No Cupcake Left Behind

This is the new funniest thing I have read in a while:


"According to the Chicago Tribune, some California schools have limited unhealthy classroom treats, such as cupcakes on birthdays and holidays, to only three times a year out of concern about childhood obesity. Some school districts have banned celebratory snacks altogether. Texas, however, passed the "Safe Cupcake" amendment, which guarantees parents the right to bring in non-nutritious treats on special occasions such as Valentine's Day, Halloween, or their child's birthday."


Wow, I love this state!

The Texas Ranger

I found out today that, indeed, the Texas Rangers really do exist, and I am not referring to a bad baseball team.

At 7:30 EMS brought in a patient who was found outside of his tractor-trailer with his wrists slit, dripping blood all over. He was lethargic with normal vital signs. He was given Narcan (an opioid reversal agent) and he woke up. The thinking was that he did drugs and then he tried to kill himself. But here is the catch..... both wrists were slit which is unusual from what I understand. Also, the patient denied that he tried and he remembers gun shots, but he couldn't remember anything else. The whole story was very fishy. The patient was acting strange and we continued to suspect throughout the day that he was, in fact attempting suicide.
However, his drug screen came back negative. And then in the afternoon the Texas Ranger, came in to investigate. Wide brimmed hat, cowboys boots, pistol in the holster, and a star that resembled a sheriff; I was certainly impressed.
Apparently, this man had a "previous run in with some bad individuals" and had been found with bullet holes in his truck.

So, we were just left to wonder...... I spent an hour with him as I put 20 stitches into his wrists, but despite my talking to him he still didn't give us any idea as to what was happening.

The First Christmas just the two of us

We had a wonderful Christmas day. We got to have a delicious breakfast with some friends. We opened our stockings and presents when we got home. Matt was sweet and got the baby a stocking as well. We decided that instead of getting each other gifts we are going to get something for the house..probably a theater system for the t.v. we'll see though. Then that evening we went to the director's (of the residency) house for dinner and fellowship time with some more people from the program. It was a lot of fun and a lot of good food.

Here are some pictures from our day.....

This is the cake that i made. it was real yummy; big, but yummy. These are our friends Dan, Sarah and Hannah Lee. They are becoming good friends of ours. Sarah is due two weeks before me.

More about the ER

It is now Christmas Eve, and I am waiting for katie to fall asleep so that I can surprise her by filling up some stockings, which she is not expecting. I also got a little one for the baby. Unfortunately, I have been working a lot and so I didn't have a lot of time to put much thought into what is going into them. However, she will be surprised.
I have been wanting to write more about my experiences in the ER, because each day is just ripe with stories, humor and generally exceptional experiences. So here we go with a few....



1) Towards the end of my wednesday shift one of the attending doctors asked me if I wanted to do some suturing. I love sewing people up, so I said yes before I looked at the job. Before I knew it I was starting to sew up the ear of a 17 year old guy who had gotten smashed with a vase. As an aside to the story he dropped out of school in 9th grade and his mom was cool with that. His ear was in 5 pieces and I put it back together with 28 stitches!! It took me an hour and a half to finish it - but it only took me about 20 minutes to realize that if he wanted a normal looking ear that he was going to need a plastic surgeon.

2) Similar to case #1 - a 19 year old who had cut through his thigh with a circular saw..... down to the muscles. I was asked to sew it up -and again, I said yes, because I like to do that kind of stuff. This took 12 stitches and 12 staples on the skin. Interestingly, this young man had just come across the border from Chiapas Mexico, which is an interesting place. Apparently it is very beautiful located in the southern most part of mexico near guatemala. Also, it is a place of socialist revolution and persecution of Christians.
Anyway, the stitching looked good and although I had a runny nose that day, my shield mask kept me from dripping in the wound. Despite this he came back with an infected leg. He had not prescribed the antibiotics we had given. Apparently he didn't have the money even though we had purposely given him a prescription that costs only $4 at WalMart even if you don't have insurance.
3. A patient had an MI (heart attack) right before my very eyes. The patient was brought into the cardiac room of the ED with a story suspicious of stuttering chest pain. Oxygen, aspirin and sublingual nitroglycerin were ordered. As I walked into the room the patient had just been given the meds and her blood pressure dropped and she became white clutching at her chest. The EKG done before I was in the room showed some suspicion for an MI. The EKG that we ordered right away confirmed it - huge ST elevations, what we call "Tombstones". Anyways, she was taken to the cath lab to be stented within 20 minutes.



More to follow..... Hope Christmas is great for everyone.

Sorry Mr. Yuk

It seems to be official. Remember the green stickers that were supposed to keep children from drinking poisonous materials? Well, apparently they don't work. The funny thing is that the studies that showed this were done over 20 years ago.

According to Fergusson et al doing research in 1982, supplying these stickers to families does not reduce the risk of poisoning. Furthermore,Vernber et al found that labeling the containers with stickers does not deter children from touching, holding or attempting to open the labeled containers.

When I googled "Mr. Yuk" I found that it was invented at Pittsburgh Children's Hospital in 1971. Also, they reportedly distributed "several million" stickers last year alone. Wow! apparently they haven't been discouraged by the negative studies.

Here is the link for Mr. Yuk http://www.chp.edu/mryuk/05a_mryuk.php

OH Christmas Tree!

This is our Christmas tree. You might to able to tell that the bottom on the tree is a little "sparse" with the ornaments. that is because we have a puppy that got to them and destroyed them...at least he had a good time.

