Bleh!

good week. i cracked down on myself a bit at work and am working on some of the ways my sewing isn't perfect in the OR. i've also been trying to do a bit more floor stuff- consults for the docs, ordering more meds, etc. i'm on the floor for a full week in 2 wks and am nervous. evaluating labs and making decisions, writing my own orders and scripts...still makes me a bit nervous. what if i miss something? miss-diagnose or dose something? in this way i'm jealous of my friends who went directly into family/internal medicine. although i'm sure their palms sweat all day every day for the first few months, they're probably used to it by now and know their shtuff. not so much for me. i've had so little of it still, that i'm feeling pretty green. so i'm working through that. and trying to become mo' betta' in surgery, too.

having a lazy weekend now. kind of green in another way, too. not feeling so hot. there's a stomach bug going around at work- vomiting, diarrhea, etc. i'm just kind of naus and dizzy so far. hopefully it will stop with that.

but the BHE and i went out for a magic date last night anyway. we got crepes in a downtown crepe stand that were amazing and then went to our local art museum. we became members in august and this is the first time we've been...it was really cool being there on a friday night. i felt like a bruce wayne dame out in gotham city for a function. they had a little string quartet playing near a big sparkly wintry exhibit and it was enchanting. we also wandered through some exhibits we haven't seen before. it was pretty vacant in the rest of the museum away from the music, so it was really exciting to be there. i can't believe some of the 16th century items that made their way from europe here. incredible. we contemplated trying to steal one for my sister's upcoming birthday and thought better of it. she'd probably prefer money to a sarcophagus anyway.

what else is new? let's see...i had an awesome/funny experience the other day at a dermatologist's office. cold winter= dry, dry skin and it's not getting any better despite my best efforts. and i've been putting off going to a dermatologist for several years because all of my previous experiences have been that it takes 3 months to get in and then they see you for a very dissatisfying 5 minutes. so against my better judgement, i tried a new derm. and it was great! not only did he see me 2 days after i called for an appt (unheard of!) but he spoke to me for about 20 minutes (insane!) and wrote me for an adequate amount of steroid ointment instead of the little piddly 4 oz that lasts only 2 days . he was really helpful. but he was also sort of goofy. he advised me that i should not be a surgical PA since scrubbing in is harmful to my hand skin. and then when i kind of scoffed at that, he showed me how to fake wash my hands. :) very helpful.

End of the Afternoons

well, i'm finishing up my week of afternoons. it's been really quiet...i have only had 1-2 cases per night. and the night staff is great, so it's been a lot of fun. a little too much down time where i'm sitting in the office snacking- so my weight is crawling back up. i'll just have to be really dilligent this weekend for my monday weigh-in.

it has messed up my sleep schedule a bit. i get home at midnight and then am up to 1:30am catching up on TV and other critical things, and then sleep in until 10am...leaving me only a few hrs to get stuff done at home before returning to work at 3pm. a dilligent person would go right to bed when getting home, wake up at 7am, go work out and have all morning/afternoon to be productive before going back to work. not so much with me.

and i haven't seen my husband in a week. nor this weekend, since he's off to frollick with his brother...so i'm going to visit friends and family back home. sigh. we'll see each other some day. hopefully we'll recognize each other.

in the thick of the winter blahs, but so far so good. keeping my mind on work and watching movies and planning a few vacations this spring. that seems to help.

hope everyone is staying warm...i wish i had more thrilling things to discuss. but i guess in the surgical world, you kind of want routine and boring and not excitement, so this means that things are going well. and since i always vent to you when i'm really mucking it up good, the fact that i have little to say must be a good sign, right?

if you're curious about the upcoming oscars- here are the nominations. again, i plan to see all the best picture nominees this year.

