How school stole christmas...

I used to really like Christmas. Five years ago when we first bought our house and I wasn't in school I went crazy buying decorations and covering every inch of our house in festiveness. Since then, it's always a struggle. If school got out around the beginning of the month I could rally and it would be fine. Unfortunately, I tend to be done with school around the 18th of the month, at which point I am completely exhausted, my house is a total mess, and I have not done a single thing to get ready for Christmas. I really want to like Christmas, but I liken it to getting invited to Disneyland when you have the stomach flu-- any other time it would be really fun, but it's just hard to enjoy it when you aren't feeling up to it.

This is where I find myself today. I am so tired I can barely move, my house is a mess and I haven't bought a single gift. I did try very hard to go shop for at least Marc's family this morning, since we are celebrating Christmas with them this Sunday. I went to four stores looking for the sweatshirt Marc wants and did not find it, nor did I find the airpopper his sister wants. By that time I was nearly delirious in my exhaustion and came home to lay on the couch and recuperate before I do more errands.

I really want to send Christmas cards, reorganize my entire house, put up the tree, find the perfect gift for everyone and do lots of baking-- but right now I don't have the energy for any of it, which is terribly frustrating. Last year I didn't decorate for Christmas at all-- I was too tired and thought, well we are going to Oregon for Christmas anyway-- but we ended up being home due to the snow with no tree and we felt like we missed Christmas entirely. Somehow I need to find the energy but it's not going to be today.

Not exactly low-maintenance: why I'm not a typical Seattle girl

I have been pondering lately why it is that Seattle girls are so frequently low-maintenance. The stereotypical Seattle girl wears jeans, super comfy if somewhat ugly shoes, Northface or similar jacket and not a stitch of makeup. In my rotations the past couple of weeks I saw a lot of women wearing very (suprisingly) stylish, work appropriate clothing, had good hair, but still not even a swipe of mascara. This phenomenon fascinates me. One of my friends from grad school (who is originally from the East Coast but has lived a number of years in Seattle) said she thought I was probably from the East Coast when she first met me because I didn't look like a Seattleite.

I was getting into my mom's makeup when I was very little (though she's never worn much makeup either so I don't really get it from her). From the time I was in 6th grade I have worn makeup almost every day of my life. I've gotten better as there was a time I didn't go anywhere except the gym without at least mascara. I admit I have applied makeup in a campground bathroom, worn it hiking, skiing, to the beach etc. now I will often run weekend errands to the grocery store, library etc without it, and skip it for the beach but that's about it. In the summer when I'm a little tan, I do wear significantly less makeup (it melts!) but I still do at least mascara and lip gloss, and most days a lot more. I probably apply 9 or 10 things to my face in the morning. I use mostly natural mineral makeup and except for my mascara I try to avoid parabens and other chemicals (I can't find an acceptable natural substitute for Diorshow mascara, sorry.)

It's not that I think I look horrible without it, but wearing it is so much a part of who I am I feel uncomfortably naked not wearing it. It's like a fun art project every morning I get to wear, and as a bonus it makes me look better. I love hanging around in Sephora playing with all the fun toys they have in there. Now that I think about it other women must be wearing makeup since Sephora hasn't gone out of business, but I don't see these people often. Only one of my childhood girlfriends regularly wears makeup-- everyone else will maybe wear it to a wedding or similar event.

I do feel a little weird sometimes being the only woman in the room with a full face of makeup. I was sitting in rounds at SCCA this week and looking around the room full of doctors, physician assistants, nurses and dietitians and not a one had even mascara on. No one I saw in a full day at UW Medical Center appeared to have any on either. It gets to be like wearing a cocktail dress and finding everyone else at the party is wearing jeans.

This phenomenon is very much a Pacific Northwest thing. When I went to college in Southern California I had the shock of my life when girls in my dorm got up really early to do their hair and put on tiny outfits before their 7am classes. I didn't really fit in there either-- I wore jeans and t-shirts every where instead of short skirts and heels. San Diego was bad enough-- I can't describe to you the extreme grooming practices of women in Los Angeles. The older women get the more they seem to be going for a plastic Barbie appearance, so I know it can go too far.

I'm not judging my fellow Seattle girls-- I know they could no sooner be comfortable wearing makeup every day than I would be not wearing it, I just wonder why we have this cultural phenomemon, and how I missed the memo when I was 12? Is it the rain? The outdoorsy activities? Water proof mascara does exist! Someone explain it to me.

Relax and Reload

It is SOOOO nice to be home again. Last Friday I packed up my car, washed sheets, cleaned bathrooms and left my temporary home for the last time this year. Over the weekend I worked 16 hours at Ski Fever handing out Larabar samples. It was a pretty boring event-- we were told to expect 30,000 people and there couldn't have been more than 4,000. It turned out to be a great event for me as I got to chatting with the Chiropractor's office that was stationed next to us. As it turns out their office is thinking of bringing on a Nutritionist a couple days a week. Long story short, we hit it off and I went to the office last Wednesday to see the space and to get to know them a little better. Some time next year I may be setting up private practice in Kirkland-- I'll keep you posted!

