A trip to the outlet mall...

Today I went to the outlet mall to buy a new pants suit. Didn't think that would be too hard. I saw about 4 stores devoted only to men's suits. Why don't they have any stores like that for women? Then as I sauntered through all the other stores for women's suits, most of them I found would make me look like a grandmother. I did not want to look like a grandmother. Why couldn't I find a suit that would make me look mature and grown-up, but yet still look kind of young. Finally... I found some. Not at your typical grown-up clothes stores. But at H&M. Who would have thought I'd find some of my grown-up clothes at H&M. Oh well, it was much cheaper than the others and doesn't look cheap! On a side note... If H&M is supposed to be a Swedish store, why is the music they play all American artists? Sweden has their own music, play Swedish music in a Swedish store. Also... I went in a pet store to look at the puppies. But the puppies made me sad because they're in little tiny cubes and have no room to run and play like puppies should. I literally almost cried. Someone, bring the puppies home!

Things that make me go Hmmmm....

You know those signs that say "Your speed is ___"? On a single lane highway it makes sense. But, when you're on a 4 lane highway full of cars, how can you tell what cars speed it is telling you?

Why did Mandesa have to go home on American Idol? I like her! I guess I can't complain... I didn't vote.

A few days ago the apartment building had a sign on it that said "We will be shutting off the water from 9am - 2pm for necessary repairs." You know, I think I would have liked it better if the sign said "We will be shutting off your water all day just to piss you off because we get a kick out of the power we have over your daily schedule." It's as if they decided they should say it was necessary so we wouldn't complain. But then they even kept the water off at least 3 more hours then they had to (thankfully I wasn't home to deal with it)... and then for 4 hours agian 2 days later. Hmmm...

Sunday it was 70 degrees and I went rollerblading in shorts and a sleeveless shirt and it was BEAUTIFUL. Today, 3 days later it went from snowing to cold and sunny then snow then sun then snow then sun. It was a crazy day. This weather is craziness.

Random Fun-ness

My cousin Matt finally proposed to his girlfriend (now fiance) Dana yesterday. I haven't had a family wedding since July 2000. And that was the other side of the family.

On Wednesday this week, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06.
That won't ever happen again.
(Thanks for that one Teri!)

Today I helped remove a uterine fibroid the size of a fetal head. This woman had a crazy messed up uterus.

As for me - I'm busy learning all about the female reproductive tract. :) That's about all.

Bolivia Here I Come!

I was accepted to do my elective rotation in Vinto, Bolivia with Hospitals of Hope. Yay! So, I will be spending the month of August in Bolivia! Yippie! Anywho... if you want to check out more about the organizaiton I'll be working with, you can do so at www.hospitalsofhope.org. Pray for me and this opportunity!

What a good day!

First of all... after a couple days, I think I really like OB/Gyn. If only there were more jobs for PA's working in OB/Gyn. That's why I still need to aim for family practice where they do a little of everything.

Second... I helped deliver my first baby today. I didn't do a whole lot to "help" but I was there and I saw my first baby be born which I had never seen before. It was very cool.

Third and finally... I have my first job interview on April 14th in Hillsburo, WI. It would be a job to cover clinic work in Hillsburo, Tomah, Sparta, Viroqua, and Wonewoc. Rural family medicine. Pretty much what my goal has been all along. So, Even if they don't offer me a job, I'm getting the interview experience started 5 months before I graduate, so either way it'll be a good deal.

So, that's my news! :)

My crazy day...

Today...

I found out I passed my test fairly decently - a pleasure to know considering I definately slacked on the studying this rotation.

I got a call from Gunderson Luthern Hospital asking me to interview for a job I applied for. How crazy is that? Someone actually wants to interview me.

My grandma has been in the hospital for a week now. First thought was the flu, now pneumonia, but her fever still isn't going down. It's so frustrating because I feel so helpless not being there. I wish I was there so I could actually understand what was going on and what they're doing. Sigh...

Lazy day...

After my workout of the morning taking my car load of stuff up 3.5 flights of stairs... I relaxed the rest of the day. It was nice. Nothing to study. I took a nap, talked to my cousin Tim on the phone, watched What Dreams May Come and read and finished No Excuses by Kyle Maynard, a 20 year old congenital amputee of all 4 limbs who was a high school state qualifying wrestler in Georgia. It was very interesting. That's all for now.

Just a comment...

Just figured I'd let you know... I just saw "Failure to Launch" and it re-sparked my crush on Matthew McConaughey. Yea for celebrity crushes! Oh, and I want a sailboat.
That's all for now.

