Stitches and Sutures

Making the move...

2007-01-05T11:27:00.000-05:00

I have moved! Anyone who has checked here in the last few months has probably noticed that I just ran out of steam around here. I was having trouble deciding which direction to go with this blog and hence didn't write at all. Fortunately, my good friend Laura, who lives on the other side of the country, suggested a joint blog -- and she even sat down and created it.

If you'd like to follow our adventures (and we'd love to have you!), you can find us at: http://transcanadateaparty.blogspot.com/ Come on over!

Surgery

2006-09-25T21:35:00.000-04:00

There's really no good way to continue after a post like that last one. Thank you all for your sympathy and support. I still find myself reeling when I think about Robert, but I'm trying to move on and not dwell too much, because Robert would have hated to think that someone would dwell on his death.

To be honest, my surgery rotation has been a heck of a distraction. I'm certainly not bored, let me tell you. I am sick to death of bowels and poo, though. Blech. Surgery is SO not me. One of the hardest things is seeing people who thought they just had a stomachache, and discovering that they in fact have a huge tumour. Watching someone's life turn upside down in seconds like that is really tough.

That said, I've enjoyed the rotation more than I thought I would. Turns out that even though I don't want to be a surgeon, looking at guts is cool sometimes - and if nothing else, at my school where anatomy education is largely "self-directed" (my fiance manages to make that sound dirty, but really it's not, it just means that students at my school tend to be a little rusty about anatomy!)...anyways, surgery has been a good way to brush up on anatomy. Nothing like seeing it "in the flesh," so to speak.

I wish I could tell you some of the tales of things I've seen. Damn privacy laws. I will say that it is absolutely amazing how much will fit up one person's bum. It's even more amazing what people will put up there. Ouch.

I will tell you about one patient, though. He was one of those patients that for some reason resonates with me. He came into the ER with this vague history of abdominal pain, loss of appetite, weight loss, and intermittent fevers over the past few months.

The man is very, very Irish, and had this very Irish way of speaking -- a manner with which I am intimately familiar, because my whole damn family talks like that - they never answer a question directly, but instead dance around the question and tell all sorts of side stories until you're totally lost - at which point they finally give you a very indirect answer to your original question. In any other group of people, it would be called circumlocution. In the Irish (or at least the ones I know), it's utterly normal. I understand this. Unfortunately, the residents with whom I was working did NOT understand, and thus got a very poor history from the man. Fortunately, med students tend to have time that residents do not - so I went back and talked to he and his wife for almost an hour, and got the whole story - pretty much as described above, although I also found out an awful lot about him that had nothing to do with his medical problems in the process!

The whole conversation sort of built a connection. I "get" this man - we speak the same language, if you will. I could see that his nonchalant attitude that others were interpreting as a lack of understanding of the situation was in fact stoicism covering utter terror. He understood the situation all too well.

A CT scan was done, and it showed a big, scary-looking mass that no one could specifically identify, but that everyone agreed was cancer.

The poor man has stayed in hospital two weeks (and counting) while everyone tries to sort out what the tumour is, how to biopsy it, and how (and if) it should be treated. He's a man who has worked hard his whole life and only recently retired - the forced "rest" at the hospital is driivng him crazy. He wanders the halls all day, pushing his IV pole. I always make a point to stop and talk to him for a few seconds, because I know that he's lonely. That Irish craving for socialization is something I know very well.

He nearly broke my heart one morning when we stopped to see him on rounds and one of the residents commented that he was "looking very good." "Aye," he replied, "too good to die." It was heart-wrenching, because all any of us could think was that he was probably right - he was dying.

He also gave me a good belly laugh late one night when I was heading off toward my on-call room for a few hours' sleep. I ran into him a couple of wards away from the one where he is staying. As usually, he was walking the halls, pushing his IV pole. I joked that he was fairly far afield from his usual turf. "Aye," he replied, "I'm just gettin' my exercise. Thought I might as well do the Terry Fox Run while I'm here." He grinned.

Last week, someone decided to repeat his CT, presumably to make some sort of decision about treatment and prognosis. Imagine our shock when the "tumour" was half its original size! It turns out that he has diverticulitis (a condition that's more of a pain in the butt (literally) than an actual threat to life) and the "tumour" is in fact a huge lymph node that got inflamed from this ongoing diverticulitis that was causing crazy inflammation in his abdomen. How the diverticulitis was missed the first time, I do not know. But when I found out about the second CT, it made my whole day. I haven't seen him yet, because I've been at another hospital for the past few days, but I'm hoping to go visit him tomorrow. It's cases like these that make all the poo and bowels and sad stories worthwhile.

Robert

2006-08-22T21:43:00.000-04:00

My friend Robert's body was found in the North Saskatchewan River today.

The police don't suspect foul play. It would appear that, as we feared, he had some sort of accident and ended up in the river.

I'm a "fixer" by nature and don't quite know how to feel or what to do tonight. This isn't fixable. My heart just aches.

A missing friend

2006-08-19T11:58:00.000-04:00

Wow. I've been quite the unreliable blogger these days. I've also been quite the unreliable knitter (not very productive at all). Both of these predicaments are directly related to the fact that I am spending somewhere around 90-100 hours per week at the hospital these days.

My surgery rotation is tolerable, and actually quite a bit better than I had feared it might be. And I do actually get to sleep once in a while on call, so while I'm tired, it could definitely be worse. That said, if there was any doubt in my mind about the fact that I do not want to be a surgeon (and there wasn't), it has been eliminated. Surgery is NOT FOR ME. Blech.

I've seen some very sad patient stories this week - young people, coming to the ER with some vague complaint (a bit of belly pain, say) and finding out that they are full of cancer. Swift referrals to oncology, but the prognosis looks grim. I've seen this story more than once this week, and it breaks my heart. Folks, for goodness' sake, get a regular physical done, mmkay? Annually is good...but at least try to avoid 12 years without a pap smear (if you're a woman, of course). That gives scary cancers a long time to grow.

The upside to sugery is that I've been spending time with a classmate who I've known and liked all along, but hadn't spent much time with until now. Turns out she is a very fun person who likes crafts just as much as I do. We've both been spending a lot of time musing about why we didn't just open craft businesses instead of getting into this medicine nonsense. I'm hoping these thoughts are a normal consequence of a surgery rotation. If nothing else, knowing that someone else is wondering the same thing is comforting.

Despite the depressing tone so far, I've actually had a pretty good summer. I did electives in ophthalmology (eyes) and otolaryngology (ears, noses and throats) back in my hometown for a few weeks and found them interesting. I certainly wouldn't want to work in those fields, but it was great learning for an aspiring family doctor. While I was there, I got to spend lots of time with my mom, and we did lots of wedding-planning, which was definitely a weight off my shoulders. Almost all the "months in advance" planning is done - so now I get to put the wedding out of my mind for a few months.

I have also had some rough times since you heard from me last - my dad was quite ill (but is now recovering) and my cousin was in a horrific helicopter accident and is lucky to be alive. One of my closest friends just moved across the country and although I'm thrilled for her because she is moving for an opportunity that she's been hoping for for a long time, I'm awfully sad to see her go.

The latest "tough situation" is that a friend of mine from my days at the University of Toronto vanished without a trace last Sunday and not been seen or heard from since. Robert was a first-year student who lived in the residence where I was a don. He is a gentle, kind, innocent guy and simply isn't the type to take off. Unfortunately, the longer he is gone, the worse things look - he hasn't used his cell phone or his bank card since he disappeared. I don't really expect anyone in blogland to know anything about his disappearance, but if you have a few minutes to check out the website his family has created, please do. And if you're into prayer or meditation or the power of positive thought, please direct some of that his way

Things like this certainly give me some perspective when school seems a little rough.

Love from London

2006-07-04T12:20:00.000-04:00

We're having a blast in England! We've had a whirlwind trip so far and have tried to mix "touristing" with hanging out with family. We're staying in tonight to babysit our nephew while his parents go out to the theatre. A treat for all of us!

Turns out Canada Day in Trafalgar Square was a bit dull. Mostly just marketing for Canada. However, I still enjoyed walking around there and Leicester Square with Ella and the baby. And it was cool to see Canadian flags galore in the middle of London!

I stupidly erased my memory card on my digital camera on Monday morning, after having spent Sunday visiting Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park and Westminster Abbey. I'm a dork. We had a fun day though, and you're just going to have to take my word for it!

We got all excited at Buckingham when we spotted the Canada gate, which is a gate around the traffic circle in front of the palace. It has the shields of all the provinces on it. We're such geeks. We met when we were tour guides in the Parliament buildings (in Canada), and anything that we can relate to Parliament gets us all excited.

