A Day in the Life...

Let me start by saying that I am so thankful my intern year is over. It was a very busy, very exciting year and I am glad that it is behind me now! So far my second year in residency is turning out to be a little more low key, it won't stay that way all year but I thought I could take advantage of it right now and blog a little more. So many people ask me about my schedule...it changes monthly and sometimes daily! I thought that occasionally I could do a "day in the life" post and give a little glimpse into what goes on at the hospital.

Yesterday was the first day of the month, and in pediatrics, that means everyone starts in a new place, and I started Outpatient. In July I was on an elective month doing anesthesia...I was able to do several intubations, which is where you place a tube in the airway so a person can breathe while they are put to sleep for surgery. I learned a lot but I was lonely without all of my peds friends! Outpatient month is spent in the emergency room and the general pediatric clinic. I was in the ER yesterday. Here's how my day went, the short version!

6:45 AM arrived at the ER to get checkout from the person coming off of night shift, then started seeing patients. It is usually slow until about 10 or 11 AM when it gets steady, and then around supper time people start pouring in to the ER! We see so many kids each day. Some people keep count of how many kids they see but that's just one more thing to keep track of to me! Here are a few cases I saw yesterday:

Injured shoulder (football-glad it wasn't heat exhaustion-drink your water!!!)

Partially amputated finger (it was repaired in surgery)

Busted lip that needed stitches...these were the hardest stitches I have ever done...you have to line up the border of the lip so it looks even when it heals!!!

Possible malaria (travel outside of the country, we don't have malaria here)

At 6:45 PM my replacement came and I gave her checkout on a few patients so she could take over their care. By a little after 7:00PM my paperwork was complete and I headed home. There are no "breaks" in the ER. It's 12 hours, and if you're busy for that whole 12 hours, you probably won't sit down for any length of time. Usually in the mornings we get some down time. We always find time to squeeze in some lunch, but it might not be when you'd really like it to be! It's an exciting, busy place to be. The variety of patients we see keeps it very interesting.

Megan and Sarah Get Crafty...

About a month ago I called Megan to see if we could have a craft night...

I had never made a wreath before, so here is the story of my very first wreath...

Trip to Hobby Lobby for supplies!!! The cashier thought I was crazy taking this picture!

Magoo hard at work on her spring-y wreath!

I went with red and bright blue, a fav color combo of mine these days.

Finished product!

Megan's finished product!

What a fun night of crafting! :)

Something to Blog About...

Here we go again! We'll see if I can keep it up!

We got home from Winter Park, Colorado late last night. Such a fun trip! We went with my best friend Lauren and her husband Brett as well as Christopher Allen Scott Jaggars. It was my second time to snow ski and I am proud to say that I progressed from a "green-only pizza wedger" to a blue/green (still slow!) skier. We skied from the highest point accessible by lifts. Lauren and I also enjoyed lots of people watching, cookie/ice cream eating, and margarita drinking in the village while the boys tore up the powder on the top of the mountain! Here are a few fun pics from the week!

At Hernando's, the best pizza place ever in WP! Better make a reservation or you'll have to wait 2 hours!

BFF's! It was Lauren's Bday while we were there!

Group shot at the base of the mountain...

About half way up the mountain...look at that view!

And at the tip top!!!!

Intern Orientation...

Just a quick post to update on what's been going on!

I started intern orientation last week. Here's what the schedule consisted of:

Sunday PM: Welcome dinner at Cozymel's. All 24 peds interns and the 5 med/peds interns plus significant others had dinner together, on the department of course! Several attendings were there and it was a great time of meeting people. They also gave out schedules for orientation and gave us our MedStudy books, a generous gift from ACH to help us study for boards!

Monday: ACH orientation, a great day. We were in the fancy-schmancy board room. We received our moving bonuses!, pagers, and our ipod touches already loaded with excellent medical apps that we'll need during residency.

Tuesday: UAMS orientation. Took pictures for badges, got shots, and listened to a lot of information about HIPAA (patient privacy), insurance, and more.

