Tuesday, February 28, 2006

We Won!

Hubby and I decided to go out to a nice neighborhood pub to have a beer. Just to meet some folks who, well, never showed up.

But that's okay.

'Cause we won stuff.

What did we win? A raffle. A raffle we didn't even pay to enter. The folks just down the bar from us knew they were leaving before the raffle draw and gave us their stubbs.

Yeah - and we won.

Again - what did we win? A New Belgium Brewery bike. Yeah - we won a bike. How cool is that?

Monday, February 27, 2006

Oh Lord, it's official

Yet again, money flows like water from my hands. This time, to two super scary institutions - the NBME and the American Board of Pediatrics. Holy shit, it's official. I'm taking the last two major exams required to be a REAL DOCTOR within the next year. Which means, but the end of 2006, I'll be a REAL DOCTOR.

Now, I'm sorta a real doctor now. I make medical decisions, I talk to parents about options, I prescribe drugs, I correct the mistakes and misconceptions of more junior doctors and I intervene without asking for advice... sometimes. But damn, that's still different. Sorta like the difference between living in a dorm in college, then living completely outside of the safety net in a normal apartment. Only way more so.

Like, WAY.

I think the fees really bring the message home. I just dropped $2,000 - that's right, two grand. And it's not like I got an advance on my mucho dinero attending-style job that I landed for next year. Oh no - this is from the same budget that barely covers the mortage and booze for the month.


So today I went to the coffee shop and studied like I haven't studied since 2003 (the year I graduated from medical school, peeps.) This is serious - cause I am NOT taking this shit again. Nope nope nope.

Real life is a bitch, ain't it?

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Universal experiences

It doesn't matter what specialty we're in, all residents share a common experience. My favorite is the following, "That's against policy."

What policy? Where is (insert Shatner-esque pause here) this policy? Can I see (pause) this policy. And yeah, I know, even if the RN can't produce the mysterious policy, she won't do what you ask anyway. Just in case the order does violate the policy.

This is why I end up stealing things to better patient care. There is a policy at the community hospital that no bedside testing can happen anywhere (except the ER). I mean, I can't even dip a urine in the freaking NICU or PICU.

Yeah, so, when I'm senior in the NICU I run down to the ER, steal a bottle of urine dipsticks and carry them around. Need to know if that kid with short gut is malabsorbing and that's why he's fussy and distended? Dip the ostomy output! I just saved the patient a full sepsis workup and serial X-rays. Yay me!

All 'cause my residency has taught me to lie, cheat and steal. Awesome.

And while you're at it, check out www.pushfluids.com. They're funny.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Empty Net!

Those of you who know me already know what I'm gonna write about from the title alone. Those who don't, well, if you don't want to hear about the state of my pelvis and hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis, just stop reading now.

I've spent the last third of my life avoiding uterine parasites, i.e. pregnancy. Barriers, hormones and foreign bodies have all played a role... until yesterday. And it feels very bizzarre. I almost feel naked - like I'm not wearing pants or something. (Of note, I had one of those showing-up-for-a-test-naked dreams last night. Related? Nah. Never!)

The OB visit itself was weird. The hubbie and I are sitting there listening to the doc 'prescribe' sex every other day. I don't know what other couples think, but it was kind of a turn off. "Hey honey, we haven't had sex for 36 hours, we MUST have sex in the next twelve hours or I'll miss my next my sperm dose." Blargh. Sperm isn't like an antibiotic, people! The fabulous husband shouldn't be reduced to a sperm donor - he's worth more than that and he's definitely much sexier as a person than as a sperm delivery system.

If we don't have sex every 48 hours, do I have to fill out a missed medication form? Or does he? One of us would if I was a hospitalized patient... I guess I'm glad that I don't bring my work home with me! (Har - bad joke, I know, but hey - I'm a dork.)

Tuesday, February 14, 2006


So, when you expect to do something easy and brainless... and then the rules change, your day is thrown off.

Of course, I really don't mean to speak in the second person. I mean to speak about me.

I had a day today, when I thought all I had to do was secretarial shyte. And then suddenly, I had to take care of really sick kids. ICU style kids. Blargh. The brain stutters.

But ultimately, the kids and I will be alright. Aww yeah.

Sunday, February 12, 2006

All cultured and stuff! (And neon excretions of bizarre origin.)

Well, we had a weekend of culture. The first in a while.

Normally, I'm the kind of gal that likes to go to the mega-plex and watch testosterone-laden men to blow stuff up. Or watch sexy muscular women like Mila Jovovich or Michelle Yoh blow stuff up.

But not this weekend.

