Archive for September, 2007

Love of Dancing

{ September 25, 2007 @ 9:44 pm } · { Social, Swing it! }
{ } · { Leave a Comment }

Have I mentioned how much I love dancing?  Lindy hop, blues, balboa to be specific.  Occasionally I go dancing feeling kind of blue and hope dancing will cheer me up.  Sometimes it does, but sometimes the simple expectation that it is going to cheer me up is confronted by the dismal reality of my loneliness.  However, there are times when I just go dancing because it is what I do to get away and be in my own little world, doing something I enjoy.  Last Friday was one of those night.  I met up with my friend Ra for dinner and had jolly time getting caught up on the gossip of the swing scene and his various women.  Then we went to the dance and I found myself in demand as a skilled follower with men almost fighting to dance with me!  AND I got to dance with Ri at least TEN times!!!  [Sigh]

Who needs romance when you have dancing?  A clean, 3 minute relationships with his complete attention, connected to each other and the music, creating free-flowing movements of the soul.   I’d much rather have that sort of relationship: no strings, no obligations, no emotional baggage, no messy sex with side effects of pregnancy and STDs.  When the song is over, so is the relationship.  A lingering rosey glow…or a sigh of relief, depending on the partner.

I suppose there are benefits to life-long partners: commitment, support, children.  I envy the folks I meet who have been married for 62 years.  However, when those kinds of relationships fail to find their way in to your life, a great outlet is dancing!  How ironic.  In the past, people used to go to dances to find their future spouse…

Nauseated by GI

{ September 24, 2007 @ 9:54 pm } · { Medicine }
{ } · { Leave a Comment }

Last week I started a new rotation with the GI-guys (Gastroenterology specialists).  I was excited to do something different.   I wanted to remain enthusiastic, but enthusiasm is hard to muster when the patients are gagging on the endoscope and trying to pull it out.  One guy was actively bleeding and vomited blood during the procedure.  Gross.  I was mildly nauseated for the rest of the week (hence no blog postings).  I’m feeling better after a weekend of sleeping and some sunshine at the Common Ground Fair.  I decided to do my best to stay away from the endoscopies, although I’m rather indifferent about colonoscopies.  This afternoon I learned how to do an anoscope on an anesthetized patient.  It’s kind of like looking into someone’s ear with an otoscope, but different.  :P

Vegetables

{ September 12, 2007 @ 9:46 pm } · { musings }
{ } · { Leave a Comment }

I went home to NH this past weekend and left with an arm load of fresh veggies from my mom’s garden, fresh, juicy peaches from a local farm and apples as a bridal shower gift. I had also bought a broccoli over a week ago that I was afraid might start turning yellow on me and home-made, chunky tomato sauce waiting to be used. SO, I made a salad and cooked some veggies. Instead of cooking pasta for the tomato sauce, I put the sauce on the broccoli and swiss chard stalk and had salad on the side. My plate was LOADED, but it was all vegetables with a little parmesan cheese and I was so proud of myself that I had to share. I had the same thing tonight and I’m feeling really healthy. Who’d a thunk? healthy food = healthy feeling? :P

I had the peaches for dessert and apples for breakfast or snack.  ;)   Life’s good in New England!

Dr. Sutherland

{ September 11, 2007 @ 9:00 pm } · { Osteopathy }
{ } · { Comments (1) }

So, last week I was excited to have my first DO attending in the hospital and he has far exceeded my hopes and expectations.  On the first day he wanted to see the patient I was following from a structural perspective.  “Structural” is code for “Osteopathic”.  That just made me smile from the inside out.  The patient had a cervical laminectomy 4 years ago and is now experiencing syncope with neck extension.  (I apologize for the medical jargon, but it really is the more precise way to describe patients).  She also had a missing right vertebral artery found on MRA (imaging of the arteries).   I’m not sure what Dr. Sutherland found because I was post-call, so I had to leave by noon.

Today, we had a 26yo female admitted for kidney stones.  At sign out (residents, myself and attending discussing the current patients) I mentioned the OMT case shared with our class about a boy who had regular kidney stones.  With OMT, the DO was able to relax the boy’s MSK system, which stopped the excitatory loop occurring between his muscles and the ureter through which the stone was passing.  He passed the current stone (which he was having difficulty with) and the next time he had a stone, it passed in 1/2 hour!  I thought I was going to get blown off again because “I’m on my Internal Medicine rotation where we have to focus on the medicine and Osteopathy is supposed to be left in the out patient clinic”.   HOWEVER, much to my eternal delight, Dr. Sutherland wanted to do OMT on the patient with kidney stones and discussed/performed the treatment with ME!!   Yeah!!

I love the fact that his NAME is Dr. Sutherland, DO.  Classic.  He doesn’t have any direct connections to THE Dr. William Garner Sutherland (AT Still’s student and reknowned discoverer of cranial osteopathy), but he doesn’t know his grandfather’s lineage…

Good News!

{ September 4, 2007 @ 8:00 pm } · { Osteopathy }
{ } · { Leave a Comment }

Today I got to do OMT on a real patient with back pain, headache and flu-achiness with the help of 2 other students!  It was awesome!  I froze in a panic at first, but after we got going, the patient reported breathing better even though difficulty breathing was not an was not an original complaint AND she hadn’t realized her back WASN’T hurting her until we asked about it!   Yeah for OMT!  This should be every patient, but at least its a start and it is giving me confidence.

Good friends leads to…junk food?

{ September 3, 2007 @ 11:48 pm } · { Social }
{ } · { Leave a Comment }

I just spent a great evening with a friend I only met once about a month ago.  I drove an hour to see her, she gave me a tour of the organic communal garden and the boat shop (new and old) and other buildings.  We had a great conversation with lots of laughter, the food was great and she showed me the local lighthouse.  It felt like I had known this woman for years and yet we had only met once before and now she’s leaving on Saturday to head out back west.  I was happy visiting with her and forgot it was Monday night.  It was so pleasant to find such a great person to share some time with.  So, why is it that when I leave such great environments do I hate myself even more?

This doesn’t make sense.  I enjoyed everything about the evening, so I should leave with a feeling of peace found when connecting with people.  Instead, I get angry and have the greatest desire to eat tons of junk food: candy, cake, donuts, cookies, I don’t care what it is as long as it is sugary and bad for me.  It is almost like a desire to poison whatever goodness I received.

This is not the first time I’ve felt like this.  Very often, after positive social interactions I want to bury myself in junk food.  It is worse after negative social events, but at least that reaction is somewhat understandable.  This paradoxical desire for junk food after positive social encounters troubles me.  There seems to be a part of me that doesn’t believe I deserve anything good.  I should be miserable because that is what I deserve.