Has it really been three years?

It's been the longest and the quickest 3 years of my life. Today was the culmination of many many years of hard work, dedication, tears, exhaustion, determination and dedication. I went to the hospital for the final time as a resident and turned in my pager and said farewell. I am now officially finished with my residency and I am now a practicing licensed pediatrician.

I have formed many memories over the past 3 years. Many wonderful or exciting, some heart-wrenching, and a few devastating. All will shape me as I move on in the future. People ask me often, if I had to do it over again would I? The answer....NO....who would do residency all over again???? CRAZINESS!!!!. Don't get me wrong. I love what I do and I am so excited about moving on with my career but residency took its toll on me especially over the past year. I'm not sure anyone deserves to live the life of a residency. And maybe overtime I'll forget some of the awfulness. The better question is do I regret my decision to leave my teaching career and become a Dr. The answer: absolutely not.

So what now? VACATION!!!!!! For a MONTH!!!! Then off to my new job as a private practice pediatrician in a rural community. I'm excited and scared all at the same time. I will miss my patients from my residency clinic terribly and I had many tears over the last month as I handpicked new residents for them to see. I know they will be in good hands. And maybe someday, I will work there again.

Long overdue update.

It's been awhile since I've posted a blog or update of any kind. It's been a rough couple of months both personally and professionally with the lines frequently blurring between the two.

First, last month was the worst month of my entire residency thus far. I was on te GI team The majority of our kids had liver or multivisceral organ transplants or need one. So in other words, our kids were sick, very very sick. And there were so MANY of them, at one point 38 of which 19 were on the liver service (think sick kids). The rest of the GI team patient wise usualy isn't too bad....constipation, Crihn's disease, cyclic vomiting.....or your random Manchausen by proxy mother that threatens to call the press and her lawyer if you do something that she doesn't agree with. And would you believe I had 2 such families. And 2 other families that were quite simply CRAZY and unreasonable.

I was the dark thundercloud of doom in December. If I was on call, invariably someone crumped and I sent them to the PICU. Sadly, the first patient I sent to the PICU died 2 days before Christmas and 1 day after his first birthday. I cried and cried. I can't go in to details but I feel some guilt over how his care was managed esp with regards to inability to vocalize emphatically something that I strongl felt at the time should be done and wasn't. And I think it would have made a difference.

Then there was my sweet baby boy waiting for liver, small bowel, pancreas (aka multivisceral organ) transplant. His family was so sweet. His family was so trusting in me all the time. This family had one request....they wanted organs for Christmas. Unfortunately they are still waiting. My most difficult conversation occurred with this family. The Baby is a twin. His brother is doing well. Because of cold and flu season, children under the age of 2 are not allowed on the floor. This meant his twin couldn't come for Xmas and that would mean no picture. We told them to sneak the baby in and it would be a "Don't ask, don't tell" scenario. Mom expressed reluctance because we had all been so kind to her.SHe asked me what I thought. I told her very adamantly that her baby was doing ok right now but no one could see the future and he was a very sick boy. They needed to take advantage of every opportunity they had to create precious memories. I was post call and exhausted and ummm emotional. I started to cry, mom cried......and she snuck the twin in for Christmas and got her most important pictures.

And last there is my other sweet boy that had a multivisceral organ transplant in Oct. and who was also the victim of child abuse. He was so fat from the steroids that he looked like a baby sumo wrestler. He was/is my favorite. I worked so hard on his development and making sure we paid attention to all of his needs not just his medical. He needs a home. I have a home. I would love to bring him home but as hard as I tried to figure out a way, I can barely take care of myself and a dog let alone a very special needs child.

The high point of the month: It ended. And well I did recruit a new special needs patient for my continuity clinic.

The low points: 6 transfer to the PICU, 1 death, work week of 96 hours, calling your mother to beg her to do some laundry because you just ran out of unerwear.

I've had a hard time recovering from that rotation emotionally and have been very cranky this month in the ER, a rotation I typically enjoy. Things are slowly starting to get better.

I did a few things to work on looking out for me. I joined the gym and have found it to be a greagt stress reliever. I joined Audible (your fault Paula) and am enjoing it immensely, and I have sacrificed some computer time to play with the dog and keep things cleaned up a but in my house.

I haven't done a ton of stitching and really can't imagine where stitching will take me this year. Here are links to a couple of updates.

First, my new start November Toaz fairy. She is a true delight. So elegant but the froggies like her.

http://fireinthelab.multiply.com/photos/album/56/November_Topaz_Fairy

ANd the garden is going through a bit of a drought but here it is (pretty lousy picture too)

http://fireinthelab.multiply.com/photos/album/50/And_a_Garden_Grows#7

Nothing much else going on other than I'm falling asleep typing this post.

Have a great week and try to stay warm.

OK I'll play too!

WHAT IS YOUR NAME:	Stephanie
BOY NAME	Sean
4 LETTER WORD:	sigh
GIRL NAME:	Sasha, Sarah, Shannon
OCCUPATION:	surgeon
A COLOR:	salmon
SOMETHING YOU WEAR:	skirt
BEVERAGE:	soda
FOOD:	skittles!
SOMETHING FOUND IN A BATHROOM:	Shampoo
A PLACE :	Sunset Beach!
REASON FOR BEING LATE:	SNOW!!!!!
SOMETHING YOU SHOUT:	Snap!

OK I'm done!

And the Garden Grows some more...

One nice thing about doing my ER rotation is that I only work 10 hours at a time.....and when you get used to working 30 hours every 4th day, this seems like a bit of a vacation. Another 'nice" (yes in quotes) is that I work crazy hours.....like 5 pm to 3 am or 10 pm to 8a which means that even on my off days I try to stay up overnight. Since there isn't a whole lot to do at 2:00 am, I've gotten a bit of stitching in (though I had a couple of days where I had to just hurry up and sleep).