Just When I Need the Extra Fat Padding to Keep Warm, I'm Losing Weight

working afternoons this week. i'll be scheduled to do this every 6 wks or so. it's not bad. it's 3:00-11:30pm monday through friday. it's nice to sleep in and i'm getting a lot done during the day at home. but last night i got home after midnight and was too high strung to get to bed before 1:30, so in turn i was too sleepy/lazy to get up to do a 9:30 step class. so i'm in my robe on my couch. whenever i'm home during the day it feels like a sick day or snow day. i kind of want macaroni and cheese and to watch reruns of "the price is right" and "the cosbey show."

it was really quiet last night. i only ended up scrubbing on one and a half surgeries. you never know what you're going to get, though. i guess it can be madness, too. when we get there in the afternoon, we finish the day's elective cases and all the add-ons, but then late in the night there can be emergencies of all sorts (usually appendectomies, fractures, and aortic ruptures and such) but then there are also some insane surgeons who schedule procedures for 10pm. after the put their kids to bed, they come back in for another round. i don't know how they sustain a life like that, because they're back in scrubbed and ready to go at 7am the next day. nuts. wealthy, but nuts.

otherwise things are going well. had my parents over this weekend for a nice visit. we had good intentions of doing all kinds of fun things while they were here, but it was so snowy and cold, we just holed up and played games and watched movies. which was even better. it's beautiful outside, like a norman rockwell painting.....but seriously, is it spring yet?

i'm off to cook for a work potluck they're having tomorrow. since we're all dieting, we're bringing healthy dishes (w/ recipes) to share. i won't be there for the lunch, but i thought i'd take some nummies anyway. if you're interested, here are the two dishes i'm making- chocolate raspberry cups for 1 WW point each and a jicama cabbage slaw for 0 WW pts per serving. i haven't made the chocolate cups yet, but they sound great...but i've made the slaw a few times in the last week and it's amazing. i ate the rest of it yesterday and the BHE whined a lot, so i'm replenishing his supply as well as taking some to work.

and i'm down 2.5 lbs in the last 2 wks!! feeling pretty good about that.

Diet Trivia Question: What is sugar free, fat free, guilt free and delicious? Answer: Nothing. (sob)

great day today. was allowed to first assist on a vaginal hysterectomy. i haven't been able to do enough gyn surgery recently since ob/gyn's travel in pairs and don't often need our help. it was really interesting and challenging. i'm spreading the word among the ob/gyn's that i'm interested and want to specialize in that direction....while still doing general surgery, of course. none of the other PA's will argue with me there. gyn cases are considered less than pleasant for most.

weight loss efforts are coming along. the BHE and i joined a local globogym and i've been going pretty regularly. we've been roughly following the weight watchers program but are going to actually officially join on thursday and start going to meetings. so far so good. i have my cravings for sweets and stuff, but i'm curbing them with low fat sugar free pudding and hot cocoa and fruit and stuff. awesome. the PA dept is doing the 'biggest loser' competition for 10 wks, but we're tracking our progress weekly. i lost 1/2 pound last week. i would have been thrilled, but i was WAY behind the other members of my team...who lost anywhere from 3-11 lbs! in a week! things will even out eventually, i think. but still i don't think i'm imagining the dirty looks they're giving me as they watch me suck the low fat ranch dressing off my carrots in misery.

it's COLD here and windy and snowy, so i'm spending most of my time at home under many blankets on the couch with my brand new netbook laptop thingy. it's tiny and light weight (weighs less than 3 lbs! less than an inch thick!). i busted my old laptop months ago and we've been making do on the BHE's PC but he's tired of me hogging it, so i got a new toy. i will eventually get used to the itty bittyness of it. i think it will be great.

we've also been watching lots of reruns of alton brown's "good eats" on the food network. it's like cooking for dorks. it's great. do you know it? but, cruel fate...the last 2 episodes have been on making donuts and chocolate chip cookies. why, why, why?

so that's what's new here.....now if you'll excuse me i have to go cry over some raw vegetables. again.

