Today was the last day of my ER rotation. That’s 5 of the 13 rotations for this year done. Yeah!! The ER was nice – I worked 21 eight hour shifts and had 7 days off. The shifts ranged from 7am-3pm, 9am-5pm, 2pm-10pm, 5pm-1am, and 11pm-7am. I saw quite an array of people with lots of differing personalities and problems, ranging from no reason for being in the ER to every reason for being there and very sick. Here are examples of some of the more interesting things I saw:
An older man who had a tumor growing on his head for a year before seeing a doctor finally because it was giving him headaches and leaking lots of junk on his shirts. It was about 5 inches wide and 1-2 inches deep and was eating into his bone. We took a biopsy and he ended up having a really bad squamous cell skin cancer. He will need a lot of work with plastic surgery to try and fix it.
A teenage girl who came in 1 week after being diagnosed with strep throat with no other medical problems. She was put on an antibiotic and had a rash appear on her stomach and the front of her legs, and we thought it was just a reaction to the antibiotic. We got some basic labs that came back showing signs of cancer. Further testing showed she had a new leukemia (blood cancer).
A lady had back surgery about 10 days before and had gone to a rehab center. She was not having very many bowel movements and started having a lot of pain and bloating in her abdomen. She ended up having a hole in her large intestine from all the pressure that had built up and was quite sick from it. The CT scan of her belly showed lots of air in her abdomen (a really bad sign) and she was rushed to the OR, where a large part of her bowel was taken out and she was in the ICU on a ventilator for almost a week afterwards recovering.
A man who was wheeled in by EMS with really bad chest pain. We were sitting in the other room and heard, “I need a doctor and nurse in the room now!!” so I rushed in after the attending doctor to watch. The patient had stopped breathing and had an abnormal heart rhythm. The doc ran in and gave a large thump with his fist to the man’s chest while the machine was getting ready to shock him. I think he ended up being shocked 3-4 times before he came around and said “Ouch!” with the last one. He was rushed up to cardiology to get a rapid procedure to look at the blood vessels to his heart, and they found a giant clot blocking the main vessel in his heart. He is so lucky because if he had been at home when he lost consciousness, he wouldn’t have had the machine there to shock him, and so he probably would be dead.
A lady who got something in her eye from raking leaves. We placed a fluorescent dye on her eye and then used a machine called a slit lamp to look at her cornea to see if there were any abrasions (cuts), which would fluoresce a light green color, and I got to see it.
I got to suture (sew) up a few people’s lacerations – one on an eyebrow and one on a head – all by myself, which was so much fun.
I would go see the patient, then talk with the doctor over me, and we would talk about the possible things going on and decide what labs or other tests to order. It was a nice month because the ER is run by the attending doctors, and we are there more to learn than to run it. So we could go a little slower and take time to learn about our patients. I also enjoyed the people I worked with.
There were some frustrating things that would keep me from choosing ER as a career: 1) I saw firsthand the problems that our current healthcare system has with respect to the ER – so many people who use it as their primary care office because they don’t have insurance so they don’t go to a regular doctor, which drives the premiums and taxes up for everyone else; 2) I got annoyed by people who use the ER like McDonalds: they think they can come in, pick and choose (sometimes demand) what tests they want ordered or what pain medicines they want, and then get mad when things are not done as fast as they like because they need to be somewhere else; 3) I don’t like the lack of continuity of care while working in the ER – you see patients, figure out what is going on with them, and then send them out, and it is hard to know what happens to them. I guess if anything this year continues to make me more and more excited for the upcoming training when I will get to learn dermatology, which I am liking more and more the more I see of it.
