Brainphreak

We finally picked out the video camera that Sarah “bought” for me for Christmas.

Let’s see if this works!

Dan

Here’s my new idea: the media should have to represent, in minutes aired, an amount of coverage proportionate to the percentage of people represented by that viewpoint. For example, for every 2 parents who speak out against immunizing children secondary to fears about vaccines, 98 parents would then have to be interviewed discussing how they followed the typical schedule and had all of the required/recommended vaccines by age 5.

Yes, this would make my job easier, but I’m also thinking of the scared new parents with tiny babies who come see me. These folks are hopped up, and it’s because Jenny McCarthy says they should be. ( A co-worker assures me that the answers to life’s great mysteries are written inside Ms. McCarthy’s breast implants, and that’s why we all pay so much attention to her.) If the information provided people were actually, quite literally, balanced, these folks would have a better, more tangible idea of how great the danger is.

This works for other stuff, too. The war in Iraq springs to mind, but I don’t have numbers for that like I do for pediatrics. Numbers like this: in the measles outbreak of 1989-91, 11,000 children were hospitalized and 125 died. Number of those hospitalizations and deaths that could have been prevented? 11,000 and 125, respectively.

Vaccines have not been proven to cause autism, diabetes, or SIDS. Ignorance, on the other hand, has been reliably and predictably related to irrational fear for centuries.

When I looked in my fridge and freezer last night to figure out what to have for dinner, I found leftover ham from Easter and most of a bag of baby spinach. Based on those two ingredients, I created a delicious soup loosely based on a Rachael Ray recipe I like. I presume I’m not the only one with Easter ham hanging out in my freezer, so I thought I’d share the wealth.

Tasty Springtime Soup
3 tbsp Olive oil
1 medium size yellow onion, diced
1 cup diced cooked ham
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 lemon
Tabasco sauce
6 cups chicken broth
2 15 oz. cans cannellini beans
1/2 box of rotini
1 bag of baby spinach
1 cup dry white wine

Heat the oil in a stock pot, add the onions and cook until they’re translucent
Add the ham, garlic, zest of the lemon, and 4-5 shakes of Tabasco sauce
Pour in the chicken broth, squeeze the lemon and add the juice to the broth, rinse and drain the beans and add them in
Bring the soup to a boil and add the pasta, cook for amount of time indicated (about ten minutes)
Add the baby spinach and white wine, boil for about 3 more minutes, just enough to wilt the spinach
Serve with crusty bread

We’ve had a little daycare-related drama recently. Last Thursday, when I picked Max up from school, there was a note on his daily sheet saying “Max was hitting a lot this afternoon.” I was not pleased. We had a talk about how we treat our buddies and being nice on the way home. I hoped that was the end of it. Sadly, no. On Friday, we were told he had bitten one of his friends. I was heartbroken. My sweet little boy wasn’t being sweet anymore. What gives? When we got home, I burst into tears, much to Max’s alarm.
“Mom? What happened?”
“Mom’s sad, baby.”
“Why you are sad, Mom?” (sic)
“Because it makes me sad when you get in trouble.”
Needless to say, I showed up at school on Monday feeling very anxious. Turns out, he was good. Ms. Tara said he was perfect all day. I told her we’d had a big talk about it, which he’d evidently told her as well.
“Did he tell you I cried?” I asked.
“No, but he said he was going to be good so his mom would be happy.”
Little sweetheart.

Theo and I are home today, not because the powers that be awarded me a much-deserved day off, but because he got booted from daycare for a 103 temp yesterday and can’t go back for 24 hours. I’m definitely enjoying our time together. We’ve cleaned the house a great deal, including getting the basement picked up for Aunt Emmy, who’s moving in tonight, and pulling up the dead stuff in my windowboxes in preparation for spring planting. He also helped me buy the perfect sundress for Costa Rica. The young man’s taste is impeccable. However, I’ve just about had it with the Sheldon family being sick all the time. We had a hell of a winter, culminating when Theo’s eardrum perforated and snotty pus stuff oozed out, so I was really looking forward to spring and the advent of healthier times. Then last week, Max climbed to the top of the playground structure at daycare, laid down and went to sleep. When his greatly alarmed teacher (unresponsive 2 year old on the playground, you’d wig out, too) checked his temperature, it was 102. He looked like a dishrag when we brought him home, but never developed any symptoms besides fever. I even sent him to the doctor the next day for a throat culture, just in case it was strep, but it was just a virus. A virus he gleefully passed on to his baby brother. Unfortunately, Dan is out of town this week, so I stayed home with the T-Bird. He’s still his sweet little self, perhaps a bit sleepier. I’d like to think that this is it for a while on the boys getting sick, but at this point that doesn’t seem likely.

First off, not me. While back in Boston for Theo’s baptism and the Otherworld benefit ball, I received a very powerful reminder of who the old me is. Kristi had put together a presentation featuring quotes from staff members regarding what we love about each other. The one about me mentioned my contagious enthusiasm and consistent good nature. Oh yeah, I remember that girl. The one I haven’t been for about nine months now. Then Pastor Pam instructed us in her sermon on Sunday to “remember who you are.” Finally, on returning to work Monday morning, the church sign at 93rd and Pulaski that I always check for its pithy quotes said “Attitudes are contagious. Is yours worth catching?” Message received. So my current priority is on being the old me. My soul just got a makeunder, because the new, toxic, cranky me was not panning out as well as one might have expected.

