From the Horse’s Mouth, Part II

December 12, 2008, I finished my first semester of medical school. It was not as bad as I had imagined, but not as easy as I was secretly hoping. All told, I still want to be a doctor when I grow up.

A couple of weeks into the semester, I realized that medical school (as well as any other intense training, I am sure) is all about how you deal with stress. It is no wonder I was asked in different interviews what I did to manage stress. You really get to know someone when you see how they handle stress. I saw people crying in class the first week, I saw a lot of people ping-ponging their stress away, and of course, there were some Jessie Spanos thrown in there.

Medical school is also all about how well you can put things behind you. I am referring to both the good and the bad. If you do well on a test, that is great, woop-de-do, you have another one next week you need to start studying for. The same goes for if you do poorly on a test. Put it behind you, it shouldn’t dictate how your next one goes. A little perspective goes a long way.

When people tell you medical school is like drinking from a fire hose, they are right. There were times that I was sure we covered an entire semester’s worth of information in a matter of a few weeks. Luckily the tests came often, so we were only tested over 2, maybe 3 weeks’ worth of info. I found that handling the load was similar to callings in the church. As you try your best and work hard, you find you can do more and more. Not because it gets easier, but because your abilities grow.

For people who care, this last semester I took Anatomy, Biochemistry, Histology, Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine, and Diagnostic Imaging.

Anatomy was a really challenging and rewarding class. I liked the dissecting and have found myself very proficient at cadaver skinner. This class was all about putting in the time, and a small group and I found that Saturday morning at 5 am was a very productive time in the lab.

Biochemistry was a little different than the class I took at BYU. Here, there were 4 teachers who each kinda taught their specialties. This meant that instead of straight-up biochem, there was a lot of cell biology, molecular biology and a LOT of nutrition, along with some of the standard biochem (krebs cycle, glycolysis, gluconeogenesis, etc). This was a good thing and a bad thing in that it made it easier for me this semester, but didn’t prepare me a well as it could have for boards.

Histology was an interesting class because even though it was fewer credit hours than anatomy and biochem, we had to spend more time outside of class to prepare for it. This is because the professor is a law unto himself and teaches like it. This can be very frustrating (to say the least), but once you make peace with the idea, the class is very enjoyable and the professor is a nice/funny guy who honestly wants us to learn the subject.

Osteopathic Manipulative Medicine (OMM) is the training that I get as a DO that makes me different than an MD-other than that, the training is basically identical. In lay-terms (but not exactly), OMM is a combination of massage therapy, chiropractic and voodoo medicine. Just kidding about the voodoo. OMM is a number of techniques I can use in addition to traditional treatments. For example, if a person has pain in a shoulder that doesn’t indicate surgery, but is a bunch of nerve/tendon/muscle pain, instead of just prescribing medication, I could also use OMM to try to restore range of motion, loosen up tightness and help with circulation. This may not be the answer to the patient’s problem, but then again, it might just take care of everything. In this way, OMM is another tool in the proverbial toolbox Osteopathic physicians can use. Some things I learned this semester were techniques to treat ear infection pain, mechanical problems in respiration (rib movement), muscle spasms in the back and neck, tennis elbow, carpal tunnel syndrome, and range of motion problems in the neck, spine, hips, knees, and ankles. I really found this class fascinating, and I am looking forward to 3 more semesters. One big bonus from this class was that we were able to see and treat real patients (faculty and staff) in the first semester of medical school. In my mind, putting your hands on a patient and treating them this early in medical education teaches you how to be a doctor as well as or better than all the book stuff I learned.

Diagnostic Imaging (DI) was a once-a-week, one credit class that was a basic, first-look at reading X-rays, MRI’s, and CT’s. This is the second year they have taught it, so it is still in the development stage, but it will, I think, give me a little bit of a head start when it comes to making sense of Radiology.

OMM and DI were both taught by practicing DO’s (as opposed to PhD’s). This was nice because every once in a while the teachers would stop their lectures and give us an I-know-what-you-are-going-through-and-it-gets-better-than-this speech. This was a nice show of empathy that we didn’t exactly get from our other professors.

