Hands on

Did you ever think about how great hands are? I was at an Indian wedding last weekend, and all the woman had their hands decorated with henna. My hands are the ones on the outside. It is a really cool tradition, and it was a lot of fun to have my hands decorated for a week. Mine turned out really dark (maybe because the background is really white!). I began noticing my hands a lot more during the week after, maybe because I'd be surprised, like something was on my hands that would catch me off guard and make me glance at my hands. The best part was freaking my parents out by making them think I had lost my mind and tattooed both hands. Hhhmmmhh.........not a bad idea.

Last call!

It's been a long abscence, but I'm back! Mostly due to the fact that I finally have a computer! I know, it's only 2008. I have to keep up with the times, here people! So, I now own a beautiful dell inspiron. I don't know exactly what that means in computer performance terms, but it sure looks pretty and seems to work well. And now I own powerpoint. I know, it's a dream come true! Who doesn't want powerpoint of there own! Alright, enough about this....


Last night was my last call of residency. Over the years, when I tell people that I'm on call, there are different interpretations. I've found myself having to explain over and over that call means staying in the hospital 24-30 hours at a stretch. Then I have to explain how that is possible and blah blah blah. After 4 years, I finally took my last call. I was sitting back in the call room thinking about how many calls I probably took over 4 years. If I say that on average I took about 4 calls a month over a 4 year period, then I probably took about 200 calls. That's 200 nights spent at the hospital, time that I'll never get back. But, it's 200 nights where my skills were tested to the max. Where I learned how to be a doctor, and how to take care of patients, how to talk to patients and their families. How to be realistic with them, give hope, or deliver the worst news possible. That's a lot of time.



When I was an intern, I remember feeling nervous everytime it was time for call. Every page I received would worry me, and I would worry about the patients endlessly. Somewhere, probably around year 3, I kind of lost that nervous feeling as I became more comfortable with my role. I still worried about the patients, but I was more confident in what was expected of me and my decision making skills. One of my old friends from residency used to get very wound up and nervous every call. Finally, around year 2 she stopped and said to me, "what is the worst thing that can happen. I'm not going to die, some of the patients might, but I'm not going to die." I think this about sums up how it feels to be an inexperienced resident on call. As I finished up this last call I began thinking about what the future holds. No more in house call, but I will still need to take home call. I know that I will be nervous again, as I was 4 years ago when it comes to call, but at least I will not die! What I really look forward to is a little more time outside the hosptal (maybe)!

Return to real life..

It's been about 2-3 weeks that I've been back. Feels like months. When I stepped off the plane in Chicago, the cold air was an unfriendly greeting. I know noboday feels bad for me when I complain about the cold because I missed the worst of it. But I still really want spring to come. I've been super swamped at work since returning. It seems to be the policy that if you decide to not be physically at work for 6 weeks, even though you are working, the perception is that you haven't been working and that you "owe" more time at the hospital. I know, it does not make logical sense to most people. So, I was forced to do overnight call every 2nd or 3rd night since returning. Which really doesn't help a person who was about 10 time zones away acclimate well. Now that the overnight calls are done, I remain on "jeopardy" for the remainder of the month, which basically sums up to not being able to have fun or go places because I may be called into work at any moment. Yeah! Well, at least the in-house calls are done...until next week anyway. The calls themselves aren't bad, so I really can't complain. I did have to stick 5 newborns in the back to get a spinal tap. This record is quite amazing now days, because we don't seem to perform as many spinal taps as we did back in the day. Now that I'm 4 years into residency, I find myself saying "back in the day" a lot. We used to do spinal taps on tons of newborns when I was a first year intern. If a kid looked at us funny, we would tap them. Now days, the babies really have to put a lot of effort into earning a spinal tap, ie developing a fever, acting really weird, etc. The interns now days don't even know how to do spinal taps as well because the actual numbers of spinal taps have dropped. Oh well. The thing that kills me is having to explain it to the parents. They get so scared and nervous for their kid (expectedly so), and my job is to tell them that the procedure sounds a lot worse than it is. Which is true. But I still feel like they don't believe me and that afterwards, their kid will be paraplegic for life. Well, only a couple more calls like that in May and I'll never poke a newborn in the back with a needle ever again. Crazy!

So I'm again trying to get the Sydney pictures posted. I can't figure it out, again. I'll keep trying, keep checking for an update.

Rough cut of pictures!

I finally figured out how to get pics up! I know, I'm a little slow. I apologize about the roughness of the slide show. I have to come home and fix up the slide show. This is only the pics from my 1st week in Bolivia. When I get home I'll add more, and captions too!

