ScrappyDoc

Smiling Kassi and a sick Aunt Cari

Kassi got her "Welcome Home" quilt in the mail the other day, and Jenny just sent these super cute pictures.

Look at that grin... is she a ham or what?? Pretty nifty that she just blends right in.

I think she's working on some advanced math here, using her fingers as an abacus... what a little brain!

In other news, I'm still on nights, but tonight is the last one, thank goodness! It's certainly a different kind of medicine at night, figuring out how to cope with a skeleton crew. It's usually OK, because nights can be slower (not slow by any means, just slower than days), but if a couple of traumas role in or a cardiac arrest, it really throws a wrench in things, pulling everyone's effort towards one patient.

Unfortunately, I'm also sick again. I was really feeling better there for several days, back to 100%, but last night, I woke up with a cough as I was getting ready for work, and then wound up hacking away all night. I even had to break out the albuterol inhaler a few times. Not helping whatsoever is coming home to the "This Old House" set in Cari and Nick's backyard. It's a construction jungle outside of our door, and while on one hand that is good, because that means that things are getting done, it doesn't make for much of a quite place to get some shut eye. One more day... I think I can tough it out.

What a busy week!

Home watching college football after working a mellow night shift. Yes, that's right, I said mellow and work in the same sentence. I have no idea what the heck was going on in Winston Salem last night but it was a quiet, quiet Friday. I think I saw 9 or 10 patient's all night, and that wasn't because they were sitting and not moving. That was certainly a welcome departure from the usual insanity. I have 4 more nights, which I am sure will be more busy, but at least things got started on the right foot.

We finally got our bedroom repainted, and we have a bed and a dresser now! Once we get sheets and a comforter (they are being delivered sometime this week), I'll send off some pictures. We chose a soft gray for the walls, and changed the way the ceiling detail was painted. The ceiling is still that very light blue, and all together, the room kind of looks like a baby British Shorthair kitty (you know, big blue eyes, soft fuzzy gray fur...). It is finally the calm and quiet look I've been craving, and no more baby poo color on the wall. And speaking of babies, Jenny just sent some new pictures of Kassi (yes, the nickname has 2 s's, while Kasandra has just one). This kiddo is just the bomb!

And as you can see from her little footies in the picture below, she obviously takes after her Aunt!

I just sent Kassi her "Welcome home" gift, hopefully Jenny will send a picture of her with it so I can post it. I should have taken a pic before I put it in the mail, but I was to excited to get it sent off, that I forgot.

In other news, Iowa is playing Wisconsin tonight, and it is actually on TV here!! Poor Nicholas has to work (he is on call today) but I will try to represent for the two of us and catch most of the game before I have to go back to work.

All in all, things are really good. Work is great, Nick and I have had some random unexpected afternoons together that were really fun, his folks are coming to visit us in a few weeks, and the crews are making progress on the  house. Slowly but surely things are getting done. 

I think...

...I was back at work today, but I can't say for sure.

Well, actually that's a fib, because I have charts with my name on them that I have to finish now that I am home, so that must mean that I went in and actually saw some patients. Good thing no one was too sick today, because the entire day was a foggy mess. I don't know what's worse, the icky medicine-head feeling you get when you take Day-quil or the gross stuffy sinus-y feeling you get without the medicine. Either way I felt out of it, but there was no way that I was missing another day of work. I was already mortified that I had to miss 2 days this week, grrr...

Not helping my mood at all is the fact that the Yanks are currently losing to the Red Sox, and Nick is on call, so I'm home moping by myself. I think I might as well just pack it in and call it a night, I don't think I can stomach another inning full of errors and missed opportunities. For once let's root for the Twins and hope they pull out a win tonight against the Tigers. OK, enough about baseball, time for bed!

Nothing like a baby picture to cheer up your day

Jenny just sent out these super cute pictures of baby Kasi. Once again, please excuse her overwhelming adorableness, she is by far the cutest baby ever!!

And yes, for those of you that remember my roommate last year, Kasi is wearing a Winney the Pooh jumper in that third picture, and I had absolutely nothing to do with that. Let's just say it's a rebirth for Winney... here's to new beginnings.

Slowly on the up and up...

