Just to Ramble

Oh, where to begin.....

Randy has been extraordinarily busy this month with Inpatient Service...and we have only one more week to go! He has been up and out the door each and every morning by 4AM to allow himself enough time to "round" on each of the clinic's patients (up to 8 patients/per doc) before meeting with the assigned Attending to discuss the plan of treatment and all before 7:30AM when he is required to attend (and sometimes give) the morning lecture.

Then he is the doc on-call during the day (7AM-5PM) that the ER calls when one of "our" patients presents at their door and needs to be admitted. Unfortunately, if a patient is needing to be admitted at 4:58PM, Randy is still the doc to call...which means that he won't be home until after 6PM.

And then there are the weekends....Randy was assigned 3 weekend days to conduct "rounds". On these assigned days (Sat or Sun AM), he was up and on his way by 4AM (even earlier if he had a full load of 8 patients), so that he could complete his rounds by 8AM when he met with the assigned Attending, discuss the treatment plans, and then go back and write orders or discharge summaries. I never saw him back home before 3PM.

And lastly, there is "Monday call". Mondays are the absolute worst day to be on-call, and during Inpatient Service month, each and every Monday belongs to you. During "Monday call" or "Drop In Call", any time a patient presents to the ER and does not have a Primary Care Doc, they are assigned to our Family Practice clinic, and the on-call doc is paged. Mondays are generally very busy as a lot of folks wait "it" out over the weekend. Randy can usually field his "pages" from home on any other night, but since Monday nights are so busy, he spends the night at the clinic (and sometimes doesn't even have a chance to sleep). And now that the "Winter Texans" are beginning their descent, it's only going to get busier.

This is one of the hardest rotations during Residency here. Unfortunately, we've not seen the last of Inpatient Service...we will endure 3 months of it next year. UGH! While Randy has gotten very little sleep and has not seen much of his family, he has learned a lot. I know we're BOTH looking forward to ER next month, when things go, somewhat, back to "normal".

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Our dear princess is teething. Need I say more? Alayna seems to be having a lot more discomfort than I remember Josiah having in the beginning stages. Two nights ago, she awoke screaming every hour and just wanted to be held. When I finally broke down and gave her her weight in an appropriate dose of Tylenol, she calmed down and slept for 2 hours and wanted to nurse when she woke up (something she refused ALL night).

Well, it's two days later, and there is still no visible sight of those darn teefers. I can feel the hard and swollen bumps but can't see them. I'm not sure how much more either of us can take. She's gnawing on anything and everything she can fit into her mouth, her poor nose is runny, we've got pools of drool where she's sat for as little as 5 minutes, and she's waking during the night.

TEETH, UGH!

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In case you've never experienced a 2 year old living in a house full of tile flooring, let me "break" it down for you. Since we moved in (and especially within the last 3 weeks), we've lost.....

• a few toys
• a drinking glass
• a glass jar of Strawberry preserves
• a salad plate to our now discontinued wedding dishes
• a clay coaster
• and a candle (I especially sad about this one because I just got it yesterday)

And the thing about tile is that it doesn't absorb the energy of the falling object. Therefore, glass objects SHATTER into a million pieces. I'm still finding little pieces, and in places far from the point of impact.

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I completed my very first 5K race on Saturday. A couple of our fellow Residents helped organize the inaugural Sizzler, so it was important to me to show up and support our "family". While I'm faaaaaar from my goal pace, it was good to see where the last 5 weeks of training landed me. I finished in 33:16, which is a pace of 10:42/M. Not too bad considering that I'd been dealing with nausea, headaches, and gastro issues since Thursday (and still was on Sat AM).

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And I believe that Fall has finally made it's way all.the.way.down.here. A couple of days last week, I was able to keep the windows and doors open ALL day, and it stayed cool enough that the A/C didn't kick on (it's set at 77). According to our weather folks, we are expecting a couple of cooler days this week as well (high's in the mid-upper 70's). We may even escape to San Antonio this weekend and enjoy a day at Sea World.

I was starting to feel a little "green" about missing the Appalachia Mountain "Changing of the Leaves" until I heard that there's a chance of SNOW tomorrow. And I'm sure I'll continue to become less envious when I can comfortably sit at the beach in December while my "northern" friends are bundled up in layers and having to give themselves an extra 10 minutes before heading to work in order to warm up their vehicle and scrape ice off the windows. ;-)

We may not live in the most ideal location come summer, when we shut ourselves indoors until after the sun goes down, but I sure am sittin' pretty for the next 4 months.

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I think I've done enough rambling....if you're still with me, thanks for listening.