Still here

I haven't been doing a very good job at keeping up this blog, I think mainly because all the internship stuff goes on my other blog and I don't have much of a life otherwise, so there isn't much to say! I seem to have found some semblance of balance with my eating, though still I'm not getting enough exercise, mainly because I'm way too tired.

During the week I have been eating very well. I stopped bringing anything with sugar in it with me, and since there are no grocery stores near by I really only eat what I bring. I usually eat a hard boiled egg or two, a banana and coffee or tea in the morning-- usually I can't quite manage to get down two eggs but I try. (I used to always be a breakfast person and now I have trouble-- I guess because I used to eat breakfast when I got to class at 9 or 10 and now I'm eating before 8). Lunch for the past several weeks has been chicken chili over spinach. Last week when I was stressed into no appetite from my horrific ICU rotation I was only eating maybe 3/4 of a cup of chili but this week I'm more hungry so a little more. For dinner every day I have chicken salad and half a yam, or occasionally just chicken yam and cooked greens. I eat a ridiculous amount of larabars (3 sometimes 4 of the sample size ones in a day is not uncommon, never less than two) and usually grapes and half an apple during the day. Once or twice a week I get a soymilk latte at Starbucks. That's it-- I have no other options (well, okay, today I did eat popcorn but that's not the norm and it upset my stomach just like it always does).

I am not sure if I am just tired from stress-- which seems unlikely since this week I have nothing to do, or if perhaps my anemia has returned. Maybe a few days of iron would be helpful-- I have been pretty faithfully taking my multivitamin, but it does not contain iron. I'm thinking next week when the time changes I might try to work out in the morning, since it won't seem like I'm getting up earlier, but we'll see how that goes given that I am not really a morning person. Lately I seem to get to the gym once, maybe twice if I'm lucky in a week. I need to do better-- I'm feeling quite out of shape.

Oh, and then there's the weekend food-- after all that ridiculous perfection all week, I go home and eat lots of gluten free pasta, chocolate cake and other not so good things-- but I actually have lost a couple pounds and my clothes fit better so it doesn't seem to be hurting anything. I have been actually doing a very good job of eating just until I'm full and then stopping without over eating. Getting protein at every meal and much less sugar has helped a lot with that.

Emotionally the whole not living at home with my husband situation is getting pretty old. I have less than four weeks to go until I get to move home and it can't come soon enough. I am extremely lucky to get to live so close to my rotations with a very lovely person, but it's still not the same as living in my own house with my best buddy and my chickens. The only thing I will say, is it has definitely reminded us not to take each other for granted, because our time together is precious.

Five out of seven chickens are laying eggs now. Strangely the two younger ones started laying before two of their big sisters. Roxie is such a greedy girl that if you don't have treats for her when you go outside she'll jump up and nip your fingers. She also will come running the minute you get into her sight and will follow you all over the yard until she finally decides you really don't have food. It's very funny and completely exasperating at the same time. I think it is this desperate search for the best food that makes the yolks of her eggs the darkest and richest orange.

Skittles still insists on trying to sleep in the tree every night. Last Saturday it was absolutely pouring outside and pitch dark. I was making dinner when we suddenly realized we hadn't put the chickens away. Marc went out in the rain to find only Skittles in the tree, her friends having deserted her for the dry chicken house. So stubborn! Normally four of the five older chickens end up in the tree at night when they are let out of their pen and we have to retrieve them every time. Olive stays in the house with the younger two because she is too little to fly that far. The youngest two are by far the fattest and biggest now and I doubt they could fly that far if they wanted, but they never seem to want to anyway.

That's about all that's going on with me-- I drive home every Friday, do absolutely nothing except cook and eat until Sunday morning and then frantically do laundry and cook for the following week. Not the most glamorous of lives, but there you have it. A week from tomorrow is my 30th birthday and I have not a clue how to commemorate it. I might very well spend it sitting on my couch eating cake.

Update

This was a weird week. Last Sunday I stayed home instead of driving down to Dupont, which meant I had to get up at 4:30 in the morning on Monday in order to get to the hospital on time because I had to drop my food and stuff off at the house before I went to work, as well as get dressed since all my work clothes are down there. I was a little brain dead Monday and then it took two more days to get back to normal. It was really nice having Sunday evening at home though.

