First blackberries!

And Holland is eating them ALL!


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End of rotation party with the neurologists

Even though I just started






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Forces to eat against my will this morning

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Flowers from my mama!

Yesterday, I started working in Neurology at the VA. I spent all morning in clinic and then at lunch time went to a conference at the University. I am "on call" today/tonight, which means that the VA's ER will page me to admit any new Neurology patients (in fact, I just got home from admitting one now). Just after I arrived to conference, my pager went off and I thought, "UGH! NEW ADMIT!" I grudgingly called the number but when I did, a very nice lady from clinic said that she was just calling to let me know that I had flowers. I had no idea who they were from and was very excited.

They're from my sweet mom, who sent them as a pick-me-up to tell me that I'm a great resident even though I haven't felt like one lately. The ICU is challenging and I felt pretty dumb most mornings after I had been on call all night having to deal with really sick patients by myself. I hope I can find a balance between being too hard on myself and being just hard enough that I'm driven to learn. Aren't the flowers beautiful? They smell wonderful too! Thanks, Mom!

Midnight ice cream run!

This is my med student, Dave. He is super awesome.


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Caught

Today was my day off and it happened to be Holland's too, which was great because we hadn't had a day off together all month. We slept til noon, then went to the farmer's market, then went hiking with a couple of friends from our program. Afterwards, we went to our respective houses to shower and then go to a friend's Pioneer Day barbecue. I was in a BAD mood because my head hurt really bad and I was tired and just not feeling like being sociable tonight. When Holland came back to pick me up, we got in the car and I mustered up every ounce of my energy and said, "Can you just take me to 7-Eleven?" Holland, of course, takes me, no questions asked.

He snapped this paparazzi-like photo because he thought it was hilarious when he figured out what I had wanted. It was an ICEE (aka Slurpee in these parts). He drank at least half of it and I was in a much better mood by the time I got to the party.

Mmm raspberries!

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Post-call, soooo tired

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Need more cherries!

Holland and I were both post-call from the ICU today and decided to meet at the Farmers' Market for lunch. We got some delicious Sudanese food (spinach, couscous, and a yummy little fried dumpling full of beans, peas, and carrots) and then tried to pick up some fruit before all the farmers shut down their stands. Pretty much the only thing bountifully available right now is cherries. Holland very excitedly got all these Rainier cherries (2 pounds), then afterwards walked by another stand selling lots of dark red cherries and wanted them too. This is his face of dismay when he realizes that he can't possibly eat all of the cherries that he wants to buy. Unless he also wants to find me a cherry pitting tool so that I can make something out of them.

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And this picture is for Amy (my sister):


Over a year ago, she gave me a very cute and funny Decorate Your Own Piggy Bank kit. It has been sitting on my desk forever, just waiting for the perfect day to come out of its box and finally be decorated. Well tonight was the night. The paint, stickers, and glue pens were tremendously fun and gratifying and Amy will be glad to know they had not dried out one bit. Now all I have to do is save some money to put in it. May it should be my Pedicure Fund.

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A Day in the Life of Jipsy

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BAD KITTY!

Here is Jipsy, caught in the act of something that she likes to do frequently - rummage around in the bags in my closet. This particular bag contains about 12 or so pairs of stockings, of which I am now quite the hoarder since I wore them frequently during the winter here and do laundry infrequently. After I took this picture, I yelled "Jipsy!" and she pulled her head out and sat beside the bag sulking. Almost as soon as I walked away I heard the bag rustling again.

Sorry for the lack of postings - I'll try to update more! Holland and I have not had much in the way of lives recently due to Q3 call. Because our off days aren't matching up this month, we've barely even been able to see each other. I can't seem to catch up on my sleep and when I'm awake I feel like I'm in a fog. I routinely will sit and think for a minute or more at a time just trying to figure out what day of the week it is.

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sigh

So I'm working in the ICU at a large community hospital right now. For the most part, it has been a fairly good experience besides the every-third-night ("Q3") call. The people are mostly nice and I feel like an idiot a lot but that's to be expected. But the Q3 call is killing me. Not to mention that I got zero sleep and a soul-killing admission at 5AM on my most recent call night. I rushed rushed rushed and finally managed to get all my work done to get out by the post-call mandatory 1PM. As I was leaving the hospital, I had a missed call, voice mail, and frantic text message from the guy who lives beneath me saying EMERGENCY! CALL NOW! WATER LEAKING FROM YOUR PLACE!

So I drive home dreading what I will find, expecting the entire place to be underwater and for it to be something that is my fault that will cost thousands of dollars to fix. But it ended up being not that bad. One of the old pipes leading to my sink had simply rusted through. Jeff, the guy who lives beneath me, had managed to get into my place and had temporarily stopped the leak and actually mopped up my floor. Unfortunately, in order for him to do this, he had to pull out all the stuff that I had crammed in the cabinets underneath the sink.

This was yesterday and I was so exhausted that I told them to just let themselves in to fix it if I didn't answer the door because I needed some sleep. I woke up briefly to hear what sounded like a jackhammer behind my bedroom wall but otherwise slept through it. I was off today and I've been so exhausted I got next to nothing done - including not putting up the sink things until 11:30 tonight. Back on call in the morning!

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Day Off

Woke up at 10:30 and went to the farmers market, where I saw this insanity- a bicycle-powered blender at a smoothies stand. I myself got an iced coffee, a cinnamon roll, and a TON of cherries. I'd thought maybe I could bake something with them buy them I remembered I would have to pit them.

Then tonight we had a barbecue for the new interns (Yes! Not me anymore!). The 4th of July fireworks got moved to Saturday (to avoid Sunday) here because it's Utah, so that was tonight. I found Holland some Zatatain's shrimp boil so he did a "low country boil." It came out quite well!



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