Clinical

So, I am assigned to the RACU for my clinical assignement this semester. For those of you not familiar with the myriad of acronyms at MGH that means the Respiratory Acute Care Unit. (I just learned that myself a couple of days ago.) I will be working with a physical therapist and another MGH student there every Wednesday morning this semester. Our first day was this week, and our CI (Clinical Instructor) had us reviewing a patient's chart, performing a reevaluation and writing up a diagnosis. I was expecting more of a tour of the facility and an introduction to acute care, but it appears as if we are going to be learning by getting right in there and doing. What a shift from undergrad!

Our patient was recovering from an auto accident where he collided head on with a truck, was found next to his vehicle (he was not wearing his seatbelt), and then airlifted to MGH where he was treated for a broken sternum, 2 broken collarbones, broken ribs, and a punctured lung. We were seeing him 3 weeks later and trying to help ween him off the ventilator and get him stable enough balance wise to return home. Crazy, huh?

Thanks to Kate

I would like to thank Kate for introducing me to links within posts and to side bar links. Yes, that is correct: my former roommate who is a medical writer helped out the former computer engineer :) So, now in addition to random thoughts, you can check out random websites that I find interesting. Nice!

Time to stop slacking...

Ok, so tomorrow I have to return to being a full time student again. It's been nice to enjoy some time off and to see family and friends. I think everyone needs 3 weeks off to catch up on life, but I guess that is only possible for those who have given up a paycheck and forced themselves back in classes... one of my only perks!

I just got back from spending 4 days at home in the Middle-of-no-where, PA. A real culture shock when I was in NYC & Boston earlier in the week. I got to spend a lot of time relaxing with my mom, and even spent a good deal of time catching up with my best friend from college. She grew up in Williamsport (a some what booming city about 45 minutes from where my family is from), and has recently started a grassroots newspaper aimed at promoting culture, awareness and education in North Central PA. I believe it may be the only liberal paper in print out there. Way to go Liz! I would expect no less from a Brown graduate.

I must admit that it was weird to walk around Boston in the middle of a work day. It was just me, the full time moms, the unemployed and the mormons... quite a different scene! I must admit that it was great to be able to watch Days of Our Lives and have that be the first real thing I did in a given day. There is something about watching a soap (this one I have followed since my friend's mom watched it with us at age 8, otherwise, I don't think I'd watch it) that makes you realize that you truly have nothing to do. For me, it almost defines relaxation... strange, huh?

Oh well, back to school

Camping at Island Pond

Camping at Island Pond
Originally uploaded by jessriggs.

Since I am still on break from classes, Brian and I decided to go camping with Ainsley and Igor (and the dogs). Igor found this amazing campsite on a pond in VT.

Here Brian and I are hiking with Fenway (Igor's pup) and Mookie (Brian's dog). I think Wrigley must have been napping at the top of the mountain and missed getting in this picture :)

We stayed up there for 2 nights and I've decided I would love to head up there again. It's right near a beach and tons of hiking trails. I think we all had a great time.... I wonder if I can get another hike or two in before I get completely bogged down with classes again...

Brian enjoying himself

Close up
Originally uploaded by jessriggs.

Here's a picture of Brian sitting next to me on the banks of a stream in Waterville Valley. We were able to sit and watch Mookie play in the stream. It was refreshing to just sit there and do nothing.

Crazy to think that this was our year anniversary. Here's to another good year!

NH hiking trip: Mookie & I

Mookie & I
Originally uploaded by jessriggs.

Brian and I headed up to NH for our 1 year anniversary. We stayed up in Gorham, NH near the Maine border Saturday through Monday. We went hiking all 3 days, although our big hike on Sunday was rained out. Mookie hiked with us around Waterville Valley (pictured here with me), and up to Lonesome Lake near Cannon Mtn.

It was great to relax with Brian after finishing up my first semester of school. I know have 3 weeks off before returning for the fall semester, which I hear is more difficult (yikes!) It's funny because even though I accomplished a lot of errands and what not today, I couldn't shake the feeling like I had something I wasn't doing.

For how hard it was to shift gears to student study mode, it seems even harder to shift out of it for these couple of weeks.

Sarah

sarah
Originally uploaded by jessriggs.

I drag a new friend from classes to the hash and she poses for a nice picture. She's a fellow career swapper, so we've had a ton to talk about!

Rainy Day at the Hash

Hash
Originally uploaded by jessriggs.

