Still snowing

So apparently the first snow of the year was just the beginning of the crazy snowy winter that is to come. It's been snowing more and it's still snowing outside. Only 11/19 and I've already lost count of days of snow. Thankfully next week is Thanksgiving and I'm off to CA for some much needed warmth!

Is Winter Over yet?

Okay, it's official. I am over the winter and it's only barely just begun. It is cold and snowy and I miss the sun and warmth! Tomorrow our wind chill is -5ºF! OMG! So cold so soon. This is going to be a very very long winter. Thank goodness I am off to California in a little over a week, and then again three weeks later! January-April is going to be a rough time in the cold without any breaks!

On the upside at least there was one beautiful sunset last week. Heres that picture, if only to make me happier!

First snow

Today is the third time I've seen snow flurries this winter season (first was on Halloween), but this morning was the first time of the season that it actually stuck on the ground at all. It didn't last long and it's already all melted just a few short hours later, but it's officially happened. Winter has come and I'm in for many months of freezing cold! Look out for the first real snow storm of the season in the coming months! I'll be sure to post about it. Luckily it's not in the forcast quite yet!

UPDATE! I got to go home early today and I took some time to get some much needed rest and relaxed on the couch. When I looked up it was snowing like crazy. It didn't last long again, but more is sticking now.  It's supposed to snow more over night too. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOLLY!

Happy happy 26th birthday to my most wonderful and absolute favoritest (and only) sister!! I hope you have an absolutely wonderful day and I can't wait to celebrate with you in only a few more weeks when I make it home for Thanksgiving! Enjoy your day!! Love you lots and lots!

Happy Birthday Christine!

Happiest of birthdays to my wonderful and fabulous cousin Christine today as she turns 27 years old! Wish we got to celebrate together, but Christmas time will have to made up for the rest of the year in which we never get to hang out! Hope you had a wonderful day galavanting around Glasgow (after that thing you didn't want to go to this morning at least!). Love you!

Passed the Peds Shelf!

Today I found out that I passed my Peds shelf exam and I actually did well on it, yay!! I am so relieved. It was by far my best shelf exam of the year, so I am hopeful for at least getting more than a Pass in the rotation. About a month until I will likely get my grade, but until then I am feeling happy that I did well on that stinking exam.

Otherwise nothing too exciting happening out here. This weekend I worked Saturday, but made it out in time to make the football game where I froze my toes, but Michigan won! Yay. Stanford was not so lucky against Oregon, but Cal beat Oregon State so yay for Cal being so close to bowl eligible. The Niners sadly also lost so once again I'm batting 0.500. I don't know that I've had a 100% W weekend this season, which stinks.

Other than football I studied some and got some much needed sleep in. Daylight savings ending made up for the fact that I stayed up so gosh darn late watching football! Now I'm back in the thick of Internal Medicine again, trying to learn some stuffs. Fun times.

GO BLUE!

The VA

So far working at the VA has been great. We have a lot of autonomy to act as almost the intern, which is nice because I feel like I actually know what is going on in all aspects of my patients' care. I also have been getting my work done fairly early, so I've had lots of time to study and have gotten to be home at reasonable hours every day, which I very much appreciate. The team I'm working on is great and the vets are an interesting patient population that I appreciate more than I anticipated. They are a very appreciative bunch, and much more laid back than some of the more uptight parents I came across at Mott which is a tertiary care center. The VA here is a good mix of bread and butter medicine and tertiary care since we get people from all over the state. Anyways, thats really all I'm doing right now.

Also, THE GIANTS WON THE WORLD SERIES LAST NIGHT!!! WOO HOO GO GIANTS! Third time in 5 years and I couldn't be more thrilled for my home team.

Switch Weekend

Ah the gloriousness of the switch weekend. Nothing to study, no commitments. Why can't it always be switch weekend!! I didn't do too much, but definitely got some quality downtime. I hung out with some friends on Friday night and then didn't leave my condo until tonight when I went to see The Best of Me at the movie theater with Stephanie. I cried through the entire movie (hard core cried) event though I read the book a while back and knew what I was getting myself into. It was a good movie. Other than that I really did very little besides spending too much time on the phone with Comcast not getting my internet problems resolved. Oh well. Onto Internal Medicine rotation tomorrow and I start at the VA Hospital. Hope it's an okay rotation, cause it's the next 4 weeks of my life!

Didn't make it

Seven weeks I made it through Peds without getting sick, so of course my body decided the weekend before the exam was the most opportune time to finally succumb to the viruses I've come in contact with recently. I spent my weekend with a ridiculously runny nose and congestion and dreams of well-child exams. No really, for some reason I have been tossing and turning and not getting good sleep because my head keeps repeating patient encounters and it's weirdly stressful.

Anyways, I stayed at home mostly this weekend since I wasn't at full strength, which meant I needed a few distractions. After doing two easy shifts (and a third one today actually) I had been to Target and Whole Foods and actually had some things to eat for once. I spent yesterday afternoon making dehydrated apples and bananas, and even made a pumpkin pie from scratch (aka from an actual pie pumpkin). This years pie worked out better than last years because I pouring the filling into the crust when it was already in the oven, which meant no spills! It was crazy beautiful if I do say so myself. I am pretty bomb at making pumpkin pie from scratch. I also recently discovered you can do the recipe with carrots instead of pumpkin and it is potentially even better, so I will have to try it sometime.

Today it was back to clinic. I have one more day of general clinic now and then one day of specialty clinics (Infection Disease and Coagulation) and then a study day and then the shelf. This weekend is the only weekend the entire M3 class has off together, so it should be fun! We are having a get together at Shea and Marcus's, and those are always good times. I also got a cryptic email today that was sent to a small group of people that said we should expect to go to a lecture at the VA next Thursday given by the chief of medicine, so some of us are guessing that means we have our VA month first for our internal med rotation. I guess I will find that all out soon enough since we start next week. Medicine is notorious for not giving much notice about your schedule. Anyways, I'm cold and hungry so I'm going to eat (probably some pie with it too!). 

Viruses

Today I had to reassure a parent that her child was very unlikely to contract Ebola. The media has made everyone so crazy! Everyone is super concerned they are going to get ebola or enterovirus and it has made parents paranoid and terrified beyond belief. People are just going nuts. Luckily the big enterovirus outbreak is on the downswing in Michigan now, but the media has people really freaked out. And while everyone is freaking out about ebola people are still declining flu vaccines that can help prevent their kids from getting a virus that they are actually likely to come across. Such is the life of peds clinic in the fall.