Saturday in Ottawa

I have been in Ottawa since Thursday visiting my dearest Eddie. Today was the first day he didnt have to be at the hospital, yay!

We started the morning off by taking the bus to the Canadian War Museum. Well actually due to my navigation we took the bus past where we were supposed to, and then had to walk back from Quebec to the museum in Ottawa. That only took about 10 min, so that was okay. The CWM was quite somber, but lots of well done exhibits. Its actually in a different building than when I went in 1999.

Then we went to a little pizzeria in the market for lunch and shared a tasty slice of pizza. We had planned to go to another museum in the afternoon, but it was our first day without rain, so we decided to walk around outside instead. We walked the park around Parliament, the outdoor mall on Spark St, and the market. We stopped at two different bakeries to sample their delicate creations--at one we shared an almond-pear tart, and at the next we shared a scrumptious apple turn-over. We got some really funny looks from people as we devoured the turn-over on the side of the road in the market!

Then we had supper at a quaint Indian restaurant. The food was super flavorful, but so spicey I thought I was going to die. It was like the scene from Along Came Polly when Ben Stiller is eating spicey food with Aniston for the first time---seriously, my gut was on fire for a while after supper! So we picked up some gelato after supper to cool our palates (and our esophaguses, and our stomaches...)

We ended the evening with going to see the National Orchestral. They did a Mozart piece with special guest Emmanuel Ax, and Brahms Symphony #2. It was a wonderful end to a superb day.

Shameful Signature

I am ashamed to admit--I have spent about 20 minutes tonight trying to figure out what I want my new signature to be like next year when I have a new last name. I didnt ever think I would do that, but I spent a few hours today doing CaRMS paperwork, and had to sign twenty differnent letters, and I sign my name countless times a day at work, and it made me curious as to how I would do my new signature. A doctor's signature is worth a lot--it had better be good!

Yah, I'm a nerd. I'm post call today by the way, I think that accounts for some of the nerdiness, comes out more when tired.....

Date Day in Regina

My darling Eddie has left again for Ottawa today... I can't wait until we are both finally in the same city again! Everytime we see each other lately one of us has to leave again. We did have a beautiful date day in Regina on Saturday before he had to leave.

Eddie planned a date day for us, and it was all a surprise for me! He had me come over to his appartment around ten am, and we packed a picnic lunch. We then set out on foot, and our first stop was the Royal Saskatchewan museum. It was so much fun to tour around the museum, and it was only a donation to enter! There was a really cool dinosaur exhibit, and the "Paleo-Pit" is the learning pit for kids. It made me totally excited for when we have kids and get to take them to museums and things.

After the museum we had our picnic lunch on a bench by the big pond (aka the "lake"). Totally fun, I love picnics! After that, we were on the trail again, and Eddie took me next to the art gallery, which was free! It was really cool--not as grandiose as the National Art Gallery in Ottawa, but there were some really neat exhibits--one with ancient art work from Rome, Greece and Egypt.

Then we went out for dinner at the Creek Bistro, a quaint little restuarant in the Cathedral area. Neither of us had been there before. The food there was amazing! I started with tapas for one, then I had a chipolte rib-eye steak with tomato and avacado salsa and garlic mashed potatoes. We finished with a mango-apple-mixed berry crisp. So good! I havent eaten like that in a long time!

The last part of the evening was the season opener of the symphony. It was wonderful. He did such a great job planning our date day. I love him so much, and I know he loves me, and he makes me feel like a princess everyday!

And then this morning I had to drive Eddie to the airport at 4:50am! Arg. But the great part is that I get to go to Ottawa this weekend to visit him, I can't wait!

Death of a Patient

A patient of mine died last week.

Our team was consulted to see him in the ER, and we went, assessed the situation, developed a plan, and admitted him. He was quite sick and was in significant respiratory distress. After we finished with him, we were sent home by our attending at the end of the day. I felt uneasy about him, knowing in my gut he was in rough shape. Apparently our patient's heart went into complete heart block 15 minutes after we left. Cardiology came over from the U, but it proved to be the end of his time here on earth.

I was stunned the next morning to hear of his passing, and sort of numb to be honest. Its strange to have people go so suddenly--now they are here, now they're not.

I talked about it with Eddie that night. There is such a fine line between promoting life and prolonging death. Its not our job to save everyone, but it is our job to treat everyonewith dignity and compassion.