The end of one, the start of another

So, this week I finished up in Chicago. Drove back to Philly. Took my pediatrics test this morning. Took a nap and read for fun. Now I'm off to dinner and a movie (no, not a date, just me relaxing). I'm relaxing at the Holiday Inn until about noon tomorrow when I'm moving into my apartment for the next 6 weeks. Next... Ob/Gyn. More later.

P.S. If any of you were wondering... update on my last post. The little girl with anencepahly passed away after 5 days of life. Her twin brother is a happy, healthy little boy who went home with his parents on Tuesday.

Once in a lifetime

Today I saw something that most people only see once in a lifetime of working in medicine in the United States. Anencephaly. Anencephaly is defined as "congenital absence of the brain and cranial vault, with the cerebral hemispheres m issing or reduced to small masses. This condition is incompatible with life." The way this happens is early in pregnancy, a complication of development of neural tube closure, often due to a lack of folic acid intake before the mother even knows she is pregnant (hint - those of you women of childbearing age - take folic acid). You very rarely see a full term baby born with this condition mostly due to the fact that it can be detected early enough in a pregnancy that the pregnancy is terminated. The mother was pregnant with twins; one perfectly healthy and one that she knew would be born with anencephaly. Most babies born with anencephaly will survive a few hours a most. The reason they even survive those hours is that sometimes they are born with an intact brainstem, the part that sustains the necesities of life such as a heartbeat and breathing (the reason you can be "braindead" but still be breathing). Interestingly enough, at PCOM one of our "babies in a jar" (babies that were stillborn or pregnancies that were terminated) - was an anencephaly baby, but only about 28 weeks gestation when it was terminated (full term is 38-40 weeks). But the baby I saw today was still premature, but was about 33 weeks I think. Amazingly, she has survived about 24 hours breathing on her own, nothing keeping her alive. In the rare cases this happens, the baby will likely die of meningitis due to the fact that the little brain she has is exposed to open air, nothing to protect it from bacteria. In looking for a picture to show you of an anencephaly baby born at nearly full term I am having little luck. Many ultrasound pictures. Many pictures of 20 week terminated fetuses.

Those of you that don't want to see, don't scroll down any further. The first picture isn't bad, but the next 2 are if this might gross you out.

This is a set of twins, not unlike the ones I saw today. As you can see, if you put a hat on the anencephaly baby it dosen't look too bad. This is what they often do for the family.


This is what a baby with anencephaly would look like from the front.


And... from the back

Hmmmmm....?

So, Heather put a Jahari Window on her blog. I decided to try it as well. Here's what you do. Go to http://kevan.org/johari?name=Aleathea and pick 6 of these words that you think describe me. Then see how what you and others pick compare to the words I picked for myself. Oh yes, this could be interesting.

Illegal Immigrants

Ok... so I have mixed feelings about this and I don't want to start an argument... but today I heard that there's a bill trying to be passed that would make churches and aid organizations legally responsible for reporting illegal immigrants they have helped. This law would either make many churches and aid organizations act illegally... or decrease their ability to help those that need help. My only frustration with immigrants, legal or illegal, right now are the ones that practically refuse to learn English. At this hospital there are many patients who do not speak English. If they have just moved here, fine, just please attempt to learn or national language. But the ones that have been here 10 years and still don't speak English, that frustrates me. There are plently of opportunites, especially in cities like Chicago, that teach English as a second language. Please attempt to learn English. If I moved to another country I would do my best to learn the primary language of that country. I don't care what language you speak at home with your friends or family at home. But, if you've been here any length of time... English please. It is hard when patients in the fast track part of the emergency room who only speak Spanish are yelling at us because we don't speak Spanish for them and they have to wait for the Spanish intrepeter to come. We're trying, we've paged the Spanish intrepeter. I'm sorry you don't speak English. All I can do is wait for the intrepeter. Ok, I'm done now. You can call me horrible, but I think it's reasonable to learn the langage of the country in which you reside.

Springtime for Hitler... and Germany...

Ok, so I never saw the original movie... or the stage production... but the recent remake of "The Producers" was funny.

Anyway... My friend Heather that lives in Georgia (www.heatherannehogan.com) posted pictures of her cute doggy rolling in the grass and sitting in front of daffodils to show the joys of springtime in small town Georgia... Here's my current version of spring:

Number 1 Sign it's springtime in the city....
Street Venders

Number 1 Sign it's springtime in the mid-west...
One day it's 65 degrees and BEAUTIFUL! The next it's 30 degrees and snowing.

Oh, and I just wanted to share the chorus to my current favorite country song...