We walked over to Hyde Park from Buckingham. I've been really surprised to see how busy all the parks here in London are. These people really use their greenspaces! There are people sprawled all over every green area. It's great. We went to Speaker's Corner and listened to some nuts rant and rave (our favourite was the Marxist who kept talking about the World Cup as a model for the struggle of the proletariat). We dangled our feet in the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain. And we walked, and people-watched. Lots of fun!

We wandered down to Westminster Abbey then - slowly, because my wonderfully comfortable sandals were proving that anything can become uncomfortable if you wear it long enough. Blisters galore. I got to rest while we listened to an organ concert at Westminster. It was kind of weird modern music, not what we'd choose, but still lovely. The Abbey itself isn't nearly as big as I had expected. I mean, it's large, but it's really just a big church. All kinds of awesome artwork and sculpture and such though.

We wandered around the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye, and had supper at a little Asian noodle place. Eventually we decided we were worn out and we headed back to Ella's house.

Phew. I'm all worn out just writing about Monday. I guess Tuesday and Wednesday will have to wait!

Here are some fun pictures, though:

The Boy claims this is "the best tourist shot he's ever taken."
Big Ben, the London Eye, a double-decker bus AND me, all in one shot!

As promised, the cutest baby in the world. We bought him the Hawaiian shirt.
Isn't he absolutely adorable?

My two favourite boys.

London

2006-06-30T05:25:00.000-04:00

After a few delays (okay, QUITE a few delays), my flight finally touched down at London Gatwick and I'm here! Hooray! There was lightning in Toronto so we left over an hour late, and then there was an accident on the runway just before we got to London, so we had to circle for ages while they cleaned up the mess. We had a short scare when they told us we were going to London Stanstead to refuel and then BACK to Gatwick, but fortunately that idea seemed to disappear quickly.

I'm in London for nine days, visiting The Boy's sister and brother-in-law and our adorable little nephew, who you may remember from Christmas. Except now he's about twice as big, can sit up all by himself, is almost crawling, and smiles constantly. It is my completely unbiased opinion that he's the cutest baby in the entire universe. (Okay, maybe a teeny bit biased. But still. CUTE, I'm telling you.) I promise to ask his Mom if it's okay to put a picture up here and you'll all see what I mean. That is, if you're not blinded by cuteness.

So far, my visit has been pretty much 95% focused on the baby. (The other 5% was much-needed sleep. Overnight flights just aren't all that restful.) I didn't do any adventuring in the city yesterday as I was pretty pooped when I got here. The train in from Gatwick was fun, though - I kept meeting friendly Londoners who wanted to chat. I love talking to strangers (much to the chagrin of many of my friends, who I embarrass by striking up conversations in grocery store line-ups and pretty much anywhere else that someone will talk to me), and yesterday it seemed like every Londoner I saw was willing to chat! The Boy's sister claims that it's the Canadian flag on my backpack that does it.

This morning, The Boy's sister (let's call her "Ella", shall we?) is at the gym, the baby is at the creche (apparently that's Brit for "daycare") and The Boy's brother-in-law is at work. I am vegging out at their place. We're planning to head to "Canada Day London" this afternoon (a day early, but whatever, I'm always up for a party). The Boy arrives from Germany tomorrow to spend the week here, too. Can't wait!

Oh, and in case anyone was worried (see below): they did indeed let me on the plane with my (metal) circular knitting needles, no questions asked. Did I knit on the plane? No. But I liked knowing that I could if I wanted to!

A Sad Tale

2006-06-27T19:16:00.000-04:00

A haiku for Challenge #3 of the Amazing Lace:

Knitter: reads too much
Needles: idle, sad, lonely
Shawl: a lofty dream

I've been a pitiful participant in The Amazing Lace thus far. See, to participate in the challenges, one has to actually knit and have something to say about their project in choice. I, however, am completely stalled.

Well, not completely. I'm still working (s-l-o-w-l-y) on Branching Out. But I think I'm subconsciously stretching out the finishing of it because I know that once it's done, I won't have a lace project at all to work on.

That's right. The Icarus Shawl continues to be just a photo in IK. I thought I was ready to go, and I was itching to start it, just as soon as Branching Out was finished. Then my mom made a really good point: Icarus is supposed to be my wedding shawl. And since I haven't bought a dress yet, it's kinda hard to pick a yarn that matches the dress. I'm pretty much decided on an ivory dress, and a white shawl will look strange with that. Ivory, however, comes in too many freaking shadese for me to just buy some ivory yarn and hope for the best. So, I'm stalled on Icarus until I choose a wedding dress! (Hopefully something that will happen in July. I have been looking!)

The other reason for my pitiful lace performance of late is that I'm doing a "reading elective" at present, but my parents have been visiting for the past two days and my reading has been a little scarce. In theory, I'm supposed to spend five days reading around a topic of my choice and produce something (written) to show for my work at the end. My topic is obesity, and it's fascinating, but I really really need to read a lot more about it before the elective ends -- which is tomorrow. I've spent today reading like a fiend, and I plan to keep at it until my eyes cross tonight (with occasional breaks for things like blogging -- a girl's gotta do something to stay sane).

Oh, and guess where I'm going tomorrow?

Hope they let me bring my needles on the plane!

We interrupt your regularly-scheduled blog programming...

2006-06-17T23:08:00.000-04:00

...for this special post.

The Boy is in Germany (Hi honey!) on a school-related trip, which is really exciting if you're a soccer fan (he is) but very sad if you're a hockey fan (and he REALLY is).

He left yesterday. Game six was tonight. The Oilers won, 4-0. I have doubts that The Boy managed to watch the game, given that (a) the World Cup is on and it's all-soccer, all-the-time in Germany at present, and (b) it's currently 5 a.m. there and the game just ended.

Hence, highlights, including commentary from my dad. (Pardon the frightening look. He normally looks quite....well, normal. I'm not sure what happened tonight!)

The guy with the big red lips is Stephen Harper. He did some ridiculous yapping about "what the guys gotta do tonight" on TV before the game. What a dork.

Goal #2. (We missed #1. Mom and I were out shopping.
The Boy will not find this shocking. Don't worry, I didn't spend any money honey!)

Dad celebrating goal #2.

Here comes goal #3! Look out, Carolina! You're in OIL country!
(That's what the signs on TV say, anyways.)

Things are really getting exciting!!!

CELEBRATION!!! (Goal #4, I think.)

That about sums it up. :-)

Better Late Than Never

2006-06-09T22:57:00.000-04:00

Presenting…Team Stitches & Sutures for The Amazing Lace 2006!

Well, it took me some time (five days past the deadline, to be precise), but I have finally assembled my team for TAL 2006. And I must say, I have a good feeling about this. Just like the Edmonton Oilers, we’re going to catch up and surprise everyone! (Though I’m not sure we’re quite as far behind as the Oilers are at present. However, the tide is about to change for them, I’m sure of it. Really. It has to, or there will be a lot of grown men crying around here!)

Back to the topic at hand. With true Canadian pride, Team Stitches and Sutures has decided to model itself after a curling team. (A primer on curling can be found here, for the uninitiated.)

First, the skip. That would be me: Nikki. Aspiring doctor (graduation is in 343 days, but who’s counting?), soon-to-be bride (357 days, but again, who’s counting?), starving student, and sometimes-knitter (who would rather do a lot more knitting, but I’m sure you can all see why that’s challenging sometimes). I’m no Sandra Schmirler, but I’m hoping to lead this team to greatness.

Now, the second: good old Branching Out, from Knitty. My first lace project ever. We’ve been playing together for a while, BO and I, and we know each other well. We are a well-oiled machine. And I’d say we have about 15 grams of KidSilk Haze left to go before we finish our 10th end. I can always count on BO in a pinch – predictable, dependable, and just challenging enough to keep the opponents guessing. (Fortunately we’re usually on the same side these days.) I’m hoping to graduate BO to the Finished Object (FO) team soon.

And finally, the third: Icarus Shawl, from Interweave Knits Summer 2006. Many players tried out for this position. Each had its own traits that would have contributed wonderfully to our team, but in the end, Icarus won out. I found her yesterday and knew right away that she was just what we needed. The yarn (more KSH, same colourway – we’re into a nice unified image here) – is patiently waiting. As soon as BO is a FO, Icarus begins training.

Finally, our opponents (or are they teammates in disguise?): Dr. Stethoscope and Mr. Pager. Our team finds it difficult to practice when the skip is absent or distracted or – worse yet – sleeping, and unfortunately Dr. S. and Mr. P. seem to conspire to make these conditions occur more frequently than we would like. They have their benefits, though, in small doses (the means to an eventual income which or course enables the purchase of more yarn being the most obvious), so we haven’t banished them entirely from the rink. We just keep a close eye and a tight leash on them.

