Pilgrims at Oak Ridge

January Changes draweth nigh, So much to look forward to, Anticipation. February Match day is coming. Greenwood? I'wa? Timbuktu? Where will we end up? March Big trip to Greenwood, House hunt extravaganza, Which one do we want? April Skipped Easter Sunday, To go and see The Masters. Diff'rent worship there. May Party at the Beach! Big time Grad Celebration, Yeah, Dr. Aubrey! June Goodbye Charleston, Pack up and move to new house, Welcome Miss Lucy! July Third Anniversary, Weekend trip to Atlanta, My, how the years fly. August End of summer days, Aubrey works 80 hour weeks, Jeff plays lots of golf. September Jeff is back in school, Pursuing academics. Cog'to Ergo Sum. October Happy Biiiiirthday dear.... "Aubrey, Ashlyn, Tripp, Korrie..." Happy Birthday to. (you) November Oh, dear November, What happened in November? I don't remember. December Best part of the year, Celebrating Christmas morn, Our Emmanuel.

After a ridiculously delicious and foodful Christmas weekend, Aubrey and I were feeling like we might not have to eat meat again until 2008. While we were home Carol made a ham on Friday, a Turkey on Sunday, and an 18-pound standing rib roast on Christmas. (For those of you who know my mom-in-law Carol, and are wondering why so little meat was cooked, its because she was sick all weekend!) So today I decided to make dinner for Aubrey and I, since I didn't feel like eating leftover meat. I decided to go a little gourmet, while still keeping things light. I made some homemade foccacia to use as sandwich bread. The filling was spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, black olives (on mine, not Aubrey's), avocado, and some lightly sauteed red and green peppers and mushrooms. Yum. So good. So many flavors that you don't even notice there is no meat. [Rats. The whole point of my writing this post was so I could post the cool picture I took of my sandwich before I ate it,...

Holidays are family time. Striped socks make me happy. Because we didn't have enough books already..... Now Jeff has a few things (systematic theology, anyone?) to keep him occupied until classes start in January. Possibly the best part of the day was when my dad FINALLY got our video conferencing system set up and we got to actually WATCH Sam opening presents this morning. And it actually felt like our whole family was together, even though a number of us are many miles away, in the cold, cold land of Iowa.

This is as wintery as it got around here. This is the frost on the grass this morning. Just a few hours later, I was running wearing shorts and a t-shirt. I even started the run thinking I'd need a long-sleeve shirt (it is December, after all) but had to shed that less than 10 minutes into my run because I was too hot. At least it was chilly in the morning, and tonight when we went to our Christmas Eve service. "For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given...."

Judging by the quantity of food and people in these pictures, one might think this is our Christmas dinner, or at least part of Christmas with some family. But no, this is really just what we'll call round 1 , a small gathering on Sunday after church. You can tell because today there was ONLY 1 meat option (turkey), as opposed to being able to choose between eating cow, pig, or turkey. We did, though, have plenty of dessert (since I need to be worried about having enough to eat). And a pretty raspberry tea. Tonight was hanging out with some high school friends (and their spouses) and watching them eat Mexican food. (You can't imagine we could possibly be hungry after lunch/linner(?)/dunch(?), do you?)

I'm now officially off!! For five whole days! The longest time I've had off since July! We drove to my parent's house last night, and I was too tired to figure out how to upload photos from my camera onto someone else's computer. So instead I went to bed. But here is yesterday's photo, taken during our drive through downtown Anderson: And here are Jeff and Austin, enjoying the (early) Christmas present my parents got my brothers - an X-box. (Note the mesmerized and glassy-eyed appearance, a sure sign video games are being played....and you can tell by Jeff's growl that game is a killing game) I did give the game "Guitar Hero" a short play, and I must admit I had a good time.....

Instead of going straight to bed when I got home from call today (my usual routine), Jeff and I FINALLY got our Christmas presents to our family finished, boxed, and wrapped. You can see Lucy especially enjoyed helping with the wrapping. Then I went to bed and Jeff dutifully took everything to the post office where we got it all mailed. There is at least a small chance that things might arrive by Christmas. Some year, I'm really going to have my act together and get our presents mailed early, and maybe get out some kind of Christmas card. That is not going to be this year.

Aubrey is on call again tonight, so I am again in charge of posting today's DPP pic. I brought the camera when I went to eat dinner over at the hospital and took this picture of Aubrey "in action" being all doctorly. Granted, you might not recognize this from the highlight reel of "ER" but this is in fact quite a doctorly activity. She is looking up some test results on the computer in the call room.