"I raise my hands...
bow my head...
I'm finding more and more truth
In the words written in red.
They tell me that there's more to this...
than just what I can see...
Oh, I believe..."

That's Brooks & Dunn incase you care. :)

Welcome to the world little ones!

I play with brand new born babies every day on this rotation. But it's so much more exciting when you know their parents. These babies I haven't gotten to meet yet... but two of my 4-H friends had babies recently.

The first was born to Corey and Sheree Schuler (both 4-H alums)...

Zachary Joseph Schuler on February 27, 2006


The next was born to Dan and Cindy Mellum (Dan's not a 4-Her but we'll forgive him)...

Ryan Christine Mellum on March 1, 2006
(still waiting on a picture)

So, we always used to joke about how scary it would be when we started procreating and there were little mini 4-H babies running around. :)

Rain and Shrek bandaids

Today I had the day off and I wanted to go do a Frank Lloyd Wright tour or to the Sears Tower Skydeck... but... it's raining and gross and both those things need a nice day. Maybe Sunday.

I have been shaving for about 13 years now... and I still need to learn how NOT to cut myself all the time. Today I wound up with 3 different spots I knicked all on one ankle. Thank God for fun Shrek bandaids. Even if I have them because I'm too big a clutz to even shave my legs.

Tourism in Chicago

Summary of my weekend with my little sister in Chicago:
Musuem of Contemporary Art - Some of it really cool, some if it I didn't get... but that's contemporary art.
A little Madison Ave Shopping.
Gino's East Pizzaria - One of the traditional deep dish Chicago pizzas... Yum pizza. Fun environment. I love pizza.
Navy Pier - Not too intersting in the winter - probably lots of fun in the summer.
Marshall Fields - One full block, 7 stories. Biggest store in the world.
Hancock Observatory - 94th floor of a big building. Cool view of the city. Can't take good pictures though because it glares off the window with the flash and without a tripid with me it's too hard to hold the camera still enough with the flash off. Oh, and there were fireworks going on - how many people can say they've watched fireworks from ABOVE? Well, besides everyone else up there at the same time...
SUPERDAWG - Drive-in Chicago-style hotdogs. Fun atmosphere. Too much stuff on the hotdog, but hey, I ate it. :) Even my vegitarian sister attempted to eat it, although she did spit out the bite of hotdog that got in her mouth. :) I guess I love her anyway - she WAS tough enough to try it.
Art Institute of Chicago - Hugeness. Lots to see. Can't see it all in one day, we MAYBE saw half. I wanted to see American Gothic - it's on loan to the Smithsonian until this summer. I got to see other cool stuff though. Guess who I saw there? You'd never guess - Jessica Ruscello - One of my sophomore year roomates that I haven't seen in at least 2 years because she moved to Florida. And in the modern art wing - there she was. She saw me first and when I saw her I couldn't comprehend right away what was going on - I just stared at her like an idiot as my brain slowly comprehended who, what, where, why... Yeah. I'm slightly slow.

IT SNOWED! AND my sister still got to go home and not be late for work which she was worried about. AND I GOT SOME SNOW! I havne't seen snow since I was home for Christmas. Today it's almost gone and by the end of the week it's going to be 55, but at least I got to see snow one more time. :)

Ash Wednesday

I have attended church my whole life... I woke up this morning and realized it was Ash Wednesday. Other than being the start of Lent and ending up with a big smudge on your forehead, I had no idea what the significance of Ash Wednesday is. So, I googled it and the best site explaining Ash Wednesday is http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/Christianity/holidays/ashwednesday.shtml. Yeah for the BBC! So, here's the summary:

The beginning of Lent.
Day of pentinence to cleanse the soul before Lent.
Draws from ancient Biblical tradition of wearing a sack-cloth, covering your head with ashes, and fasting.
Sign of recognizing our own mortality.
Traditionally, the ashes are the blessed ashes of the palms used in the prior Palm Sunday.
The ashes are very symbolic - "Remember from dust you were made and to dust you will return." - From Genesis 3:16
In some churches the worshipers keep the sign of the cross on their forehead to carry it out into the world.
Other churches, the service ends with the washing off of the cross symbolizing their sins being forgiven.
The marking of their forehead with a cross made of ashes reminds each churchgoer that:
* Death comes to everyone
* They should be sad for their sins
* They must change themselves for the better
* God made the first human being by breathing life into dust, and without God, human beings are nothing more than dust and ashes

The shape of the mark and the words used are symbolic in other ways:
* The cross is a reminder of the mark of the cross made at baptism
* The phrase often used when the ashes are administered reminds Christians of the doctrine of original sin
* The cross of ashes may symbolism the way Christ's sacrifice on the cross as atonement for sin replaces the Old Testament tradition of making burnt offerings to atone for sin

SO... there's your education of the day to learn the symbolism of Ash Wednesday. :)



In regard to my pediatric experience... Today I saw my first Caucasian child in 2 1/2 weeks. She looks so pale in regard to the rest of the babies I've been taking care of!

