Boston or Bust!

To further celebrate being done with Phase I me and a few girlfriends from school took a road trip to Boston.

We took off on the 18th and stopped for the night in NYC.  It was a nice way to break up the 8 hour drive to Boston.  We didn't have time to do too much in NYC so we went to Times Square and to a tasty Cuban restaurant in Chelsea called the Cuban Cafe, they had fantastic mojitos.

Mmmm... Strawberry Mojito!

Day two of our trip we hopped back in the car and headed to Boston.  This was my first visit to Massachusettes, and let me tell you, it's a great place to go in the summer.  The weather was so nice and cool.  I loved Boston, it was beautiful, clean, cool, and felt much smaller than it is in reality.  The day we arrived we settled into the hotel, had some dinner (Clam chowder and Chocolate Fondue), and headed out on our sunset harbor cruise.

Boston Harbor, In front of the Aquarium

Lobster Hat...Haha

Boston Harbor Cruise

Some of my favorite stories from the harbor cruise include the story of the Boston Molassacre (or molasses disaster), google it, it's quite interesting, and the stories about the U.S.S. Constitution.  After the harbor cruise we sought out the Bell in Hand Tavern, the OLDEST pub in the US.  It was established in 1795.

Bell In Hand

Blue Moons at the Bell in Hand

Day two we headed out for our 'wicked awesome' segway tour.  Although Lauren may disagree about the awesome part.  But we spent two hours cruising around the harbor. 

Segway Adventure

We were wicked hungry after our long morning so after the segways we headed to the closest patio at Tia's, which lucky for me they happened to have $13 Lobster lunch.  After lunch we explored the glory of Fanneuil Hall.  I wish I had understood exactly what that had meant, it was so amazing I may have sacrificed the Lobster for the food extravaganza that waited inside.  It is essentially a food pavillion with any kind of food you could hope to find, Seafood, Greek, Italian, Indian, Chinese, Ice Cream, Smoothies, Pastries, Candy, etc.  It was amazing and overwhelming, the gelato shop didn't have any chocolate so I settled on a M & M cookie sandwich.  YUM!

Please notice the Glint in my eye :)

What could possibly be great enough to follow Lobster and a M & M Cookie Sandwich?

Pedi's!!!!

After our relaxing afternoon, we headed to dinner with some of Lauren's friends.  Before heading out on our Boston Duck Tour.  The duck tour took us around the North End and up the Charle's River.  Some of the highlights: The Old North Church, MIT, Mass Gen.

Quack, Quack, Quack!!!

Now as if this day wasn't long enough, we spent the rest of our evening meeting Baker #3, Lauren's sister is the banquet director of the hotel we were staying out, so we got to know Jaime B. a bit.  Then at last it was time for bed!

The following morning we met Jaime for breakfast at the Hyatt.  If you want an Amazing view for breakfast in Boston, you have to check it out.  The view is amazing, you can see the entire Boston Skyline.  It was quiet and cool, right on the water, and the food was great too.

The View

Our last event before leaving Boston was a trip to the famous Ether Dome at Massachusettes General Hospital.  This is the site where the first anesthetic was administered in 1846, ether was used to effectively anesthetize a patient while a submandibular tumor was removed.  I know, maybe not that exciting to you, but I really enjoyed it alot.  It was actually a highlight of the trip.

This is the Ether Dome, Heyni is sitting in Dr. Morton's Seat!

After this we went shopping, on our way to Lauren's parents house.  We also stopped at a local farm and indulged in a little homemade ice cream, while watching it rain.  Before heading out to vampire territory...  On the way we went through Sterling Virginia, where Mary Had a Little Lamb.  We spent the rest of our vacation with Lauren's family, relaxing by the pool, playing games, and of course watching The Exterminators.  We had a wonderful time!

Homemade Ice Cream!

End of Phase I Party and Field Day

July 16th

My classmates and I celebrated the end of phase I with a BBQ Pool Party.  We spent hours just hanging out eating and drinking, attempting to regain some sense of normalcy in our lives.  It was so good to kick back and relax.

Angel got to come to the party too, she was a hit!!!

The next day, July 17th, was Lauren's Birthday party.  She celebrated with a huge old school field day.  We divided up into teams (of course Rich and I were on separate teams), and competed in a series of events including wheel-barrow race, egg race, water balloon toss, dizzy cone, and a combination relay.  Lucky for me, my team won technically (regardless of what Richard says).  He seems to think his team should of won, but he didn't listen to the instructions and was disqualified. 

The Birthday Peeps

The Winning Team...Go Hairy Hippos!

Back to the Blog

So, It's been 4 months since I've blogged about anything, so I'm not going to even attempt to catch up except to say that it's been a crazy few months trying to keep up with school, vacations, and visits.  Some of it's been great, but unfortunately more of it is overshadowed by the overwhelming sense of horror associated with school.  But now, on to better things...

I think I'll start with July 15th, which is just about the best day in recent history.  This was the day I took my last final for summer school, a pharmacology oral exam (which is just as awful as it sounds), but the completion of this exam signalled the END of phase I of my program, or the end of the didactic (all school all the time) phase.  So we went and celebrated with lunch at the Liberty Tavern, yum!

It was also Lauren's birthday, Happy Happy Birthday Lauren!!!

BEST day of school so far...So good, it gets it's own post!

Friday, April 9th was a special day for me.

