leaving today for our family trip (minus one) back to vietnam.  oreos are packed, as is the dramamine and meclizine.  no more episodes of projectile vomiting, hopefully.  will need my strength to bargain down prices at the tailor and at the roadside stands for ryan’s daily bowl of pho.
i should have access to email while i’m out there.  email me! [ you want to uth it? ]

post call, left to go sign charts at another hospital, then visited sprinkles in newport beach.  drove up the coast on PCH all the way home.

first thoracentesis today! half a liter of milky, orangy fluid, looks like sobe. so fun.  must do again.

just a few things about block 2: the hospital that smells like pee.

- well, it does. smell like pee.  in the lobby.

- it’s old, like the patients.  and creaky.

- my new senior is super cute.

- my new patient is super sick.

- food sucks.

- one of the super-chinese nurses snapped at me today for changing my name.  “hmmph! that must be your HUS-bands name.  tsk tsk tsk….”

- i think i’ll like the computer system as soon as i figure out where everything is.

- scrubs for a month! woo hoo!

- 2 lectures a day… where people struggle to stay awake or just hang limply in their chairs.

- q4 call… while also covering the micu.  scary.

i’ve just finished my third week of intern year!  woo hoo!  call has been less painful than expected, but i’m on night float this week, so we’ll see how long i last.  the entire hospital is buzzing about the last harry potter book… so i caved and read the first in the series yesterday.  i bought the next two today.  hopefully i’ll be caught up by the end of the week enough so that my eyes no longer glaze over when the conversations start.

woke up to scary alien millipede monster bug near my closet. freaked out, made ryan get up and kill it for me while i freaked out in the bathroom. then my mouse stopped working and somehow ended up in my work bag.  then… i shoved a kashi bar in my mouth and a can of coffee in my pocket and ran off to work.

today my team was admitting all the peds patients, so i watched them roll in– 6 in all. mine:

- teen with chest pain, troponins bouncing up and down, diffuse ST changes –> pericarditis

- practically-an-adult-should-know-better teen who drank some jimson weed tea and proceeded to wig out and become “mad as a hatter, dry as a bone, red as a beet”. CPKs are up, so we’re running sodium bicarb to counteract the acidosis from the ensuing rhabdo.

- huge-ass hordeolum on this poor kid. optho to consult tomorrow. it’ll probably be drained in the AM.

otherwise, i discharged my old kids and finished my dictations and now… it’s BBQ time.

first day on peds was less painful than expected– yay for me. people are nice, the list is light, and they feed me mashed potatoes. the hours aren’t as bad as i thought, either.

today:

- baby with hernia, s/p resection of ischemic bowl.

- baby with pyelo

- more babies with pyelo