We started out by by bowling. I know, I know, not high culture. But hey, cheesy American culture isn't something we indulge in often. Then there was the Basquiat. Yes, I actually went to see art. Real art - the kind actual art critics actually write about. Normally, I avoid this stuff like the plague. 'Cause hey - I'm crass. But this was fun. It helped that copious amounts of booze and music by DJ Grandmaster Flash. It was the biggest party I have ever attended. The entire Houston Museum of Fine Arts was packed with hipsters - and these people were stupid enough to let me in! Hah! We came, we saw and we conquered. Very cool.

Next was Japanese drumming. Not only is that multicultural, which makes it intrinsically cool, but we also knew someone in the group. How cool is that? Taiko is definitely fun to watch. The drumming was awesome and the visuals were very cool. At one point, the drummers held these massive drums between their knees while lying on the floor. They then flexed their abdominal muscles to rear up and beat the drums. So very cool.

A good weekend all-around, topped off by some free booze from my boss and a game of Settlers with good friends. But now on to other topics...

My pee has turned neon yellow. Ya know that ever-so-slightly greenish neon yellow of the mid-1980's? Yeah, that's my pee. Before it was routine yellow of urine. As with any urine, it fluctuated between yellow and dark yellow with my relative state of hydration. Now it is just neon. Why, you ask? As a doctor, am I clueless why this has happened to me?

No, my friends, I am not.

It's my damn vitamins.

I've been a good little breeder and started taking prenatal vitamins well before getting pregnant. I got my vitamins from Central Market, an upscale tree-hugging (but excellent) supermarket nearby. My vitamins include the standard neccesary ingredients for prenatal health... but they also include various foodstuffs like spirulina, wheat grass, barley grass and alfalfa (leaf) juice concentrate.

So yeah, my pee is straight out of a bad 80's movie. But I need the vitamins. What is a girl supposed to do? The answer - suck it up!

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Tagged again

Four Jobs You’ve Had In Your Life:

- coffee shop girl
- chemistry lab gofer
- secretarial temp
- doctor

Four Movies You Could Watch Over And Over:

- Serenity
- Kill Bill Vol 1 & 2
- Sin City
- X-men 1 & 2

(Okay, that's six, but sequels and two part movies don't count, damn it!)

Four Places You’ve Lived:

- St. Louis, MO
- Bonstetten, Switzerland (near Zurich)
- Boston, MA
- Houston, TX

Four TV Shows You Love To Watch:

- Firefly
- Dirty Jobs
- Mythbusters
- Good Eats

Four Places You’ve Been On Holiday:

- Steamboat Springs, CO
- New York, NY
- Whistler-Blackcomb, BC
- Rome, Italy

Four Blogs You Visit Daily:

- The Texpatriate
- Go Fug Yourself
- blogography
- Weenie

Four Of Your Favorite Foods:

- wild mushroom rissotto
- filet mignon
- lamb shanks from the Blue Room in Boston
- Ted Drewes frozen custard in St. Louis

Four Places You’d Rather Be:

- Steamboat Springs, CO
- Boston, MA
- my bed
- Kilkenny, Ireland

Four Albums You Can’t Live Without:

- NIN, Broken
- Unwritten Law, Here's to the Mourning
- Liz Phair, Exile in Guyville
- Ray Corvair Trio, Slick 50

Four Vehicles I’ve Owned:

- 1993 Dodge Dakota 4x2 pickup truck - that sucker could fishtail like nothin' else!
- 1986 Toyota Camry
- 1999 GTI VR6
- 2002 Subaru WRX wagon

Now, if I can just get the stinking intern to sign out, I would be able to go home. And nap. Which would be good.

Friday, February 03, 2006

The Goodness of Jhonen Vasquez

Now, I'm not saying Jhonen is going to win any of the same awards as Mother Teresa. But I love the man. He's goth, he's ridiculous, he was successful, and I'm pretty damn sure he's not obese. What more does a girl need?

(Besides 5'5" of computer programmin' lovin' that is.)

Anyway, Jhonen did a cartoon series for Nickelodeon a while back that is just as sick and twisted as his original comic book work. It was called Invader Zim. I've always wondered how the f*ck JV managed to get the child friendly folks over at Nick to agree to this show. It doesn't have the murder that Johnny the Homicidal Maniac posessed, but it wasn't exactly, well, sane.

(On a side note, JTHM is just about the sickest graphic novel I've ever read. The casual and hilarious violence is totally appalling if you stop to think about it. Which is why I don't.)

The whole premise of Invader Zim is based on the idea that every society has a loser - a big pink Twinkie sucking loser. Someone so dumb they can't even be trusted to empty the trash. Now imagine a race of people so eveolved that they have stopped fighting each other and everyone is united under a single goal - the utter domination of the rest of the universe.

Okay - now understand that the protagonist of Invader Zim is the utter idiot of his society. He's considered so dumb that he's sent off to conquer the least significant planet in the galaxy... Earth. Just to get him out of the way, ya know.

Hilarity ensues.

Trust me, watch it at 8:30pm on Nick. It's so worth it!