Along with my reporting on my semester, I also want to say what a trooper Faith has been. Most of the time I am gone in the morning by 8 and get home about 8 (or later), and not able to help much with the boys, but she is handling med school wonderfully. I couldn’t imagine trying this without a supportive family and am grateful for her and the boys.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

family picture

a couple of weeks ago my mother-in-law emailed all of the family members asking for a family picture that she could use for their christmas card this year. i had high hopes of asking a friend to come over on a sunday afternoon to snap our picture in front of our nice green holly bush in the front yard. i should have known that wouldn't really work because right when we get home from church andy goes to bed and benny gets a little something to eat followed by "crib time" (not to be confused with nap time). during the week spencer is so busy and never home during the day. the boys are almost always in bed by the time he gets home. so no luck during the week either for a picture.

i had all of these things running through my head and nothing ever came with them. i was on the phone with lilly ann some days later and we ended up deciding that she would use the picture from after spencer's white coat ceremony. not a bad picture. there are two different options: benny looking away from the camera while andy's actually looking or benny looking and andy's head turned to the side. definitely something to work with.

the evening after i talked to lilly ann, spencer got home much earlier than i thought he would (i don't even remember why). amazingly enough, i thought, "family picture!" so, we set the camera up on top of our tv, sat ourselves on the couth in the family room and did 10 timer pictures. i am not at all disappointed with the results. i'll spare you and just show the favorite.


this is actually the cropped version. in the original you can barely see that benny's not wearing any pants. actually, the only thing he's wearing (besides his diaper) is the jacket you can see. of course there are problems with the picture stylistically (and the glare on my forehead), but for a spur-of-the-moment shot, i am thrilled!

*to dispel any doubts, we are expecting number three and we are very excited. i am about nine weeks along.

thing 3

coming june 2009.

yes on prop 8

*video added below*

i don't want to spend too much time on this, but because i've been meaning to say something for a while, i just need to get this done.

preserving the definition of marriage between man and a woman is important to me. if you have some time, you can check out my sister's blog here for all of the posts she's done on this topic. bethany is a resident of california and has been taking an active part in supporting proposition 8. you can also check out the protect marriage website here for more information and for the opportunity to donate.

i wanted to include this video with Elders Ballard and Cook from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. you can see the video and read the article with it here.

a new favorite

not quite finished, but...

i'm going to post the pictures anyway. it's now been about a year since i first started the project. i probably shouldn't admit that, but oh well. i've been really excited about this quilt for a long time. it's the first project for me that i've done in a really long time. i've had the fabrics since spring 2004. believe it or not, most of the fabrics for benny's quilt came from this stash. i didn't want andy's quilt (that he'll get some day) to look just like benny's, but i couldn't justify buying more fabric, so i decided that i needed to use the fabrics for what they were meant - a quilt for me.
several years ago i made a quilt for my good friend holland that was completely random. i had her pick the fabrics she wanted and the different blocks she wanted. she chose pinwheels, nine-patch, log cabin, and roman square. i added what i call four square (four equal squares) and some solid blocks. honestly, i thought it would turn out horribly. the colors holland picked out were some different browns, black, olive green, tan, and a brick red. i was so surprised when i ended up loving the quilt! i still think it's one of my best (even though there are several mistakes).
although the fabrics i have are quite different from the fabrics in holland's quilt, i used that as my guide. it's definitely not the same, but i did the same blocks (except for the solid). i'm very happy with how it turned out. i still need to pick out a back and quilt it, but it's such a feat having the top finished!

the pictures aren't the best - you can't see detail of the different fabrics. you can click on the pictures and they'll get bigger, but the quality gets worse. you'll get the idea.

two different views of the fabric selection. i actually used some of every fabric.

i got to this stage before we moved. i wanted to try to push and get the border done, but there was packing to be done.

and with the border that i finished last night.
i'll do the quilting myself (just straight lines - boy would i love to have a long-arm quilter and to know what to do with it!). i haven't exactly decided how, but the different kinds of squares will probably have their own pattern.

t-shirt pants take 2

the pictures aren't very good because of the flash reflecting on the mirror. i really like this pair. i think they turned out pretty well. i used xl shirts this time instead of medium and i really like the length. again, they're very comfortable.