In other news, Kolby has now done 2 weeks of piano and loves it. He can already play a song that is recognizable (“Merrily we roll along”). The boys had doctor’s appointments this week for well-child checks and they all seem to be doing well. We went on Thursday to JC Penney to get a family picture that we will send out for Christmas. The lady who did our session was the same one who had taken the pictures of the boys in their Halloween costumes a few weeks ago, which turned out so cute, and she was so good again this time – we want her to do it for us every time we go. I can’t wait to get the pictures back – they turned out so nice. Thursday night was Daddy-Eli night and we went to see Wall-E together. Eli was so excited to get a little bag of popcorn and watch the movie on the big screen. We took the van in for a $20 oil change on Friday that ended up costing about $400 – the area where you put the key in locked up and so we had to have a locksmith go to the car place and replace that; the battery was dying and needed to be replaced; and we got the oil change. At lease that van works so well for us most of the time. Yesterday Kolby had a practice for his primary program that he participated in at church today. We had dinner tonight at the Eccles, a family in our ward. The kids had so much fun playing together and we had fun just talking. It has been a pleasant evening and a nice week.
Showing posts with label ER. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ER. Show all posts
10 November 2008
ER is over
05 November 2008
Halloween Night
So, we enjoyed trick-or-treating around the neighborhood with a group of friends from church on Halloween. Kolby mostly ran around with his friend, Kaitlyn, and Camden tried to keep up with Eli. The boys all had a lot of fun – I think Isaac even enjoyed it, as he ended up napping in his stroller for a good part of the walk. The boys tired of trick-or-treating about an hour later, and we headed over to the hospital so Daddy could show of his cute boys in their costumes. The boys enjoyed having Daddy do a little pretend check-up on them in one of the empty ER patient rooms.
02 November 2008
Our Week
Ok, so I’ve not kept up as well as I should have with our “weekly family journal” [blog updates] since we got back from San Diego, and Michael’s work schedule has prevented him from writing lately too. I have been rather busy with making that blog for our Relief Society, trying to get in a little genealogy work on the new.familysearch.org site, and with family birthdays and Halloween celebrations lately, (let alone all the busy-ness of daily life with four little boys). I have prepared several slideshows of photos from our trip, and have several more sets of photos since we got back to Utah that I need to post. But I decided that I would tell what’s been going on with us lately and share some thoughts before I get to that.
So, this last week we had something planned every day. On Monday I spent a good portion of the day mixing up a big batch of my favorite soup – a chicken and vegetable recipe that my mom used to make. Then that evening Michael’s Dad and Grandma Bradshaw came for dinner and family home evening because Michael’s dad was in town for work this week. After dinner and desert, Michael did a family home evening lesson with the boys about prayer, and then we carved pumpkins for our activity. The boys had fun pulling the gunk out of the pumpkins, and I think they turned out pretty cute (pictures to come).
On Tuesday evening, after Michael went to work – Michael has been on one of the less-desirable ER shifts this week from 5pm to 2am. We really liked the 2pm to 11pm shift of last week, because he got to be home to enjoy some time with the kids during the day when they were awake, and he only missed out on dinner and bedtime with the family, but then he got off early enough that he wasn’t exhausted the next day. This shift until 2am made him tired during the days, so there was less fun time with the kids. But I think the next 4 days will be his worst ER shift as he starts tonight going in at 11pm and working until 7am, which just means that he gets to be home all day, but that he will have to sleep for most of that time. Too bad that his next two rotations for the months of November and December aren’t going to be a nice elective to get a little break. One month of internal medicine in September got long, and I can only imagine how long two months in a row will seem. Oh well. I was thinking about it, and we have been here for 5 months now – that’s going by pretty quick. Only about 8 more months to go. We’ve been told that the intern year is the worst of a doctor’s career, and then it should gradually start getting better from there on out (and once he gets into dermatology next year I am hoping that that will be an even better schedule than some other residents have). But we’ll just have to wait and see how that goes.
Anyways, on Tuesday night Brother Adamson from the ward came over and had me show him some of the features on Photoshop. I was excited to do that, because I love to use that program. It was a little frustrating that my computer was having such problems that it ran extremely slow while he was here, but I think that he hopefully still got something out of it.