My weekend in Chicago...

Pure craziness and taking advantage of tourists... inside the actual city of Chicago - 9.0% sales tax. That's a lot of sales tax.

Last night I went to go see Eight Below - the movie about sled dogs in Antartica. I think when I move back to the Duluth area, I may just take up Dogsledding. You can wear more clothes dogsledding than cross country skiing. Nah... I'd never give up cross country skiing... as the Olympic news guy just said, "The 50k cross country ski race is the ultimate winter endurance test... Perhaps the fittest athletes here." I agree. I'm definately not in that kind of shape... but maybe agian sometime. Oh, and one more comment about going to this movie - PLEASE for the sake of the other movie-goers do not bring your 2 year old who can't shut up to the movie theater. Please wait until they can sit still for 2 hours. Either that or go to the mommy's day out movies that allow babies and such. There should be some sort of age limit on the movie theater - like, 5 years old or something.

And today, I went to check out Willow Creek Community Church - one of the country's biggest mega-churches. And you know it's a contemporary church when the title of the sermon series is "Bling-onomics" - about a Godly way to manage your finances, get out of debt, etc. A church used the word bling... wow. Ok, so you know that little rhyme we all learn in Sunday school "Here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors and see all the people" while doing the appropriate hand motions? Well... this church was more like... "Drive up to the church and pick follow the parking guides and the appropriate signs to the appropriate parking lots for the main entrance... Here is the church that's as big as my high school... There is no steeple, but a lot of pretty ponds... Open the door, see TONS of people, decide whether to go through door A,B,C,D or to take the escilator UP to the balcony." Seriously this church seats more people than any theater or auditorium I've ever been in. Here's a pic of after church... had to take one to prove how big it is.



This is only about 1/3 of the seating.

More Chicago pics to be updated on my photo site as I get them... see link to right of screen.

Things cost money

So, I started the morning by buying a new printer/scanner/copier combo because there was a good one on sale for $79.99. Yay! Later in the day I went to Midas... I needed 2 new tires and I needed new break pads (I thought). Figured it would cost about $200-250. Little did I know, the reason my breaks were so sqeaky and not nearly as good as they should be... not only the break pads... The whole thing was shot, and they told me I needed new roters and drums too (not exactly sure what those are, but they're part of the breaking system). So, the whole thing costs $840. Holy crud. Oh well, at least I know I have a safe car with breaks that work. I wasn't willing to tell them not to replace it incase they were lying to me... becuase if your breaks don't work, you're screwed. Better safe than sorry. So yeah, things cost money.

For You Mom...

Yesterday, my mom, who definatley is not as addicted to the internet as many of us as she dosen't even log on daily... told me thatre is. I hadn't "written on my internet thing lately." If she noticed... others of you must have as well.

Today I had my first "real" Chicago deep dish pizza... this place I got my pizza from, is apparently some of the best pizza in Chicago. The weird thing is... the layers from bottom up are: Crust, cheeze, sausage, sauce. It's good... but the sauce is ON TOP of the cheeze. Weird.

This has been some of the coldest weather I've felt in a couple years. The east coast made me a wuss, even though I like to brag I'm from Minnesota and I can handle the cold. That sucks. I need to be re-hardened.

I'm working on my application to go on my elective rotation in Bolivia... essay questions... reference forms... I forget how hard stuff like. Blahhh... I want to do it, but lots of work.

Those of you that have children... be thankful that you know who the father is and he's involved in your child's life. Oh, and that most of you actually wanted that baby you have. Every day I'm reminded how lucky people are to have those simple things. Way too many people have way too much sex without birth control with too many people. That's how we get 15 year old mothers who seem annoyed by their babies even on the first day who are there alone with no father and half the of them withdrawing from either marijuana or cocaine because they've been in the hospital without it for a day or two... even though many, like one today... Her urine drug screen showed definate marijuana use, we asked her about it, and she said she hadn't used marijuana since she found out she was pregnant... even though this urine test showed without a doubt she'd used it within the past 48 hours. Liar. Remind me agian why we can't charge those mothers with child endangerment? Oh yes... it's because in our society a baby isn't a living thing until it takes a breath on it's own, even 4 hours before, not something we can endanger or neglect. Sigh...

Rant of the day over.