Too Much to Update

First of all, please go enter the SkinnyKidz giveaway hosted by Mrs Broccoli Guy.  We introduced a “big kid” sized belt (6-10), as many of you requested, and her kids were the perfect little demo models!  She wrote an amazing review for us too.  Thanks Christina!  Also, our new charity partner this month is a UK-based organization, Just a Drop, which works to bring clean water to Haiti.  It’s staggering to consider that diarrhea is still a leading cause of death worldwide…mostly due to lack of clean water.  That is so sad, and so preventable.  Please consider donating to this organization, and/or doing so through the purchase of this adorable belt (I think the print Jena chose for the Just a Drop belt is my favorite yet):

If I sounded overwhelmed in my last post, well, that was nothing.  Since then, the virus hit all of us except my little boys, thank God for them being spared at least.  It hit Yiayia on Tuesday night, so I was up most of the night with her / worrying about her.  She took a bad fall during one of her bouts that scared the living crap out of me.  Travis was able to stay home the next day to make sure she was ok, which thank God she was.  The next day, the same bug hit me just minutes after I signed my patients out and was trying to leave the hospital.  I was heading for the door…had to turn around and run for a bathroom, which I proceeded to barf ALL OVER.  I felt SO freakin bad for the poor janitor who was unfortunate enough to be pushing the mop bucket down the hall when I came out.  I apologized profusely and RAN to the car to race home before the next bout hit me.  I made it, thankfully, but was up all night again and totally dehydrated by 4:45am the next morning (when my alarm went off).  It sucked.  I wasn’t about to call in sick, as 1) that’s frowned upon as a resident or doctor, and 2) it would’ve taken a day away from my maternity leave. 

I made it through the day at work, although I felt like hell, but had to suffer through a 30 hour call shift the very next night.  It was rough; I was in my call room LITERALLY for 40 minutes, and I got paged about 4 times while I was in there, so I didn’t sleep a wink.  I’m still dragging ass.  I napped for 2hrs while the kids did when I got home Saturday afternoon, but that was it.  I worked later than I should have yesterday because all my patients were totally unstable and I could not get out of the hospital with them all like that.

Today is my “day off.”  It’s also Travis’ and my 7th wedding anniversary.  We laid low and got to see our friends Kaakpema and Sara briefly this afternoon when the kids swam in Sara’s parent’s pool.  The other day when Yiayia fell, she landed pretty hard on her chest, so although today was my 1 day off, I was in the hospital anyway.  I’ve been so worried about her and her pain has gotten pretty bad, so I took her to get some xrays, which thankfully were all (-).  She’s an ass-kicker and that makes her a pain in the ass patient – too tough for pain meds, too busy-bodied to rest herself, etc.  So thank God nothing is broken.  Yiayia is going back home on Wednesday, which is going to be especially hard for Fin and Shane who get so much snuggle time from her.  Finley has been an emotional WRECK, to put it lightly, so not having Yiayia here anymore to give her extra love and comfort is probably going to send her for another loop.  When I say “wreck,” I really can’t put it into words.  The poor child is so smart and so articulate, so she’ll tell me that she’s angry and sad that I work and leave her all day, but expressing her emotions verbally doesn’t stop her from expressing them physically in addition.  She’s been melting CONSTANTLY.  I almost peed last night from laughing so hard when I heard Yiayia thinking out loud through her geneology and saying “now, let me think, who in our family was a little on the kookie side?” 

It doesn’t make things easier that I happen to be on the grim reaper service right now - 1 of my patients died last night, 2 went to the ICU, and a bunch of others to hospice (plus another for whom we’re providing futile medical care because his family hasn’t come to terms with the terminal nature of his state…so he’s just suffering).  Depressing.  Also on a depressing note, when I came home from work yesterday, Jackie asked “hey mom, how was the hops-ital?” (he can’t get that word right – so cute).  I said “it was good, but there are lots of sick people there I have to take care of.”  And his response?  “My belly hurts, maybe I could come to your hopsital and you could take care of me!”  It’s so sad that my kids realize I no longer take care of them, just the sickies in the hops-ital.  I can’t wait until this year is over. 

Sorry for being a downer.  And this coming weekend is my “black weekend,” so termed because I have the overnight call on Saturday, meaning no shorter days or off days.  All this for less than the wage a garbage man makes.  Since I’ve held barf bags for my patients, held up the pannus of my 415lb patient so I could examine the skin fold (and was almost knocked over by the smell of bacteria & yeast living under there), and done some other pretty gruesome things lately, I think I have earned *at least* a garbage man’s salary.  <sigh> 

On a HUGELY positive note, big big things happened for Travis’ career last week.  He was offered COO of a really exciting health IT start-up.  Buh-bye residency.  Thank God too because I really don’t think I could live through him going through residency too.  He’s really excited about the speed with which his career is taking off, and as usual, Travis finds himself in the right place at the right time.  Part of his agreement with this company is that he finish his medical degree, so he’ll be COO / MD/MBA student all at once.  Part of his agreement is also that he will work remotely, with sporadic travel to Boston when necessary for meetings and workshops.  If you remember, my favorite derm program was actually Brown (45min from Boston), but Travis vetoed me ranking it highly since he had this “thing” about East Coast medicine.  I seriously almost strangled him the other day when he said “too bad you didn’t match at Brown, that would’ve made things easy!”  My heart went into asystole for a brief moment. 

That’s our story.  It’s a crazy one and feels like it’s getting crazier every day.  My belly popped this week; I’m now 18+ weeks.  By “popped,” I mean you can now tell I’m pregnant.  It’s still sort of truck-driverish, but it’s definitely round and now noticeably spilling out of my pants and shirts.  Since we’re still in financial trouble, I’m making do with the belly band for as long as possible, but it really is almost time I move to maternity clothes.  If anyone has any cute maternity clothes you’d like to sell, hit me.  I don’t have time, desire, or money to shop for new maternity clothes but I do need work attire that’ll fit over this belly.