Weekenders

This weekend John and I spent our Saturday taking care of Katie, the little girl I used to take care of. We had so much fun! She has gotten so big and she can say a few words now, you almost feel like you can communicate with her. She's also walking and just the cutest thing ever. I was in the kitchen and she was in the living room with John when she came toddling into the kitchen and said "Hi!". It was so cute and I was so surprised, I wasn't used to her walking and talking, she seemed so grown up. The funniest thing that happened was when she wanted John to hold her instead of me. I looked at her and said "So you're picking favorites now?" In answer to my question she looked at me and then at John and and tapped her little finger on his chest as if to say " Yes I am and John wins. He's my favorite." John thought this was the greatest thing ever.


John left us for a few hours to spend some time shadowing Bruce (Katie's dad) in the ER. John was so excited because Bruce let him suture for the first time. He got to do it twice, once on a thumb and once on a toe. The second patient he visited and sutured all by himself. He did a great job and Bruce later commented on what a great stitcher he is!

Neighbors

I have to say that I hate my new neighbors. What has inspired this post, you might ask? Well right now all I can hear as I study for my mental health exam is the constant reverberations from the repetitive bass line in their music. I haven't met them, I'm not even sure when they moved in but since about a week ago, day or night, all I hear is their super loud music seeping through the floorboards. Up until this week we really loved it here in our apartment because it was such an improvement from our last, but now I'm not so sure.
We affectionately refer to our last apartment as "The dirty, old motel." On the outside it looked like a dirty, old motel. The first time I went to see it there was a guy in an undershirt working on his big monster truck in the middle of the potholed parking lot. High quality. On the inside, it looked nice from a distance but when you looked closely, it was about to fall apart. We were even paying extra for the renovated model. That would all have been ok if it weren't for our neighbors. It seemed like they did laps around their apartment all day long. It was so intriguing how the floorboards actually magnified their footsteps to make it sound like they had hard, wooden peglegs.
We'll leave apartment life and be able to afford a house someday right? And when we get that dream house, our neighbors will be perfect right?

Project Desensitize

A couple weeks ago I was asked to help change a wound dressing during my clinical rotation. I felt uncomfortable but I thought "I can tough it out, think non-icky thoughts." Well I was fine until my instructor told me to use a q-tip and shove guaze down inside this guy's infected abdominal wound. Well, I tried but all of a sudden the room got really hot and I thought "I have to get out of here." So I quickly excused myself and when I got out into the hallway all the nurses flocked to my aid since apparently I was the same color as my uniform. I was embarrassed, and what made it worse was that my instructor came out to check on me because the *patient* was worried about me and sent her. Wow. I feel like an idiot. John and I decided that I just needed to watch some R-rated movies (or maybe just surgery videos on youtube) and get used to seeing gore. Begin project desensitize.
Well I wasn't going to tell this story because I felt stupid, but now I can because I have conquered wound care (at least for now.) This week my patient had so many wounds I got nauseous just looking at her chart. Not really, but I was nervous. But when I got there to take care of her it actually wasn't that bad. I got to see the wound nurse change the wound vac that was draining a huge abdominal wound from surgery. I actually thought that was cool. I tried not to look directly at her wound but it was pretty clean. Then I helped to change the dressings on the wounds on her legs from this rare disease. I didn't feel uncomfortable once. I was pretty proud of myself and my instructor told me that I did a good job. Yay!
That reminds me, a couple weeks ago John and I were watching c-section videos on youtube. It actually was pretty gross but after a few, not so bad. That night I had a dream that I was walking around with a big hole in my belly and I realized that I must be having a c-section. I remember looking down at my belly and thinking to myself "I thought my belly would have been a lot bigger." Then I coughed and the top half of my baby popped out, one more cough and the bottom half came out. She was in two pieces. It wasn't a nightmare, I just woke thinking "Well that was just weird." I just hope I don't start dreaming about cleaning wounds or diarrhea!

Happy Valentine's Day!

John and I celebrated Valentines day this year by going to the Columbia, SC temple. We wanted to do sealings because that would be kind of like reliving our wedding day, but we slept in late and only got to the temple in time to do a session. (It's a 2 1/2 hour drive.) Maybe we'll do some family sealings for our anniversary this year. It was a fun trip and we got to spend a lot of time talking on the drive there and back. But my favorite valentine event happened earlier this week. I had so many things going on this week and I was big time stressed out. 2 big assignments, 2 tests, and 2 parties plus little sleep makes a cranky girl. So John decided to help me by tidying our apartment and buying refreshments for the jewelry party I was hosting and picking me up from my first test with flowers. It was so wonderful and thoughtful, I love getting flowers for no reason at all except that I'm stressed. So thanks John, you really are my sweet heart.

The week we had the coldest day since we've been here. It was 28F in the morning, 11F with the wind chill factor, and when I got home at noon for lunch our fountain was still frozen! It's warmed up though, today we had weather in the 70's. In this picture you can see my friend Bessie's dog Jesse in his winter coat.

Bessie, Taumeia, Lyndsey, Ms Olson, Jaqueline, Donna, me, and Katie

This is a picture of me with my clinical group at the hospital. We meet together at the hospital twice a week, once on an oncology floor and once at an in-patient psychiatric ward. We have a lot of fun together. I have been dubbed the "diarrhea queen" since all of my patients have had it bad. Apparently I have the uncanny ability to walk into a room and cause my patient to explode. My classmates said next time they have to give an enema they're just going to have the "walking enema" (me) give it a whirl first. Notice our cute, white uniforms!

Time Flies...

I can't believe that its already February and my last post was at the beginning of January! John and I have been really busy getting back into the swing of things. John's in his last quarter of classes before he starts a year of clinical rotations. He's doing really well, he's a really hard worker. He's tutoring the new PA class below him in Anatomy and Physiology. He's also hoping to meet with an Air Force recruiter sometime soon to talk about becoming an Air Force PA after he graduates. I'm back in school with 5 classes and 2 clinicals on an oncology floor and in mental health. I've had a hard time getting organized and into the semester, probably because we had such a long, lazy Christmas break and our trip to Asheville only 2 weeks into the semester.

Last weekend John and I drove up to Asheville, NC to see John's cousin Jacob's homecoming talk. Jacob served as a missionary in the Jackson, Mississippi mission for 2 years. John's grandparents also flew out for Jake's talk. It was so nice to see them since it had been over a year since we'd seen them. We had a relaxing Sunday (it was nice to not have to play the organ/lead the music and teach priesthood/sunbeams!) and then on Monday we did a little touring before we drove home. We went to see a fancy old hotel, ate lunch at this great ribs place, and went to the Folk Arts Center to look at their display. It was a great trip, we had a really nice and relaxing time visiting with family and being together.

Victoria, Aunt Liz, Megan,Grandpa Stephen, Grandma Stephen, Jake playing Chicken Foot!

Grandma and Grandpa Stephen guarding their tiles in Chicken Foot

Me and Grandma Stephen in the fireplace at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville