mini updates

-house is coming along - always surprises, like a 10k retaining wall that needs to go in now, great. Shawn will be stoning the fireplace with his dad the first of June, really excited. I love the stone we've picked out, it's going to look stunning - plus anything done by the Zupfer men will be amazing.

-my work - same old same old, increase in MRSA, strep and tonsilar abscess

-shawn's work - may be changing shifts at the end of the month - mums the word but fingers crossed, not headed to days yet, just moving up the night chain.

-babies - Zupfer babies will be made with a little help from science, hopefully we'll have updates in 3-6months on this journey - we are so blessed that there is a possibility to have children, just going to take a wee bit longer than we thought.

Love is in the air

I'm blessed, very blessed. Not everyone has what we have. We have love. We have so much it overflows. I wish we could take our excess and share it with others and the world might be a better place. This of course will never be the case but it's still great to dream. At 7:45 this morning I took muffins to work for Shawn and the other hard working EMSers. I baked them fresh and I didn't have to go to work today. I did it because I love to do little things that put a smile on his face. Shawn will go out of his way to make sure I eat when I get home for work or take me out to lunch when he's running errands, even if it means going 20min out of his way. Our favorite thing to do is sit on the couch and just be. He really is my best friend and love of my life - what an amazing combination.

So where did all this gooshyness come from? Let me provide a little background first. When I was in high school, I was forced to transfers schools for my senior year. The "Cheerio" girls took me in with open minds and hearts - it was amazing. We had some really great times together. I am so grateful for their friendships even though we have all gone our separate ways, through social networking I can reconnect in someways. Several of these gals have their own blog: the Becker Family, Suburbangranola and articulatethelimb. Jessica, the author of the last blog is in law school, she is also newly engaged. She is one of those brilliant minds, a force to be reckoned with, she is articulate, thoughtful and insightful. Her most recent post reflected her inner cheese of being in love - and just how wonderful it is and how it should be celebrated. I just had to second her in my not so articulate way. Cheers.

Completely random: pregnancy post menopause - not sure what my thoughts are for sure about that... Apparently Russia, Italy and India are the places to go if over the age of 58 and ready to conceive, in fact India believes that elderly parents are much better parents because unlike younger parents working 8-10 hours a day, elderly parents have nothing else to do except to care for the child. Huh, never thought of it like that...

whiff test

There are always strange smells at work - always. One week it smelled like Thanksgiving stuffing (yet not holiday time), another time like pears, a month ago mustard and ketchup a couple days. I don't usually investigate how or why it smells, I'm sure it would ruin a great many things for me to see work's version of chicken noodle soup or a hamburger. Sometimes it's not food, it's burning rubber or stale air (if you can even guess what that smells like). These smells vary between tolerable to stomach turning and if I'm really lucky Shawn can catch a whiff of it lingering on my scrubs. Thank goodness I wear scrubs everyday.
This week, I couldn't quite place my nose on the smells but I started having weird cravings based on these smells. Like a salivating urge to eat hot dogs and nacho cheese, I actually contemplated stopping at the store for these commodities. EWWW. The next day it was chicken in a spinach wrap that sounded good. Where did this come from? I never would eat that. Today it was salmon and cheddar cheese served quesidilla style with salsa. As nasty as this one sounds, it was actually pretty good, the compulsion was so strong I went for it, plus we had all the ingredients. Oddly enough with these weird food desires some foods have fallen out of favor and make my stomach turn just thinking of them - ice cream and fresh baked cupcakes to name a couple. Very disappointing when I made cupcakes tonight.

And no, I'm not pregnant, so don't even go there, and if you already went there come back. Between cravings and aversions I'm not sure what to think, it may be the progesterone but I couldn't find that as an ADR on the package insert.

A Star-lin is born!

A little story:

There once was a little boy from Cuba who loved to play baseball. He wasn't good, he was great. He ventured to the US at the ripe age of 19. He wore his pants up while he played short batting .326. He was a bit shy, but confident. (Hold this thought)

An adorable couple, big baseball fans, traveled to AZ to see their favorite team during spring training. Happen to stay in the same motel as the farm team of said favorite team. Also had an amazing opportunity to be up close and personal with two of the players- one who has played for the team, the other awaiting his call, his turn to shine, a blurry picture and a couple of signed baseballs commemorate this occasion. With confidence, when asked when to expect him in uniform he says about 3 weeks.


Pan to 5 weeks later, almost to the day. 7am. This now 20 year old AA player gets a phone call. Today is his day. 6 RBIs, 2 swings. One homer, one triple. That's one helluva debut, a record in fact. Welcome to Chicago Starlin!

Jet-Setting

1800 miles one way, less than 24 hours - Nothing like living in the Present Tense.

17.96 hours

that was my overtime from the last pay period. Crap - I thought I was doing better, but in retrospect... I'm just going to work earlier to leave earlier but it's getting better, my 98 hr pay period is not the norm - I'm actually back down around 90 hrs, that's tolerable.

Today I found my mind wandering while seeing patients - it's not the first time this has happened. I'm usually thinking about what else to look up or read about or mulling over treatment decisions I've made recently. However today was the first time I actually took a patients temp twice because I was so wrapped up in my thoughts. (I've done this before just to keep a patient's mouth shut, or set the thermometer to setting that counts by one tenth increments - oops, again internal filter, I meant I was double checking that my thermometer was accurate).

Medicine is such an evolution. There are really no right answers, but there is an answer that has more backing from research or more promotion and that's what used. And I'm not sure where all my patients went to "med school" or nursing school or where they managed to work as an EMT between their time away from the rock yet they all seem to think that their two week CNA course or the fact that they watch Dr. Oz on Oprah is better than any degree or knowledge I have and somedays it's frustrating, not to mention the threat to sue or contact the ACLU.

Some patients are breakthroughs, "why should I take all these meds?" (for DM, HTN, high cholesterol) "well, do you like your eyes, kidneys, brain, heart to function?" "Well, yeah. You mean I could die?" (Not to get all philosophical - but yeah we're all going to die) "No one has told me that before, guess I'll take the meds."

Mystery Zone

One year ago we seriously committed to 2 adventures: expanding our family and moving to a house (a detached, single family dwelling to be more specific). Timing is everything in these two matters, especially having just finished up school in August, student loans, Shawn's job shaking up the shifts and cutting out overtime, a new company at my work, our families living 1600 miles away, etc. Our work hours are crazy and we have to actually plan when we are going to see each other and we mark it on the calendar. I leave before he's off and he leaves before I get home - weekends have become sacred. But weekends aren't always convenient for everything that needs to be done... Despite these challenges, we've managed to get a lot done on those weekends and the fruits of our labor are coming to fruition!

In the words of spoon: "Make us a house, some far away town, where nobody will know us well"

We still have a long way to go in the whole "expanding our family" plan, what we thought would be a relatively quick endeavor has become a little more calculated then we planned, which now includes meeting with a fertility specialist. So one leg of the journey is started, another leg is rolling along slowly but all in all, life is fantastic... in the mystery zone!