t-shirt pants

*updated - see pictures below

i'll have to get pictures of my final product up later. i need spencer to take them. i found this website from a friend's blog. it's a tutorial on making cropped pants out of a t-shirt or t-shirts. i successfully completed my first pair yesterday - i would have gotten them done on monday, but i had sewing machine trouble. i never did understand the waistband instructions on the website, so i just did my own. and i added a drawstring to help them stay up. seriously, though, i'm ready to go out and get a bunch more cheap t-shirts to make more cropped pants. i'm really happy with how they turned out. especially for a couple of t-shirts.

happy sewing!

definitely not perfect, but they're made from a couple of cheap t-shirts.
oh, and maybe i shouldn't admit this, but i never could understand the directions on the website for the waist band so i did my own. i also added a draw-string that i made out of t-shirt.

i think my next project will be making matching jumpers for the boys out of the awesome drapes behind me. what do you think?

oatmeal...

yes, that's right. my two-year-old is grinning over his first bowl of oatmeal. i hope that continues.

(i did put a little brown sugar in it, but not much.)

brotherly love

i snapped these pictures the other day to give a copy of one to our neighbors bob and wilma. we've gone over there a couple of times just to visit. they seem to love it and so do we! whenever we go over benny walks right in and says, "hi, wilma." then he walks back to their family room to say, "hi, bob." then he asks wilma for the toys.

while we were there on monday bob got his camera out to snap a few pictures of benny holding andy. they were really cute. he said it would be forever before he got his film developed, so after the boys got up from their naps that afternoon i took some pictures of my own. they were so glad to get a copy. wilma told me it was going right up on their fridge. we are so glad to have such great neighbors!

home

i figured that it's probably time i write something about our new home - not just meaning the house we live in. we love it - both our house and oklahoma. i was asked recently if tulsa felt like home to me. after thinking about it for just a minute, i realized that it didn't ever not feel like home. after spencer left with the moving truck and all of our stuff, i couldn't wait to join him. when i get nervous/excited i tend to talk a lot. i tend to talk a lot on a normal basis, so when i get nervous/excited, you can only imagine what it's like. you'll have to ask my mother-in-law what it was like the couple of days we had before we flew out to join spencer and his dad.

i’m grateful to be in such a great place. it’s definitely hot and humid, but we’re starting to get used to that. we got here during the hottest time of year, so at least it will only get better! at least until next august.

we have absolutely wonderful neighbors. midge and betty on one side and bob and wilma on the other. very nice people who already love our boys!

yesterday was a really good day in terms of getting the house to feel more like ours. we got our piano and i got my spoon collection out and we hung those up above the piano. i also finally hung up all of our framed pictures in our family room. i had been wanting to do that for a really long time. i love pictures. i don’t know exactly what it is, but i can sit and look at family pictures for a long time. i just love looking at everyone who means so much to us. needless to say, having our family pictures up on our wall makes it feel so much more like home.

the gist of things is that things are going really well and we love it here.

our most recent acquisition

we are thrilled to be the owners of a piano! after looking on craigslist since before we even got here, i went on wednesday with the boys to test one out. it's not perfect, but for what we paid, it's phenomenal! now we just need to get it tuned.


benny loves it too. the bench is a little too high for him to climb on alone, which isn't a bad thing; although, he has not been pounding on the keys. he loves the music and tries to mimic what i play. sometimes he even sings while he's playing. i hope he always loves music.

one year later...

i know these are repeats from our sidebar, but i couldn't believe the jump between these two family pictures. almost exactly one year apart.

18 aug 2007: benny 13 months old, walking for just over a month. i was over 15 weeks pregnant with andy. spencer getting ready to start his second senior year at byu.


16 aug 2008: we have a two-year-old who loves to walk around narrating life. his beautiful hair is much thicker. our 6 1/2-month-old loves crawling all over the place and can now pull himself up on his feet. spencer starting his first year of medical school.

this might not be interesting to anyone but me. i love seeing how much we have changed and grown. i wonder how we'll change this year.

From the horse's mouth

Hi everybody. This is Spencer and I am pleased to announce that I am officially oriented as a medical student. All in all it was a pretty fun and informative week (August 11-16). I feel better prepared for class to start tomorrow, but I can't help but think they were just lulling us into a false sense of security before the flood gates open.