Look how they shamelessly sidle into a beautiful display and contaminate it! The nerve of placing oneself on top of a freshly-purchased issue of IK! It's offensive, I tell you!

And so, the games begin.

You know you’re in a small town when….

2006-06-01T22:09:00.000-04:00

It takes less than 15 minutes to get to work in the morning. And that’s walking. Less than 5 if you’re driving, and that’s assuming that both of the streetlights are red.
Every one of your patients asks you where you’re staying and doesn’t see this as prying.
They all say the same thing, “oh yes, the beautiful house with the nice garden!” And then they tell you about their friend/old aunt/cousin who lives in the house across the street/down the street/around the corner.
All of the old houses in town (which is most of them) have little historical plaques stating when the house was built and who lived there. My favourite is “John Smith, Gravedigger, 1832.”
Your preceptor knows at least 50% of his patients in some non-work-related fashion. (The best example of this was today, when he told me that a little old lady who we saw at the nursing home used to be his dog sitter.)
You start to make these connections, too. The woman whose warts you just treated is the grandmother of the baby whose croup you treated last week in Emergency. The man with the heart attack is the father of the woman who owns the B&B where your classmate is staying. The man with prostate problems owns the pub you drank at last night.
The air has that fresh country smell – cut grass, and clean air, and just a hint of manure occasionally. I love it. Yes, really.
You go out for ice cream with your classmate and in front of you in line is the local obstetrician with his wife and son.
He buys your ice cream for you.
Your preceptor lends you his car so you don’t have to walk home from Emergency late at night.
Although your preceptor works overnight, you’re heading home because there are no more patients and your preceptor thinks you “might as well sleep in your own bed,” since there likely won’t be more than two or three more over the course of the night.
The car he lends you? A mustang convertible. New. And he doesn’t even remind you to lock the doors or drive carefully.
The next morning, he jokes that the whole town is going to be talking about him sleeping over at your house the night before, and you realize that even though he’s thirty years older than you, he’s probably right!
A sampling of the cases you see in Emergency include “kicked by horse,” and “trampled by cow.”
Every single patient asks you if you're enjoying yourself and looks absolutely tickled when you tell them you love it.
You just love every minute of it. Okay, maybe that doesn’t mean you’re in a small town. That means you’re me, doing my rural family medicine rotation in a small town.

I want to be a rural family doctor.

The Amazing Lace

2006-05-02T20:28:00.000-04:00

I have officially joined my first knit-a-long ever. Whee! Theresa and Rachel have started a fun summer KAL, and since I am oh-so-carefully venturing into the world of lace at the moment, I figured signing up for some lace-related fun (and moral support) was a great idea!

I'm still slugging away on Branching Out, which is significantly longer than the last time I took a photo (I'm somewhere around 24 repeats) but otherwise looks pretty similar. I love it. The Kid Silk Haze is pretty much the softest yarn ever, and every time I work on the scarf, I end up petting it for at least a few minutes before beginning.

I have (perhaps foolishly) decided that I would really like to knit a lace shawl for my wedding. I have this vision of some beautiful, intricate, work of fibre-art which I can wear on my wedding day and then hopefully use someday as a christening shawl for our children. Of course, this work of art is slightly limited by my lace-knitting abilities (I think "intermediate" would be a stretch) and of course by time (clerkship continues to kick my butt), but I'm going to give it a shot anyways.

I did make a deal with myself: I can only start this project if I promise not to fret about finishing the shawl on time for the wedding. I figure that the last thing I need is an additional wedding-related stressor! That said, I have over a year (June 2, 2007 is the big day), so hopefully I can finish it by then.

So, the Amazing Lace plan is this: finish Branching Out (possibly even before the official start day, which I think is in early June....we don't have "Memorial Day" up here), and then start The Wedding Shawl with an eye towards at least making reasonable progress on it over the summer.

Next step: find a pattern. I've already bought 3 balls of Kid Silk Haze for it. I was thinking about Kiri, but have decided that it's not exactly what I want. I'm leaning towards the Leaf Lace Shawl now, but the Flower Basket Shawl is still on the list of possibilities.

I would love some suggestions!

Adventures in Winnipeg

2006-04-27T17:55:00.000-04:00

I went to Winnipeg last week for a rural medicine conference. This is the second year that I've attended, and I have had a great time both times. Rural docs are fun people....possibly because they don't get the chance to party very often...but whatever the cause, I enjoy hanging out with them, both professionally and personally.

I'm interested in rural medicine as a career and plan to apply to Rural Family Medicine residency programs. However, it's easy to get down on family medicine in general and rural medicine as well when you're doing a whole bunch of rotations with specialists in the city. I find that an awful lot of them do a lot of criticizing primary care docs. After a while, it wears you down -- which is why it's really important to me to attend events like this conference, where I can get a re-infusion of enthusiasm to stir up my rural med passion again!

I also got to present my first research poster. I did the research (and the poster) with a classmate who is also into rural med. It wasn't particularly complicated stuff - basically stats about applications to a "pre-medical" undergraduate program, specially looking at the rural vs. urban numbers - but I found it fascinating. It was a great feeling to have rural researchers whose work I know well reading our poster and asking interesting questions!

Here we are. Note the incredibly well-coordinated clothing!

I'm on the left. Please ignore the hair that makes me look like a wave just hit me from my left. I'm determined to grow my hair out so I can have an updo at my wedding, and it's in that awful in-between, can't-do-anything-with-it stage. Suggestions welcomed.

Anyhow, we received lots of compliments on our poster and ended up feeling generally pretty good about ourselves.

I attended all kinds of fabulous workshops, on everything from medical school admissions to street drugs to wilderness medicine. Fascinating, and fun.

It was a busy few days, so I really didn't get to see too much of Winnipeg. However, it was at the Fort Garry Hotel (although I stayed a cheaper and just as lovely hotel down the street), which is right across the street from The Forks, so I did get to check out The Forks a bit. The Forks is this crazy park/market/theatre/fun complex that sits right on the riverbank in downtown Winnipeg. It seems like a pretty popular spot to spend summer evenings in the 'Peg and I must say I understand the attraction. It's lovely.

Unfortunately, all my photos of The Forks suck, so you should probably click the link up there if you'd like to check it out properly.

Winnipeg is experiencing all kinds of spring flooding at the moment, and since The Forks is on the riverbank, it's very wet. Lots of the walking paths are underwater. I spent way too much time trying to take good flood photos and unfortunately have only this to show for my efforts:

You're gonna have to trust me on this one. There should be walking paths, and there is water. Evidence that Winnipeg is indeed experiencing flooding. Don't get too excited, now. ;-)

In other news, my psychiatry rotation is going pretty well, and I have indeed been knitting.

In more exiciting news, baby Cassidy (of the booties below) was born yesterday, weighing and 8 pounds and change. Mom and baby are doing well and my mom is very excited.

Booties, pair the second

2006-04-17T15:29:00.000-04:00

Another pair of finished baby booties. This pair is made out of a lovely mohair blend (sorry, the ball band is long gone) that I bought at the LYS in my hometown. I knit the pair once and somehow ended up with two totally different sizes, and since I couldn't find the mistake, I ripped both out and started again. Ripping that hairy yarn takes twice as long as knitting it!

While I was working on the second effort at these, I found out that the woman who owns the LYS where I bought the yarn died suddenly a couple of weeks ago. She was in her 40's, and I'm pretty sure she had some health problems, but as far as I know, her death was unexpected -- at least it was to me.

It's funny, the connections we make through our hobbies. I was really upset to hear of this woman's death, even though I knew her only through her store. She was "a character," as we say -- Stuart MacLean even did a whole segment on her when the Vinyl Cafe came to my hometown. Her store was a yarn store AND a hunting store, all in one. She was known in town as the person to talk to in town about knitting and yarn, but she also wrote a hunting and fishing column in the local paper. She was very entertaining, and so full of life. It's hard to believe that she's gone.

And yet, it's somehow comforting that these booties, made with yarn from her store, were finished just after her death, and are now awaiting the arrival of a baby girl to wear them. She's due this Friday, and she already has a name: Cassidy.

Cassidy's mom went to highschool with me, and she has actually become a good friend of MY mom's in the past few years. Her own mother lives quite far away and isn't always very supportive, so I think she sees my mother as a bit of a mother figure. A bit of a strange connection, but it works for all of us, so there you have it.

Boing

2006-03-30T17:32:00.000-05:00

Spring has officially sprung. I almost missed it (being a bit busy these days), but the evidence is everywhere, including my garden:

Tomorrow is my last day of internal medicine (and my last call shift - so I actually don't "finish" until Saturday). Now that it's almost over, I'm actually feeling a bit wistful. It's been a good rotation overall, and I think there's also an element of, "better the devil you know than the devil you don't" -- I have no idea what I'm getting into with my psych rotation!