Here's a picture of me running through the streets of Boston with the Boston Hash House Harriers. We went all through the North End, along the waterfront, through South Station and ended up near the Boston Common... not a bad tour of the city! Apparently the camera man was slower than me :-p

it's been a while

I guess I have been really wrapped up in school stuff of late. I spend at least a day of each weekend studying for anatomy as well as a couple of nights a week.. craziness. And, I'm only getting an A-! I know, I should be happy with that figuring that I didn't major in anything related to anatomy in college and half the class are ex-exercise physiology majors, but I'm used to putting forth much less effort for better grades. I guess I could always go back to being an engineer, but what is the fun in that, right?

Well, I am definitely learning that I need to balance things out more. I need to take nights off to spend with Brian and my friends and I need to be ok with A-s, B+s, and hell even the occational C... ok, maybe that's taking things too far!

It's just a lot harder to change your life than I thought: more effort, lack of free time, and a ton of questions as to whether or not you are doing the right thing. At least there are others there in the same situation, and I think each of us has already had a day or two where we've contemplated going back to the our familiar former lives. Perhaps in a couple more months I won't believe I ever doubted myself. We already have had one girl withdrawal, and it was really sad.

Grad school is definitely more than I thought it would be!

Ithaca

Brian and I spent the holiday weekend in Ithaca with his Cornell friends, and I was pleasantly surprised with how the trip turned out. I was expecting a typical college town with your usual ugly 70s-style buildings (which there were some of) and dive bars (there were those too), but I was blown away by the gorges. You could park a block from campus, walk down a ravine and be in a completely different place. It was great! Besides the gorges it reminded me a lot of Burlington, VT: very laid back, hippy-like rural town with more democrats then Dunkin Doughnuts (can the state of MA claim that?) Although I was worried about not having a weekend to really crack the books, I am really glad I went on this trip... and I did manage to read an entire chapter about the Abdomen in between gorge swim sessions :)

Crazy new schedule

Wow, I've found absolutely no time to email friends, update this blog, or even really hang out with people this week. I've been getting up at 6 or 7, either heading to class or studying, breaking for an hour lunch, and then in my anatomy class or lab till 5pm. By the time I'm done with all that, I barely have enough energy to make myself dinner and I usually do more reading.... I'm afraid at this pace I may burn out soon. I think I may need to stop taking the weekends "off" and spread out the work load a bit.

I guess the good news is that I am starting to understand a lot of it, but on the flip side I don't really remember what my friends look like. :(

Sweet Dreams are made of these....

Sweet Dreams are made of these....
Originally uploaded by jessriggs.

Derek brought a kareoke machine to the ice rink and Ainsley and Jonah decided to rock out to some nice hits from the 80s.

Marisa wearing skates in style!

Marisa wearing skates in style!
Originally uploaded by jessriggs.

Derek and I had an Ice Skating birthday party at the Burlington Ice Palace:

Check out Derek's girlfriend modeling her lovely skates. (Don't worry Marisa, I won't tell anyone that the skates didn't stay on too long :-p)

Steph gets married

Steph gets married
Originally uploaded by jessriggs.

Ok, so Steph is the first of my high school friends to get married and to start a family. Congrats Steph!

... now I'm officially old!

Orientation take 3!

Ok, so here I am in my first week at MGH and my third time going through the orientation process: highschool, college, and now this... I'm a pro at meeting new people now :-p

Actually, this orientation has been really different since everyone comes here with such different backgrounds. We have some right out of college, a professional dancer, a lawyer, an engineer (ok, that's me), and people who worked for non-profit for the past 5+ years. Very interesting, fun group. So far, we've had all the faculty introduce themselves, toured the school and hospital, and recently did an "Amazing Race" around Boston yesterday... I think there are pics of that, so I'll try to post me and my team, The Professionals. :)

Today we are headed to the dissection lab. We have two classes this summer: Professionalism, and Gross Anatomy. My friend Ainsley has warned me that the dissection lab takes some getting used to and I'm hoping I don't get sick or pass out!

Back in Boston (part deux)

I just logged in to my gmail account after being offline for the week I was in Florida and I have 69 unread messages!

I plan to try and back-post the pictures from SF and tails of FL, etc. Right now it's 1 am and I'm just getting into bed after racing home from the airport. Brian and I managed to chase after 3 trains, ride up and down at least 7 escalators and trek up and down 2 sets of stairs with bags weighing in over 50 lbs. You have to love Logan airport and all of the inconvienent ways to get to and from there! Believe it or not they have made another T adjustment that makes no sense: It turns out they are installing new state of the art ticket machines to help elimate tokens and the T employees that take too much time to count them. A great idea, however, this new ticket system has only been deployed on the Blue Line and the $5 ticket Brian was required to purchase to get on the subway at the airport cannot be used on any other line currently. Well, the ticket is valid till December 2006....

