ScrappyDoc

Heading to you NYC

Tomorrow I fly to NYC to do wedding stuff and go to my sister's baby shower. So so excited!! I can't wait to see Jenny and her cute penguin waddle and her big belly. My flight leaves at the crack of dawn, but it will really give me two whole days in the city to get wedding things done. We've got a tasting at the Penthouse around noon, and hopefully I'll be able to get to a few dress appointments after that. Friday evening, we are heading out to see one of the bands we might book. They are playing in a club/restaurant somewhere in Jersey, and my folks and I will go check it out. Hopefully I'll be able to nail some important things down.

For those of you who don't know, Nick and I officially fired Stella (our former wedding planner) a couple of weeks ago. Or rather, I should say that we have been trying to fire Stella for more than 2 weeks. We got super fed up with her failure to deliver on many (most) of her contract duties, and since the budget for our wedding is already stretched, we couldn't see any good reason to pay her money for services we weren't receiving. The wacky thing is, and this just seems to fit in perfectly with the way things have gone with her from the beginning, we can't get her to actually acknowledge that we've fired her and ended our contract. We've sent her a formal letter both through UPS and registered certified mail through the USPS, which have both been delivered. She continued to call like nothing was wrong, and then we finally re-sent the letter via email. Since that time we've only heard from her once, but she did go around and cancel all of the appointments that I had made weeks ago with both the caterer and one of the wedding dress stores that I planned on visiting. Good thing both places knew me well enough to call and make sure that I wasn't coming, which of course was not the case. Isn't that the shadiest thing you've ever heard?? What a disappointment. Oh well, the owner of the venue we booked has been doing this for 35 years and seems to have all of his ducks in a row. He reassured us that he'll be able to help with whatever we need. So hopefully this will all work out OK. All I know is that it can't possibly work out worse, and at least we've save ourselves a pretty penny.

Saturday is...

...moving day!!! We did our walk through this morning, and it looks AWESOME!!! OK, that is enough gratuitous exclamation points, can you tell that I'm really excited to move into our new house? After 40 nights (yes, folks, I said 40) in a hotel, I've about had it with the Residence Inn. That was just a little longer than we were planning on, but we got through it without going completely nuts or wanting to wring each other's neck's. There were a few meltdown moments, but nothing we couldn't get past. It makes us feel pretty darn good that we can roll through the hard times we've had this year and come out on the other side relatively unscathed, and even smiling most of the time.

Heading to the house...

...to do our final walk-through. That's a pretty good reason to get up at 5:30 am. We stopped by yesterday and things are looking great. They were in the middle of fixing the lights over the bar (which were uneven), it will be good to have that done. They've also got to put another coat of paint on the stairs. Unfortunately, they realized that the stain they were using originally on the stairs was the wrong type (it had the polyurethane top coat premixed in already). It wasn't drying because of the type of stain, not because it was too hot. So the stairs had to be stripped and started all over again. But they've already got a couple of coats on with the right product, and they're drying really quickly and it looks great. The power has been turned on (which means the AC is on) and the last coat should go on today. We'll do the walk-through this morning, and complete our punch list. This will probably have quite a few things on it, but it doesn't matter, as long as we can move in. Unfortunately (for Nicholas), I'll be in NYC this weekend to go to my sister's baby shower, so he'll have to do a lot of unpacking by himself. We made a deal, though, I'll take care of wedding stuff in NY, and Nick can take care of house stuff here. Sounds OK to me.

Rested after a day off

Yesterday was my day off, and even though I had to be at conference from 8-12, I don't have to be in today until 4, so I really did have a whole day off (and a little more). I got some errands done yesterday and then Nick and I went out and had a nice dinner. We also stopped by the house to check on the progress. Unfortunately, there are still a few things standing in our way, most of them related to the city and the inspection. There is still a chance that we will close on Friday, but there's no guarantee. We've been in the hotel for more than a month now, and while we've certainly established a routine, it will be great, great, great to be in our house. And Beth (Nick's mom) has generously offered to come visit us and help us unpack and get settled during the first week of August. That will be SUCH a huge help. Nick starts in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) on the first, and I switch to Orthopaedics, which will be busy for both of us (although probably more for him then for me). It will be nice to have family around and help us make our house feel like a home.