It will be really nice to have weekends off again, though.

No hospital stories today, and no knitting either. I'm off to enjoy spring!

The "Q" word

2006-03-26T21:14:00.000-05:00

I've discovered that saying the word "quiet" on call causes great, great distress in the other members of my team. They're all convinced that merely uttering the word will cause heart attacks, strokes, pneumonias and gastrenteritis all over the city, and that every poor soul affected by one of these dreaded conditions will descend on the emergency room at our hospital, thus ensuring that none of us will sleep at all that night.

I disagree with that theory. I started saying "quiet" at 2 p.m. yesterday and STILL got six hours of sleep AND did this:

4.5 repeats on Branching Out (I finished repeat #5 today before taking this pic).

The yarn is Kid Silk Haze, for those who are wondering. It has pretty silvery sparkles and is so soft that I just want to pet it all the time, a struggle that Laura has also been facing.

In the "book smart doesn't mean common sense" category: I just discovered that I've been doing YO's wrong. That's right, the single easiest stitch in all of knitting, and I was doing it wrong. I couldn't figure out why my knitting looked so tight. Turns out I was wrapping my YO's the wrong way and ending up with a lot less yarn there.

Once I figured that out, I couldn't stand to do the entire scarf with all the YO's wrong....so I ripped it back, all eight completed repeats, on Thursday. And then yesterday, I cast on again and did almost five repeats, all while I was on call! Craziness!

It was a bit frustrating to have a quiet shift this weekend, because the Boy's brother and sister-in-law were in town, and we haven't seen them in ages. I spent almost their entire time in town at the hospital, and literally saw his sister-in-law (who I really like and haven't seen in ages) for about two minutes. I kept wishing while I was knitting that I was at home, hanging out with them (and knitting of course). However, I'm not complaining too much - it was nice to get almost a full night's sleep on call for once!

Six more days of internal. Two more nights of call. I'm not going to go as far as saying that I wish it was longer, but I *have* enjoyed it....for the most part. :-)

Patterns for pitter-pattering little feet

2006-03-20T21:51:00.000-05:00

My life has become a bit of a baby boom of late.

First, about a month ago, a classmate had a baby boy.
Then, last weekend, my cousin had a baby boy.
Another friend (this one from high school) is pregnant with a girl, and is due the first week in April.
And a good friend from high school and then university called a few weeks ago to tell me that his wife is pregnant.

Clearly there is no way that all these babies are getting sweaters, or blankies. I'm a fairly slow knitter, and even if I had the time (and money) to make big items for all of them, my poor aching hands couldn't handle it. Thank goodness for booties and hats! Besides, I always think that non-knitters are equally appreciative, regardless of the size of the knitted item. And smaller items use less yarn, which means I can afford to buy really nice stuff.

Yarn crack, if you will. This stuff (Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk) is so soft that I have to stop and pet it quite frequently. Slows down the knitting progress!

I've bought a few colours, all in DK so I can knit two strands together and make a fairly plain pattern look a little fancier.

Here's pair #1:

I wish you could feel them. Or maybe it's good that you can't, because you'd want to make yourself a pair of adult-sized booties, and that would probably be a bit weird.

The Specs:

Yarn: Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk DK, from my favourite yarn store. The colour numbers on the ball-bands don't match the one on the Debbie Bliss website...but anyways, I used white and indigo.

Pattern: My usual bootie pattern, which a friend gave to me a while back. I don't actually know where it's from originally. (Bad, I know.)

Thoughts: I love this pattern. It's fast, and the booties are cute and don't look like they're from the 1950's. Even with my slow, infrequent knitting, I can finish a pair of these in a week's worth of Jeopardy!

The recipient for this pair is still undetermined. Possibly the classmate's baby. Who knows?

~~~~~

My not-so-nice attending had a Jekyll/Hyde transformation this week and has been great. Suddenly she's nice to me, she gives me positive feedback, and I'm no longer totally tongue-tied in front of her. I had a really good week, in fact. Amazing.

Only eight more days of internal medicine. Of course, I will be at the hospital every one of these days....but who's counting, right?

Pretty things make me smile

2006-03-20T21:19:00.000-05:00

I am still slugging through Internal Medicine. It was really great for two whole weeks, while I had a fabulous attending physician who really treated me well. I know that I don't want to be an internist, and was hoping just to survive internal in one piece, but for a few weeks there, I was actually enjoying it!

I now have an attending who for some reason has taken a dislike to me, so although I still enjoy the work, I spend a lot of my day feeling really anxious and stressed. I'm trying to keep those feelings to a minimum, an effort which is helped by having great residents on the team who encourage me, and having received a superb evaluation from the previous attending (the one who I liked) -- and besides, only two more weeks and then on to psychiatry! Hooray!

Anyhow. Let's focus on things that make me smile almost all the time (dropped stitches aside).

~~~~~

I made a Booga Bag!

I spotted the pattern sometime last fall and decided right away that I wanted to make one. I'm always on a quest for the perfect purse - something not too dressy (leather looks funny with my ski jacket and/or running shoes) and not too plain (because that looks strange with dressy clothes). The Booga Bag seemed like the perfect compromise.

Pre-felting:

Post-felting:

The colours are truer in the pre-felting pics, but if I wait until I'm home during daylight hours to take a picture of the assembled version, it'll be May before this post is finished!

The Specs

Pattern: Booga Bag, by Julie Anderson. Available online here.

Yarn: Noro Kureyon, #159 (It took almost the whole 3 skeins.)

Comments: This was my first effort at felting. It's fun! Every felting how-to website that I could find said to put the items in a zippered pillowcase, which definitely doesn't exist at my house, so I compromised. I put them in a regular pillowcase (an old one) and tied a big ol' overhand knot. It took three trips through the washer to felt as I wanted it to.

The pattern is great, simple, and easy to follow for first-time felters.