On Wednesday Kolby had his first piano lesson with Emily Harker, a girl in our ward. I was very impressed with how well she explained the ideas of piano playing to a new learner and how she listened to him. I think that he did pretty well – he learned how to hold his hand, and which fingers go where, and they went over two different short songs that we have been practicing since then. He was excited to go to the lesson, and he likes to practice too, so that’s good. On Wednesday night I took Kolby, Eli, and Camden to a Halloween party at our church, where the kids got to trick-or-treat through the church hallways and get their faces painted. And Wednesday was also Grandpa Dick’s birthday – Happy Birthday!
On Thursday morning Dorene Lynch came over and we set up the Relief Society blog, and then I spent quite a bit of time getting that all put together the last few days. Today I need to add some more announcements to it, but mostly I think that the set-up is done and I will just need to keep up with new announcements and anything that people send me to post to that blog. The other fun thing we did on Thursday was that I took Kolby out for his night out, and we went to see the Disney movie about the robot, Wall-E, at the dollar theater. He enjoyed it, and I enjoyed going with him. He likes to sit on my lap when we go to a movie together, and he is such a sweetheart – it’s nice to see how each of our kids are on a one on one basis (as my mom said – she liked us kids a lot more individually than when we were together).
Friday was Kolby’s 5th birthday and Halloween. That morning he and I went to the grocery store together to get him a special birthday breakfast (since we are having his party next week so we didn’t have a cake that day). He picked out chocolate milk, donut holes, and cinnamon rolls, and we came home and enjoyed them together. And we gave Kolby his present – 7 new Book of Mormon character figurines. They are little plastic figurines of characters, such as Nephi and Moroni, from the Deseret Book store that the boys like to take in their “Sunday bag” to play with at church. We didn’t really want to get the “bad guys,” so we picked out almost all of the “good ones” (there were two others that we didn’t get, because they didn’t have them in the store when we went). Thank you, Grandma Debbie and Grandpa Dick – we used the birthday money that you sent for Kolby to pay for part of this gift. In the afternoon Michael had to go to work, and he helped me get the boys into their costumes before he left. We met at the Bentley’s house, along with at least 6 or 7 other families from the ward, to go trick-or-treating around the neighborhood together. It was fun to go as a group. I think that maybe going with just 2 or 3 families would probably be ideal, though, just because Kolby wanted to run ahead with the older kids and Camden was a lot more slow, so Kolby got 3 or 4 houses ahead of me at some times (there were plenty of adults in the group to supervise the kids in the front of the group and those in the back, but I would have rather had all my kids stick together with me – but I couldn’t really tell Kolby he had to stay with me instead of running with his friends). But either way, it was fun. I got some cute pictures of the boys, and Isaac ended up sleeping in his stroller most of the way. I was surprised when we had only gone a little over an hour and Kolby and Eli both decided they were done with the trick-or-treating. The rest of the group continued on, but we decided to stop when we passed our house. Then we got in the car and drove over to the hospital because Michael wanted to show off the kids in their cute costumes to the people at work. The boys each got a cup of water and ice from a water machine there, they said hello to lots of the doctors and nurses, Daddy took them into an empty patient room and showed them how he looks in patients’ mouths and ears and listens to their hearts, and a doctor gave them each a piece of candy. So that was fun for them. And then when we got home Kolby returned several birthday calls that we had missed while we were out trick-or-treating before going to bed.
And yesterday Michael had a day off. We decided to go on a date, and we ended up going downtown to the Joseph Smith Building to see the movie in the legacy theater about the life of Joseph Smith. We had seen it once before at the Mormon Battalion visitor center in San Diego, but at that time Eli was a baby and was being very noisy, so we kept taking turns with him outside the theater and missed most of the movie. We really enjoyed it this time. That will definitely be one worth getting when it becomes available. After that Michael surprised me and stopped at Leatherby’s for an ice cream. It was nice to go out without the kids.
