onward and upward

er, or something like that, no so sure that upward really is a word but i don't seem to be getting the red squiggly line that yells at you for spelling so i'm going to go ahead and go with actual word.

we moved colin into kutztown on saturday morning and i must say that i was quite impressed with kutztown's campus and move in organization--granted since it was the 4th kid and we were only a bit over an hour away we decided that the check in time was merely a suggestion and that being 5 hours late was definitely a better call. kutztown even had tents from walmart, home depot and poster sales and plants set up out in their grass for things that kids would commonly forget or need--pretty smart of them i must say.

col was on the 2nd floor of deatrick hall and there were no people yelling at you to move your vehicle out of the way if your kid was not in sight or you were actively unloading. i'm pretty sure we left the pilot parked in front of his building for like 4 hours, no ticket, no nasty philadelphia airport like police screaming at you to take another loop, nothing. kutztown 1 philadelphia airport -1,000,000

regardless col's roommate parker seemed to be as much of a weirdo as he appeared to be on facebook when col contacted him, the kid analyzed his facebook page and left him a message about what he thought--like all the things that you might think about someone you're facestalking but are clearly inappropriate to say, much less type in a public domain. we're going to have to see how this works out...

after eating at a place called snuzzle's (i shit you not) which had surprisingly decent food, we left colin to fend for himself in the world of kutztown and college life. mom handled it shockingly well ( i'm proud of you mom) but than again i was in a separate car on the ride home but i'm giving you the benefit of the doubt :)




text col sent to jason about 130am sunday morning 'college life is awesome'
i think he'll adjust rather quickly

the mackel zoo

my house has always been filled with animals, everything from fish that would jump out of the tank onto the base heater to their death, to my dog gizmo who would eat turtles, i took the remaining shell into 'show and tell' when i was in kindergarten--my teachers mush have loved that...

the current animals are spike, sullie, lewis and squishy


spikie is 14 and is still in the habit of stealing bones, gardening gloves, eating books only hardcover and any other leather object that may be of value to you-belts, sneakers, pumps, purses you name it-he's probably consumed it

pooped

mr sullie monster is 5 and all kinds of fun, and if i could make a video upload work you could see how crazy he is with his new kong wubba toy, he's nuts

'oh hi, what do you want?'

'you want to take my picture?'

'i suppose i can be bothered...'
love how he crosses his paws :)

'enough of you, you interrupted my nap'

'goodnight'

lou is what i call a 'cat puppy'. he thinks he's a dog, follows you from room to room, talks to you and when you talk back he responds. he'll yell at you when you push him off the counter he's not supposed to be on and he begs. will sit in the middle of the floor with the dogs while i'm making my lunch for the morning. you can also find him in the middle of the night sitting on your chest staring at your face while you sleep-he's under the impression that you should be paying attention to him all the time

squish is more of your typical cat and is a bit of a fraidy cat. he's also responsible for a slightly traumatizing experience of playing with my beta fish sebastian to death. he is the ultimate catcher of bugs and will sit at the front door and pounce up towards the bugs who were attracted to the porch light

the house certainly never seems empty when i'm home alone and most certainly beats my fish and plants i had in erie, thank goodness for abbie :)

we move colin into kutztown in the morning--it should definitely be an interesting day

back into school mode

this past weekend was a bit of an experiment for me, i spent the weekend in baltimore with keith and instead of it being my usual oasis away from the craziness of med school i spent it attempting to study... it was hard to get back in the swing of things, especially secluding myself from the ongoings of the house that were 2 floors away. While i didn't accomplish the amount that i would have in my apartment all alone in erie as a first attempt i think i did a pretty decent job. we'll see how well i make out on my first shelf test tomorrow in ob/gyn, i have a feeling it's going to be a swift kick in the pants since the last test i took were my boards almost 3 months ago...

on a side note, on friday night keith got his company's tickets to the orioles game and we sat in the sweltering humidity 4 rows off of first base directly behind the dugout. and while the orioles didn't win ( they lost 2-0) it was a considerably entertaining game as one of the players and the manager got thrown out of the game in 2 different innings. with good cause i might add, the ump was abysmal and couldn't call a strike if it bit him.

i of course decided to leave my camera at home so with our fantastic seats the only thing i had to take pictures with was my phone

CONGRATULATIONS KELLY!