Anyone care to wager on whether or not Brian will get to use that ticket on the redline? What's the current over/under on Boston mass transit project deadline slips? 2 years? 10?

Back in Boston

I'm back in Boston now, although I seem to still be on west coast time. I've been getting to bed around midnight, but sleeping till 10am. I guess my body needs the rest.

The last couple of days in SF were beautiful: clear skies, and perfect temperature. I have to admit that Boston is currently sporting the opposite: constant rain and 40 degrees! Apparently this should last through the weekend. Luckily Brian and I will be on a plane to FL on saturday. Hopefully we can encounter some nice weather there. Of course I have 2 predictions for how I handle Floridian weather.

1) I will sunburn within minutes regardless of the SPF of my sunscreen

2) I will not be able to stand the humidity, especially after a shower when I'll keep wiping myself with a towel but never feel dry!

I plan to back post pictures while in FL so there will be some from the SF trip and some from FL.

Currently I am trying to sketch out everything that needs to get done for school: fill otu loan papers, choose insurance, get together transcripts from my last class, etc. I wonder if there was this much paperwork for undergrad, or did mom just take care of things for me.

Kate and I

Kate and I
Originally uploaded by jessriggs.

Here is a picture of Kate and I at the Japanese tea garden in Golden Gate park. We walked around with the rest of the tourists on a busy Saturday. I wish I had known they served authentic tea in the center pavillion. I think it would have been great to be served it the garden... next time!

Hot Night in the City

Friday night was girls night in San Fran. Courtney offered up her place as crash space for Kate, Joanna and I and planned a fun outing for us and some of her classmates. It started out with multiple bottles of wine and yummy snacks complements of our amazing hostess. We then headed out in 2 cabs to the first bar.

I don't remember exactly who's idea it was to find a kareoke bar, but I do know that we ended up walking almost 10 blocks to one near the Castro. I suggested to Kate that we sing George Michael's Faith, her favorite song, and she rushed to put our names in as soon as we got there. (I think she was drunk at that point.)

We ended up chatting it up with some girls at the bar while listening to a group of guys circle through random country songs I'd never heard before. These girls were definitely fun and ordered a round of shots for Kate and I. Later in the night, Abby ( the girl who ordered the shots) pulled me aside and told me that her friend thought I was wonderful and she wanted my number. I had to inform her that although we were in a gay bar, I had a boyfriend and wasn't currently looking to date a woman. Although I do believe Brian said it wouldn't be cheating if it was with a woman... :-p

Kate and I got many applause for our rendition of Faith, and I accomplished 2 firsts that evening: I've now sung Kareoke in a bar full of strangers and been hit on by a woman!

Touring around SF

I spent the last 2 days walking around SF seeing the sights and trying to keep dry. Yup, the rain finally caught up with me :(

I introduced Josh to Dim Sum as we started our Wednesday out in Chinatown for lunch. We went to pier 39, checked out the Giradelli chocolate factory (more of a store now, I think they still produce everything in Oakland), and walked around North Beach area. Unfortunately I walked us through the ghetto trying to find the Asian Art Museum near the civic center. To make matters worse, we got there too late to go in. Basically I endangered our lives for nothing!

Yesterday I toured Alcatraz... fascinating! The audio tour was narrated by ex-cons and former guards. Having them explain conditions while your standing in their tiny cells makes you appreciate the fact that you've never had to live that way. I was amazed at how small the place was in general. I guess that made it more managable for top criminals. There was a former inmate there signing a book he had written about his time in Alcatraz. He was a bitter old man who didn't seem to want to ask a bunch of questions from tourists. I guess you can't blame him. I was impressed that he was able to marry, adopt kids, and have a normal life after 14 years in prison. I don't feel that is the case anymore. Perhaps you just don't her about the people who actually "rehabilitate" in prison these days.

I left Alcatraz after 2 hours, not because there wasn't enough to see, but because I was getting a bit bored be there by myself. So, I headed back to the mainland and then up to Berkeley to see Kate and Joanna. We hung out at a local Berkeley coffee shop and chatted before heading to a great wine shop and the most amazing pizza place: Cheese Board. The make one vegetarian pizza each day and it's sold by the slice. We had one with corn, onions, pesto and pinenuts... yum!

I'm heading up to Berkeley this morning to tour that area with them before headed to SF for a girls' night with Courtney. The plan is to head out after dinner to some local bars and spend the night at Courtney's in order to enjoy a tasting brunch together in the AM. I definitely miss hanging out with Kate, although it sounds like she is doing great in Seattle.