We started out orientation with a day at Camp Loughridge. I thought we were going to be doing summer camp type things like canoeing and singing Kumbaya around an open fire. Instead we took a personality test and discussed the different aspects of the test (like the differences between how introverts and extroverts think). It was fun to start to get to know people in my class. That night was a dinner sponsored by the Oklahoma Osteopathic Association of which I am now a member.

Tuesday was on campus where we were introduced to the faculty, got our lockers and ID badges.

Wednesday the professors who will be teaching the labs this semester (anatomy and histology) gave us a run-down of the class- this was kinda like the first day of class at BYU where usually you just get the syllabus and leave early. Then in the afternoon they talked to us about student well-being which was a lot of stress management, mental health and the trainer from the fitness center scared everybody. This is our trainer on campus.

Thursday morning was “Med School the Musical!” put on by a bunch of second years. It was a bunch of parody songs about studying, having no life, and everything else medical school. It was pretty entertaining and a nice break from the presentations up to that point. After a few more presentations from the second years, there was a big service project planned for the afternoon. The group I was with first went to an elementary school that the med school has kind of adopted. Some took height and weight measurements, and others cleaned up the playground. I was with a group that went to the kindergarten and read stories, played games, and did anything else the teachers wanted us to do to occupy the kids' time and energy. I read stories for an hour and a half to 3 of the boys in the class. You can tell that some of the kids come from unstable homes by the way they just couldn't get enough of the attention we were giving them (they told us that something like 80% of the school is on the federal lunch program). After school got out, we went to the food bank to sort cans. Last December, this food bank received millions of cans of food. These cans have been sitting on pallets since and most of them do not have labels on them. We all learned that you can still tell what in in the can if it does not have a label-there is a 3-letter code stamped on the cans identifying the contents. After we identified the contents, the food bank has their own labels that we would then put on the cans. It is a pretty monotonous and slow process, but I found it fascinating how this group of super-competitive med students dove right in, got organized and worked at this furious pace trying to see how many cans we could get through in the hour and a half we were there. I also got pretty good at spotting botulism and otherwise unusable cans.

Friday morning we toured the OSU Medical Center. We wont be there till 3rd and 4th year for rotations, but it was a nice change of scenery. It is a decent sized hospital and even though it is a pretty old building, it is still really nice.

Saturday was the White Coat Ceremony. This was a fairly short event where a few of the second year leaders said something, the president of the medical school spoke, then we all lined up and were called one at a time on stage to have our white coats put on us. It is kinda like a symbolic transition to the medical profession. It was nice, but still kinda felt like I was being lulled.

So that was my week. I feel very comfortable here and just know this is the right school for us. I am excited for the challenges ahead (that start tomorrow) and can't see myself doing anything else.

oklahoma, oklahoma, oklahoma, oklahoma!

well, we made it. there will be more at some point (with some pictures), but for now, we all survived the trip. there were some unexpected events, but everyone got through it. i'm typing from the far corner or our bed - the only place in the house we can pick up an internet signal. ours will be hooked up on friday. expect more some time after that.

*the title of this post is a quote from "dirty rotten scoundrels." a good movie if you have the chance to see it.

i was tagged

by my friend dianne. i'm finally getting around to it.

3 joys, 3 fears, 3 goals, 3 current obsessions, and 3 random facts. all about me.

3 joys:
spencer's smile. especially when he's looking at one of the boys. it really makes me happy.
my little boys. i really couldn't ask for two better boys than benny and anderson.
music (usually broadway). especially when i'm doing dishes.

3 fears:
spiders.
needing to use our health insurance (for something major).
when i die i'll go to heaven, god sneezes, and i don't know what to say.

3 goals: (i missed this category the first time around... does that say something?)
to lighten up.
pack the house by saturday.
i want to have 100 kids so i can have 100 friends and no one can say no to being my friend.
really, though, i want to survive medical school.

