M3- WEEK ONE

When this week started, T and I weren't ready to forget about our trip and jump back into normal life. So Sunday night, we had our families over to skim through all 1,800 pictures. (I would call it torture.. but they showed up!) We even convinced them to bring treats along :) [And my apologies for being slow on the trip recaps! It was so good that I am slow to post because I can't seem to capture the amazingness quite right.]

However, Monday rolled in and we couldn't escape normal life any longer. For me, the majority of this week was J-Term. We had three busy days where we were introduced to various medical practices and skills. Some of the skills we had learned previously.. others were totally new. I starred the skills we had to practice on each other (thats 3 pokes, one tube, and 12 stickers if you are keeping track).

+ Professional conduct and grading for the year
+ Review of understanding and interpreting lab results
+ Review of interpreting chest x-rays
+ IV techniques*
+ Nasogastric tubes*
+ Airway management (practiced on mannequins)
+ Aseptic technique
+ Vacutainers*
+ Suturing (pig's feet)
+ Arterial blood gas (mannequins)
+ EKGs*
+ Injections*
+ Urinary catheters (mannequins)
+ Tracheal suction (mannequins)
+ Informatics
+ Reading EKGs
+ Patient safety
+ Isolation techniques
+ Tour of the hospital
+ Introduction to the Accelerated Family Medicine and Primary Care Programs
+ Introduction to the Veteran's Health Administration

Overall, I'd call J-term a success. I had great partners so I didn't even suffer any bruises from the pokes :) J-term was a great dry-run at getting up in the morning, getting pretty, and being attentive all day (after 3 weeks of being completely spoiled on vacation!). THANKFULLY, after J-term we had a 4 day break so I had time to hang with family and actually get organized for 3rd year..

In other fun.. my brother and sister shared a birthday this week-- and, as we do in our family, we used that excuse to eat multiple good meals (here and here). To prove that T and I are in fact normal people (blog readers sometimes say we appear to "do it all"- hahaha yeah right).. we still haven't produced gifts for said brother and sister. Promise we haven't forgotten!

We spent the Fourth of July at our cabin with my family. We set up camp on the 3rd since T had to work on the 5th. To say we had a blast would be a total understatement. The 3rd was all about eating around the campfire: dogs, hot ham-n-cheese & pizza sandwiches in the pie iron, grilled bananas with toppings, and serious s'mores (chocolate, Reeses, cookies-n-cream, the rectangular marshmallows .. told ya they were serious).

Thursday morning, we -- can you guess? -- we ate some more! We had breakfast thanks to Chef E (with help from T and S) before heading to the local gas station for morning drinks. When we got back from the gas station run, we headed out to the river! E led the way upsteam and we hopped from sandbar to sandbar. We brought along a frisbee, baseball, and R's GoPro videocamera. If I was a better blogger I would have asked him for some pictures. He has a TON of blackmail of us running around the sand bars like total hooligans. There is even footage of my dad trying to leap like a ballerina. Quite the visual I'll assure you. We did have one little mishap on the river-- we had to jump into search-and-rescue mode when R's GoPro was dropped as R lunged for a pass. E was the winner when he found the precious electronic. We ended the afternoon with lunch at Runza. And since Dad was buying, a round of ice cream cones.

T brought along the paperwork for S's loan. What a good banker!

The rest of the week was much less exciting. I spent Saturday doing a massive clean of our house. One of the cleans where nothing goes untouched. If it crossed my mind to clean- I did it. In the end, I couldn't tell if I was stickier from being covered in Windex or sweat. Now that's how you know you did a good job! Poor T got home from work at 4 and I recruited him for a couple hours to help with our storage room. If you've ever wanted to visit us, you should come this week! It probably won't be this tidy until we show our house when we move :) [And don't feel bad for T for having to come home from work only to do more work-- I cooked a rockstar dinner to make up for it!]

Now I'm off to the kitchen to whip up a batch of cookies before a game night with friends. Then tomorrow morning, I start my surgery rotation! (dun dun dun!)

xo,

Krista