Home Sweet Home

Why do I love living back at home? Let me count the ways.
As most of you know, I moved back home with Gail Ann. Brian also moved in with G, as he calls her. This past month has been great and I have forgotten the perks of living at home with your mom. She secretly really likes it too I am pretty sure.
Reasons living at home is awesome:

1) FOOD- that is of course number 1 because it is Gail's cooking. She is an awesome cook and loves to do it (or at least that I what I tell myself). Every night it is, "What would you like for dinner?" Oh mom don't worry about me I can make my own food...ok well if you insist, I will have steak, grilled asparagus, and garlic mashed potatoes...oh and can you make a dip as an appetizer. Thanks!

2) Living in a "home"- It is nice to have more rooms to go in than an apartment, where I hung out in my room most of the time. Now I have lots of space. I also have multiple bathrooms to choose from (that can be very important at times).

3) Free rent- enough said

4) Free utilities - enough said

5) Gail time- It is nice to spend some quality time with my mom. We went shopping for wedding ideas last weekend and did some shoe shopping on the side (sorry Brian).

6) Laundry- Yes, I do my own laundry, but I came home last from work the other day to find my laundry neatly folded in my basket. Gail....

7) Services- I had the worst knot in my back yesterday that I could barely move my neck. Gail massaged my shoulders for like 30 minutes and got it out. Also, she makes a pitcher of awesome ice tea twice a week (ice tea is my new drink of choice).

8) New things- after living around downtown for 3 years, I feel like I am trying new restaurants and other places out south all over again. I think Brian and I had gone to almost every restaurant downtown...now we have new ones to try together.

9) Stuff- my mom's house is equipped with almost anything I need like cooking stuff, spices, toiletries (or toilet trees, whatever), and such. Before, I felt like I was always going to the store to get something or other.

10) Gail- Being with G! She is the best and I love her very much.

I would like to extend the invite to come over or hang out here whenever you want. I can promise some good food and good company, plus we will feel like we are in high school again! But seriously...I am thinking Pi Phi night at G's! Let's do it.

Trauma-Rama

So I am getting ready to finish up my Surgery sub-internship in trauma this month. Let's just say it has been interesting, sad, exciting, and tiring.
My days go from about 5 am to 6-8 pm.
Here are some interesting observations:
1) My children are never riding a motorcycle...ok never driving a car...ok never leaving the house. After trauma after trauma of teenagers and young adults in MVCs (the is doctor lingo for Motor Vehicle Accident), I now understand why my parents always wanted us to call them with our plans and have a curfew. I cannot imagine the anxiety. After seeing a young mother say goodbye to her 16 yo son after a tragic car accident that killed 3 teenagers, I can only imagine the anxiety my parents felt when I failed to call them late at night.

2) I have lost my patience for gang violence. We had a GSW (that is short for gun shot wound) to the head today. Patient came in awake and talking...what? Pretty crazy, but this is like the 5th GSW I have seen in the last 2 weeks and it is getting kind of old. I am like, "what did you do to bring this on?" I have become less sympathetic.

3) I miss the happier times in medicine, i.e. delivering babies!

4) I am in the surgical ICU most of the day, so there are a lot of sad stories, but a few great ones. One of my patients came in near death after a horrible MVC and now she is slowly getting better each day. I am not going to lie, I have cried several times when I see a patient make huge progress.

I will update soon on my residency interview trail. So far I have 4 interviews. 1) KU. 2)Wichita KU, 3) University of San Antonio and 4) University of Louisville in Kentucky.
So we will see what happens...kinda nervous.

New Blog

Brian just created a blog for his Mom. She sends her sons random thoughts of the day and Brian decided they were to funny/wise/clever/weird to not share. Enjoy!

bseacat.blogspot.com

It is time

Now that I have time, aka Step II is over, my residency applications are in, etc, the Wedding website in the works. Here is a preview:
http://seacatkelly.mypalaceresortswedding.com/

I promise I will keep everyone updated soon with prices, reservations, and all those "fun" details.

On Call

Just woke up from my 24 hour on call shift. This means go in at 6:00 am...work the normal day, then stick around all night until the next morning. Since I am on a Gyn rotation, the only Ob or Labor and Delivery I get to experience is on my Wed night call shifts. Last night was crazy! So much fun. We had tons of women come in "in labor" but we sent them home because they were not actually in labor just yet. I got to scrub in on a 28 week (normal age is 40 weeks) old c-section. It was pretty intense, but the tiny little baby came out crying, so that is good. The intubated him (put a breathing tube down his throat) to help him breathe because his lungs are not mature enough yet and shipped him off to the NICU. It was sad, but a pretty neat experience. I hope he does well.
Lately, I have been dealing with a lot of cases of patient wanting an abortion or planning on getting one. I don't have much experience with abortions, the elective kind, and I am not sure what to think of it all. They treat them like they are no big deal and even do the late (2nd trimester abortions) in Colorado, which I find kind of hard to accept. I may go to a clinic to see what it is all about, but I am afraid it will be too disturbing. I have talked to a couple people who have gone and said it was hard to watch. I will keep you updated on this.
That is all for now.