I was really tired last weekend and couldn't motivate myself to cook, so I had organic chicken chili from a can every day for lunch this week. I am getting tired of eating the same thing every day (some kind of soup for lunch, chicken, salad and a starch for dinner) but my schedule is about to get more crazy, so I definitely am not going to have time for cooking. The next two weeks I'm going to have to be at the hospital at 7am instead of 8 for ICU rounds, and the two weeks after that I'm driving to Chehalis, Aberdeen or Lacey for Renal rotation (depending on the day)-- about an hour each way on average (Lacey's not so far but the other two are).

In chicken news, the "little kids" are now giant chickens much bigger than the other five. We got one mystery egg this week-- it was kind of light tan/pinkish and we aren't sure who laid it. That's the first new egg we've had, despite the fact the three who are laying have been at it for over a month.

The biggest news-- Marc's dad came home at last yesterday. Due to his surgical wounds the doctor did not want him to fly (apparently if the cabin loses pressure that is very bad) so Marc's mom went down and brought him back on the train, and we went to pick them up. We had a flash of what he will look like in 20 years-- he lost so much weight in the hospital the skin on his face looks slack and loose, and he is still very weak from laying in a bed for 5 weeks and needs a cane for support. We took him home and talked about the importance of protein for healing. He is also anemic and the dietitian at the hospital told him to eat red meat (which they haven't eaten for years and years) so I suggested grass fed beef, which I am off to PCC shortly to fetch for them. I calculated his protein needs and made suggestions for ways to meet them. Then I went through all his medications and we discussed whether he should go back on his blood pressure and cholesterol lowering meds, which were not mentioned at the hospital. I encouraged him to see his doctor right away to discuss those, because especially with the blood pressure meds, not knowing where his blood pressure is right now, taking those could cause him to pass out if he doesn't need them, and he does not need that now. We got him as set up as best we could before we left. A home health nurse was due to come this morning and dress his wounds, so he's in good hands. It's comforting to know he's at home in his own bed instead of 1200 miles away in a hospital. *Note-- the hospital sent home copies of his medical chart and I was unpleasantly suprised. It seems they do every thing by hand, which means that 99% of the chart was completely illegible. The RD had neat handwriting so I could read her notes, but they definitely were not as detailed as the ones we write at Madigan. This is reason enough to type chart notes-- I hope they have very good oral communication and never get sued, because I can't see how you would be able to tell what is going on with a patient by looking at these chicken scratches!

I'm two weeks out from my mid-term, with a ton of vocabulary and reading to review before my ICU rotation begins this week, and all I want to do is watch movies and be lazy-- I don't think that's going to happen.

Why Sundays Suck

Another whirlwind weekend ended too soon. Not even enough time to come up with a decent picture for this post! Friday night I arrived home excited to see Marc-- unfortunately he was absolutely exhausted after a week of long days and early mornings at work and fell asleep very early. I stayed up late catching up on Greys Anatomy and feeling sorry for myself.

Saturday morning I had my first ever facial-- it was amazing and way better than any massage I've ever had. I got a shoulder massage (where 90% of my tension goes) plus glorious hot towels put on my face and lots of lovely moisturizing creams rubbed into my skin, all of which left me soft and glowing. I'm definitely going to be doing that again!

I picked up Marc from playing football with some of his grad-school friends, and we dashed home to change and head back to Seattle for my friend Erik's wedding. I've known Erik since 8th grade, and in fact he was my very first boyfriend when we were both 14. It was wonderful to see him so happy, and great to see old friends. I would have liked to stay longer, but with never enough time in the weekend, Marc and I left the reception not long after the cake was cut and went home to watch movies and have quiet time together.

Too soon Sunday had rolled around again. I am coming to hate Sundays. We spent the morning doing errands, going to the grocery store, buying grass seed to try and keep our hateful lawn from dying completely, the post office and the library. I spent the rest of the afternoon making pea soup and chicken breasts, chopping vegetables and preparing for the week with breaks to to laundry and pick tomatoes from my garden. I planned on leaving at about seven to head back to Dupont, but actually left around eight.

Every Sunday Marc semi-jokingly tries to get me to stay Sunday night and drive down Monday morning. To allow for traffic and to come to the house before I have to be at the hospital in order to drop off my food and other stuff I would have to get up at 4am and I'm simply unwilling to do this. But it still makes me feel guilty for not grabbing hold of every spare second we have together. Every Sunday night that moment when I see his sad eyes as I drive away is the worst part of the week. This was the first time I didn't cry at least. I suppose it's ridiculous given that we get to see each other every weekend and I know people who are forced apart for much longer periods, but I still hate it. (But not so much that I want to drive three hours every day!) I am grateful I am able to stay so close to the hospital and all week long I'm glad I am here-- but Sunday nights are not my favorite part of the week. Sundays in general are stressful and busy and I never get everything done.

