Be grateful for your health!

Whenever I get sick I'm reminded of how ungrateful I am for my health the other 99% of the time. So if you're not feeling too bad today, remember that when you say your prayers tonight! I don't know what happened, but my guess is one of my lovely little patients shared a rhinovirus with me. I actually swabbed my nose today for RSV and influenza to make sure whatever evil thing has hold of me is not dangerous for my patients. (And because I'm curious) So we'll see. I actually feel worse today than I did yesterday, so hopefully tomorrow will be better? It started Sunday, so I'm optimistic that I'll be better in time for our trip! My big concern now is that Bob will get it just in time to be feeling crummy for our trip! Hopefully he'll be spared.
Bob took Lilo to the vet today for her shots and who was her vet but one of my college friends from Buffalo! Small world. She even trimmed her nails for free. Anyone who's ever tried to trim a dog's nails knows that's huge! Lilo actually is so docile that of course she lets us do it, but her nails are dark so the fear of trimming too far makes it really scary. And she flinches so much with every click that you feel like you're torturing her! So thanks Dr. Cho!
So in general life is back to normal... I'm back from Children's and am so glad to be able to sleep in my own bed, see my Bob and Lilo a bit more, and get to see all my fellow residents and staff again! I learned a lot last month, including that critical care is not for me. I worked in the well baby nursery this weekend and had a good time as usual--we had 20+ babies each day so it was BUSY, but it's so fun to just play with babies and educate the parents. I only did one circ all weekend, because now I'm a 2nd year so I let the interns get the procedures, but the one I did was a first in my nearly 100 that I've now done! I had a bleeder. It was scarier in retrospect... while it was happening I was just very practical. I know some of you are pretty squeamish, so I don't know how much detail I should elaborate on... basically there was more blood than usual when I finished, although it didn't really bleed much at all during the procedure. I put pressure on it, but it still had some active bleeding, so I wrapped some gel foam around it and held more pressure, but it still kept bleeding. So now I'm worried, because this has NEVER happened to me before. Worst of all, I'm alone in the treatment room with the little guy! So, just as I'm trying to figure out how I can tuck him under my arm and still hold pressure while I walk across the room to the phone to page urology, a nurse came in to do a procedure for another baby. I had her call Urology for me and they came and put a stitch in it and it stopped immediately. The Uro staff was really nice and showed me exactly what he was doing and said he got called once a month to do this at the last post he was at. I felt better when he reassured me that the kid was just a bleeder, probably had a more superficial venule that wouldn't stop and I'm more prepared if this ever happens again because I know how to fix it now. I'll probably never do another circ again without getting out some suture just in case! My staff came in just as urology had arrived and I explained what was happening and she told me afterward that she does so few circs now that she would have totally panicked and was glad I called them first! The other good thing about this was that the mom was so mellow. I got worried about her after I still hadn't returned her baby to her after 45 minutes, because I always tell moms I'll return their son in 20-30 minutes tops! I had a nurse tell her everything was fine and I'd be there in a few minutes with him to explain, and when I brought him back and explained she was remarkably unruffled. So, it all ended well, I learned something more, and I've now told almost all my fellow residents so hopefully we all learned something new, and most importantly, the litle guy only lost a few mls of blood and is A OK. :)
I'm doing pulmonology now (the lung doctors for you lay-people) and it's been nice. I'm learning more about asthma and CF and the patients have been great so far. Most importantly, the schedule is better than last month and both docs are pretty nice. This weekend is my first weekend off in 3 weeks, so I'm pretty excited about that! I don't know what we're going to do yet, but hopefully something fun! Maybe I'll get to scrapbook a little bit... I did get my Slice and haven't used it much yet! I also got some more clear stamps from Costco--all you scrappers should check it out--they have a few different combos for a great price. It's my early birthday present from Bob, since we'll be in the Bahamas on my birthday! Yay! I can't wait! We got water shoes since we're thinking we'll spend most of our time in the water park there and one of the docs at work said one of his sons got foot fungus because they were barefoot the whole time! Ew. No fungus among us!
Lastly, the bonus of my last trip to pee for democracy was that I saw this funny clip on a bulletin board up there! (For those of you not in the know, we have random UA's every week, and they "randomly" choose 10% of the hospital to do it, but I get picked all the time. This is my 6th time already since July! (That's counting last month when I was at Children's and didn't come!)) Here's the funny picture:


The ACU is the new Army digital camo and you can see here it's VERY effective!
In other news, my friend Erica called yesterday and it was so nice to catch up! She and Josh got a new puppy and he's keeping Cynder busy! I was pretty jealous when she told me it was 80 in Redding the last week! Not quite so nice here... always nice to catch up with good friends who are too far away!
Ok, I just had a moment of realizing things really aren't as bad as they could be with this sickness.... Really, the last bad cold I remember was during my ER month in Feb/March, so that was 6 months ago. Not too bad for someone who's around sick kids who cough at you all the time. So yeah, I'll just try to be grateful I'm MOSTLY healthy, and you should all do the same. For my fellow sickies right now, drink your fluids, get your sleep, take your vitamins, and I hope you feel better soon too!
~Cathy
P.S. And everyone get their flu shot! If you're >49 or <2yo or pregnant you should get the shot, but everyone else can get the Mist in the nose so you needle-phobes don't have an excuse! The flu is BAD and it can take your whole family down so do everyone a favor and just get it. If you live in Washington it's free for any kid at any county health department, and it's cheap for everyone else there.
Thanks for checking in with us and we hope you're all doing great!