My only complaint is that the i-cord straps stretch quite easily and are already growing. When I make my next one (I'm thinking spring colours), I'll probably put the strap through the washer an extra time to make it a little sturdier.

~~~~~

I've been knitting (and, sadly, frogging) other things lately, too. More to come, hopefully later this week!

Lesson: we can't fix everything

2006-02-25T15:32:00.000-05:00

I watched a person die today. It was the first time I had ever been there when someone died. I was on call for medicine, and she came in by ambulance to the emergency department. She was very sick, and there were at least ten people working to help her for over two hours. But eventually her heart stopped pumping, and even though we tried all sorts of things to get it pumping again, nothing worked.

It was really sad. I know that as a doctor, I will see and know lots of people who die. But this person arrived alone, by ambulance, sick enough that she must have been very sick at home for at least a few days. When she died, we still hadn't managed to find any family. I was on call all night, so I left not long after - I'm not sure if any family was ever tracked down.

Part of me wishes that I could tell you her name, and a few more things about her - all things that I found out from her chart, after she died, because before that, I was too busy worrying about her blood pressure and her clotting factors and her heart. And I wish that I could make her more real, more of a real person than a thrashing body, gravely ill, and then an unconscious body, dying, then dead. Every person deserves a name, and a story, in the eyes of those who are with them when they die.

It's not like "ER" when someone is dying at the hospital. No one is yelling, and no one is crashing around grabbing supplies. No one mutters, "come on, come ON" under their breath as they do chest compressions. They work quickly, and efficiently. They keep their cool, and all the while they are quietly discussing what could be going wrong, and what IS going wrong, and what they can do to fix it. They consult each other - "phenylephrine or epi?" - and they calmly ask for more drugs, more supplies, more x-rays and more bloodwork. Today, they were all wearing masks on their faces, and in every set of eyes peering over a mask, I could see a gradually increasing level of concern. It grew until it was almost palpable, first worry and then a knowledge that whatever we did, the person was going to die. But we had to try, to do everything we could to keep that from happening. No one said it, but you could see it in every set of eyes.

I've been on call twice in the past three days. Wednesday night, my very first "real" call shift (that is, one that involves staying at the hospital overnight) was really good, even though I slept only 45 minutes between 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday and 2:30 p.m. on Thursday. I was busy, I saw lots of patients, and I learned more in that period than I had in the past two weeks. I was nervous when the shift started, but I figured things out, and I felt supported. It was kind of neat to be in the hospital late at night, looking at lab reports and x-rays and checking in on the patients unlucky enough to be stuck in the ER overnight. I worked with a good team, and my senior resident really made it a good night.

I was on call again last night, and I worked with a different team - I was basically a "loaner" because their own students were on call the night before. It was a lot quieter - I only saw one patient, then went to bed at 2:30. I got up at 7:45 this morning and left before noon. That's why I haven't written this week, even though I have been doing lots at the hospital and have been busy. I just haven't been home, and when I have been home, I've been sleeping.

I've learned a lot this week, but it seems that what I will remember is the woman who died this morning. I wish she could have known that she left an impression in the mind of a student, who will probably never forget.

Update

2006-02-13T17:22:00.000-05:00

I realized tonight that I have been putting off posting on here because there's just so much to talk about, I don't know where to start. So I've decided to write one entry that covers everything!

1. Palliative Care and the goodness thereof
I did an elective in Palliative Care for the first two weeks of January. I loved it. It was the most fulfilling work that I've done so far. The days just flew by - I never found myself checking my watch or wondering when I could head home.

I did one week of inpatient medicine, where I worked with the hospital's palliative care team (a doc, a nurse practitioner, and a social worker) as a consultation service. That means that physicians would call us whenever they thought that a patient could benefit from our help. Our patients ranged from young to old, some very near death and some with a new diagnosis of a terminal disease. One relatively young man, very near death from a hereditary cancer that had already killed two close family members, really stuck in my mind. He was going home to die, and I spent a lot of time talking with his wife about how she would manage and what the future would likely hold. It was some of the most fulfilling "work" I've done since beginning medical school.

Palliative care, more than any other specialty that I've been exposed to, truly operates on the principle that each patient is an individual, with individual needs. For some, being at home when they die is the top priority - no matter how painful or difficult it might be. For others, going home is terrifying. They need the reassurance from the staff in the hospital or hospice, and not going home is a relief for them. Others don't care where they are or what we do to them, if we can just ease their pain. Some beg us to make their nausea stop so that they can spend a little time enjoying their families. Such simple things - organizing a homecare nurse or a hospice bed, or enough opioids, or the right anti-nauseant, or most of all, just listening - make an absolutely profound difference.

Like most medical professionals I suppose, I went into medicine to help people. Palliative care really made me feel like I was doing that.

Most people who are palliative care doctors do a residency in family medicine first (two years after graduating from medical school) and then do a one-year fellowship in palliative care. It's definitely on the "maybe" list for the future for me.

2. Anesthesia, part 2
Some people have what anesthesiologists euphemistically call "difficult airways." Generally that means they have no neck (or a very fat one), a short jaw, a big tongue, and a mouth that doesn't open very far. They're "difficult" because it's awfully hard to get a breathing tube down a throat like that.

For every surgical patient who is going to be put to sleep, we "assess the airway" while the patient is awake, by examing the things I've listed above, and then we make a call about whether the patient is anticipated to have a difficult airway. Unfortunately, we never really know if we're 100% correct in our assessment until we've put them to sleep with gas or intravenous drugs, and paralyzed their breathing muscles. Only they can we stick our scope into their throat and have a real look, without gagging them - and if you can't get a breathing tube in at that point, you need a backup plan in a hurry. (Just so none of you are swearing that you'll never ever have surgery again, you should know that there are some backup options here, the most drastic of which is a tracheotomy -- but they're not ideal, so in general it's best to avoid them.)

Anyhow. If someone is deemed on assessment to have a "potentially difficult airway," anesthesiologists get very skittish about putting that person to sleep without doing something to "protect the airway" first - because once we paralyze them, they won't be able to use conscious control to keep their airway open, and if it closes and we can't get a tube in, that is BAD NEWS.

During my second on-call shift of anesthesiology, a patient came in with a prosthetic joint that had become infected and needed to be removed immediately. The anesthesiologist described the patient to me, "a head like a soccer ball and a tongue bigger than my fist." The initial surgery had been done with the patient awake, under spinal anesthetic. However, when someone has an infection in their bloodstream, it's dangerous to do a spinal because the infection can get into the spinal fluid during the procedure. Therefore, this patient had to be put to sleep.

The only way to put a breathing tube into the airway of someone with a "difficult airway" is to do it while they are completely and totally awake. Imagine someone shoving a long cord (with a teeny tiny camera on the end) down your windpipe until they can see your vocal cords, and then stuffing a tube in. NOT FUN.

Even less fun when it takes about ten tries and you are choking on all the lidocaine spray that they're using to numb your throat (to keep you from gagging). It was absolutely AWFUL to watch, I can't imagine how much worse it must have been to experience. The doctors were doing everything in their power to minimize the unpleasantness, but the bottom line is that this is one of those times where you have to choose between comfort and safety -- and safety pretty much always wins that battle.

I'm still not in a hurry to see another awake intubation, though. *shudder* If you want to join in the shuddering, do a Google images search for "awake intubation."

3. Geriatrics
I'm currently doing a rotation in geriatric medicine, and loving every bit of it. There are five of us students working with two doctors, and it's wonderful. They do so much teaching, and they're wonderful role models.

I'm really enjoying the patient population, too. I think it, again, has to do with the idea that a very little does a lot for these people - holding a demented patient's hand, changing one drug order just a teeny bit so that the person isn't confused anymore, listening to their stories of World War Two - each is very meaningful to the patient and therefore very rewarding for me.

Not much more to say about that, really -- I'm having fun, and sadly it's only a two-week rotation. Next Monday I start Internal Medicine for six weeks. Don't plan on seeing a lot of me on here until the beginning of April!

4. The Wedding
Last but most definitely not least, the wedding planning is well underway. I had this naive idea that we would bask in being engaged for a few weeks or even a few months, and then slowly start looking into a few planning tasks. Ha. Turns out that you have to book churches and halls MONTHS in advance, and although we aren't getting married for 15 1/2 months, we are apparently already pushing our luck in terms of finding places that are available! It's madness!

We are considering sites both in my hometown and in the city where we currently live. At the moment, it looks like my hometown is going to win out, because things are more than twice as expensive in the city. (We're talking $65 vs. $25 per plate for the dinner.)

Finding an actual venue has been challenging to say the least. It's starting to sound like Goldilocks: this one is too far from the church, that one is on the second floor and lacks an elevator (a problem for our grandparents), another isn't large enough, another is just plain ugly. We may have found a place that will suit, though, so we're heading to my parents' house this coming weekend to check it out. Cross your fingers!