Wednesday: More UAMS orientation. Pretty boring. But Wednesday evening the Dept. of Pediatrics took everyone to the Travs game. We had a great time! Free food and it wasn't too hot. Great meeting some of the residents I didn't already know and catching up with others!

Thursday AM: ACH orientation again. We received our scrubs and learned about the ACH standards of care.

Thursday PM: Back to UAMS to turn in forms...now UAMS pays for my insurance!!!

Friday: Neonatal resuscitation training. We learned how to resuscitate babies who have just been born if they are having trouble breathing right after delivery. Very interesting!

Overall, a fairly good week. I've been trying to stay up later at night to get used to getting a little less sleep. Most of our days this week started around 7:30 AM.

And the overview for next week:

Monday and Tuesday: PALS (Pediatric Advanced Life Support) training. This is what to do if a child codes (heart stops beating, they stop breathing, etc.). It's supposed to be pretty intense I think. Luckily we already had adult ACLS (advanced cardiac life support) and some parts are similar.

Wednesday: computer training

Thursday: THE REAL WORLD STARTS! This is the day we officially start working. I'll be starting on an inpatient team (Team 1). I'll be taking care of infants and toddlers with general pediatric problems that need to stay in the hospital for a few days. I've heard great things about this team and the people I'm working with already, so I'm very excited. Also, Thursday night is my first night on call, so that's scary! Luckily, it's short call so I don't have to sleep at the hospital.

I plan to try to update a little more often now that I'm working, when I get a little time. I hope I have some interesting stories to share! I'll try to do a post later this week that explains some more about what I'll be doing. And then I'll try to update Friday about my first day on the job!

Vacation Recap

We had such a fun trip! If you follow Jordan on twitter or facebook, you already know most of what we did!

We made it to the 4 big parks at DisneyWorld: Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios. The rides were all really fun, but my favorite part was probably the fireworks every night.

Epcot-IllumiNations

Magic Kingdom-Wishes

Hollywood Studios-Fantasmic!

Fantasmic was not so much a fireworks show, but more of a laser/water show. It was amazing. The stadium seats about 2000 people (or more!) We had to get there 90 minutes early to make sure we had a seat. Crazy, but worth it!

Of the fireworks, I think Fantasmic! was Jordan's favorite, but mine was Wishes! It was so fun seeing the castle change colors, Tinkerbell fly down, and the music was incredible! The last part of the video above shows part of Wishes.

Our favorite rides were Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Expedition Everest, Kilaminjaro Safaris, Tower of Terror, and Rockin Rollercoaster.

We saw several shows while in the parks, including Finding Nemo, the Lion King, and Beauty and the Beast. We also saw the Indiana Jones stunt show and Lights, Motor, Action! stunt show. Finding Nemo was definitely my favorite. The costumes were amazing!

Hope you enjoy the video!

Can you guess where we're going???

DISNEYWORLD!

I'm so excited! It's my favorite vacation destination! It will be our first time to go together!

Do you have any good Disney vacation tips for us?

Can't wait to see Mickey, Minnie, and all their friends!

Our House...Before and After

A few weeks ago we had our house painted! Jordan bought this house in 2007 (if my memory is correct!) and since then it has undergone some drastic changes! We've painted the inside (in some rooms twice!), redone the floors in the kitchen and master bedroom, replaced the old deck with a bigger and nicer one, new appliances to the kitchen, painted kitchen cabinets...I'm sure there is more! But I think the latest project is definitely one of the best! As you can see in the before, we had a yellow-ish color, some lovely cedar shingles, and a green door. There used to be green shutters to match!

Painting day! One of our good friends recommended this painter to us and he did a super job! They finished painting our house in about nine hours! Amazing!

And here is the finished product! A nice, crisp white! Bright blue front door! New black shutters! And new lighting fixtures for the outside. Also notice the brick flower beds Jordan and Chris made for me so I could plant fun things!

What do you think of our Extreme Makeover?

We love it!!!