I love the bathing suits available at Victoria's Secret (they have hundreds... I like the super cheap mix and match tops and bottoms).... BUT, isn't this the same pattern as what is on every patient gown in every hospital you've ever been in? That pattern doesn't scream vacation to me.

Although, it did always seem weird that they put seagulls on hospital gowns. I guess they make a lot more sense on a bathing suit.


I want summer.

Turtle Cheesecake

You know what would be good?
An iPhone app where you could take a picture of something and it would
tell you how many calories it had.

And then it would yell at you not to eat it.

Oh well.

public service announcement

Dear world (and you know who you are),
We have started watching How I Met Your Mother. The first episode was good.
Thank you and good night,
Alyson

Glen, 10 days before graduation from Hopkins:

Superfresh on 10th & South just completely renovated, including getting all new signs.
1) that's not how you spell that.
2) these 'marshmellows' take up so much of the aisle that they get their own sign? or were there just that many customers coming in and asking for the 'marshmellows' that you thought a sign would be worthwhile?

OK, I'll head back to working on my overdue paper now.

Tomorrow is Match Day!

I feel a little weird. There's this sensation like it's graduation time, so I should be feeling all the graduation feelings -- excitement, happiness, and bittersweet sentimentalness... that's a word. So I am definitely excited for all of you who are matching, but there's really no happiness -- just the bittersweet knowledge that most of you will be leaving and going three states away or three time zones away. I'm starting to feel like it's going to be very lonely here. I've made some new class-of-2010 friends (and I have a best friend x12 years here of course) but there aren't going to be many more parties like my recent birthday party. It's hard enough managing a group of college friends who are spread out all over the east coast, but now a group of med school friends who are going to be all over the country?? I'm going to miss you guys.

Let's celebrate tomorrow, and party it up for the next few months... while you're all still here.

mildly interesting news

So apparently Jefferson changed their policy or something, and quietly gave me a new email address with my married name. This is good because everyone at Jeff just assumes your email address is the name on your badge @jefferson.edu. People could look me up in the directory under my married name, but I thought that they would get my maiden name email address.

Two things I think are curious about this situation are (1) they didn't tell me they gave me another email address. I just happened to notice that someone I just met emailed me at it. And (2) somehow emails sent to it ended up in my gmail inbox just like all my other mail. I assume that means that the two jefferson email addresses are directed to the same jefferson inbox, which is very nice of them, especially since they decided not to tell me I had the address. If it were going into its own inbox somewhere else, emails would just pile up there indefinitely without me ever knowing to check them!

Overall, it doesn't really matter though. Jefferson cancels our school email addresses six months after we graduate, so I only have ~2 years left with my jeff emails anyway. I don't really want to get too many people using them and then have to switch everyone back over. In the meanwhile though, it will be handy for all of the people who make assumptions from my name tag.

Today I had a patient with paranoid schizophrenia come in because one of his psych meds was messing with his blood sugar and we needed to rule out diabetes. He was a little socially awkward, and obviously anxious, pacing the exam room the whole time I talked to him. He was nice though, even cracking a very quiet joke or two.

He had also had some trouble with low blood pressure, so we decided to take his blood pressure lying down and then standing. We had him lie on his back on the exam table, and he suddenly says, "What's that button?"

He was lying under this special bright light that I've only seen used on a 4-day-old infant, I thought to help keep her warm. It had some tiny knob on it that looked like a button, so the resident explained the light and turned it on for a moment, trying to reassure him.

He then says, "No, that button." We look up, and then on the next ceiling-tile over is a coat button... like, round, with a rim, and 4 holes... stuck to the ceiling. Someone glued a button to the ceiling.

Things like that can make you think you're crazy!



(Or it was hovering. Or it was a bug that could disguise itself as a button. Or an alien that could disguise itself as a button. I don't even have a psychiatric disorder and I came up with those possibilities... or I assume I don't have a psy dx. Yeah, thanks in advance for the comments on that).




Also, my friend from my previous post isn't doing well. The diagnosis right now is transverse myelitis, which indicates it could be at least a few weeks before there is improvement. I pray that she and her family have the strength to carry them through this.

I can't believe it's the last full week of Family Medicine already! The good rotations go so quickly.

On Friday I was interviewing this 80-something year old lady accompanied by her daughter with very vague complaints of feeling unwell and clammy. I was excited to hear my first real crackles in her left lung -- both because I heard them and because it gave me a diagnosis (lobar pneumonia). I presented to my attending, and then she went in and listened too.

While she moving across the lungs towards the spot where I heard the crackles, I was thinking, "I hope she hears crackles too!" I wanted to be right. Then I realized I was hoping that this frail elderly lady actually had pneumonia, and I felt pretty bad. So I started hoping that my attending wouldn't hear crackles... but I couldn't get quite as much enthusiasm behind that.

Being a student unfortunately puts you in that position sometimes. Like on surgery, I occasionally found my self hoping a patient would get sicker so I could see what would be an interesting operation. (I have to say though, I never wished the Psych patients were any sicker than they already were.)

So yeah, the attending heard the crackles too and we gave antibiotics and asked her to get a chest X-Ray. And my wishing one way or the other really didn't affect the outcome.


On the flipside, I just found out that an old friend (my age) is very ill, on a respirator now. And I'm wishing and hoping and praying with all my heart that she gets better, and I have to believe that all of that is doing something, because at the moment, it's all I have to give to her and her family.

I got the best complement while in Walgreens yesterday.

I was waiting in line to fill Glen's allergy script (yay Spring!) behind a 4-year-old and his mom. While the mom was at the counter I chatted with the kid about these handheld back massager gadgets that vibrated and lit up when you pressed a button. The color of the lights matches the color of the gadget! It sounds like there's a fan in there! Why do they light up? Why don't you know why they light up?

They when I came back 15 minutes later to pick up the filled script, the mom and kid were in front me again. The boy says, "Hey! It's the nice person!" :-D

I also got to pick up some regular Claritin for myself (er, discount Wal-itin rather -- the stuff is expensive!) to calm my burning itching mucus membranes, so overall it was a successful trip.

Sorry I keep talking about mucus membranes.

Entering the second quartile...

That was the first birthday in recent memory where no one called me at midnight.

It was also the first birthday in recent memory where I was sound asleep at midnight and very glad that no one called me!

My conclusion is that we are all getting very old.

Seriously though, I had a wonderful birthday and I want to thank everyone who was a part of it, from the Wii bowling tournament to the facebook wall posts. Love you guys!

You don't often hear a patient complain about having a swollen uvula,
but boy was that one swollen uvula!

The email to take a snow day never arrived, so here I am. Let's see if
any patients show up for their appointments.