Congrats Kel on the long white coat and becoming a P.A.! So proud of you :)

Lots and Lots of Trees

This past weekend i was lucky enough to be able to make a short trip up to Maine to partake in keith's family vacation (this is only bc i have a half day on fridays and monday's are late days so i'm at the clinic from 12pm-1030pm). It was about time for me to make it since keith has already been on 2 of my family's vacations to OBX. Keith's family stays at a campground on Lake Pemaquid in Damariscotta, Maine. The campground was absolutely beautiful and the Lake was incredible. Annndd apparently some donor last year donated thousands upon thousands of dragonflies. this meant that throughout my whole time there i ended up with about 5 bugbites and didn't use any insect repellent at all. dragonflies eat mosquitoes = possibly my new favorite bug :)

keith and nat doing dishes after breakfast

Friday night we stayed with Dan and Holly and their 2 kids Nat and Tivvy who are 17 and 13 and really great kids. Dan and Holly are part of keith's NH family aka the "sunday night crew' and were nice enough to feed us and let us stay with them in their camper, who knew that campers has 2 king size beds? not this girl. the weather had highs in the mid 70's and lows in the high 50's and absolutely zero humidity. it was so refreshing, sometimes i forget how much i enjoy this kind of weather especially sleeping when its crisp :) also reminds me of football season...

friday night we laid out on a dock in the middle of the lake and watched the meteor shower, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, no moon to be seen, no ambient light pollution to speak up and saw 15-20 in about a half hour. we could actually see the milky way. it was awesome.

saturday morning we took a trip to the Pemaquid Point Lighthouse were i got my most northern glimpse of the atlantic ocean.





keith's family and the rest of the sunday night crew arrived on saturday afternoon
sunday we kayaked out to a few of the islands in the lake. about 5 minutes into kayaking keith decided to screw around and rock his kayak, he got one rock in before he flipped it. of course his life jacket was strapped to the front of the boat instead of on his person and proceeded to tread water while trying to right his boat. the best part about all of this, keith's dad borrowed a telephoto lens and got it all on camera :) unfortunately i don't have those pictures yet. Sunday night the trip finished up with a trip to the infamous Moody's diner which had delicious food and absolutely mouth watering pie. the crazy thing was that i ran into one of my moralers-Becky Ellis while waiting to get seated. it is definitely a small small world.

the whole crew a moody's gift shop


why hello there mr. crab

more naturelobster boat, yup i even tried some and liked it more than last time
eh, it's hard to take self pictures with my camera
death trap of awesomeness 4 20-somethings holding on and running around this thing and picking up their feet + centripetal force = a really good time and probably some tetanus

:)

time's a flyin

i can't believe that it's already 1/2 way through my first week on my new rotation. it's been the antithesis to the last one and i could not be more happy about it :) my preceptor is one of the most amazing doc's i've ever met. in addition to being a mom with 3 kids, she's been running a nonprofit clinic for the past 12 years and is loved by her patients as well as respected by her peers. i've only known her for 3 days but am already hoping to make the kind of impact she's already made.

the first few days of any rotation seem to be following a similar pattern of orientation the first day, following docs and getting comfortable with the set up and nuances of the different practice/clinic/hospital etc as well as figuring out which hoops i need to jump through for which attending/doc/nurse/pa and trying to keep them all straight in my head. it's become evident that each person i work with has their own particular style of doing things and they generally do this because they think it's the best way. i'm learning that as i go along through 'trying on' each one of these particular styles to sort of create my own from observing as well as trial and error ( sometimes lotsss of error). it's funny to think that each day i'm actively molding myself through these experiences to become the best doc i can and it makes me wonder how much of this is just the naivety of being a 3rd year med student who's just getting her feet wet and how much will actually stick...

whoops, didn't mean to get all philosophical just got side tracked in my attempt to tell a story-big shocker i know :)

regardless, the one amazing thing about this clinic is on top of the fact that it is generally free or low cost for all of the pts is that there are over 150 volunteer docs who work there as well as nurses, nurse practictioners and PAs and interpreters. in my limited experience many of these docs are older retired gentlemen who were in the top of their field, well revered, and are specialists that run the gamut. I'm being taught about the heart and circulatory system by cardiologists, hormones and diabetes by an endocrinologist, everything under the sun i would need to know about the skin by a dermatologist etc. and this is all over the course of a regular day. the amazing thing is that all of these older docs are such a wealth of valuable information and most of them love to talk and are willing to take the time to teach me-me and only me because this month i'm the only med student. it's so refreshing and i am so fortunate to have this incredible opportunity.

the first pt i saw by myself today wasn't able to feel her legs below the knee with complete loss of any sort of sensation in her feet and toes. one of her complaints was that she was losing flip flops when she was out shopping because she wasn't able to tell it fell off her foot...more on that and other fun things later. gotta get ready for the am, another long day is ahead of me tomorrow.

in honor of picking out my bridesmaids dress for kelly's wedding! and further proof that bangs truly are a poor decision.

30 days 12 hours and 31 minutes until kickoff...