Oh and I've been talking to a few people about looking at pictures on the new site where I've posted my photos, Flickr, and some of you were wondering what the best way to look at them was. I've found that clicking on the slideshow tab, and then once the show starts, you can hover over the picture and the letter i should appear, and if you click on that, it will display the information about each picture while you're looking at it. You can also change the speed of the slideshow by clicking on the slow, medium or fast on the bottom left. Or you can scroll through at your own speed by using the arrows to the right and left of the pictures. I did post some new pics from our last visit, if you're interested.

House pics on Flickr

So for all of you who have been wondering where the new pictures of the house are, I've decided to go ahead an put them all on Flickr, and you can get there by clicking the orange-bordered badge on the right of the page. This is a much better interface for viewing photos and it allows you to write descriptions and comments without writing on the pictures themselves. So check out the pictures through Flickr, and play around with the different ways to display photos. I think the slide show format is the best, let me know what you think!

This is what 90,000 visits feels like

Generally in the world of medicine, Sundays are a little more mellow, but for some reason, that doesn't really hold true at Wake. One of our attendings jokes that Sundays get busy because of WWE (and we're talking about "Wants Work Excuse" not World Wrestling) but last night was super busy with super sick people. We were short on ICU beds throughout the whole hospital and actually had to send some sick transplant patients from our ED to Duke to get admitted (which is about an hour and a half away). While that was all going on, one of my patient's was crumping in one of the back hallway rooms (which we usually keep for less sick folks), so we brought him out front and got ready to intubate him. We then had a run-in with the patient's mom, which is another story completely, but let's just say it was very distracting to deal with her while we were trying to save her (50 year old) son's life. He wound up getting by on Bi-Pap for the time being and we transferred him up to the Medical ICU. I guess it's all in a day's work, but these days are wearing me out!! It will be nice next month to actually have real days off, as opposed to scheduled days off that are actually filled with 4 hours of conference. This evening I'm in the fast track, which is our urgent care side for less serious things like small lacerations, minor aches and pains and colds, etc. Should be interesting. At least I don't have to go in until 5. I originally thought I had to be in at 1, but I wasn't reading my schedule correctly, and I'm glad I figured that out before I schlepped all the way over there for no reason.

Lost in the shuffle

I apologize for neglecting my blog for the last several days, but I've been so tired after working that when I come home all I want to do is sleep!! It is amazing how much more work takes out of you when you have to think carefully about each decision and patient, and be able to justify all of your actions, not only to your attending physicians but also legally. My brain just feels fried when I'm done, and the last few days have been particularly hectic. I just got off of my 6-2 shift and I'm trying to wind down a little before hitting the hay. I did stop by the house briefly today and there is progress being made, although not as much as I had hoped for. The city inspectors were out today and that certainly stood in the way of getting meaningful work done. Nick and I are going to go back on Saturday and see where we stand with our move in date. It's looking doubtful that we will be closing on Monday (certainly not tomorrow), but hopefully it won't be too many days past that. I have some new pics to post, and I'll put those up tomorrow. I'm going to hit the sack because my eyelids are closing.

Happy Sunday

Nothing terribly interesting to report today, I've just been super busy at work. Had some frustrating patients yesterday, people who have chronic generalized complaints and decide to come to the Emergency Department because they're either tired of waiting to see their doctor or they're unhappy or unsatisfied with the diagnosis they've been given. I know this is something that is an issue in EDs everywhere, but we actually have a pretty good safety net here in Winston-Salem. We'll see what it's like today. I'm curious to know how things go on Sunday in a city where there seems to be a baptist church on every other corner. I'll keep you posted. Have a happy Sunday!

