Spring switch

Another “switch weekend” has drawn to a close, and what a wonderful weekend it was! I had the joy of finishing my PEDS rotation by 10:30 AM on Friday so it was almost as if I had a three day weekend off to enjoy! I filled it with much-needed house cleaning, walks in the park, gardening, a wedding shower, joining friends for drinks and laughs, baking and beading. It was so restful and I really felt grateful!

I have a confession to make: I fell in love on my pediatrics rotation. That’s right; a little 7 week old guy stole my heart. I had the pleasure of taking care of him for almost the entirety of my 3 weeks at Seattle Children’s. And, as if he planned it, he was discharged just shy of my last day, a good sign that I was done with another rotation. 

Am I going to be a pediatrician you ask? I don’t know! I really enjoyed a lot of things and I think I could do it, but I think it would likely be as something other than a pediatrician. Meaning, I would treat kids, but not as their primary care doctor but as their neonatologist or their urologist or something. I really got interested in the congenital problems that kids can be so unfortunate to get, so that started my wheels turning about neonatology and caring for babies that are still in utero and those that are just barely old enough to be out of the womb. 

A few other highlights of the last few days of the rotation that I saw:

• A meckel’s diverticulum (a remnant pouch of the primitive gut before it’s fully formed that can sometimes cause really bad internal bleeding in kids. I never thought I’d see one of them!)
•  Something incredibly rare called Beckwith Wiedemann Syndrome. It leads to an over-sized tongue (macroglossia), a small brain, very large (sometimes life threatening umbilical hernias) as well as unexplained low blood sugars that require insane calorie intake and anti-insulin medications. The child that I saw had already had 2 tongue "debulking" surgeries. In this condition, the tongue becomes so large that it literally blocks their airways and they can't breathe. He was due for his next tongue debulking next month.
  
• A hemangioma. This is a congenital malformation of some tiny blood vessels that shows up as a cherry-red birth mark of sorts. It can get dangerous and grow when it gets near the eyes.  I got to see one (similar to the one in this photo) shrinking right before my eyes after we started treating it with a beta blocker

• Spastic quadriplegia
•  More asthma and viral upper respiratory infections than I can count
• And, as I always say, so much more.

I feel incredibly blessed to have been able to spend some time at Children's. What an amazing opportunity!

My garden is finally starting to make its presence known. I always plant too early and there's always something that gets in the way of appropriate growing early on (like torrential rain or freezing temps) but I got a beautiful view of my zucchini plants coming up this week. It's insane how happy these little plants make me 

 Yesterday we joined with what feels like family, the Craven's, to celebrate a momentous occasion in Allison's life. She's getting married to her partner of more than 10 years, Gentry, on September 5th in West Seattle.

 The room was aglow with coral and white (the wedding colors) and these adorable hand-decorated glasses made by Judy (allison's mom)

 We even had the honor of taste testing the cupcakes for the big day--lemon, apple cinnamon and chocolate (you can guess which one was my favorite).

 During my run this morning (well, let's call it a jog because, let's be honest, nobody "runs" at my snail pace...) there was an art show in the airplane hanger. But, along with the art show was a display of our next vehicle purchase (if our current vehicles can last long enough until we can afford this!). It was a Tesla--the all electric car that Tom and I are convinced we're going to buy. It was motivation, in a backwards sort of way, to press on through med school and into a career where we'll actually be earning an income rather than just accruing debt so that we can move away from our combustion engines to amazing batteries :)