And once that's done, we only have to book a church and decide on attendants and find a dress and a tux and make invitations and think of some decorations and .....yeah. It's not going to be a boring year, at least!

On the topic of all that stuff, I can't BELIEVE the crap that people waste money on for a wedding! Stupid little giftey things that no one ever uses, elaborate gift baskets for their guests hotel rooms (yes, really, this is apparently a trend at the moment), and on and on. I remember the wedding of a family friend, when I was a little girl. The bride was being completely unreasonable about all the things that she just HAD to have for her wedding, but her father (a good friend of my dad's) was doing his very best to cater to her whims and make her day perfect. The breaking point came the day before the wedding, when she broke down in tears because she absolutely had to have one of those huge feather pens to sign the registry with. In fuschia, to match the bridesmaid's dresses. Her father exploded. But in the end, she got the pen. It was just a perfect example of how over-the-top weddings can get.

I'm glad the the Boy and I are both pretty down-to-earth about this stuff. We want a nice hall, yes, but it doesn't have to be palatial. Just comfortable and functional - and a bonus if it looks pretty nice so we don't have to decorate. I'm hoping to buy a used dress here. We'll probably drive to and from the church in my Mom's minivan. If we have centrepieces at all, they'll be something along the lines of a few floating candles in a bowl of water, or a couple of tea lights. We're going to make the invitations ourselves. I'm not even sure that I want to have flowers -- I'm allergic to them, and it seems kind of ridiculous to surround myself with things that make me sick on my wedding day. Not to mention the stupidly ridiculous environmental impact of the cut flower industry.

So yeah. At the moment, we're managing to keep it relatively simple. Hopefully it will stay that way!

Excitement!

2006-02-08T20:18:00.000-05:00

We got engaged last Tuesday! Hooray!

The Boy and I went ring shopping together a few weeks ago, and after checking pretty much every store in town (some of them twice) and nearly driving The Boy (who hates shopping) totally bonkers, we found the perfect ring. Or rather, we ordered it, since it didn't actually exist.

The store was supposed to call The Boy's cellphone to tell him when it was ready so there would be at least a bit of a surprise for me, but they called while we were both home. After he got off the phone, I asked him who the caller was. "No one...." he said," but I might have to go out for a few minutes tonight." Big grin. I knew right away, and we were both so excited that we could hardly eat our supper before he went tearing out the door.

He was back in less than an hour. He swept me up in a big hug and asked me to marry him. Of course I said yes, so he made me look away while he put the ring on my finger:

The centre stone is an alexandrite. It's a pretty rare stone, originally discovered in Russia (The Boy studies Russian & eastern European history, so it's very appropriate), and the coolest part is that it changes colour. No, not like a mood ring! It goes from this beautiful emerald green stone in fluorescent light to a mauvey-bluey-grey in incandescent light, to reddish-purple in halogen light. In "mixed" light, it's almost black, with tiny flecks of different colours. I love it!

So, in May of 2007, I will become a "Dr." and a "Mrs." in just a few short weeks! Yowza!!!

Anesthesia

2006-01-27T17:29:00.000-05:00

Today was my first day of actual clinical time in my anesthesia rotation. For the first four days of the rotation, we did classroom and simulator stuff. It was very interesting and fun, but I was really looking forward to seeing real human beings.

I worked with a really nice anesthesiologist today, who let me do lots of stuff (intubating being the most exciting - that's where you stick a tube down someone's trachea so the ventilator can breathe for them while they're unconscious during surgery) and treated me really well. Once she found out that I had once been a nursing student, she let me draw up all the drugs as well. (This is one of those things that will only be exciting the first ten times, then I suspect it becomes a chore.) Some intravenous drugs come in these disposable glass ampules. To open them, you grab the top part in one hand and the bottom in the other, and snap the top off. It seems a little crazy to be breaking glass with your bare hands, but I have done it many times (more in nursing than med school) and it actually works fine - usually. Of course I was trying to look all suave and not like a totally clueless med student today, so when my supervisor asked me to draw up a med from one of these ampules, I jumped to do it. Except when I snapped the top off of it, I crushed it, and I put a huge cut in my index finger. There I was, bleeding all over the place in the OR. My supervisor was scrambling for gauze and one of the nurses had to go digging for a bandaid. So much for cool!! "Pride goes before a fall," and all that, I suppose.

Other than the ampule incident, it was a pretty uneventful day. It was pretty much "private parts" day for me - gyne and urology surgeries. It was a nice mix of long and short cases. Long cases are kind of good because there's lots of time in the middle while the patient is sleeping (provided that they don't drop their blood pressure or something) for the doc to do some teaching and for me to ask questions. However, the most interesting parts of anesthesia are putting the patient to sleep and waking them up, so a day of only long surgeries would probably mean quite a bit less hands-on experience. Short operations are less involved in terms of drugs and have less time for teaching, but I got to do three intubations in two hours this afternoon, which is definitely a plus. It was a good mix.

I have my first "on call" shift on Sunday - except it's not some crazy all night thing, I just have to be there 0800 to 1600. Pretty sweet. I can continue to dread "real" call for at least another week.

Oh, the fear

2006-01-23T21:36:00.000-05:00

Today is federal election day in Canada. I've always been pretty interested in politics, and the Boy is a historian, so he's passionate about politics. We've watched the election with interest, and a fair bit of disgust. The attack ads made me sick, and the debates were basically live versions of the same stuff. In fact, my pick for the winner last English-language debate was Gilles Duceppe. If he had jumped into the insults, he would have been slaughtered (there's not much you can say to, "Yeah, but you're trying to break up Canada"), so instead he took the approach of asking very good, pointed questions of the other candidates. Anything constructive that came out of the debate was a result of one of his questions. And when I'm picking a separatist as my favourite for ANYTHING, you know the situation sucks.

I've felt pretty pessimistic about this whole election -- the Conservatives are, pretty much evil; the Liberals are fat cats who seem to have done all that they can; the NDP are led by a bit of a nutcase and although I like their politics, they can't do math. And the Bloc Quebecois, well....no. *sigh* I just don't know what the "best case scenario" is. All I know is that it doesn't involve Stephen Harper as prime minister.

Nonetheless, the Boy and I walked to the polls this afternoon and cast our ballots. Rick Mercer pointed out tonight that by the time this day ends, millions of Canadians will have cast their ballots without a shot being fired. As he said, "that's worth voting for." We're pretty lucky to live in a country where we can vote.

And so, since I have to be at the hospital very early tomorrow morning, I'm off to bed, feeling pretty nervous about the future of this country. I'm predicting a Conservative minority. Here's hoping I'm wrong.

Holiday recap

2006-01-08T13:33:00.000-05:00

It was +13C on Christmas day in Lethbridge, Alberta. I was outside in a t-shirt. So much for the white Christmas. In fact, I only saw snow once while I was there, and that stuff didn't stick.

However, Christmas was still wonderful. We stayed in a lovely hotel (courtesy of the Boy's grandparents), had our own rental car (a Kia Rio....I know of sewing machines that have more power), and spent lots of time hanging out with the Boy's family - particularly his new nephew, William.

I love babies. I love them. As in, if the Boy had pressed the issue, he could have convinced me to drop out of medical school right now to have a baby. Thankfully, he didn't do that. But oh man, did I ever spend a lot of time filling myself up with that wonderful feeling of rocking a sleeping baby.

I also loving watching the Boy with the baby. He's absolutely crazy about him. It's enough to make anyone melt, and it definitely melts me.

(Sorry it's so dark. I just couldn't wreck the moment with a bright flash.)

We did some after-Christmas shopping in Calgary, which was very fun. And we just spent lots of time hanging out with family and relaxing. This was my first Christmas away from my parents, and although I did have a few brief moments of homesickness, overall it was a really good time. I think it helps that I really like the Boy's family and - as far as I can tell - they like me.

On the 30th, we packed up alllll our stuff (did I mention that we were spoiled rotten at Christmas?) and two suitcases full of books (the Boy has been storing books in his Mom's basement, but he needs them now for school....so every time we go out there, we bring the maximum number of bags home, and fill everything up with books), and we hit the highway. I love driving on the Praries. You just can't beat the skies out there.

We went straight to my parents' place and spent a week with them. We had Christmas morning #2 on the 31st, and we were spoiled rotten again. (I can definitely get used to this two-Christmases-a-year thing.) We spent New Year's with some of my friends from highschool, and on New Year's day we got to see all of my Mom's crazy extended family. The rest of the week was relaxing and family time.

We're really lucky - we both have families that we enjoy spending time with, and we really genuinely like each other's families. You can't do any better than that.

Back to the grind tomorrow. We're spending today unpacking and relaxing with each other....and then we dive into 2006 for real. This year is going to be a crazy one for both of us - I start clerkship tomorrow (that's all the crazy hospital rotations that I have to do) and the Boy is preparing for his huge comprehensive exams in European history, which are in the fall. I keep saying that we just have to survive 2006....but I think we'll aim a little higher and try to ENJOY it too!

I'm sorry....I know you can't see the baby's face in these pics, but since he's not my child, I figure it's not right for me to post identifiable photos of him on the net!

White Christmas

2005-12-15T16:10:00.000-05:00

The past few Christmases have been green for me. I knew that this year would be white, because we're going to be in Alberta, and those people know snow. But it looks like it'll be a white Christmas around here, too!

Our house, about 15 minutes ago (there are four apartments in the house, no, we DON'T own the place...I wish):

I love snow! It makes everything so Christmassy!

Boot camp is kicking my butt

2005-12-07T21:31:00.000-05:00

Oh man, I'm tired.