And right now Michael and the boys are napping (Michael is trying to prepare for his upcoming night shift). So, we had a good (full) week. And looking at our calendar we have another full one coming up – with doctor’s appointments and flu shots for 3 of the boys, voting on Tuesday, piano lessons, family photos, Kolby and Isaac’s birthday party, and a primary program practice. Well, at least things don’t ever get too boring at our house. :)
So, this last week we had something planned every day. On Monday I spent a good portion of the day mixing up a big batch of my favorite soup – a chicken and vegetable recipe that my mom used to make. Then that evening Michael’s Dad and Grandma Bradshaw came for dinner and family home evening because Michael’s dad was in town for work this week. After dinner and desert, Michael did a family home evening lesson with the boys about prayer, and then we carved pumpkins for our activity. The boys had fun pulling the gunk out of the pumpkins, and I think they turned out pretty cute (pictures to come).
On Tuesday evening, after Michael went to work – Michael has been on one of the less-desirable ER shifts this week from 5pm to 2am. We really liked the 2pm to 11pm shift of last week, because he got to be home to enjoy some time with the kids during the day when they were awake, and he only missed out on dinner and bedtime with the family, but then he got off early enough that he wasn’t exhausted the next day. This shift until 2am made him tired during the days, so there was less fun time with the kids. But I think the next 4 days will be his worst ER shift as he starts tonight going in at 11pm and working until 7am, which just means that he gets to be home all day, but that he will have to sleep for most of that time. Too bad that his next two rotations for the months of November and December aren’t going to be a nice elective to get a little break. One month of internal medicine in September got long, and I can only imagine how long two months in a row will seem. Oh well. I was thinking about it, and we have been here for 5 months now – that’s going by pretty quick. Only about 8 more months to go. We’ve been told that the intern year is the worst of a doctor’s career, and then it should gradually start getting better from there on out (and once he gets into dermatology next year I am hoping that that will be an even better schedule than some other residents have). But we’ll just have to wait and see how that goes.
Anyways, on Tuesday night Brother Adamson from the ward came over and had me show him some of the features on Photoshop. I was excited to do that, because I love to use that program. It was a little frustrating that my computer was having such problems that it ran extremely slow while he was here, but I think that he hopefully still got something out of it.
On Wednesday Kolby had his first piano lesson with Emily Harker, a girl in our ward. I was very impressed with how well she explained the ideas of piano playing to a new learner and how she listened to him. I think that he did pretty well – he learned how to hold his hand, and which fingers go where, and they went over two different short songs that we have been practicing since then. He was excited to go to the lesson, and he likes to practice too, so that’s good. On Wednesday night I took Kolby, Eli, and Camden to a Halloween party at our church, where the kids got to trick-or-treat through the church hallways and get their faces painted. And Wednesday was also Grandpa Dick’s birthday – Happy Birthday!
On Thursday morning Dorene Lynch came over and we set up the Relief Society blog, and then I spent quite a bit of time getting that all put together the last few days. Today I need to add some more announcements to it, but mostly I think that the set-up is done and I will just need to keep up with new announcements and anything that people send me to post to that blog. The other fun thing we did on Thursday was that I took Kolby out for his night out, and we went to see the Disney movie about the robot, Wall-E, at the dollar theater. He enjoyed it, and I enjoyed going with him. He likes to sit on my lap when we go to a movie together, and he is such a sweetheart – it’s nice to see how each of our kids are on a one on one basis (as my mom said – she liked us kids a lot more individually than when we were together).
