out of harm's way.

The only place this has backfired is the kitchen. You see, silly mommy (that's me) drops unwanted and/or partially chewed then rejected baby bites onto the floor for the dogs. It's easier than actually cleaning it up. So now Ellison has learned to bypass the middle man and sends the undesirable tidbits straight to the floor all by herself, much to the dogs' bewildered joy and my dismay. I guess it's high time I learned that little eyes are watching, all the time.