As for my babies, they’re growing fast and furious. Theo can now stand on his own for as long as he cares to, though he hasn’t taken many steps yet (just one as far as I know). He was proud enough of this accomplishment to climb onto one of the kid-sized chairs in the living room and stand up on that. Showoff. He looked kind of like a prairie dog popping his little head up high to look around. We promptly ushered him off the chair, and then I tried to recreate the scene to take a picture of it, safety be hanged! In other news, Max has now peed in his potty twice! Both times I invited him to sit on his potty and then busied myself with other things, so I think he prefers to go when the pressure’s off. The first time, he went into the bathroom by himself and came out a few minutes later announcing “I’m done!” Sure you are, thought I, on to the next activity. It was only half an hour later when I went to use the bathroom that I discovered he truly had done something. There was much celebration and rewarding with jellybeans, topped off with a call to Grandma and Granddad (his idea) to leave a message on their voicemail, “Hi Grandma Daddad I peed the potty got a jellybean. I love you. Bye.” Thank God the end of diapers is actually starting to come into view. I thought we’d never get there.

Also in other small tidbits: I got a new treadmill in the hopes of getting some exercise on a regular basis. It’s shiny and fancy and I like it a great deal.
We’re going to Costa Rica in May, which will be my first vacation since September. I cannot wait. I really need the break, and I will not make the mistake of spacing my vacations so far apart next year. Also, the boys got their passports, which are too cute for words, particularly Theo’s “you’re taking me where?” face in the photo.
I’m almost a senior resident. This intern year has flown by, and I can’t wait for it to be over. I don’t kid myself that being one step up from the bottom of the totem pole is going to solve all my problems, but I’ve been assured that quality of life goes up with the onset of second year. July 1st, everybody. Just keep me in your thoughts until then.

Finally, if you’re reading this, you’re most likely a loved one of mine. Please know that you are in my heart all the time. Updates with news, recommendations, or random thoughts are always appreciated, even if I don’t write back as much as I’d like. I would love to hear from everybody, and hopefully you’ll be hearing more from me as the sun comes out, both literally and figuratively, here in Chicago.

Ok, I got up at 4:30, so I think that might be what’s really bugging me this morning…

Well, I’m in the NICU now, which I was really dreading. You can ask Dan about my behavior the night before I started. In a word, cranky. In two more words, near tears. I just didn’t want to go back to any NICU with the experiences I had with my babies. It’s my second day now, and it hasn’t been that bad. I don’t spend a lot of time with the patients or their families, since the intern’s job is to do a whole lot of paperwork. The babies remind me of Max when he was so tiny (less so of Theo, because he wasn’t as tiny), but in a good way. They have that preemie smell.

Here’s my beef, though. This morning I was doing my physical exams to prep for rounds. The first baby I went to see is a little guy who weighs less than two pounds and has a very sick heart. As I approached his isolette to check him out, I realized I was looking around for the nurse to ask permission, a habit that’s ingrained from when my boys were in the nursery. That’s when it hit me: as a jackass stranger intern, I’m allowed to pop open the isolette and hassle the baby as much as I want, as the baby’s MOTHER, I had to ask permission to touch them. I don’t think that’s too cool.

Max passed a couple of life events recently that I feel should qualify as milestones, though they’re not typically considered as such. Number one: first bite injury. Evidently, he was sitting down to breakfast at daycare, and the little girl next to him hauled off and chomped him on the cheek. The daycare workers aren’t allowed to tell you who did it, probably because they know I’m likely to bite back in defense of my golden-headed sweet pea, but I found myself staring down all the little girls when I picked him up from school in the hopes that the offender would crack under pressure. No dice. Dan was out of town and begged me to document the event with photos. Since he took the camera with him, I had to take them with my new phone, so if I ever figure out how to get them from my phone to the internet, I’ll post them. They’re very dramatic, made more so because he was fighting me on having his picture taken.

Milestone number two was, uh, number two. In the tub. On the plus side, this means he’s getting ready for potty training. On the minus side…need I really explain the minus side? Fortunately, I’d been reading some educational materials in clinic about potty training, and I knew how to respond. I don’t feel the need to go into it all here, since that qualifies as an anecdote of the “your children aren’t that interesting” variety. You’re welcome.

I want to preface this story with the vital piece of information that Dan read about Aldi grocery stores on the internet. Growing up, these were the most ghetto grocery stores, but he really wanted to check it out. It smells in there. It smelled back in the day, and it still smells. I gave it a shot for his edification, but I’m not going back.

Anyhoo, we were enjoying a very delicious dinner of Aldi frozen salmon, cooked with fresh herbs and lemon, broccoli and pattypan squash from the farmer’s market in sage butter, and something else that was very very good (this was a couple of weeks ago now). After dinner, Dan started hacking and coughing, making that sound like “kack” that never bodes well. I asked him if he had a hairball. He said, “I think I have a sage-ball. There’s something caught in the back of my throat.” We watched a movie, Dan kacking away the whole time. I feared that he would be emotionally scarred by the experience and never let me cook with sage again.

Bedtime rolled around, and Dan shut himself in the master bath, seemingly to have some privacy while he dealt with his pharynx. After much kacking and no small amount of gagging, a muffled voice came from behind the door, “It’s a fishbone.”

“WHAT?”

He came out and described for me his experience of having tweezed out, with thumb and forefinger, a two inch fishbone which he discovered bobbing at the back of his throat when he looked in the mirror. My response to this was twofold:
1) This is why it’s important to chew your food
2) We’re not going back to Aldi

I forgot to describe what it’s like teaching the med students. In a word: satisfying. It lets me know that I’ve actually learned something in the intervening years since I was in their shoes. Also, they help me get my work done. The best thing about them, though, is that when I say things, they write them down. I’ve never had this happen to me before. It’s very flattering. Everyone should have one of these.