Friday was Kolby’s 5th birthday and Halloween. That morning he and I went to the grocery store together to get him a special birthday breakfast (since we are having his party next week so we didn’t have a cake that day). He picked out chocolate milk, donut holes, and cinnamon rolls, and we came home and enjoyed them together. And we gave Kolby his present – 7 new Book of Mormon character figurines. They are little plastic figurines of characters, such as Nephi and Moroni, from the Deseret Book store that the boys like to take in their “Sunday bag” to play with at church. We didn’t really want to get the “bad guys,” so we picked out almost all of the “good ones” (there were two others that we didn’t get, because they didn’t have them in the store when we went). Thank you, Grandma Debbie and Grandpa Dick – we used the birthday money that you sent for Kolby to pay for part of this gift. In the afternoon Michael had to go to work, and he helped me get the boys into their costumes before he left. We met at the Bentley’s house, along with at least 6 or 7 other families from the ward, to go trick-or-treating around the neighborhood together. It was fun to go as a group. I think that maybe going with just 2 or 3 families would probably be ideal, though, just because Kolby wanted to run ahead with the older kids and Camden was a lot more slow, so Kolby got 3 or 4 houses ahead of me at some times (there were plenty of adults in the group to supervise the kids in the front of the group and those in the back, but I would have rather had all my kids stick together with me – but I couldn’t really tell Kolby he had to stay with me instead of running with his friends). But either way, it was fun. I got some cute pictures of the boys, and Isaac ended up sleeping in his stroller most of the way. I was surprised when we had only gone a little over an hour and Kolby and Eli both decided they were done with the trick-or-treating. The rest of the group continued on, but we decided to stop when we passed our house. Then we got in the car and drove over to the hospital because Michael wanted to show off the kids in their cute costumes to the people at work. The boys each got a cup of water and ice from a water machine there, they said hello to lots of the doctors and nurses, Daddy took them into an empty patient room and showed them how he looks in patients’ mouths and ears and listens to their hearts, and a doctor gave them each a piece of candy. So that was fun for them. And then when we got home Kolby returned several birthday calls that we had missed while we were out trick-or-treating before going to bed.
And yesterday Michael had a day off. We decided to go on a date, and we ended up going downtown to the Joseph Smith Building to see the movie in the legacy theater about the life of Joseph Smith. We had seen it once before at the Mormon Battalion visitor center in San Diego, but at that time Eli was a baby and was being very noisy, so we kept taking turns with him outside the theater and missed most of the movie. We really enjoyed it this time. That will definitely be one worth getting when it becomes available. After that Michael surprised me and stopped at Leatherby’s for an ice cream. It was nice to go out without the kids.
And right now Michael and the boys are napping (Michael is trying to prepare for his upcoming night shift). So, we had a good (full) week. And looking at our calendar we have another full one coming up – with doctor’s appointments and flu shots for 3 of the boys, voting on Tuesday, piano lessons, family photos, Kolby and Isaac’s birthday party, and a primary program practice. Well, at least things don’t ever get too boring at our house. :)
20 October 2008
Catch-Up
Well, it’s been a few weeks now since we’ve written our “weekly” blog post because I’ve been busy having fun in San Diego with the boys for a month and Michael has been busy at the hospital on his ICU rotation, so I’m going to play a little catch-up now. I have lots of fun pictures from our trip, and a few video clips. Since I last wrote, a lot has happened. We took the boys to the beach when my brothers had a day off of school, we attended several playgroups at the fun splash park and big playground in 4S Ranch, my brother Matthew got his Eagle Scout, Kolby and Eli had lots of fun with their new friend, Brittany Giles, at the playgroups and swimming at Nana’s house, Isaac started to stand up without holding onto anything quite often, and he made us think that he was going to take his first step more than once in San Diego, my friend Sidney came over to the house a couple times for my mom to help her smock a blessing dress for her baby girl and the boys really enjoyed playing with her daughter Haley, my brother Aaron had his 14th birthday party and I found out that pregnant women are not allowed to play laser tag, my dad and I went shopping for my grandma’s birthday gift and he got me a cute shirt – it was fun to just hang out with him, we went out to an Italian restaurant downtown to celebrate Grandma Faun’s birthday, Camden got his second haircut ever – even though it’s not a really drastic looking change, I did take off 2 or 3 inches – and the boys warmed up to my parents’ dog (which they had been rather afraid of when we first got to San Diego), my mom got me some maternity jeans and three cute maternity shirts – thanks Mom!, Camden learned how to climb out of the playpen about a week before we left San Diego which made it rather difficult to figure out sleeping arrangements where he couldn’t get up and get into anything, mom and I got to go look at model homes (always fun), and we all got to spend lots of fun family time together.