This was my second OR observation day of the semester at INOVA Fairfax.  My first observation day was ok, I didn't get to do much, it held true to name-Observation.  However, today was different.  I was with a CRNA who let me do it all.  I walked into the OR and she immediately said, "Ok this is your patient, what's your plan?"  After picking my jaw up off the floor, I started doing the things I knew how to do, and followed her instructions the rest of the time. 

First case...
She asked me, "have you ever intubated before?"  I said, "No but I'm ready to try".  So we brought the patient back (an obese patient, with a thousand co-morbidities, and an anterior airway), I went through the first steps of my induction sequence without any difficulty, I mean that part is really no different with a real patient.  Now we're pushing drugs, lidocaine, propofol, roc... Now I'm ventilating the patient ready for the big event, the INTUBATION.  So, here goes I scissored, I inserted the Mac and I can't see cords.  The anesthesiologist guided my hand on the laryngoscope until I could see arytenoids, and in went the tube.  So that was great, but can't be considered a complete success because I was heavily assisted by the anesthesiologist.  However, after we finished the CRNA informed me that he was a difficult airway and she would have just used a glide scope, but I have to learn first before I can use fancy scopes.  I'll count that a semi-victory, I definately started to integrate my knowledge.  However, I also assisted with my first wake-up, including extubation, which they say is the "true art of anesthesia" (they being my professors).

Second case...
After assisting me "too much" on the first case, my CRNA allowed me to do much more on my own in the second case.  I brought the patient back to the OR, moved him to the bed ("everything's on your count" she told me), put him on the monitors (pulse ox, BP, EKG, cycle cuff), pre-oxygenate, drugs, lidocaine, propofol, roc, here we are again, it's time for DVL.  I'm thinking "just like lab, I know what to do".  And with the anesthesiologist by my side scissor, insert blade, visualize the cords, pass the tube, inflate the cuff, look, listen, and assess ETCO2... It's done, I just did my first independently successful intubation!  I even remembered to keep breathing for the patient until I switched him to the vent.  I also got to place an IV, which I still remember how to do, but could barely do because I was shaking so profusely from the adrenaline that was still coursing through my body. 

It was very exciting to have that first experience, and the affirmation that this is going to be a fantastic career for me was wonderful.  I want to put how I felt into words so I can look back and remember what it was like, but I'm not sure I know how.  I will say this, it felt wonderful, I felt empowered, affirmed, and natural.  This experience could not have come at a better time, I feel like it has refueled me for the rest of the semester.  It definately reminded me why I am here, and that I am so close to the "good part" (when clinical starts).  Clinical starts in September, and that will be a whole new can of worms, but nothing is like your first time.

Week 13-Now for some FUN!

This week for me was mainly spent studying pharm and for Rich spent cooking for his crazy wife, but the test was Thursday, I did great, and that was when the studying stopped!

Thursday after the exam, Nicole and Lauren and I headed down to the Georgetown waterfront for some lunch.  It was a beautiful day, albeit a bit windy (lots of broken glass on the patio), but it was nice to relax in the nice weather after a tough week!

Friday, Party Day 1.  Today Richard and I attended our captain's meeting for our kickball league.  This was a mandatory meeting that consisted of about 5 minutes of meeting and about 5 hours of free beer and boomerang bus fun.  It was a great night, we met alot of new people in the kickball league and mainly just had fun.

Saturday, Party Day 2.  Tonight was the official kickball league kickoff party, so we met our teammates at the bar, where we enjoyed more free beer and flip cup.  It was definately a good night!

Nicole, Lauren, and Me!

Sunday, was a day of rest and recovery, and of course some studying (I couldn't go an entire weekend). 

Week 12-Things are looking up...

I am so far behind on the blog, it's been so long, to the point that it's overwhelming because I'm so far behind, but here goes... Let's catch up with some retrograde blog posts...enjoy!

I'm going to start this post off on Wednesday March 31st...This is the day things started to get better.  After the previous post, me and my girlfriends went out for some celebratory drinks, and some seriously missed fun! 

This week was a little bit of a break from the last few weeks of horror, I had 3 days off school for Easter, which I know seems like a lot.  But it did not feel like a lot.  I got so behind in school I had lots to catch up on, plus I had to study for my next pharm test (which I really need to do well on, because I didn't do so great on round 1). 

On the plus side, Rich and I did get out of the house a few times...

We started with a trip to the National Cherry Blossum Festival at the Tidal Basin.  So here is my official review of the DC Cherry Blossums:

1. They are very pretty,

2. They are NOT BLUEBONNETS (a. bluebonnets are better, b. people here don't even know what bluebonnets are)

3. LOTS of people come to see them,

4. They are worth a gander if you are here, but not worth an entire trip just to see, especially when you can see them right here.

We had our Kickball Meet and Greet party at my friend Lauren's house, which was tons of fun!  This was the first night in a while I was able to really cut loose and have fun...definately necessary!  We capped the evenings festivities with a pinata and an easter egg hunt, your jealous now huh?

This is a W for WINNERS!!!

We were the evenings OFFICIAL Flip Cup CHAMPIONS!

Then Sunday for Easter we went with Sara and Tom to a friends house, met some new people, and hung out with the fam a bit.  Plus I wasn't doing school work, so that makes everything better.

Week 11-Still a bit of a blur!

Study, Lecture, Research, Study, Lecture, Research, Study, Lecture, Research....Patho exam.  Immediately followed by Physiology study (this is a five hour course with 6 hours of lecture a week), it's a bit much to keep up with.  But basically it all still kinda sucks!  Having trouble seeing the light at this point!