Blessings

Okay; so not only am I (solidarity, Lesley) near or at the bottom of Wendi's blogroll, but, yesterday, I also had the mother of a very important groom call me out on the infrequency of my blog updates. I guess it's due time for some May updates.

It's actually been a pretty great month! Some things I am certainly thankful for:

Smooth sailing at the VA
Despite having a rough 7 weeks on OB and still claiming I'd rather go through that again than go to Mather Veterans' Hospital, I actually had a pretty sweet month on Medicine at the VA. I started out with 2 weeks of being the ward "senior," an interesting role in that I was technically supervising interns and responsible for a whole service! I have done that on OB, but somehow, medicine seems different. I have to say that I was very blessed with Mike and Annamaria, who really didn't require much supervision (I caught them in May of intern year!) and with whom I really enjoyed working-- we had some fun times!!

After the weeks of wards, I went to dayfloat which, I have to say, was my least favorite week and one which I think most people dread. You are basically the screening hospitalist and take calls from outside facilities and/or VA hospitals wanting to transfer patients for whatever reason, as well as accepting all the admissions from the Urgicenter (ED) downstairs, which certainly tends to overadmit. You do all the admissions-- medicine, CCU (cardiology) and ICU admissions which come before noon (while the teams are still rounding) and then, in addition, fill in as ward "senior" for the various teams as needed when they have clinic, days off, etc. It is a tricky role because everyone always seems mad at you for making more work...

I ended (last week) with a week of night float, where you do some more admissions here and there and cover the CCU/ICU services. I was quite nervous that "stuff" would always go down in the middle night, but with the exception of one night, it was pretty benign. Some ICU players acted up from time to time, but no one crashed or coded (phew). I even got to sleep some, which always, for some reason, makes me feel incredibly guilty!

The best part of night float was that I had the weekend off to go to Ajit and Jeny's wedding in NY!!!

Wedding bliss
There was a lot of travel time involved, including leaving post-call on Friday morning to ride the bus to the airport, 2 flights (I realize now that CA is quite far from NY!!!!) with a looooong layover (+ weather delay due to the east coast) in Denver, a 3- hour time change, and an airport shuttle from Laguardia to Long Island, but I made it to the hotel by midnight to stay with Dave and Lesley.

Ajit and Jeny's ceremony was beautiful-- a church service part in English and part in Malayalam, followed by a fantastic reception at a country club. It was also so awesome to meet up with old Mayo buds, including the Kits, Joneses, and Antonio/Latova! Unfortunately, I will have to wait to steal pictures from the others, as I, totally preoccupied with the growing Kit munchkins Isaac and Elijah (champion spitter-upper), neglected to really take out my camera.

The literally 2 shots I took all weekend:

JB and Isaac at the lunch/dinner table


Hanging out in the hotel room... we wanted to see what little Elijah would do when placed on sleeping Dave's chest...


Unfortunately, I had to leave pre-dawn this morning to catch the shuttle back to the airport to get back to Sac, but all the travel went smoothly and I was back here around 1 p.m. with plenty of time to enjoy the rest of the beautiful Sunday!!

I am so blessed to have been able to go to the ceremony!! Please see Wendi's blog later for pics :)

Super Sac-town weather
I must say that although it's a downer to leave wonderful friends to head back to "real life" and work (MRSA- filled ER awaits me tomorrow at 7 a.m.), it is lovely to come back to Sacramento in the summertime. While we had some 100-degree days last week (I even adore the 100-degree days because it means I don't have to bring a fleece w/ me everywhere), today was 85 and characteristic of the cloudless months of summer that await me!! I went for a long run on the American River Parkway enjoying the outdoors (much more possible since I discovered Zyrtec, which is far superior to Claritin in my opinion) and wondering why no one was using their backyard pools. Two thumbs up for California weather.

More old friends
Adeel, one of the residents in our program here last year but who transferred to NY, was in town a few weeks ago to visit. Here are some random shots after hanging out at Chipotle...

Brenden, Jeremy, me, and Adeel


The boys (love Brenden's pink bag): Brenden, Phi, Jeremy, Adeel

Good reads

I've been fortunate lately to have some free time for reading! I just finished Michelle Richmond's "The Year of Fog," (about the search for a missing little girl) and Thrity Umrigar's The Space Between Us, about the saga between two Indian families of different class in Bombay.

Send additional book recs my way!!

Fall travel

I am looking forward to October, when I head to Peru to join one of my former professors and some Richmond sophomore students helping conduct dental, public health/hygiene, nutrition, and primary care clinics in a rural Andean village!! I have 2 weeks of vacation that follow, and I just found out that my college roomie Mindy will be free to travel around with me in South America!!! I have to start planning and get the tickets. Soooo excited.