3 current obsessions:
dave ramsey. if you don't know who he is, find out. spencer and i read the total money makeover and it was great! we also listen to his radio show during the day (you can get the live feed from his website (12-3p mst).
packing. we're moving next week.
coney's. our favorite frozen custard place. we're really going to miss it. we went twice in two days last week. try it out if you're ever in the orem area (our favorite flavors of the day are cherry amaretto cheesecake and snickers chunky cheesecake - hoping for another favorite in peach melba on friday).

3 random facts:
i can make a clover with my tongue (i just found out what it's called when i showed spencer).
my pinkies often stick out making me look very proper (even when eating something informal like chips). i really don't mean to.
i was the little red hen in my kindergarten play (because i was the loudest).

i tag beth, jen, courtnie, season, and natalie.

the kitchen

here is the kitchen we are so looking forward to enjoying in two-and-a-half weeks. keep in mind that these were the first pictures i ever saw of the house. honestly, i was quite shocked. however, after thinking about it, i really don't care what it looks like because, as you can see in the second picture, there is a dishwasher!!! i haven't had a dishwasher for six of the last seven years. it's time.

if you look closely enough in these last two pictures, you can see the matching sink.

you can't beat the matching drapes!

another blessing. we'll have a dryer!!! i am so excited to not have to line-dry our clothes.

in all seriousness, i am so grateful to have such a wonderful home to live in. there is so much room for the boys to play around. the backyard is completely enclosed. really, everything is wonderful. it really doesn't matter what the refrigerator looks like...as long as it works!

moving

this is going to be a very quick one - and without any pictures (i just finished feeding andy and it's barely 6a - it's time to go back to bed!).

as it's getting closer and closer to our move date (31 jul for spencer and 2 aug for the little boys and me), i've been thinking more and more about going to oklahoma. i've been excited to move for a very long time and i still am. i've described it as the feeling owen wilson had in "armageddon" right before take-off ("i'm 99% excited and 1% scared. or maybe it's 99% scared and 1% excited."). this is going to be one of the greatest adventures of our lives (for now). going to a place where we know almost nobody and making a life for ourselves.

one thing i've been thinking about in particular is my desire to go to oklahoma and live. i don't want to go and be a student. i've heard of a lot of different med school families coming back home whenever there is an opportunity. don't get me wrong, i think it's wonderful to go back to family, but i also think it's important to build your own life wherever you are.

this past week we had spencer's family's reunion. it was wonderful! we made sure to join in on a lot of the festivities because we knew it would be our last one for a long time. we've been wondering what next year is going to be like for us: when we're going to make our trip back and how long are we going to be back. we've been thinking of two to three weeks. i don't think i want to be back for as long as a month (maybe i'll think diferently this time next year). i want ok to be our home, and a month is a long time to be from home! i want us to get fairly established where we are living. i want benny to have friends that he loves to see regularly. i want us to be involved in our ward. i want us to enjoy the place that we will be calling home for the next four years (at least!). i don't want to be a family that's only there for school.

what do you think?

okay, i know i said no pictures, but i'm really excited that this is the place we're going to live! (i'll definitely post kitchen pictures later. you'll know why when you see it... be excited!)

superwoman

i know i already sang praises to bethany for watching our kids while we spent a week in hawaii, but really, i'm not sure if that can be done enough. bethany just posted pictures of her experience on her blog. you can check that out here.

thanks, again, beth!

blast from the past

i saw this on another blog some time last week. i loved this short movie growing up. i hope you enjoy it too.

don't miss the pictures of the boys and the video of andy below!

ugly pictures

i took some pictures of the boys the morning that spencer graduated back in april. i completely forgot about them until we were in hawai'i and we switched memory cards on the camera. gotta love ugly pictures!

and my favorite...

oh, so similar

i thought this was too cute. not exactly the same, but pretty close. to see benny's version, click here.

hawai'i

as a graduation gift to spencer, my parents gave us one of their timeshare weeks to exchange. my mom really thought we needed one last hurrah before medical school so we had some fun memories to look back on. we went online and found a week available on oahu at marriott's ko olina resort. we grabbed it and about two weeks ago we took our first trip to hawaii together. it was a great trip. my sister bethany was awesome and agreed to watch the boys for us. we felt really bad when we realized we were leaving them with her on mother's day - and both bethany and nate were speaking in sacrament meeting that day. she tells us that everything went really well. after a couple of days benny started calling bethany "mommy" and by saturday he was calling nate "daddy." i'm glad he felt so comfortable there. it was also a great chance for him to kind-of get to know more of his cousins on my side. andy was, of course, oblivious to everything.