In other news, I got the scores back from my inservice exam. This is a test we take every year as a resident to measure our preparedness for the boards. You pretty much take this test cold.....no studying so the results are always interesting (and don't count for anything). I was quite please with my results. I was about the 85 percentile compared to other residents across the country taking this test in year 2 of residency, I was only 10 points off the score you need to pass the real boards with 2 years of residency to go and about 98% of residents getting my score pass the peds boards on the first try. All in all I was happy. Shows my attempts to read have paid off.

Nothing else exciting going on here. The weather has been gorgeous and I've spent a lot of time outside cleaning up debris from Hurricane Ike (yes, the Cincinnati area was hit quite hard by the hurricane) and entertaining Sophie. I'm counting down to my vacation in about 2 months. I have big plans for my vacation....I'm going to work...LOL. I'm moonlighting 2 days to make some awesome money so I can do some home improvement projects or maybe just pay for my liscensing exam.

A finish and a new start

A finish and a new start......both in stitching and in life.

I finished Thanksgiving Garden Fairy last week. Beads nearly drove me crazy but I am happy with the final product. It's time for me to leave fairy land for a while and start something new.

I started AAGG after I managed to collect all of the floss for the first couple of pages. I'm stitching it on the recommended fabric, PTP 32 ct Ale. I love the effect and am very happy with it. It's amazing to see how just a few stitches can create something beautiful like the butterflies. I added a small stinger to each of the bees. There stingers did not keep the frogs away. I had to frog out all the bs'ing on the snail and redo it. Oh well minor little problem. I'm hopeful this one is going to keep my interest to completion. I'd love to have it hanging on my walls!

In the rest of my life, I finished my surgery rotation and started my month in the ED. I had a nice weekend off last weekend. I did some stitching and caught up on my sleep. The hardest part of working in the ED (or ER) if that the shifts are all over the place. Most of mine are overnight and try as I might, I cannot seem to get my days and nights switched! It does mean that I've had more stitching time! I am glad to have surgery over and done with. It was not as bad as I expected and I did learn some useful things. I also met an amazing patient who has truly touched my heart. She is a very sick girl and she remains in my thoughts and prayers daily. She really needs a miracle.

I also received a lovely package in the mail from Nancy. She made me a lovely scissor fob and after hearing me whine about beading, she sent me a tacky bob! Can't wait to try it out but well there are no beads in AAGG so it might be awhile!

Not much else to report....enjoying the lovely weather we've been having, taking the dog for a walk and continuing to try to leave my work where it belongs.....but not so good at that.

Over the hump

Tired. That is the only word to describe my current lifestyle. I am surviving my current surgery rotation and though I don't really like it, I don't hate it either. I have completed 4 out of my 8 calls this month. Call is pretty brutal. I've only seen my call room (where the bed is) twice this month and I have only actually uses the bed once and that was for about 10 minutes. The service is busy and the paperwork is endless. The benefit is that I get to leave the morning post call so am usually home by 9 or 10 that morning. And yes, I sleep all day. I get up in the late afternoon, walk around in a fog and am back to sleep in the early evening. That gives you the magnitude of my exhaustion. (I slept for 20 hours pretty much straight over the weekend).

There have been some interesting patients.....the 15 year old that took a pregnancy test that came back positive, dx with an ectopic pregnancy that ended up being a cancer. THat pregnancy test saved her life. There is an epidemic of appendicitis and pyloric stenosis with multiple kids daly it seems. Couple of other interesting things that are too specific for me to talk about.

On the stitching front, I do so intermittently. I'm stil working on my fairy and stitch by stitch I am getting closer to done. It's hard to stitch though with your eyes closed. I've picked up my stitching more than once only to find I could see the holes straight because I was so darn tired.

You can see a picture here:

She is moving somewhat quickly (well in my stitching world anyway). I'm on the last color of purple. Then she needs shoes, some leaves, beads and BS'ing.

What next you ask? I think And A Garden Grows. I need a change of pace...lol.

Another month, another update

August is coming to a close. I have to say I'm not sure where the month went. I also have to say I'm not sure what I did. Oh wait, I know, I went to work, I came home, I slept. This was my second month in hematology/oncology, this time as a senior resident. I still like the field of medicine but well, as a career, I'm not prepared to sacrifice the amount of my life that these docs sacrifice.

It's been a long brutal month with record high census....some days as high as 35 patients. We have a different attending with different expectations every week. We are yelled at, dumped upon and given impossible tasks to complete. In short it's been miserable. On a patient front, it seems there is an epidemic of leukemia. I think we've had about 7 or 8 new diagnoses this month. That's a TON! Sadly, two toddlers that I took care of in February also relapsed this month. Both are on their way to bone marrow transplants. What a horrible journey that is. I pray for both of these beuatiful girls....how I love them both so.

What's up next? Starting Thursday I start surgery. No I am not looking forward to it. No I will not be doing any surgery. Yes I will be doing all of the surgeon's paperwork and dirty work like the slave that I will be. And to add insult to injury, next month is the last month that any resident will be on the surgery service. They have abused us so much that the program director has removed us from the rotation. I am so lucky though that I get to be one of the last 3 people to do the surgery rotation! Is it October yet?

In stitching, I'm not doing much of it. Working slowly on Thanksgiving Fairy. Here's a pic:

It's not a great picture. But took it quickly while I had the camera out downloading resident olympics pictures.

I'm on call today so I should head for bed. Have a great week!