Then on October 16th my Grandma and I drove back to Salt Lake. It was a long drive, and what made it seem even longer was the fact that about ½ an hour after we left Kolby needed to pee, then ½ an hour later Eli needed to, then Kolby, then Eli, etc. all the way to Las Vegas! After stopping for a quick dinner at In’N’Out and threatening the boys that they had better “get it all out” because we weren’t going to take any more potty breaks for a long, long time, we made it a whole 18 miles outside of Las Vegas before Eli started insisting that he really had to go again. After telling him that he couldn’t possibly need to go again that soon and trying to ignore him for about 10 or 15 minutes, I started to look for a good place to stop for him, and then he fell asleep and slept the rest of the way home, so that was nice. Kolby also slept until about an hour before we got home, and then he woke up telling us that he had to go right away. By the time we stopped and got him out of the car about 10 minutes later his shorts were all wet, and he told me that he just couldn’t keep it all in. Oh well. At least we made it home without any major problems.
The day after we got home Michael had a day off work at the E.R., and I took Camden for his 2-year check up, and I forgot that it was his first official appointment with this doctor since we moved here and so I had to go back home and get his immunization records from our old doctor in Milwaukee and then return for him to get his 2-year-old shots later in the afternoon. The doctor also ordered some blood work just to check for iron levels and lead – I guess she must do that for all new patients, because she had Isaac’s blood drawn after his first appointment there too – and I was amazed: Camden not only didn’t cry for the initial needle prick, the moving the needle back and forth in his arm for about a full minute before they got his vein, the blood draw, or the later shots, but he didn’t even make any noise at all. Amazing! Anyways, while we did that Michael started getting things unpacked and then vacuumed out the van when we got home. And while the boys napped I folded all their clean clothes from the trip and put away all the shorts and t-shirts in the storage bins and got out all their fall and winter clothes. After the boys got up from naps, we decided to take a break from getting things done and we all drove over to the Jordan River Parkway to take a fun walk and then play on the playground for a few minutes. Then we decided to go to Denney’s for dinner, a mistake which we probably won’t repeat – the restaurant was run down, the waiter messed up our order even though we were the only customers there for most of the time, and they were skimpy on the portions so we had to ask for more of things that normally come with the meals. But it was nice to go out together and not to have to cook or clean up afterwards.
When we drove home that night, Kolby said something pretty cute: He asked what it was called when things sleep in the daytime, and I said “Naps.” He said, “No, like when owls sleep in the day.” And I told him that was called nocturnal. And then he said, “Oh, so the moon and the stars, they’re nocturnal, huh?” He is such a little thinker.
On Saturday evening after Michael got home from work Grandma offered to watch the boys for us while we went to stock up on groceries. We got some bigger things at Costco and then went to WalMart for the rest. I got a bunch of different vegetables for a couple of big batches of soup that I am planning on making this week. One thing I like to do in the Fall and Winter is make a big stock pot of soup and have it for dinner, and then freeze the rest of it for several more easy and healthy dinners.
On Sunday Michael had to work. He says that a career in the E.R. would not be for him – there are so many patients who come into the emergency room with minor problems, either because they don’t have health insurance or because they are overly concerned parents who bring their babies in for a cough. Also, he said that patients are either discharged because they shouldn’t have come to the E.R. in the first place, or they have a real problem and they are treated and sent home or they are serious enough to be admitted to internal medicine, the ICU, or surgery, and then Michael, as an E.R. doctor, doesn’t get to find out what happens to them later on. That’s one thing he likes about dermatology, is that he gets to see patients and their families over time and watch their progress and build a relationship with them. Anyways, on Sunday after church we went down to Mel and Christian’s house in Lehi to celebrate Kyler’s 1st birthday. The boys had a lot of fun running around with Jaden, as always.