Had a terrible night last night, only slept an hour or two, and kept poor Nicholas up in the process. I'm not quite sure why whimpering helps in the middle of the night, but that seemed to be the only sound I could muster based on how crappy I felt. Here's a pic to put a visual with that whimper (thank goodness for iPhotoBooth special effects, but that is exactly how my nose feels).

We did get a cool mist humidifier that I put by the bed, which has seemed to help a little bit. Hopefully things will get better day by day. I would really like to go back to work tomorrow. I feel like such a slacker just sitting here sniffling! Hopefully tomorrow will be the day.

Grrr... sick as snot

Working on a nasty sinus infection for the past couple of days. I thought it was just allergies about 10 days ago, but things never really got better, and everything started spiraling downhill over the last 48 hours. Sort of felt like I died yesterday, which wasn't great, considering I was supposed to be at work at 4pm. Thank goodness we have a jeopardy system (where someone is on backup call just for these cases) so it wasn't a huge deal, but I still felt like a huge schlump having to do that. But I couldn't quite figure out how I was going to run around and see patients when I couldn't even stand up for more than a few seconds. Finally went to the doctor today and got some antibiotics which will hopefully help kick this thing to the curb. Otherwise, nothing else to report, I'm probably going to hit the hay soon since I do have to work in the morning.

Elusive sleep but memories of silliness at the coast

So last night was not meant for sleep, I guess, considering I was up every hour pretty much. What a pain in the neck! One good thing though, I did get to edit the pictures from this weekend in Beaufort. The photo below should give you an idea of the level of maturity that Nicholas and I function at on a day to day basis...

I'm sure these photos would inspire confidence in our patients, don't you think? Who said being "crabby" couldn't be fun???

The rest of the pictures from the NC Aquarium are posted on Flickr. Hope they make you laugh too...

 

Happy... but sad

Being the far away sister just sucks, plain and simple. Of course, this is nobody's fault besides my own, since I chose to move away some 13 years ago. But when it comes time for important family things, like for example, births, engagements, weddings, graduations... (you get the idea), it really, really stinks being on the outside looking in with my family far, far away.

OK, enough self-pity... here are some super cute pictures of Baby Kasandra Estelle (yes, this is the correct spelling), who I will hopefully get to meet before she's walking ;)

Try not to fall down as you're overwhelmed by all of her adorableness (I think I just made that one up?)

Oops...

...I forgot about some other key high points of the day

1. Michigan lost to Oregon (it was an ass whooping, too!)
2. Iowa won against Syracuse, redemption for last year's nail biter
3. Iowa State lost to UNI
4. Colorado Buffs are winning in Arizona (sorry Andrea)
5. Nick and I goofed off at the NC Maritime Museum this morning (here are a couple of funny pics)

A beautiful NC day

A day to remember... Jenny and Rob had their baby early this morning (a little after 5 am, I think), it sounds like everything went well and the little peanut is doing fine. I'm pretty sure they named her Kassandra Estelle (spelling???), but it was hard to hear my dad over the phone when he left the message. We'll have to check on that tomorrow.

That was certainly a great way to start our fantastic, relaxing day in Beaufort. We got up at a reasonable hour to make sure we didn't lose half the day sleeping, and we headed down to breakfast. After that we got ready for the beach and headed out. On the way to Atlantic Beach we stopped at the Duke Marine Lab, where Nick spent the first semester of his junior year in college. They were having registration for new students and it was really fun to see his dorm and the dining hall and the dock where he used to drop off of to go kayaking around. The location is great, with a terrific view of Carrot Island (the home of a wild horse sanctuary). After that we headed out to the beach and grabbed a beach towel at a local store (along with a little baby tee-shirt for our new niece).

The beach was great, it was so nice to just lay on the sand and relax and people watch and then go play in the ocean. Nick did some body surfing and I just splashed around, the water was just the perfect temperature. We stopped for lunch on the way back, at the Sanitary Fish Market, and yes I know that is a weird name, but it is a Morehead City landmark having been in business since 1938. They have super fresh seafood and we had a great meal. After that, we came back to the hotel and lazed around and took a nap, then we got ready to go to dinner and walk around downtown. We had a great dinner at a newer restaurant in Beaufort, called Aqua. They have tapas and yummy seafood and everything was very tasty. The best part was probably dessert, though, we had bananas foster, which was homemade and delicious. It came to the table and then the waitress lit it on fire, sweet! We'll here's a pic from tonight taken before we headed out to eat.