Every week I get here and find I've forgotten something. Last week I forgot a number of food items. This week I forgot my headphones which means either a trip to the Best Buy in Lacey or a week of no music at the gym or while I study. And now I need to get to bed, before another week of learning inpatient nutrition and trying to get myself back in shape-- I've only been making it to the gym two or three days a week and this week I'm determined to make that four.

Caffeine Junky?

I think I'm becoming a caffeine person three weeks into my internship. It was a hard adjustment in the second week when we started having to be there at 8 instead of 10 after a summer of being lazy, and I started drinking green tea every morning. Then I started bringing tea into the hospital with me because I didn't have time to finish it in the morning and gradually that increased to a second giant mug of tea in the day. Then J. (a fellow intern) and I started going to get coffee in the afternoons because we can get it free after lunch but you don't want to venture into the cafeteria alone because the men who work in the kitchen like to tease and it can be overwhelming without backup. At first I got mostly decaf with a splash of caffeinated, but then one day there wasn't any decaf. Fast forward to yesterday when I had no caffeine and had a headache all day. Now two mugs of green tea and half a cup of coffee is hardly breaking any caffeine records, but if you haven't noticed by now, I'm super sensitive to everything. I have also discovered that Marc drinks 32 oz of coffee every day at work, but some how does not suffer headaches on the weekend when he has none. Mysterious.

I have been doing a good job with self care, caffeine not withstanding. Since there are no grocery stores close to where I am staying I make all my food ahead and eat the same thing every day: smoothie for breakfast, chicken salad with some kind of starch (rice, quinoa, potatoes) for lunch and some kind of legume soup for dinner (two weeks ago it was lentil, last week it was split pea, this week I'm making chili). I eat fruit and larabars between, and I admit I have been eating chocolate covered almonds from the bulk bin, but it occurred to me if I don't buy them I'll be forced into sugar-free week days since I don't really have access to anything without a longish drive so this week I'm doing without those. I also got a one week trial to a gym that is very close and went after I got off three days this week-- next week I hope to increase that to four days after I sign up. I'm definitely getting 7 hours of sleep, and often I get 8. With the increase in activity I feel like I need more and I need to try and make myself go to bed sooner.

It's a weird alternate reality I live in five days a week, and then I come crashing back into my life for 48 hours, with barely enough time to catch my breath before I'm off again. Strangely I miss Marc most when I first get home and it all hits me, as if I have been suppressing or ignoring it all week long, only to have it rise up and out when I come home again.

I had a lazy, rainy day yesterday. Marc and I stuck close to each other and did errands and watched movies. I haven't gotten any homework done yet, which means today like most Sundays will be frantic as I try to get work done, make soup and chicken and quinoa to last me the week, do more errands and try to drive back to Dupont before it gets too late.

Yay chickens

To get this picture I had to eat larabars for breakfast this morning because I was short one green egg and when I went out there Kitty was busy sitting on her egg and I didn't want to bother her. So we had eggs for lunch instead.

This morning we went to the Seattle Tilth Harvest festival where we saw a one year old Speckled Sussex chicken-- the same kind Roxie is, and were a little stunned by how big she is going to get. We are hoping the other chickens don't all get that big or else their house is going to be too small!

This morning we found out Marc's dad could be in the hospital in LA for quite a while longer, so we may be planning a weekend trip to LA soon. It frustrates me because I hear third-hand generalizations about his diagnosis in lay terms, when if I knew the medical diagnosis I could understand what that means a lot better than my family does. I wish he were here where we could go visit him and advocate for him-- I got a little emotional the other day when I watched a patient consultation at Madigan with a man who had had a heart attack and was in the hospital. Even though his situation was different than my father in law's, it reminded me of him and made me sad. I keep demanding Marc ask him about his diet and if they are giving him supplemental nutrition (like Ensure which is absolute crap but he needs protein to heal and that's what hospitals have). He said he's eating but the portions are tiny and he's still hungry. My guess is they are giving him the cardiac diet which is probably designed for people who need to lose weight-- he needs to gain it and he needs enough calories to heal from his wounds. I wish I could read his chart and see what they are doing for him.