we flew into honolulu sunday afternoon. we were able to go to a sacrament meeting there and then made our way to the resort. we were there sunday to sunday (may 11-18) - mother's day to our anniversary.

our trip:

here's what most of our pictures are like: self portraits with different backgrounds.
this was at the mai tai party at the resort monday evening. (we, of course, got the fruit juice-the line for that was much shorter). they had a guy who was a samoan chief as the entertainment. he was really funny and did a sweet fire knife dance. he was fire knife world champion at one point.


on the garden tour at the dole plantation
(still not sure if the tour was worth it...)

spencer in front of some red pineapple at dole.

the two of us in the maze (world's biggest in 2001).

we did have a fun time at the dole plantation. we got some fresh pineapple that was absolutely delicious. spencer enjoyed some pineapple soft-serve and i loved my pineapple float (pineapple soft-serve in pineapple juice - delicious!).


on our way back to the resort from dole, we swung by and found dog the bounty hunter's bail bond place. unfortunately we don't have a picture of the two of us in front (there wasn't anybody walking past that we trusted with our camera...).
we went into the gift shop, but we didn't ever see dog. on our flight home we did hear a girl talking about how they met dog when they were in the gift shop. too bad we missed out.

not having the kids with us, we were able to do a session at the hawai'i temple.

popular view of the temple.
we took our own walk toward the beach.

on our walk from the temple.


after the temple we went to the polynesian cultural center. that is a must see if you are ever in hawaii. it's a wonderful opportunity to learn more of the different cultures. there are different "villages" to go to where they talk about the different islands. there are also some with interactions.

spencer dancing at tahiti.

me dancing at tahiti.

we got tattoos from fiji.
it's a pretty neat system they have of rolling ink onto the rubber stamps and then just wrapping them around wherever you wanted it (we saw one grown man in his 40s or 50s with one on his forehead). unfortunately, they wash right off in water. but that might be a good thing because nothing screams "tourist" like two white people in hawai'i with such obviously fake "native" tattoos. we still liked them anyway.

unfortunately you can't really tell that i'm flexing...

just after the luau.
(one of our two pictures of both of us not a self-portrait)

before the show started (after the luau) we walked around for a little bit and spencer saw some palm fronds. he started braiding some of the leaves into a headband (i did some braiding on one, but spencer was better at that than i was).
these are currently drying in our kitchen.


after snorkeling at hanauma bay. it was beautiful! we saw a guy holding a squid he had caught, an octopus (i didn't realize they blend into their surroundings), an eel (they are so ugly), spencer saw a puffer fish (he chased it trying to get it to puff up), and so many other beautiful fish. it was definitely worth swimming out pretty far to see some more fun things. it was amazing seeing fish among the coral in shallow water, but there was a lot more fun stuff to see when you got in the deeper water.
that was a great time!


our rental car.
i suggested getting the orange one so we would always be able to see where we parked.


this was part of kyoto gardens of honolulu memorial park. unfortunately, wikipedia was a little dated as the park was under construction and not exactly a tourist attraction.


our lagoon.
the resort was on one of a series of four lagoons. very nice to swim in. the only thing was that you don't get to swim in the crashing waves. that is on our list for next time.

the view from our balcony.

our favorite tree to be under for the shade. we only got it one day. but it was a great place to fall asleep reading without fear of spencer getting fried.

a fun area between lagoons. we liked to come over here and watch the waves. it's not a swimming area so we couldn't go in, but it was fun to get splashed in.
we also found a tide pool that had lots of fish in it. right next to that we saw a bunch of crabs on a few different rocks. that was really neat.


our flight home sunday left at 8:45p so we went to pearl harbor after church that day.

the arizona memorial.

spencer pointing to the captain of the battleship West Virgina - his grandma spendlove's second cousin.


outside pearl harbor.

it was a wonderful trip and we're grateful to have been able to take it. i think it's given us some great memories to look back on over the next four years. thank you, mom and dad!