I'm doing an elective right now that is called "musculoskeletal boot camp," and until today, I thought it was pretty posh for boot camp. Don't get me wrong, I'm learning a TON - it's kind of a mix of clinical work and teaching sessions - but the hours have been pretty sweet and I've had a lot of time to read and consolidate what I'm learning. (A nice change.)

Today was soooo long, though. Pretty much all-day teaching, and although it was all wonderful, my brain is mush. MUSH. The curriculum at my school is problem-based (meaning we don't have many lectures at all - instead we use patient cases as springboards for our learning) and self-directed (meaning we meet in small groups with a tutor - a practicing physician - to decide what we need to learn to understand the problem we're working on, and then we go off and learn it on our own, in whatever way suits us best -- books, talking to experts, whatever) -- so all-day lectures are something I haven't done since undergrad. On top of that, there are only 11 other students doing this elective, and most of them are in my class - and we're used to being active participants in our learning, so it's not just a matter of sitting in a lecture, but instead actively participating. For the entire day, 7 to 4. Madness. I don't even have the brainpower to knit tonight. I've been playing stupid games on MSN for the past hour and a half and I'm going to bed as soon as I'm done writing this (at 9:30 p.m.)!

I really like rheumatology. Rural Family Medicine has been a focus for me since the end of first year (and it was high on the list before that), but it's nice to be exposed to other specialties that I also really enjoy. If only rheumatology didn't require an internal medicine residency. I'm not sure I'm willing to take that on. In fact, I'm pretty darn sure I'm NOT. The say that 20% of what family docs see is musculoskeletal, though, so I suppose this is all good experience.

I've also been taking the "patient experience" in rheumatology to the next level lately. I finally got an answer about my sore hands - I was diagnosed with "early seronegative rheumatoid arthritis" yesterday. Blech. I don't have much to say about it yet, but it certainly wasn't the best news I've ever had.

Free as a bird

2005-11-23T11:17:00.000-05:00

Ahhh. That's the sound of relaxation, and it's coming from me. I had my big scary clinical exam last week, and then my big (less scary) written exam this Monday....and now I'm DONE school (until next week). It feels awesome. This was the end of my in-school education - now it's all clinical experience, all the time, until the end of 2006. I can't decide whether to be terrified or thrilled. At the moment, I'm focusing on NOT focusing on school for the next four days.

And what am I doing with my newfound freedom?
- sleeping in....check, check (10:30 yesterday, 11:00 today)
- getting a massage (which included a hand massage, which felt fab)....check (that was yesterday afternoon)
- getting a haircut (I look witchy, the time has come)....check (scheduled for this afternoon)
- partying with friends...check, check, check (what? we have lots to celebrate!)
- hanging with Mom....check
- baking....check (the church Christmas bazaar is this weekend, I promised to contribute)
- oh yeah....hanging out with The Boy!....CHECK!

Life is good. :) My Mom and I are meeting in Toronto tomorrow to spend two nights at our favourite hotel there. We plan to do some Christmas shopping, eat lots of good food, and sit in the hot tub until we shrivel up like prunes. I can't wait!

And finally...the most exciting news of the past week is that Wee Willie has arrived! Of course, his name isn't exactly that....it's William Shepherd G____, and he was born on Saturday, November 19th, in London, England. He weighed 7 lbs, 2 oz., and mom and baby are doing well. His Daddy made a website to post photos for all of his overseas relatives (Mom's Canadian and Dad's Australian), and they add new photos every day. The high point of our days this week has been the daily check to see what William has been up to!

I suppose I should add "block William's sweater" to my to-do list for my time off. :-)

Not Knitting

2005-11-13T22:11:00.000-05:00

I haven't abandoned my blog. I just haven't posted because, well, there's nothing to report on as far as knitting goes. I haven't been able to knit at all for the past 2 weeks.

I'm having some issues with very sore and stiff hands. I've seen a rheumatologist and am waiting for a follow-up appointment, which will hopefully provide a diagnosis. Unfortunately, knitting seems to be the single most painful activity for me, despite some fairly decent painkillers. I'm hoping to pick up a cross-stitch kit this week, because I'm going crazy with not having anything to do with my hands!

What the?

2005-10-31T21:39:00.000-05:00

So, I gave out Halloween candy for the first time tonight since I moved out of my parents' house, 7 years ago. I've either lived in university residences or apartment buildings since then, but our current apartment is in an old house, so we actually have a front door that kids can come to. So fun!

Our door is actually shared with one of the other apartments, so the neighbour gave out candy until I got home at 6:30 and then I took over so she could take her little daughter out trick-or-treating.

It wasn't that busy - maybe 25 kids in an hour - so I got some reading done.

But the weirdest thing....we had at least six grown-ups who came to the door, in costume, with candy bags, and no kids with them. At first I thought, "oh, their kids must be sick at home and they're out getting candy." But by #6....nope, I think it was just fully-grown adults capitalizing on an opportunity for free candy.

Most of them were in their forties, I'd say. One notable exception, and by far the scariest "costume" of the evening, was a woman about my age, who was good and pregnant. She had rolled her shirt up and tucked it under her breasts, and painted a huge pumpkin on her belly.

No, I'm not kidding. I couldn't make that stuff up if I tried.

I was so shocked that I was actually at a loss for words (yes, a rare occurrence for me). "So, uh, you're trick-or-treating...." I finally stammered out. "Yup!" she responds, "next year, I'll bring him." she says, pointing to her belly. I told her we'd looking forward to seeing the baby next year. Then she showed me the Eeyore tattoo on her ankle and said she'd probably dress the baby up as Eeyore. And then she was gone.

Weird.

I was tempted to get all judgmental about all this. Then I did some thinking.
This past Saturday, the local newspaper published the paper with the front page blank. Apparently, they explained that the blank page was in honour of the 100,000 people in this city who live below the poverty line but never make the front page. I was really impressed when I heard about it. This is a working-class city, and half the city works in the steel industry. It follows that if the majority of your population is one step out of poverty, you're also going to have a high poverty rate. We also have the 2nd or 3rd highest population of recent immigrants in the country, many of whom are refugees. There are a lot of reasons for the high poverty rate, but it's still shocking to me.

In tutorial today, we somehow ended up talking about the fact that poverty is the #1 determinant of health. Genetics be damned, the best thing you can do for your health is to be rich. The second best thing is to be happy. They are not the same thing.

There's an overwhelming body of evidence that shows a direct correlation between socioeconomic status and health. We ended up musing today about how much more impact a physician could have on his or her patients simply by taking half of his or her salary and giving it back to the patients, in the form of anti-poverty initiatives. We concluded that it would probably make more of a difference than all of the drugs and fancy tests we could hand out.

I have a lot of guilt about living in one of the richest countries in the world. Even as a "starving student," I have a higher standard of living than the majority of people in the world can even dream of, and it bothers me. But sometimes I forget that I also have it a lot better than many of the people in my own country...my own city....my own neighbourhood.

There's currently an enormous uproar in Ontario about an aboriginal reserve in the far north that has had a "boil water" advisory for years. Their water is grossly polluted, and their people are ill as a result. Somehow, this got into the media recently, and the resulting public outcry pushed the provincial government to evacuate the community. (This in itself was quite the big deal, because aboriginal affairs are generally the exclusive domain of the federal government.)

Sounds like a good thing, right? It is, but here's the catch: over one hundred aboriginal reserves in this country currently have drinking water that isn't safe to drink. Many have been that way for years - I heard one chief from a community in northern Ontario on the radio this morning. His community has been on a "boil water" order for ten years.

It disgusts me that in one of the richest countries in the world, we can't even provide clean water for our population. And don't even get me started on the fact that the particular population that is suffering as a result is the aboriginal population - our very own "third world country," right at home.

It makes me sad that I don't do more to make a difference. I wear my white wristband, and I talk a lot about poverty, but what do I actually do? And what will I do when I'm a doctor, a "respected member of society," who has a "responsibility to speak out against injustice"? (Both phrases quoted from a scholarship application that I submitted today.) Will I know then what to do?

Tonight, as I came inside after the trick-or-treaters had slowed to a trickle, it occurred to me that maybe all of those grown adults at my door tonight were there because they don't have other food to eat. Or maybe because they don't have enough money to buy themselves a treat, even once in a while, so they'll capitalize on any opportunity that comes along to get something for free. I can't say I blame them. And I hope they enjoy the cheesies.

Halloween

2005-10-30T20:03:00.000-05:00

Last night was my class Halloween party. Last year, we went as the Last Saskatchewan Pirate, and his sidekick (Salty Bob). We even had "CO-OP" tattoos (the urbanites in the crowd say, "HUH?").

Anyhow, a costume like that (especially on a Saskatchewanian - my boyfriend - in Ontario) is hard to top. Fortunately, there are people on the net who are far more creative that me - like Alison, of the Blue Blog, whose sons will have amazing knitted costumes this year.

We borrowed her idea (imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?) and did the low-quality rendition - although I *did* get out my baby sewing machine for the first time (it was a Christmas present last year, but I'm not a very good sewer so it hasn't had much use), so I guess I deserve a little credit!

We apparently don't own any straight pins, so I had to use scotch tape for "basting". Unfortunately I also opted not to hem the edges of the white cotton that I was using, and pulling the tape off caused the edges to fray. I figure it just added to the slightly crazy look that's fitting for these characters!

Then there was a bit of a challenge, trying to get the enormous shirts to squeeze under the teeny-tiny arm of the sewing machine. Although I suppose that pales in comparison to my difficulties with sewing a straight seam. I think that's a skill I'm going to have to improve before I take up quilting!