This is my first weekend home where I only get two days. It's already near 2pm and I have to get started on my mountain of homework. If I want to have any hope of exercising and getting enough sleep during the week I need to get my homework done now.

Bastyr friends-- I am missing you....

Labor Day Labors

I had a long, but not terribly relaxing holiday weekend. Things at my weekday house are very simplified—I am here to do my internship and things related to it. There are few distractions. When I got home felt very anxious about all the things I should be doing. I had a TON of homework, but when I was doing it I felt like I should be spending time with Marc. Every break from homework I took there was laundry to do, grocery shopping and preparing for the week, organization I should have done before my internship started etc—more things to do then there was time to do them, which put me on edge. I did manage to get the majority of my homework (which is due Friday) done—I would have had it all done except we had a project comparing the ADA’s Evidence Based Library with the Cochrane database and I couldn’t figure out how to find what I needed in Cochrane without a password—emails from my fellow interns told me I wasn’t the only one having problems. I also have this compulsion to get ahead on my homework because we have so many big things due later on in the quarter that I don’t want things to start piling up—so anxiety reigned all weekend.

As I was getting ready to leave I was very sad to leave Marc and the chix—but as soon as I got here I felt calm and focused again.

Marc did a nice job this weekend building gates so that our yard, which was previously 80% fenced is now completely fenced. Our next door neighbor told us our chickens had been going on adventures through not only his yard, but the next yard over and while he found it amusing, we were worried about a dog getting them. Now they are (hopefully) contained to their own yard.

I did more food preparation this week. On Sunday I made a whole chicken, which I still have meat leftover from. I also made bone broth from the bones and then made a lentil soup out of that today—it made a ton of soup—I brought half with me and the other half went in the freezer at home. I pre-cut raw veggies for Marc and I, as well as melon and strawberries. I also harvested kale and collards from my garden so I can have more greens than just salad this week. I probably brought too much food this time, since once again I am only here four days, but eventually I’ll figure out the system. I felt like I was bringing a ton of luggage again this time, but really half of it was groceries and another quarter was toiletries like shampoo, makeup and a hairdryer that I use both places.

I did manage to get to the gym twice this weekend. I haven’t been doing very high intensity workouts, mostly because I have been out of the habit of going for about a month now and I can’t afford to burn myself out—once I get used to the habit again I’ll increase the intensity. I am looking into a gym down here, but will only sign up if it isn’t expensive and I can do a three month membership since I have no idea where I’ll be next semester.

I'm happy to be home again for a long weekend after my first week of rotation. In honor of my homecoming one of the aracauna chickens (either Muffin or Kitty) laid her first egg! I can tell because it is green. So we are up to three of the five older chickens laying-- I expect they will all be laying by end of October, and the little kids are due to lay in November, though by then it will be dark and so we might not get much from them.

I was a little worried my chickens with their little pea brains would forget me in four days, but when I came around into the yard last night they all came running. I nearly cried.

Yesterday I left the hospital at 4:45 and arrived home at 6:15. I actually didn't hit much traffic-- fortunately it seemed most of the Seahawks traffic was going South because Southbound traffic was barely moving. If Northbound had been that bad it would have taken me three hours. I am so grateful I don't have to make that drive every day!

I woke up today to find I lost a couple pounds-- while I'm not unhappy to see the scale move in that direction, I know I haven't been eating enough, mainly because the whole week before I left for my internship I was so stressed I couldn't eat much and so I didn't plan my food very well for the week and pretty much ate beans, rice and lettuce for lunch and dinner for several days. (I was snacking on a few chocolate covered almonds, but apparently that didn't matter). I also am not getting enough exercise-- I'm going to look into the local gym when I get back down there on Tuesday, though since I'm expecting to have 10 hour days this week I'm not entirely sure when I'll have time. I need to plan my menus a little more thoughtfully now that my appetite is better.

We still have family medical drama-- Marc's dad is still in the hospital, though they moved him to a different LA hospital so he could get more specialty care. He had a heart attack, flesh eating bacterial infection, and a big absess between his heart and lungs they were afraid was a tumor but fortunately turned out not to be. In order to do a biopsy of the absess they had to collapse one of his lungs. It's scary and hard for all of us, but I am so thankful that he is getting good medical care and that things weren't even worse. Hopefully some time next week Marc will be able to fly down to LA and bring him home.