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...

P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney.

We finally managed to get to the baltimore aquarium after attempting to go for like a year. The last time i was there was with the gym team about ten years ago and we paid one of the girls $5 to jump into the baltimore harbor. gross.

Keith's company Whiting Turner actually built the aquarium and because of this little fun fact the company is now a member of the aquarium's priority club for life. That means that the company has 4 passes that get scooped up immediately by all of the guys who work with them who have kids because otherwise it's pretttyy expensive to go for the afternoon and see all the fishes. Fortunately for us this also meant that we didn't have to wait in line or come back at a certain time annnddd got into the dolphin show for free :)

I love going and doing things like this and keith was good enough to be patient with me while i took a ton of pictures. and there were about a million small children, especially since it was a rainy day. my favorite part of the whole aquarium is the exhibit at the very end when you are basically placed in the middle of this gigantic tank and it winds you around walkways from top to bottom. it was incredible especially the sharks :)

I shall call him Squishy and he shall be mine and he shall be my Squishy. Come on, Squishy Come on, little Squishy. Ow. Bad Squishy, bad Squishy. ~ Dory


"I am a nice shark, not a mindless eating machine. If I am to change this image, I must first change myself. Fish are friends, not food. " Bruce

that's right, it's 2 turtles doin it. definitely amusing to listen to the parental explanations to curious inquisitive children when they asked what they were doing...

Dolphins. They think they're so cute. Oh, look at me, I'm a flippy little dolphin, let me flip for you." -Chum
puffins!
I suffer from short term memory loss. It runs in my family... At least I think it does... Where are they?" -Dory

whale skeleton

my last day of peds is tomorrow and i'm certainly not sorry to see the month and rotation come to an end. it's been so chaotic since my doc was fired and the only thing that i've been able to count on since than is that each day will be as inconsistent as the day before. i've also become incredibly paranoid about picking up rashes from kids they're been 2 within the past 2 days who possibly had scabies. gahh, i couldn't stop itching. can't wait for next rotation to being with chester county volunteers in medicine, it's sounds right up my alley.

off to baltimore for the weekend, and hopefully will be able to relax a bit there :)

accidental hiatus

Whoops, July continues to get crazier every year, i'm not sure what exactly it is about the month that makes it ridiculous but here's a few things to get you caught up

keith's parents and mine finally met for dinner and it went extremely well :) i started my pediatrics rotation the tuesday after the 4th of july and it's been a roller coaster month since than.

while i was driving home after my first day that i'd been sent home early because i was sick, the side panel trim of my door decided it wanted to rippp off into the left lane of traffic across the hood of some guys brand spanking new acura and did $1000 worth of damage. awesome. oh and it started raining on the inside of my car again. and this week my back left tire blew out on my way into work on 202 in 90 degree heat at 830am. i can proudly say that i did the whole thing myself until i had to actually had to get the tire off the car. i'd gotten off all the lugnuts and everything! i'd just given in and called AAA to get some help when i'd wandered out of the parking lot and over to the next business which happened to be an auto body shop and 2 of the guys there were kind enough to help me out. and my review mirror fell off on friday in the sweltering 100 degree heat.

i showed up to work 2 hours late the day after the pediatrician i'd been working with got fired. so far i've learned how not to treat the rest of your staff as a physician from this rotation. and how to make kids cry when trying to look in their ears.

i also passed step 1 of my boards which is a hugeeee sigh of relief and col's graduation party was this past weekend. the rest of the pics are here

butterfly at 930pm...

rocchi side representing

love you girlies <3

all the carps made it even with the car trouble
our favorite pics of colin on our t-shirts :)

group headlock

attractive kristen

Quick Peek

Here's a few of my fav's from my first 'engagement shoot' with Michaela & Eddie. it went really really well and they are both awesome and super easy to work with. I definitely had a ton of fun doing it, thanks for letting me practice on you :) the rest of the album is here