The home stretch

So, my adventures are almost over. I still have 4 days left in Sydney, but as you probably noticed, I haven't been on the internet as often. Mostly because it's pretty expensive here! I've enjoyed my time in Sydney. I could live here. It's a great city. Except the US dollar is worth crap, so everything is expensive! Last night I went to see a Shakespeare play at the Sydney Opera House. During the intermission, I enjoyed a nice glass of white wine and looked up at the opera house. I couldn't believe that I was here. It was one of those dejavu moments. I've been to the beach again. The weather's been great. Lots of surfers and big waves. I've eaten a lot of fish as well. They have great ice cream here. We watched the Queen Victoria and the QE2 port in Sydney harbor. A big deal here, it was on the news for days! Who new? I thought it was fun to try and pick out the passengers in the crowd. Usually they were the old british ones, fancypants! We are hoping to head out to the blue mountains this weekend before the long plane ride home, back to the cold!

The longest airplane ride in the world!

So, I made it! No DVT yet either! My flight out of Bolivia was delayed 1 hour because the fuel pump was broken (very reassuring when you are already loaded on the plane and about to take off when they tell you the fuel pump is broken!). Anyway, I made it to Miami with only 1 hour to spare. I ran through imigration and customs, rechecked my bag and ran across the airport just in time to catch the next flight. After 7 hours on the first flight, 6 hours on the next flight and 14 hours on the flight to Sydney I made it. I don't recommend that anyone fly that much ever. I don't normally get motion sickness, but man, I was feeling it. When I got off the plane, I felt dizzy, like I was still moving! But luckily, I was now in Sydney which is gorgeous! The weather is perfect! Sorry people in Chicago, I know it's been a sucky February, but right now in sydney its mid 70's to 80's and sunny. Absolutely perfect. There's palm trees here. I thought we would be too far from the equator for that! Anyway, we've walked around circular quay where all the ferries take off, by the harbor bridge and opera house. We ate dinner the first night in Darling Harbor, and yes, we did go by the real world house (come on, it's me, I had to take a pic of it!). It's actually pretty dumpy in person. It's in a great area. Yesterday, we went to Bondi beach on the Pacific. Got a little burned, not bad. Watched the surfers. The food has been great, love the fish. We had some fantastic ice cream and took ferry rides around the harbor last night. I'm loving this so far. Wish I could stay. Don't they have semesters abroad for residents? Wouldn't that be great!

Goodbye to Bolivia

So, I'm about to leave Bolivia for Sydney. I know I've run behind in my blogging. It's been hard to have time to sit down and write about things. This past weekend after coming home from clinic late Saturday night, we departed for Samipata on Sunday morning. Samipata is a small village set in the green mountains at the end of the Andes Mountains. The scenary was gorgeous. I felt like I was in Switzerland, only hotter. We stayed at this beautiful hostel owned by a Dutch couple, Peter and Margarite. They built the hostel surrounded by beautiful gardens. They also run a small cafe, where every dish you order is freshly picked from their garden. Delicious! After a day of breathtaking scenary, and after a long 3 hour taxi drive to arrive in Smaipata (5 people squeezed into an old beat up station wagon), we relaxed and enjoyed ourselves. The next morning, we took a 2 hour breakfast. It was brillant, eating out in the garden. Afterwards we went to see pre-Incan ruins. The car ride there was an adventure that I couldn't really handle! We again climbed 5 people into an old beat-up station wagon and attempted to drive up a single dirt path that was really rocky. Our driver seemed to enjoy driving on the very edge, were there was no guard rail to protect against steep drop offs. At crucial points, the engine would cluth out and we would slide backwards. Finally, at the steepest point, I no longer could handle it and shouted "I'm done" and got out of the car and walked the rest. The ruins were quite a hike, but the ruins themselves looked like some weird petrified space ship.


After our excitement, we went to a waterfall to go swimming. We had a picnic lunch packed by our hostel. Afterwards, we headed back to Santa Cruz. This morning we went on rounds at the public hospital. It just always amazes me there. I saw 2 patients on ventilators on the floor, not on any monitors. Their vents are the oldest vents I've ever seen. They only have 2 modes , CMV or IDV. But everyone's vent settings were the same, whether they weren't breathing over, or if they were breathing 50 BPM. Weird. They also assume that everyone has dengue and treat accordingly, and if it turns out they are wrong, oh well. Not the greatest examples. Today was scorching hot. It was oppressively hot. I'm glad to get a break. It will be a long flight, but I'm looking forward to Sydney!