Denver

Denver is great. I have officially been here for 8 days. When I first got in town last Saturday, I met up with Emily and we ran around town running errands. That night we went to Evergreen to Jamie Smith's grandparents Colorado home. I was the 5th wheel with Em and Adam and Phil Mann (Jamie's cousin) and his gf Nikki. They cooked us a little mexican fiesta and we drank corona's and talked till about 1 in the morning.

The next day we headed to Coors Stadium to watch the Rockies take on the Cubs. We had 4th row seats behind home plate. It was ridiculously hot and humid, so good thing we had the owner's suite tickets! Tanner Richard's (most of you know him from K-State) parents won these suite tickets so we all could go up and enjoy the view of the stadium, free beer and food, and airconditioning.

Suite/Sweet View!

Rooftop beers after the game

Work started last Monday at the University of Denver Hospital. I am doing a Gyn Sub-I (intership) for the month. So far, I love it! The first day I show up in my dress clothes and white coat only to have to change into scrubs and go to the OR for the day. I looked really stylish in my scrubs and purple flat shoes. I have got to do tons of surgery, as well as see ER patients, clinic work, and spend a night on Labor and Delivery. Every Wednesday night I am on call...which means I spend the day there and then spend the night in Labor and Delivery. I get Thursday off to sleep thank God. Last Wed I got to deliver the patient I helped admit and follow through her progression in labor all night. It was pretty cool and she did an amazing job for being 20 years old and this being her first child. The residents are all young and cool. I have not met a single resident or attending physician that I do not like. Most of the attendings are young and not far our of residency so they are really nice to me and like to help teach.

This weekend I spent Saturday in Washington Park with Emily, Larry, Becky, and some of their friends. We played vollyball and hung out. I finally got a little sun. I met some of my new residents for the rest of this month, for dinner and drinks in the afternoon. I thought it would be a quick meeting, but we all ended up staying out till 11:00. Today I tried this amazing ice cream place called Red Trolley. They have this chocolate carmal and sea salt ice cream...weird, but amazing.

I have been pretty busy, but I am having a good time, minus the fact I am away from Brian for so long. Kinda sucks...I feel everything would be even 10 times better with him out here with me. He will be out here next month and I will be back in KC, so he will get to explore Denver after the ol' switcheroo. It is going to be hard to plan a wedding being apart for 2 months, but we are getting things done slowly but surely. Hope everyone in Kansas, Texas, Colorado, Washington, Missouri, California, Illinois, and Iowa (I think I got everyone) is doing well!

Another One Bites the Dust!

Another one bites the dust! This is my saying for anyone that gets engaged...as there have been quite a few over the past two years. This time I am biting the so called dust...but I am ecstatic about it. I wanted to tell each of you in person. But, due to technology (aka facebook) and Brian's overzealous (good word choice don't you think?) desire to be engaged on facebook, most people found out that way. I made Brian take it down right away, but it was too late. Oh well! So, here is the engagement story in my own words and pictures.

Brian and I were in Chicago for our good friend, Jeff Miller's wedding (pics below).

Brian was a handsome groomsman at the wedding.



Things got a little crazy. He was very creative in his use of the groomsmen handkerchiefs.

We also went to Chicago on Thursday to take our Clinical Skills exam. We basically see 12 patients/actors, do a history and physical exam, then write a note with what we think the patient has and what kind of tests we want to do. Basically it is making sure a) you speak English b) are not completely awkward c) are not a complete idiot. It was a long day, but it went well for both of us. Ok that is completely off the subject...I digress (always wanted to use that term).


The wedding weekend was a blast and the wedding was beautiful. After the wedding, on Sunday, Brian and I's flight didn't leave until 9:15 pm, so we decided to drive our rental car back into the city and go to the beach or walk around town. On our way, Brian decided to park in some random park/flower garden area (come to find out, not so random). I was like, "what are we doing? Let's get to downtown and go to the beach...I don't want to get out of the car...etc." It finally came upon me, a sneaky suspicion something was about to go down, so I stopped complaining and went with it. We started walking....and walking...and walking around. Can we stop soon please?
Then he leads me onto a grassy knoll, as we both agreed was the best term for the location.
Brian was shaking and really sweaty I might add (ha ha sorry B, but I have to be descriptive). I was grabbing his arms trying to calm him as he says the most loving and sweetest things to me. We laughed, we cried...then he got down on one knee and BAM! You all know the rest. He did well.
The aftermath photos:

On the bench by the grassy knoll.


A look from my perspective. Creative, no?


A little baby bunny was sitting right next to us. Gotta symbolize something right? Just not sure what. Had to get a pic nonetheless.





Entrance of the Lilacia Park! Classic "he put a ring on it" picture.


The rest of the day, we finally made it to downtown Chicago. We ate lunch, walked along the beach (which is pretty nice complete with palm trees...does not feel like you are in the midwest- see pic below) and walked around the city. It was an amazing day. Thanks to all of you for your support and congrats. We love you all!


Beach Bar.

The Brian bobblehead ( a groomsmen gift from the wedding) was there the whole time to take it all in. Here he is safely buckled in on the plane.



Then he proposed.

So in conclusion...start planning for an AWESOOOOMMMEE vacation and maybe a little wedding on the side for May or June 2011!