The first month

It’s closing in on one month since I became an intern. I have definitely seen a lot and done a lot since that first day. Every week on OB I have two main jobs: go to the labor and delivery floor to delivery babies, and go to the ER (also known as “triage” for us) and evaluate patients that have come in to the Women & Infants Emergency room.

You NEVER know what will walk into triage. It could be a non-English speaking woman arriving just in time to have someone be able to catch her baby, a transfer from another hospital who is very sick and needing expert care immediately, a teen with pregnancy worries, or an elderly woman with ovarian cancer, struggling with the side effects of her chemotherapy regimen.

So far I’ve performed about 10 c-sections and delivered 15 or so babies. It’s all starting to feel like the new “normal” but I will admit, I still feel exhausted! It is mixed in with feelings of excitement, gratitude, joy, fear, worry, anxiety, --so many emotions I can’t list them all.

Besides all the feelings, I’ve also had some great experiences in Rhode island. All of them have been with Tom which makes them even better!

On the third of July (yes, I typed it right, we watched fireworks on the 3rd) we enjoyed the North Providence firework show. It was amazing because we were so close to the fireworks and we were able to get home in less than 15 minutes after it was over! We did really miss the fireworks over the waterfront in Tacoma though!

We're learning the lingo in Rhode Island bit by bit as well. Round-abouts are called "rotaries" and all hamburger buns are called Bulkie rolls.

Last weekend I had one day off on Sunday and we explored the Botanic garden in Roger Williams Park. Now, as some of you know, I’ve visited just one or two botanic gardens in my day ;) and you know that I kind of have high standards.

Let’s just say the Providence botanic garden is not quite of the same caliber as the one in Atlanta, or Pittsburgh, or Cambridge, England!

It was very cute though, and did have some great photo opportunities with the bees buzzing from the blooming buds (but, I'm not sure it was worth the $5 entrance fee...)

We finished off the garden experience by visiting another popular location in Providence called Three sisters ice cream. Delicious is all you need to know

Mid-week last week we also took a break from work to go have another awful-awful. Now, I know what you’re thinking, this is an awful-awful habit to get into (and it is) but sometimes on a 90 degree day it just feels right! It’s been hot and humid here!

This pup couldn’t help but make the experience even better with all of his cuteness.

This weekend was something special too. It’s something called a golden weekend, where I not only get two days off in a row, those two days correspond to weekend days! We are trying to make the most of it, starting with the drive-in movies! We pumped up the air mattress in the truck bed for a particularly comfortable way to view the show!

We went to see the secret life of pets with my co-intern Chi-Fong and her wife Karen. Between the gorgeous weather, the cozy venue and the popcorn and snacks, we felt like we got away from the “adult” things we are all dealing with and got to feel like kids again (especially since it was chi-fong’s first drive in experience ever!).

Then yesterday Tom and I were out for an adventure. It was about 90 degrees in Providence, far too hot to sit around at home. So we took off towards Narragansett beach.

The beaches around here are different than they are back home. First of all, they are PACKED with people, and secondly they just have a different look and smell to them.

Tom was on a mission yesterday—to find the sunken barge off of the coast of narragansett (just 200-300 feet out). Well, we found where it was, but we weren’t going to get to it easily! See, you have to pay to go on the public beach (which we find crazy and ridiculous). So, being who we are we found a free parking spot, and walked a distance to the beach then walked a fair distance around the back side of the beach to find a free “entrance.”

What this translates to is an adventurous walk through swamp land to get there

There is a river that opens into the ocean and we walked along it to get to the mouth of the river. Along the way we had to “forge” the river a few times. One time in particular it was nearly a dry bed, so we were just going to walk across it. Well, we did, and as we did we found out that it was complete mud, and not just any mud, the kind of mud that you sink into and you aren’t sure if you’re going to be able to pull your feet back out of it! I didn't take a picture, but this is pretty much what it looked like for the trail---it looked worse for the river bed itself because it was so deep you couldn't see your feet!!

I was terrified that I was going to step on broken glass or something else harmful, but we had already committed almost a mile to our swamp walk, so what was I going to do? Back out now? We waded through mud and came out with a few more mosquito bites, but no cuts, scrapes, or bruises. All you could here me saying was “oh this is SO GROSS” as I pulled my feet through the mud (and had to pull my flip flop out of the suction cup that was the hole of mud).

But, we made it to the ocean front. Unlike last time, the water was quite warm, most likely because it’s so shallow off of the beach. We swam and enjoyed our ocean-side snacks. The beaches are nice, but definitely different from home (and from the west coast in general)

It was a nice way to get all the mud off of us!

We found the location of the barge, but we weren’t allowed to swim out to it until the life guards left for the day (too much of a liability I guess to swim while the lifeguards are watching). Well, they don’t get off duty until 6 pm and therefore we waited it out. I was content to wait on a towel on the sand, but Tom of course was not, so he ended up creating some sand art with me (unknowingly at first since I was napping) as the centerpiece….

But by the time 6 rolled around, the clouds had rolled in and we didn’t’ have much in the way of visibility.

So, we had to abandon ship on that one. Tom WILL be going back to snorkel it, he just has to find a way to surreptitiously get around the life guards :)

We finally tried another Rhode Island classic –Del’s frozen lemonade, and thoroughly enjoyed our day at the beach (and the swamp land).

Today’s agenda is to catch up on sleep and life outside of work. You know, things like enrolling in our new health insurance, laundry, cooking meals for the week, and just enjoying a nice (but humid) summer day in Rhode Island. Which, of course, also includes a little gardening (like filling in some gaps in my green bean growth where the pesky squirrels, or neighborhood cat, I’m not sure which, decided they wanted to dig around).

We also wandered a bit this morning to the Woonasquatucket River Greenway. How do you pronounce it? Not sure. But signs along the river called it "the woony" for short, so we're going to go with it.

It's the closest thing to the Burke Gilman Trail that we've found, and it's a whopping 3.7 miles long. We were spoiled in Seattle, that's for sure, and we remember that more and more each day!

The river walk had several more scenic things to gaze on, and we really felt at home along the greenway.

Except for this small detail of having us walk on the left side of the trail...driver's and driving rules are weird in Rhode Island, so I guess why should the walking/trail rules be any different?