It's a good day

Finally feel like I'm getting the hang of it at work. Today was my 6th shift and I'm finding my groove. The ED at Wake is awesome (and freakin' busy). We'll be over 90,000 visits this year, and the ED was built to handle 55,000. Yes that means patients in the halls sometimes, but it also means that we need to see patients quickly. This felt like a pressure cooker the first couple of days, but I eventually realized that it would behoove me to set up a system and stick to it. That helps me stay focused while it feels like everything around me is hitting the fan. As interns we don't really take any trauma patients (e.g. those who have a trauma alert called), but we do get the sick cardiac patients, shortness of breath, and abdominal pains as well as some of the lower level trauma patients. These folks are always a little more of a diagnostic challenge for me, and seeing a lot of them is really helping. I must emit appendicitis vibes, though, because I've had 4 acute appys since I started (including a 71 year old lady...) but at least it keeps it interesting. One of the things that makes the ED so great is that we have tons of help. Our Fast Track (a.k.a. urgent care) is open from 1-11 pm, which takes a bunch of the low acuity stuff, and there is also a 15 bed holding/obs unit, where patients can go if they're waiting for lab results or consults. This leaves the ED for the truly sick folks (at least most of the time), and we have great nurses, techs and pharmacists to help us. It's certainly different from other places I've been or worked. The only bummer is that I don't really won't have any days off until I head back to NY for my sister's baby shower. My chief scheduled my day off for Tuesday every week, which is our conference day, so I have to be there anyway. But oh well, I got the 3 days off to go home, so I can't complain.

OK, so an update on the house. As you may have noticed, I posted new pics over there to the right. It is really really coming along. Nick and I met with Jim today and we were really expecting the worst. But it actually wasn't as bad as we thought it was going to be. Even though the construction industry pretty much shuts down over the 4th (and I'm not sure why that is), quite a few things got done in the last couple of days. Appliances are all on site, ready to be installed, toilets and vanities are going in, electric is almost finished, etc etc. Jim said things are 95% done (I'm assuming he means time wise, not item-wise), and that we will be able to move in in a week. Yup, a week!!! He is meeting with the city Monday or Tuesday to arrange for the CO and the inspection, and hopefully everything will be hunky dory. We got really excited today because it is actually starting to look like our house, we can't wait to move in!!

Press pause

In one respect, that is the title of one of my favorite car jam songs, by Danity Kane (if you don't know who they are, shame on you for not watching Making the Band). In another, it serves as a reminder to myself to step back sometimes, gain a little perspective and take it easy. I could have used a reminder of this last night, as I laid awake in my hotel bed, listening to Kazoo cry, knock pans off the stove, and run around our miniature bathroom like he was possessed. The poor fuzz balls are just going stir crazy, in our 400 square feet with no where to hide. Their behavior is just a symptom of our larger problem, and just when I thought I had adjusted to our surroundings, it becomes readily apparent that I haven't. All I wanted last night was to be in our house, like we were supposed to almost 3 weeks ago. I was tired of going to the laundromat, not eating well, wearing the same clothes, being disorganized, not being able to find anything and missing out on my hobbies.

We'll go over there today, but Nick and I are both skeptical that we will be ready to move in on July 9th. That is only 6 days away... So as I was lying there trying to fall asleep amid the rustling, crying and crashing, I couldn't help but question my (our) decision to buy our place, knowing there was a possibility that it wouldn't be done before residency started. All I could think of was how happy we'd be if I would have just picked on of the very nice, but very average, single family homes that I looked at before seeing the Park Ridge condos. Last night I wasn't so sure we'd made the right decision, but perspective comes with time, and after a few fitful hours of sleep, I woke up feeling a little better about things. I'll give you an update after our visit today. Fingers crossed that they have gotten lots and lots of stuff done.