Then on Sunday during the intercessory prayers, my patient's name was read as one of those recently departed members of the Body. It hit me again like a ton of brick in my gut and instantly hot tears overflowed, stinging my eyes; my two worlds colliding. Sometimes its easy to forget that patients are in our community, our fellowship, our neighbourhood. I dont think I will ever learn the 'professional detachment'--I dont think I want to.

Funniest moment of the day...

A patient told my 5'2" attending who was sitting down with her hands folded, and who is visibly pregnant might I add, that she had threatening posture.

Life through the Kidney

We had our CMDS welcome BBQ today, and Susan told me how much she enjoys my blog, and that she always checks to see if I have posted--and since I have been quite sparse with the blogging lately, Susan this one is for you.

I am currently doing an elective at St Paul's Hospital in Saskatoon, in Nephrology. It was because of time I spent there in second year with a certain amazing attending that I became interesting in Internal medicine in the first place. I then spent some more time there after second year in the summer and fell in love with internal medicine and specifically the kidney. There is just something about it, hard to explain--thinking through kidney problems comes more easily to me than most other systems.

So this past week was awesome. I think this is likely to be my best elective in terms of educational yield per hour spent at the hospital. We are busy all day, but its busy seeing patients with our attending, with oodles of bedside teaching. The attending staff are a blast to work with--they have SO much fun doing their jobs, and its a wonderful enviroment to work it. I would recommend this rotation as an elective or selective to any and all med students. Several of the attendings were encouraging me to come and join their nephrology group when I was finished training (which is always nice encouragement).

However...

I realized today that none of the female attendings in this department have children. And their pagers go off literally every five to ten minutes. My attending comes in before we (the residents and I) get there in the morning, and stays for hours after we leave. Kidney patients are really sick generally and there are many of them. By Friday I realized, thats really not the life I want.

I want to like my job, but not to the exclusion of everything else. There are other areas of internal medicine that are not as busy, where my pager would not go off every five minutes for the rest of my life, and I might even be able to attend my kids recitals. Heck I might even see my husband long enough to make children! It may mean a field that I have to work harder at to learn the material because it doesnt come so naturally, but I will be able to do it.

Furthermore, I read a chilling article in the Globe and Mail this weekend about euthanasia in Australia, and and one about abortion in Canada, and I had a sickening feeling in my stomach. I had a vision of the disregard for the sanctity of life eating away at the fabric of our society like a black cancer. And in my mind's eye, I saw that every couple that chose to bring life into the world or chose to preserve life would push back some of the cancer. After I read that I told Eddie we should have 10 kids. He said sure.

Basically I need to make sure I dont let myself become SO consumed with medicine that I miss all the other things God has called me to that will make a difference in His Kingdom.

Phantom

Eddie and I went to go see the live production of Phantom of the Opera in Edmonton this past weekend. It was amazing! We were totally in the nosebleed section, but the music was SO awesome.

That was pretty much the date portion of the weekend--we had plans to go watersliding, to the Symphony Under the Sky concerts, to Superman the movie, and to go mini-golfing. Those other plans took a back seat to finding an interview suit for me, a wedding suit for Eddie, a wedding band for me and shoes for both of us. We were highly motivated to save the PST, and to be able to find what we wanted, knowing that Edmonton offered more selection than Saskatoon, and that we werent going to get a chance to get here again before life gets crazy busy.

There never seems to ever be enough time to do the things we want to do once we have done the things we ought to do. I think life is just like that sometimes. We did decide that we are going to have to be more strict with setting aside time for ourselves, regardless of whether there are other things to do, because sometimes if you dont make time for yourselves, you sadly will get none!

My Fabulous Fiance

His name is Eddie. He is GREAT! We spent the day in Edmonton together today, our first full day together after three weeks apart (we have been in different cities since sometime in May, sigh). We had a great day--out for breakfast, shopping (bought my wedding band today, so crazy that I have a wedding band...), engagement photos with Kristy-Anne, and then to top it off the three of us went for Thai food for supper.

Seriously I have not laughed so hard since I last saw Eddie. We were visiting after dinner and he had me laughing so hard I was in tears for the better part of an hour. And he bought me beautiful gold earings today! We were back at his cousin's house where he is staying getting ready for our pictures and he says to me, "why dont you try on your wedding band?" So I open the box and out pops a pair of fabulous gold hoops. I was SO surprised! "what are these for?!" I exlcaimed! "Just because, " he replied with a grin. I dont even know when he picked it up today. He got them for me to replace my stainless steel hoops I wear everyday, how sweet!