Jail near halfway over!!
It is very hard to believe, but I just have one month left (grr... ER) before 2nd year of residency is over and I will be halfway done! Despite long hours, the stress, and sometimes being less than thrilled to have chosen the field of medicine, it really has gone by quickly. I can't believe that the 3rd years are graduating in a few short weeks-- will definitely miss them. Seems I should maybe start thinking about where I will be headed after I am through...

Okay, I think that was enough updating for a while and should hold me over until... maybe... July? :)

Mommy time!!!

It is so exciting to me that many of my friends are now newly-becoming, or soon-to- be becoming mothers!!! It is with great joy that I learned that today at 2:16 am, just in time for Mother's day, my dear friends Laura and Tony welcomed their little Abigail Christine (stolen pictures above) into the world. After 14+ weeks of torturous bedrest (now around 35w2d if my OB wheel works right [Laura, you knew I'd bust it out and you know I want details!]), and a quick 3-hour labor, they are equally (well, perhaps a bit more, although that would be difficult!) as excited. SO HAPPY for you guys!!!! I can't wait to meet Abbie!

Happy Mother's Day to all you Moms out there, as well as to my wonderful Mom (pictured below in Giverny during my parents' recent trip to France), Godmother, and Grandma (only one of whom will probably read this blog ;))!!!



Love!!!
t (a free babysitter and/or family doc anytime!!)

P.S. Vanessa-- does this post satisfy your blog-reading requirement?! :)

Where I am and where I am not

Some recent emails I have received:

1. From the 'rents:

"Hi T,
We're half way through our trip. After a day in Nice and a week on our cruise of the Rhone River, we arrived in Paris today after a bus ride through Burgundy. Tonight we took the evening cruise on the Seine River. Tomorrow is the standard city bus tour, followed by a half day at the Musee d'Orsay. The day after that we plan to take the train to Giverny. The weather has been good, except for one day of pouring rain at Avignon. We're not spending a lot on wine. We're just sticking to the house wines, which are adequate. The cruise food was great, but now we're on our own for the next week. The French surely know how to enjoy life. [I'll say!! And so do my parents!!]. Love,Dad"

From the sis:

"Vienna continues to be great! ... We did a lot of sightseeing [Italian bf was in town] - went to a Hapsburg Palace, the zoo, some art museums, and even to Bratislava, Slovakia! And the weather was sublime (sunny, in the 70s, with all the flowers blooming) for his entire visit - so I think he has this impression that Vienna is perfect. And I'd have to agree--it is pretty fabulous. ... some of the other young people working for the various country delegations are also a lot of fun. Last week I met up for drinks with two Norwegians and a Swede, and we talked for half an hour about why IKEA is amazing... May's gonna be a busy month. I'll be in London next weekend (there are awesome airfares--I must have done something right in a former life for this good karma!) And in May, I'll be in Rome! A good friend of mine from high school is going to be in Italy with her family, so we planned to meet up in Rome for the weekend.... I can't wait to see all the Roman ruins and to eat obscene amounts of pizza, pasta, and gelato. Please keep in touch...and think about visiting [believe me, I would if I could get out of jail!!]! I will show you all the nice areas... Socialism and sunshine, V."

Boo. I feel so trapped. I think the cramp on travel is just about the worst things about residency (or "Jail," as Kyla calls it). I am trying my hardest to be able to go to Peru for a week in the fall with a college "global health" group and luckily have some elective time to work with next spring, but, recently, all I've been doing is being a slave to the ER gyn pager (I just finished my last week [seventh in a row] of OB for the year... until about September, and I spent about 5 consecutive hourse of last night's shift in the stinky ER doing onc admissions and consults!!). I do have Ajit's wedding in NY at the end of this month to look forward to (a nice trip following my next month which starts Monday at the dreaded VA hospital), but I just am feeling sooo restless and want to bust out of here and go travel for a long time!!!!

In other, more uplifting news (but some more of where I am currently "not" and nowhere near), CONGRATS to two sets of friends who became parents in the last couple of weeks!! Natasha and Nikola welcomed Cristiano, 7lbs11oz, 50 cm and the "tallest kid in the nursery" and then, on Wednesday, Jeremy and Noelle had baby Kacey at our very own UCD L and D. Next up: Betza/Tom and Laura/Tony (34 weeks, who I have a suspicion may even go to term despite being on bedrest since 20 weeks-- sorry, babe!). Can't wait for these littles ones' arrivals!!