And today after taking Kolby to preschool, the other boys and I went to Wheeler Historic Farm for the playgroup that one of the other interns’ wives has organized. Melissa, the one organizing the playgroup, and her daughter Chloe were the only ones there. We had a great time taking pictures in the pumpkin patch, seeing all the animals, and letting the kids play in the little tree house there. After the playgroup we came home to pick up Kolby, then headed downtown to turn in my voter registration paper – we realized when we got back in town that today was the last day to turn in the registration. I am still unsure if I will be able to vote or not – I know that you have to have either a photo ID or proof of residency to vote, and I don’t have a Utah driver’s license because I decided not to pay for a Utah license and then turn around and pay for another one in New York next year, and since we are living with my grandma we don’t have any rent, mortgage, or utility bills that come in our names – and I don’t know if they will take junk mail or catalogs as proof of residency. Oh well, at least I’m registered now, so I can try to vote if they’ll let me.
Tonight I am going to try making spaghetti squash for dinner, so wish me luck. (Last time I tried it I did it in the oven and it took much, much longer than the label on the squash said it would so we were very hungry by the time we ate late, but my mom said that you could do it in the microwave for about 20 minutes, so that should be good if it works out this time). And then for our family home evening activity tonight I was thinking of going to a pumpkin patch (if we can find one) or at least getting some pumpkins at a store, because the boys need little pumpkins to paint in their preschool class this week. So that should be fun for them to go pick those out.
Oh, and we have been very lucky that Camden has not yet climbed out of his crib since we got back, even though he got very good at climbing out of his playpen in San Diego. Also, Isaac has officially been off the bottle for about 3 days now. And he took two steps in a row without falling down this afternoon – although I could only get him to take one step on the video afterwards. But it shouldn’t be too long before he really starts walking around. And his birthday is on Thursday, so we will officially have a 4 year old, a 3 year old, a 2 year old, and a 1 year old all at the same time for just over a week until Kolby will turn 5 on Halloween.
Well, my computer continues to have internet connection issues, so I’ll get this posted for now and then try to add the photos later.
Then on October 16th my Grandma and I drove back to Salt Lake. It was a long drive, and what made it seem even longer was the fact that about ½ an hour after we left Kolby needed to pee, then ½ an hour later Eli needed to, then Kolby, then Eli, etc. all the way to Las Vegas! After stopping for a quick dinner at In’N’Out and threatening the boys that they had better “get it all out” because we weren’t going to take any more potty breaks for a long, long time, we made it a whole 18 miles outside of Las Vegas before Eli started insisting that he really had to go again. After telling him that he couldn’t possibly need to go again that soon and trying to ignore him for about 10 or 15 minutes, I started to look for a good place to stop for him, and then he fell asleep and slept the rest of the way home, so that was nice. Kolby also slept until about an hour before we got home, and then he woke up telling us that he had to go right away. By the time we stopped and got him out of the car about 10 minutes later his shorts were all wet, and he told me that he just couldn’t keep it all in. Oh well. At least we made it home without any major problems.
The day after we got home Michael had a day off work at the E.R., and I took Camden for his 2-year check up, and I forgot that it was his first official appointment with this doctor since we moved here and so I had to go back home and get his immunization records from our old doctor in Milwaukee and then return for him to get his 2-year-old shots later in the afternoon. The doctor also ordered some blood work just to check for iron levels and lead – I guess she must do that for all new patients, because she had Isaac’s blood drawn after his first appointment there too – and I was amazed: Camden not only didn’t cry for the initial needle prick, the moving the needle back and forth in his arm for about a full minute before they got his vein, the blood draw, or the later shots, but he didn’t even make any noise at all. Amazing! Anyways, while we did that Michael started getting things unpacked and then vacuumed out the van when we got home. And while the boys napped I folded all their clean clothes from the trip and put away all the shorts and t-shirts in the storage bins and got out all their fall and winter clothes. After the boys got up from naps, we decided to take a break from getting things done and we all drove over to the Jordan River Parkway to take a fun walk and then play on the playground for a few minutes. Then we decided to go to Denney’s for dinner, a mistake which we probably won’t repeat – the restaurant was run down, the waiter messed up our order even though we were the only customers there for most of the time, and they were skimpy on the portions so we had to ask for more of things that normally come with the meals. But it was nice to go out together and not to have to cook or clean up afterwards.