And finally, the finished product:

And yes, I have been knitting. We had a full-day palliative care workshop on Friday, and since it was entirely speakers (i.e. not very interactive), I had plenty of knitting time. Sock #1 is done, and sock #2 is well on its way.

Can you tell that grafting toes is my least favourite part? I think I may put it off until both socks are finished, so I only have to subject myself to it once!

I've also started a new project for myself! I realized that I haven't made anything for me in almost a year, so I think it's high time. Here's the beginning:

It's Branching Out, from Knitty (of course). My very first foray into lace knitting. The bottom edge is a little sketchy looking, but otherwise I think it's going okay. Everyone says unblocked lace always looks a bit uninteresting, and I'm hoping that'll prove to be the case here. I've realized, though, that the 30 blocking pins that I own will be sadly insufficient for this project. My birthday is coming up, though...may spend some birthday cash to get some blocking wires!

I like the pattern so far, and the yarn is the lovely wool that I bought at the Creative Needlework and Sewing Festival a few weeks ago. It's the most lovely colour of yellow.

I think my plan is to finish this by Christmas....we'll see if I make it!

On schedule

2005-10-22T15:27:00.000-04:00

Well. For a week that's been pretty darn busy with school (that's the closest school ever gets to 'boring' for me, admittedly), I've been very productive! In fact, as long as I manage to turn a sock heel by the end of the weekend, I will be right on schedule!

What schedule, you ask? My "knitted Christmas gifts" schedule. I have two pairs of socks to finish between now and Christmas, which is approximately 8 weeks away. I figured (when I started this plan) that if I could finish one sock every two weeks between now and then, I'll have everything made with a whole week to spare! However, between about the 7th and the 21st of November, I have crazy studying to do, so I figure I will almost definitely lose knitting time (I know, it's tragic) - which means that the "week to spare" will probably been needed.

It makes me a bit sad that all kinds of knitters out there make WAY more stuff than I do in a similar amount of time....but whatever. It's all about the process, right? ;o)

Without further delay, here's what I've been up to this week:

Brad's Mom's Christmas socks. These are the basic sock pattern from The Knitting Experience, Book Two: The Purl Stitch, by Sally Melville. The yarn is my very first ever experience with Koigu Painter's Palette Premium Merino, and I'm pretty sure I'm in love. Dishcloth cotton, my arse (see below) -- I AM MERINO!

I'm halfway through sock #1, which I had to quit working on in class the other day when I hit the point where the heel needed turning. I have no issue with knitting in class (as long as it doesn't distract me or anyone else), but I think it's a bit rude to haul out a book to look up the heel technique! Heels also require concentration, which I'm pretty sure would have interfered with my ability to learn about the various forms of memory (the topic of the presentation).

I'm also having a little teeny dilemma -- I'd really like to try short-row heels on these (I'm not nuts about flaps) but I can't find any good instructions on the net. Having never tried short-rows before, I'm a bit reluctant to just dive in and hope for the best. Does anyone know of a good tutorial?

Even more exciting than the socks...

Wee William's cardigan! I finally finished the neckband early in the week, and I sat down last night and seamed it all up. It's HARD to seam things that are made of out variegated yarn and avoid having the seam stitches show, because they often contrast with the pieces. I finally found a way, which I am currently calling the "Nikki Method" because I have no idea what it's really called. It looks good, though, if I do say so myself. ;o) (There's a picture below - sorry, I forgot to take a shot of the inside of the seam so you could seem it better. I'll try to remember when I post the "finished" picture!

Now all I need to do is add the buttons and block it. The button bands are seed stitch, not that you can tell because they're rolling so much. Never having blocked anything before, I'm actually a bit nervous about this. We'll see how it goes! I'm going to block his blankie at the same time - it'll be a Wee William block-a-thon!

Incidentally, the colours are more accurate in the first picture, which is why it's here even though there's a big ugly reflection.

I'm boring!

2005-10-19T13:14:00.000-04:00

You are Dishcloth Cotton.
You are a very hard worker, most at home when
you're at home. You are thrifty and seemingly
born to clean. You are considered to be a Plain
Jane, but you are too practical to notice.

What kind of yarn are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Today's mini-craft

2005-10-18T20:08:00.000-04:00

My friend has one of those handy keychain door-locker thingies for his car. Sadly, the bit that attaches it to his keychain broke off, so he has to carry it around in his pocket. I think this is a recipe for disaster, or at least for locking the little thingie IN the car where it's not much use at all.

I offered today to crochet him a little holder, and here's what I ended up with:

Yarn: Bernat Handicrafter cotton - some scraps that I had in the stash.
Button: wooden, it's an extra from the ones that I bought for Wee William's Sweater
Pattern: from my little brain (it's basically single crochet from a foundation chain)
Time: I think this took me a total of about 20 minutes. 30, if you count untangling the yarn at the start.

Hooray for innovation!!

I mentioned that I was going to the Creative Sewing and Needlework Festival in Toronto this past weekend. I went with high hopes of finding all the yarn and patterns of my dreams, and then some. I took a wad of cash (that I shouldn't be spending, but that's another issue...hello, student loans). In the end, I spent about $35. I think that's worthy of a medal.

What did I get?
- buttons for Wee William's sweater (see above)
- blocking pins (to block WW's sweater)
- the current issue of Interweave Knits, for 30% off
- the Spring/Summer issue of Vogue Knitting, also 30% off (I figured I saved moolah on IK, so I could justify buying a second magazine!)
- ONE MEASLY SKEIN of yarn. It's lovely stuff, though: Shelridge Farms Soft Touch Ultra 100% wool. It's fingering weight, hand-dyed. Colour: straw. I'm going to make this. For ME. At the rate that I start projects for myself, I'm aiming to have it finished before I retire.

I did come up with LOTS of ideas for my sweetie's and my Mom's Christmas shopping lists, though! ;o)

Oh baby

2005-10-15T11:14:00.000-04:00

I sure hope wee William realizes just how much he was loved even before he was born. (I figure the only way that will happen is if I never call him "wee William" to his face when he's old enough to understand. But seriously, how cute is that? He lives in England! It's lovely British alliteration!!) There are few people in this world for whom I would crochet thousands of little tiny squares. He is apparently one of them.

His blanket turned out quite well, if I do say so myself. I would change a few things - for example, I would remember that when you finish a round, you should be at a corner and not in the middle (total brain fart on my part there), I would use a larger hook (which would have kept me more sane, made the blanket bigger, and made it less stiff), and....well, I don't think I'll ever make a giant granny square again!!

A little blocking is in order, too, methinks.

And a close-up so you can see the stitches, although the colour is much less accurate because I didn't use a flash:

Yarn: mystery acrylic, from my LYS in my hometown. I think I paid under $10 for 6 balls. I'd say it's sport weight.
Pattern: good ol' granny square

Wee William also has a wee cardigan in the making. I've finished the body (which is knit in one piece) and one sleeve, and have cast on for sleeve #2. The edges of the finished pieces are rolling like crazy. I'm going to have to do some mad blocking on this when it's finished - which should be interesting, given that I've never blocked anything before!

Next up: Brad's Mom's socks, and a billion new projects from the yarn that I intend to buy tomorrow at the Creative Needlework and Sewing Festival in Toronto. Whee!!!

The beginning

2005-09-30T14:04:00.000-04:00

After a year of reading knitting blogs, I've decided to hop on the bandwagon and make my own. This is very much an experiment - those of you who got here from my OD know how sporadic I can be about finding time to post! However, I'm proud of the things that I make, and I would like to share them with a wider audience.

To be honest, I'm also sick of lurking on other people's blogs but not having a URL to add to my comments so that they can reply!

A little about me:
I'm 24. I live in Ontario, Canada with my boyfriend, Brad. I'm in my second year of medical school.

I learned to knit years ago, but got back into it about 2 years ago now. I crochet too, and once in a while I cross-stitch. I make pretty slow progress at all of these because I don't have much time to devote to them - and I also tend to make small objects, for the same reason.

Current works in progress:
- A baby blanket for the very first grandchild in Brad's family, our nephew-to-be, William. He's due in November. I'm crocheting the blanket in the most mind-numbing pattern ever: one big granny square. The yarn is some sort of acrylic blend that I bought cheap (and without labels) at the LYS in my hometown. It's variegated, light mauves, blues and turquoises. I'm aiming for functionality and not beauty with this blanket. I plan to celebrate in a big way when I finally finish this thing!

- A baby sweater, also for William. I'm using Stephanie's Daisy pattern from Knitty. I actually swatched for this sweater, which is a major step forward (or backward, depending how you look at it) for me. The yarn is mercerized DK cotton, the brand of which is totally escaping me. I bought it on eBay and thought it looked like variegated yarn with fire engine red and Thomas the Tank Engine blue. It's really more fuschia and....well, I guess the blue was pretty accurate. Anyhow, Brad has convinced me that it's not "too girly," and besides, "aren't we going to encourage this kid to break down stereotypes in our world." I still think it might be a titch girly, but it's really soft and I love cotton...so I'll probably use it anyways. I haven't met this kid's Dad (that's a long story for another day), but apparently he's very cool and laid-back...and I know his Mom (Brad's sister) fits that description, so I figure they'll be able to cope with comments like, "I love your little girl's sweater, is it handmade?" And of course, we all know ultrasounds aren't 100%, so there's always the possibility that we'll end up with a little Wilhelmina (*shudder*...now THERE'S a name) and this will be a moot point.

- Socks for Brad's Mom for Christmas. The Koigu is in the mail, so I guess this doesn't really count as a "work in progress" yet.

- Do projects that have been stuffed in the stash for months/years count? I say no....but suffice to say there is NO REASON for me to buy more yarn. However, as we all know...no one needs a reason to buy yarn.

Take care, blog world. Catch ya later.