Almost immediately after my meeting Wednesday I came down with a cold. Amazingly I went about 12 weeks working in medical settings around very sick people and I finally got sick sitting at home by myself (actually, I probably picked it up at Ski Fever). I fortunately did not seem to have the flu, and just spent a few days with a cold. As always when I get sick it started in my lungs-- ever since I had bronchitis a few years ago every illness settles there. We spent Thanksgiving with Marc's family, which was fun, though exhausting for me since I was not feeling well. I had to cancel doing product demos and dinner with an old friend on Saturday. I spent Friday and Saturday laying on the couch in sweatpants watching movies and bad TV (don't the networks know people are at home the day after Thanksgiving?! There was nothing on!) I'm feeling mostly better today and excited for my rotation this week at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. I get to sleep in my own bed, carpool with Marc and learn about oncology-- a perfect two weeks for sure!

Above are my silly girls-- they are difficult as always to capture because they move faster than my camera. I guess I need a high speed lens...

The return of Fatigue

During grad school, off and on I would be sidled with deep fatigue that felt as if I was exhausted all the way to by bones. It came and went and treatment for both anemia and adrenal fatigue helped to eradicate it. Now it is back. Not all of the time, but some days, especially when I get a minute to hold still it returns. Wednesday I had the day off and had plans to get a great deal of work done on a presentation I have to do next week. I was fairly unproductive and felt like I could barely move much of the day-- yet yesterday I was buzzing around the hospital as if it had never happened. I also had beef for dinner and leftovers for lunch yesterday, making it murky as to whether I'm iron deficient or my adrenals are suffering.

The case for anemia: last year when I was anemic I took iron for two months and when my ferritin got just barely in the normal range (normal is between 15-150 or 200 depending on the lab-- mine started at 7 and went up to 35) my doctor said I should stop taking iron. Taking it made me feel immediately better, which the doctor said couldn't be due to the iron (apparently taking iron doesn't make you feel better right away). I think that when there is a range that is so huge for "normal" that maybe being just barely in the normal range is not going to work for every one. Plus, I have not been eating much iron lately (we have beef maybe once every other week, mainly because it is both expensive and because I don't have time to go to PCC very often and I refuse to eat it if it isn't grass fed), and being a girl, I lose iron.

The case for adrenal fatigue: I am not anywhere near as stressed doing this internship as I was in grad school, except that this fatigue started right after my two weeks in ICU hell, which consisted of very little sleep and a lot of stress. I also have been drinking coffee every day, and now I'm drinking it on the weekends too because avoiding it gives me a terrible headache and I don't have time to detox off it right now. Not so good for the adrenals.

So for now, I'm taking my adrenal support, taking iron and trying not to over do it. The fatigue is annoyingly getting in the way of me being consistent working out-- last week in honor of my birthday I went to the gym 5 days (it helped that my rotation didn't start until 9am so I could go in the morning). This week I've been too tired when I've had time.

The other thing that's weird about this term is I somehow, effortlessly learned portion control. I can not eat more than a small portion at a time, even of sweet things which have always been my achilles heel. The only thing I can think of, is that at the very beginning of the semester and again during ICU I was so stressed I lost my appetite entirely and it shrunk my stomach. At any rate I'm definitely not complaining.

I also have been having flare-ups of my TMJ, which usually rarely bothers me. Last night after a tense drive home I took an aleve and spent the evening holding ice to my face. If I had real health insurance I'd see a doctor, but since I don't I'm going to have to figure something else out. It is definitely tension related though.

I've been home more than away this week, which made for some stressful drives. I had Wednesday off and today class was cancelled, so I drove both ways to the hospital yesterday-- I'm so glad I don't do that every day! Three hours in the car is exhausting! After next week I move home, maybe for good, but at least until January-- I'm still not sure where my rotations will be next semester.

Older and wiser

Tomorrow is my 30th birthday. I've been trying to pin down for a few weeks now how I feel about this, searching the corners of my psyche for an impending breakdown, but finding...nothing. I am at peace with this transition in my life. I know that birthdays that end in zero are often traumatic for people, reminding them perhaps of their own mortality and of time passing. Besides, as my husband pointed out to me, you either get older or you die, so given the choice, getting older is good!

The year I turned 25 my dad turned 50 and we jokingly agreed that we would stay those respective ages. When I turned 27 I did have a mini freak out, because in my mind I was 25 for two years, so when I hit 27 I felt as though I had missed a year. Though I facetiously invited people to my 5th annual 25th birthday party last year, I learned from that experience to own my age and live in the moment, rather than to try and hold on to time gone by, because you miss things in the moment when you are holding on to the past.

In some ways it is a tremendous relief to enter my thirties. I was never a very typical twenty something-- I have been married since 6 weeks after my 21st birthday. I worked multiple jobs through college, rarely went out, am not much of a drinker and would rather hang out with friends at home than in a crowded bar. I always kind of felt like something was wrong with me and I somehow could not quite identify with my peer group on this level. Now I am entering a decade of my life where many of my friends are in the swing of their careers and starting to have children and I feel like my life goals are more in line with those of my peers. In some ways the struggle of my twenties through college and grad school have all lead up to this moment. In six months I will finally be done with higher education and can at last GET ON WITH IT and get a job, start a career and have babies.

****Yes!!!-- I am looking forward to my 30s. *****

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.