When we drove home that night, Kolby said something pretty cute: He asked what it was called when things sleep in the daytime, and I said “Naps.” He said, “No, like when owls sleep in the day.” And I told him that was called nocturnal. And then he said, “Oh, so the moon and the stars, they’re nocturnal, huh?” He is such a little thinker.
On Saturday evening after Michael got home from work Grandma offered to watch the boys for us while we went to stock up on groceries. We got some bigger things at Costco and then went to WalMart for the rest. I got a bunch of different vegetables for a couple of big batches of soup that I am planning on making this week. One thing I like to do in the Fall and Winter is make a big stock pot of soup and have it for dinner, and then freeze the rest of it for several more easy and healthy dinners.
On Sunday Michael had to work. He says that a career in the E.R. would not be for him – there are so many patients who come into the emergency room with minor problems, either because they don’t have health insurance or because they are overly concerned parents who bring their babies in for a cough. Also, he said that patients are either discharged because they shouldn’t have come to the E.R. in the first place, or they have a real problem and they are treated and sent home or they are serious enough to be admitted to internal medicine, the ICU, or surgery, and then Michael, as an E.R. doctor, doesn’t get to find out what happens to them later on. That’s one thing he likes about dermatology, is that he gets to see patients and their families over time and watch their progress and build a relationship with them. Anyways, on Sunday after church we went down to Mel and Christian’s house in Lehi to celebrate Kyler’s 1st birthday. The boys had a lot of fun running around with Jaden, as always.
And today after taking Kolby to preschool, the other boys and I went to Wheeler Historic Farm for the playgroup that one of the other interns’ wives has organized. Melissa, the one organizing the playgroup, and her daughter Chloe were the only ones there. We had a great time taking pictures in the pumpkin patch, seeing all the animals, and letting the kids play in the little tree house there. After the playgroup we came home to pick up Kolby, then headed downtown to turn in my voter registration paper – we realized when we got back in town that today was the last day to turn in the registration. I am still unsure if I will be able to vote or not – I know that you have to have either a photo ID or proof of residency to vote, and I don’t have a Utah driver’s license because I decided not to pay for a Utah license and then turn around and pay for another one in New York next year, and since we are living with my grandma we don’t have any rent, mortgage, or utility bills that come in our names – and I don’t know if they will take junk mail or catalogs as proof of residency. Oh well, at least I’m registered now, so I can try to vote if they’ll let me.
Tonight I am going to try making spaghetti squash for dinner, so wish me luck. (Last time I tried it I did it in the oven and it took much, much longer than the label on the squash said it would so we were very hungry by the time we ate late, but my mom said that you could do it in the microwave for about 20 minutes, so that should be good if it works out this time). And then for our family home evening activity tonight I was thinking of going to a pumpkin patch (if we can find one) or at least getting some pumpkins at a store, because the boys need little pumpkins to paint in their preschool class this week. So that should be fun for them to go pick those out.
Oh, and we have been very lucky that Camden has not yet climbed out of his crib since we got back, even though he got very good at climbing out of his playpen in San Diego. Also, Isaac has officially been off the bottle for about 3 days now. And he took two steps in a row without falling down this afternoon – although I could only get him to take one step on the video afterwards. But it shouldn’t be too long before he really starts walking around. And his birthday is on Thursday, so we will officially have a 4 year old, a 3 year old, a 2 year old, and a 1 year old all at the same time for just over a week until Kolby will turn 5 on Halloween.
Well, my computer continues to have internet connection issues, so I’ll get this posted for now and then try to add the photos later.
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