This past week has been a long one for me. I’m on a new rotation, Neuropathology, and let’s just say that I have learned through the week that I do not want to be a pathologist! :). It’s interesting for sure, but staring at a microscope all day is hard for me for multiple reasons—it makes my eyes and head hurt (whiner, I know…) especially at this master microscope that has multiple heads on it so that more than one person can see the same slides at the same time. Well, since these attendings are experts, they fly through the slides like it’s nothing and I get slightly nauseated from the rapid movement of the slide all over the place. I often have to look up and take some deep breaths because I feel flushed and about ready to spew! It’s not something I’m cut out for it seems. Here's a typical moment in the frozen specimen room when we've retrieved a brain specimen from the OR and are staining it quickly to be able to tell the surgeon "yes or no" to whether or not they've got a brain tumor.
But, we do get to spend some time cutting brain tissue in the lab to sample it for further analysis under the microscope. And that part I really like (go figure! ). So, when that is mixed in, it makes the day more enjoyable for me. This is just a stock photo from Google images but it sums up the atmosphere for brain cutting (buckets, plastic aprons, cork cutting boards) quite nicely I'd say:
Since I’m at Harborview for the next month or so (2 weeks of neuropathology, 2 weeks of the STD clinic), Tom and I decided to splurge and buy me a month membership to the Seattle U gym. This has allowed Tom and I to share the morning commute, work out at the same time in the morning and then walk to work together! What a blessing! I keep thinking to myself, why didn’t we do this years ago? But, I wasn’t working at Harborview consistently, and the UW gym is free, so it doesn’t make much sense. For this month though, it seems to make a lot of sense and I’ve really enjoyed it.
One other thing has been keeping my spirits up with the rainy weather. Due to the generosity of my grandparents, John and Lois Malikie, Tom and I will get to share in one final vacation before residency starts. They are gifting us a week at their time share as a graduation present. Just this week we booked the location and we are thrilled to announce that we will be going staying at the Ko Olina Resort, in Oahu, Hawaii in the middle of May! This is exciting for many reasons, one of which is that it’s the resort we stayed at for our honeymoon.
We absolutely loved it there and we’re so excited to be going back. Excitement grew when we saw that Costco had the snorkel gear on sale again (which they often don’t carry it for some parts of the year). Since our masks that we bought for our honeymoon in 2009 kind of bit the dust while we were in Bonaire, we were more than ready to snatch them up.
It’s like we’re excited or something?
We still have to book the plane tickets and rental car, but we’ve got a condo waiting for us, and that makes everything so exciting! I feel quite humbled by all of this generosity and as it turns out, 2016 is the year of great vacations! I can’t believe we’ll be going to another tropical setting just months after returning from Bonaire, but we certainly can’t complain about it! We are incredibly grateful and savoring the moments together that we have before everything gets crazy again!
Today we also had some fun at the event you’re all very familiar with if you’ve ever read our blog before: Brides for a Cause!
They were having another dress sale and this time it was in Seattle making it especially convenient for us! This venue was much different than the typical ones as it was in the midst of a whole bridal show complete with vendors galore! So that meant there were plenty of beautiful bouquets
As well as some non-traditional treats like Jello-shots. What?
I personally loved the chandelier at the event and thought it might be perfect in my sister's home somewhere because of all of the bling!
Normally Tom is the ONLY guy volunteering at the event, but this time we were met by a group of UW fraternity brothers trying to catch up on some volunteer hours. Turns out they all worked quite efficiently (and as a group no less) at figuring out which way the bows, tulle, and ribbon were supposed to go on the hangars. You should have heard them all critiquing the dresses, it was hilarious!
Tom still got to bust out his dress carrying guns and I helped girls try on multitudes of dresses as they searched for the perfect one. At the end of the event we helped load up the truck so the moving dress sale could go on to the next location.
How do you pack up over a thousand dresses safely into a U-haul? Like this:
And we were rewarded by an ice cream sunday provided to us by one of the vendors--complete with caramel sauce! yum!!!
What a great date night :)
So, now that we have to wait until May to go to Hawaii, what is there possibly to look forward to in the next month or two? TONS!!
First and foremost, my sister’s due date is 2/26/16—that’s the end of the week!
I can’t believe it. I am so ready to meet the little guy and hop on a plane to Billings as soon as I get the word that things are happening. Good thing I’m on a more laid back rotation with weekends off—because no matter what I think I’d tell my attendings, "sorry, I’m gone for the weekend to go meet my NEPHEW!"
Oh ya, and one small thing---before the due date my rank list is due.
On 2/24/16 at 6 PM PST I will submit my list for the residency match and then just a mere 3 weeks later on 3/18/16 at 9 AM PST I will open the envelope that tells us where we are heading for the next 4 years of our lives. It’s terrifying and something I think about daily, multiple times per day (it feels like every minute or so it comes up). It’s stressful, anxiety provoking, and also encouraging and much anticipated after the hard work to get to this point.
I almost forgot to mention it because I was thinking about things to look forward to rather than things that happened already--Tom's law journal publication is now officially official!
We received an unmarked (and heavy!) box in the mail and had no clue what we would find when we opened it and boy were we pleasantly surprised. We already knew what an accomplishment it was, but it was so incredibly neat to see it in person, in such a professional publication. They sent Tom multiple copies to disburse among people, so maybe if you're good you'll get an autographed copy of my soon-to-be-famous-big-time-financial-regulator-of-a-husband! :)
Oh, and one more thing. I realized last week that my sister and I have the same "I'm taking an awkward selfie to document the moment" face. Here's a prime example where she was telling me she was working on hydrating during the last phase of pregnancy.
And here's my much-more-awkward photo of my guilty (and sneaky since I took the selfie while standing behind my attending physician in the elevator) face for eating a cookie when I'm over here telling her to drink that H2O! Do as I say, not as I do apparently :)
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