This is a real tree which we found out you have to pay a lot (around $90)for if you want a soft, wonderful smelling, full of life tree..so, we got a $15 sharp torn-like dry tree that doesn't smell anything like Christmas from Walmart. Also you might be able to see that Rocco got into some of MY gifts before Christmas--i was really upset with him and he knew it. Of course he did not get into any of matt's presents. oh well...i love what got opened for me, mom!!!

hope ya'll Christmas is going well--enjoy your weekend.

Room number 12

In the ER, room number 12 is usually occupied by a psychiatric patient - I am not sure why this is. Today, I was examining a patient in the hallway (not in room 12) who also happened to have psychiatric illness and was described an episode of mania.
The man in room 12, who I knew nothing about kept calling out "Sir, Sir"... I told him I would see him when I finished with my patient. When I went in to say hi, he informed me that one of the decorative stockings had fallen off the wall. I said, "Thanks, I'll go pick it up" and as I left he continued to call for me. I retrieved the stocking located across the hall and then I returned to his beckon. He asked me very seriously "Do you believe in Santa Claus?" and with a straight face I said "no". He then asked me, "Do you know what Jesus said about Santa Claus?" and then he continued "It's all in your head".
I wasn't sure how to respond, and I couldn't hold it in, so I burst out laughing and told him I would see him later. Later on in the day a group of carolers came through. And there was the man in room 12, singing along and just a bit out of key.

Christmas Party

hello all,
i realize i have not posted anything in a while. To be honest.. there has not been much to say. things are going well with the pregnancy--i am still small and happy about it.

i will be 33 weeks on Wednesday. It is hard to believe that we could have a child in 7 weeks. we have almost everything we absolutely need before the baby comes. we are having our shower on Jan. 6--i love showers!! it should be fun cause it is a couples shower.

We had a Christmas party with Matt's class. We haven't been able to have a get together since the beginning of our year together. We had an ornament exchange--matt got a cowboy which he was very excited about!! Here is a picture of his class and everyone's spouses. Sorry the pic with all of us is so dark.
Matt and I are getting excited about a little trip that we are taking the weekend of New Years to San Antonio and Austin to see my brother preach in Austin on Sunday. It will be really nice to see him and his wife, Jen for a little while.
Sorry, i guess my life is kinda boring at the moment. Well, not boring, but boring to write and read. Hope ya'll are well.

Life in the ERRRRRRRR

I am on my second week of ER....... it is quite exciting. I work 7-7 5 days a week, so it doesn't leave too much extra time. Katie is doing ok with it. She continues to feel well, and the baby continues to move more and more. Our anticipation for the baby seems to be growing much stronger by the week.

Here is a quick rundown of the week.....

Yesterday, I had a great day of suturing and draining abscesses. A retired policeman came in about 1 PM.... after 3 Miller Lites and a table saw he had a 6 inch cut, affecting his thumb and hand. It took me more than an hour, but I got it numbed, cleaned and I gave him 20 stitches..... pretty wild. He had his police partner with him, deriding him for being a retard, which he pretty much deserved. The other policeman summed it up pretty well, "If it were me, he would be saying the same thing."

Today, I had one of the most difficult patients of the year. A 23 year old guy who had abdom pain. Actually, it wasn't the patient who was difficult, it was his female friend who claimed to be his "sister". I wasn't going to question the female, but she refused to be quiet and repeatedly referred to him as her "brother". Of course this doesn't seem odd to you, because you don't know yet that he was light skinned hispanic and she was African-American. After the third time of speaking up for her "brother" I asked, "so how exactly are you two related". She seemed offended. I meant none. She then said, just because I'm African-American doesn't mean we can't be related. I agreed. She finally admitted, "He is my brother in Christ" and so I said, "Well, I guess your my sister two."

Much more to come.... this is too long, have a great week

It has been a long time

I can't remember the last time that I vomited....... really, honestly, it had to have been years, maybe even high school after soccer practice and spaghetti. Well, friday after lunch I returned to the ER to finish my first shift which would be ending at 7 PM. Around 3 I started feeling a little bit squirmish. The hours dragged on. I dashed to the bathroom a few times, but thankfully nothing happened.

The hours were exacerbated by the 3rd year medical student, who in true fashion to the show ER, resembled a walking textbook. After questioning me on various things that I obviously didn't know I finally said, "you know, I haven't really done any of those physiology calculations since med school."

The last hour rolled around..... feeling worse, starting to get chills and aches and I wanted to go home so bad that I almost walked out without saying bye to anyone. I stuck out the last hour and then the student finds me, 'that patient over there wants to see you." Patient was a 30 yr old guy who took drugs and then said he wanted to kill himself, brought himself to the emergency department and now wanted to go home because he felt better. I was afraid that things were going to be ugly. When patients say they want to hurt themselves or others they have to stay to be evaluated by a Psychiatrist, which in the valley is a very slow process. Needless to say, nothing I could say would help him, so I did the only self-respecting thing that I could do.... I avoided him until my shift was over and then went home and started puking my guts out.

30 weeks!!

We are now 30 weeks along and doing well. We got to go to another clinic to do a 4D ultra-sound and it was amazing. it was so much better quality than the one we have at the clinic! you can see in the picture that the babies hand is over half of his (or her)face, but you can see his eyes, nose (which we think looks like mine), and a little bit of the mouth. The stuff on his head that looks like hair (to my disapointment is not hair) but it is a shadow or something.

We also found out some good news---I am long waisted. Meaning, i have a lot of room between my ribs and waist bone. Which means that there is more room for the baby to hid back there. This is why i am not getting very big. at least i won't have a lot of streach marks!!! the dr. said that a lot of time when people are long waisted they don't get big till 34 weeks or so. anyways.. this was all good news and a fun afternoon with matt. he is pretty excited now. hope ya'll enjoyed the pictures.