Too much to tell...

Wow, I can't believe it has been so long since we've posted! I thought we for sure had posted in June. Oh well, time to catch up I guess...

I guess we can go by categories...

Work life: I finished my intern year at Harbor (hallelujah!), working up to the very last day possible-June 30. While I learned a lot and will miss coworkers, I am so glad to be done with that job. It is just not my cup of tea. Some people say I will really miss patient contact, but I will still have some patient contact in radiology. In truth, in this intern year on my inpatient internal medicine months I only spent max of 1-2 hours talking to patients per average 12 hour day. The biggest chunk of my day was looking at the computer, putting in orders, reviewing labs, calling specialists and primary doctors, trying to arrange for free meds/housing assistance/rehab/rolling walkers, etc. Besides when I did admissions or morning rounds, most of the time I spent talking to patients was arguing with sleepy patients about how any more pain medication would totally knock them out, or delivering bad news and explaining that to multiple family members. The good news and discharges were quick. So for me, having to deliver bad news, argue, and try and fix big social issues were not fun. And spending tons of hours just typing on the computer also wasn't fun. In radiology you see way more cases each day. You get to help solve the most puzzling mysteries in the hospital, because when the team doesn't know or disagrees, they often turn to imaging to solve it. You get to know doctors across the entire hospital. You don't have to do half the amount of paperwork. You don't have to deal with pain meds or telling people to stop drinking. You do get to do cool procedures and talk to patients and their families. Plus, my co-residents are cool, we have great support and resources and everything is focused on helping us learn! I am so excited!!!

I have had 3.5 days of radiology back at Hopkins so far. We are in the middle of orientation (1 more week) and so it's a lot of lectures about how to use this or that computer system. They did give us a brand new iPad Air, so I don't mind learning about that! We even got the Fourth of July off! I went from 1 day weekends all through June to a 3 day weekend on my first week of this job. Bliss! We went to get pizza with 3 of the 8 new residents. This coming Friday, we have duck pin bowling (a Baltimore thing) on Friday night and a crab feast on Saturday. I will start off my first rotation in radiology a week from tomorrow in pediatric radiology. Yippee! Also, I just found out that a research project I did over the last couple years was accepted for an exhibit at the national radiology meeting (RSNA) in December, and my program will send me to Chicago to present.

James work-he's enjoying the NIH and learning all about MRi. He is doing a project similar to the one i did in January, actually. He likes his coworkers and the NIH. He has a long commute (Nacho, his Honda civic, will probably pass the 200,000 mile mark this summer), but he enjoys NPR and audiobooks along the drive.

We have kept busy in the community, at church, doing gardening stuff, and many other things. In our community association, we've had a few community clean ups, we have arranged for a possible quiet train zone (which would be great, since the train blares its horn at all hours of the night about 100 ft from the house), worked on bar/crime issues, etc. Church has kept us busy and our primary kids are as cute and busy as ever. Finally, our garden continues to flourish and we have had tons of cucumbers, a few tomatoes (with hundreds more on their way-it is kind of ridiculous), kale, lettuce, a beet, etc. Our bell peppers, cayenne, and habaneros have tiny little peppers starting to grow. We finally have tons of flowers all over, too. Pics next week when I figure out how to use this newfangled ipad. 

I also broke my nose playing softball in multiple places 1.5wks ago and now it is finally looking better. Still tender and swollen and slightly crooked. Luckily I was holding pressure pretty hard after getting hit by the softball to stop the bleeding, and after that it went from quite crooked after the fact to "straight enough." Straight enough to avoid surgery, anyway.  Next week I may also upload some images of my CT (aka "cat") scan of my face for a little radiology tutorial for you all.

Lastly, I got summoned to jury duty in September-eek! Baltimore city is never a dull place in the courtroom, but I would be quite surprised if I was chosen seeing as I have an opinion on practically everything and am probably biased against lawbreaking of all kinds. We shall see.

Happy Fourth of July, everyone. Hope you had a great holiday and that you have a great week!