Top Five Reasons Why 2009 Doesn't Suck So Far

1. starbucks has these new awesome tea latte things. i tried the "london fog" this afternoon and it was delicious. (i keep thinking that if i plug them publicly they'll have to give me free products. no? hello? starbucks rep? anyone?).

2. so far this new year i've gotten to do some wicked awesome cases. i did a thigh and butt lift today (so cool, although never sewed in so many cracks before...not actually IN the most notorious of cracks, but not far from it, and in all kinds of folds and at weird angles...not the easiest areas to access- but still cool!). and tomorrow i'm doing a nissan fundoplication. no i did not make that up to sound smart, it's a real procedure that involves wrapping part of the upper stomach tightly around the esophagus to prevent reflux and thus, the symptoms of heartburn. it's kind of the final effort when all others have failed. and it's pretty darned cool. and today i first assisted on a thyroidectomy, which i haven't done completely yet...and it went well. i'm beginning to feel like a professional who might actually have some business being in the OR. i'm sure that will flux back to self loathing after a while. :)

3. my resolution to live healthier is going well so far (and 6 days in already!). i've cooked a real meal every night this week and have even worked out once or twice (once, sort of).

4. oprah's fat again and talking about it, so now all the devoted oprah-ites are on a weight loss campaign...and since they make an army of many millions, we might see a national movement and totally eradicate diabetes and hypertension. or, oprah might just sell more magazines. that could happen, too.

5. i cannot WAIT to see what we have in store for us in 2009 since the celebrities-trying-to-out-wacky-each-other baby naming contest went so well in 2008. we have the following for your consideration: nahla, indigo, ruby, ignatius, knox, bronx, harlow, sunday, sage, zuma, luca, coco, birdie, valentine, clementine, levi, etc, etc. those last two aren't names. they're just to indicate that there are many more insane examples i could have used of famous rich people who are famous and rich enough to almost be able to guarantee that their kids won't get beaten up at school for their ridiculous names. i can't see swirlees happening when there are body guards around. i'm just saying. so, how many of those baby names could you match to their famous parents? if you got 1-3 alright, fair enough, you go to the grocery store and can't help but read the covers of the tabloids since your eyes automatically focus on english words. if you got 4-10 you probably need to leave the house more. if you got >10, you're probably a celebrity stalker and may have sent monogrammed blankets to one or all of the above-named babies. i cannot endorse this.

Nice.

weekend at home for the first time in a long time and it was lovely. we took our tree down (savagely and by the roots, it seemed, from the mess that was left in our living room) and all our other decorations. it wasn't sad, though....cuz we're talking about some new projects on the house, so we have that to look forward to. i think we're going to tackle the bathroom first. it's been looking like a bomb shelter with a toilet for long enough (well, now that i think about it....i would imagine that most bomb shelters had toilets, right? i mean, that would be sort of a flaw in the design if they didn't anticipate that required furniture....). anyway, it needs work. we'll leave it at that.

so this weekend we just took it easy. or, rather, i took it easy. the BHE volunteered for church yesterday at the crack of dawn. i went to our little downtown area and got my hair cut, shopped a little, and took myself out to lunch. we also rented and watched a few great movies (reviews on side bar).

and i cooked. a lot. i was in kind of domestic frenzy, actually. i made a vegetarian mushroom stroganoff last night. and i bought stuff to make a few weight watchers recipes that will get us through the week (spanish pepper soup, no-meat loaf, brocolli and bulgar spicey peanut stir fry, etc). my weight loss competition at work starts tomorrow. so i'm preparing by having plenty of fresh produce in the house and lots of low cal, high fiber snacks around. i also ate myself sick over the weekend with all the pizza, ice cream, and chocolate i could find. my teammates and i decided that if we bulk up (water weight counts- we're going salty and lots of fluids tonight) right before the first weigh-in, we'll be artificially heavy initially, and then will appear to lose even more weight over the course of the contest.

i know. we totally get the spirit of it, right?

so anyway....with happy heart and full belly (spilling over my jeans still, yes)...i wish you a happy start to your weeks.