As befitting a modern couple like Aubrey and myself, we have taken to ordering a number of Christmas presents online this year. Indeed, no small number of boxes from Amazon have been landing on our porch in the last week, and more are anticipated. However, despite the great convenience of shopping from home, this has created its own complication. I have ordered things for Aubrey, Aubrey has ordered things for me, and now there are also some other third parties who have ordered things for us and had them shipped directly here from amazon. Thus as the boxes pile up it is getting harder and harder to divine which gift is in which identical amazon box, and thus who needs to open it and wrap said gift for whom. We might just end up wrapping a bunch of unopened amazon boxes and labeling them, "To: Jeff and/or Aubrey, From: Jeff, Aubrey, or third party." On an unrelated topic, Aubrey and I soldiered up and did our intern year duty again last night. That's right, we took a ...

Even though I had decided that I didn't have enough time to do handmade gifts this year, I'm still finding I cannot resist making a few things. So here are two small glimpses of a little bit of what I've been working on around here...probably during times I should have just gone to bed. Which it is now past time to do. So goodnight.

Now I realize this is probably not too exciting to any of you, but we first year residents are now being assigned our very own OB patients. I just found out that, in addition to the girl I saw last week, I have another pregnant patient! I actually also just spoke to my other patient on the phone. She said she was doing ok, and that her mom wasn't too mad about the pregnancy. She did, though, say she was still undecided about what to do. So keep praying!

This is an african violet I bought for Aubrey to spice up her cubicle at work a little bit. Its been there for several months now, and still producing pretty flowers. I guess Mr. Penguin takes pretty good care of it.

You can kind of tell I was desperate today for a photo. Mostly because I forgot my camera everywhere I went. So here is another desperate this-will-have-to-do shot. Sorry. This is a painting I bought in Peru, which I really love because of all the bright colors. It's hanging in our upstairs hallway. Last night, we drove with another couple from residency to Augusta, GA to see Andrew Peterson's concert Behold the Lamb of God. If anyone does not have that CD or has not heard of it, go right now and buy it here . You will not regret your purchase for one minute.

I've been (a little) jealous of all the ice pictures I've been seeing around. I know, I know, I have nothing to complain about when it is almost 80 here, but it's DECEMBER. As in WINTER. As in supposed to be cold. Finally today we are getting some cooler weather. So here is proof of the most winter-y the weather has been around here in a long time.

My new favorite Christmas decoration. A modification of this pattern . I made a bunch last year , but it's a fun, quick, and cute pattern so I couldn't resist adding a few more. But here is what else I'm looking at these days: Do we have cute genes in this family or what?

1. So, after cooking a few nice meals lately, and bringing home doggy bags from a couple nice restaurants, we had a pretty ridiculously good selection of leftovers in the fridge. Last night was leftover night, and I opened the fridge and asked myself, "self, do I feel like having turkey, pork, lamb, or shrimp for dinner tonight?" Perhaps the first time ever that I have had such a high-falutin combination of leftovers to pick from. I went with the shrimp. And grits. 2. Also, my semester just ended tonight. I just finished my hebrew final, and it is now Christmas break! Its pretty anticlimactic this semester, as Aubrey and I's lives are much more controlled by her work schedule than by my leisurely academic schedule. Still, for the next three weeks I get to study and read whatever I darn well feel like. Any suggestions?

Every day I notice more and more how in medicine ethics is not just something you talk about-- I have to decide daily how to interact with patients and in situations that are tough and force me to decide where I stand on important issues. Yesterday I told an 18-year-old she was pregnant. For her, this was not good news. She was completely shocked. She already has a 1-year-old, a little boy she feels she struggles to care for. Part of me wanted to scold her or say to her, "Well, that is what happens when you have sex outside of marriage." But when you have an 18-year-old crying in front of you, you realize that is not the place for scolding. Or judgment. Then the discussion begins on what to do. One of my attendings (a very nice, good teacher who is at church every week with us) believes that as doctors we should let a person know of all their options. ALL of them. Even the ones we are completely and morally opposed to. I, on the other hand, do not think that I should have to ...

Lamb Shank. One benefit of being in a family practice residency program is that we get to take all the candidates out to nice dinners. For free. I did not realize, though, they were going to bring me just about the whole lamb. Lamb ornament. This one is a little funky since I was using low light and I played around with my editing software.

This is what my dog looks like at 5:15 am. She is very safety conscious. She insists that I, too, wear a reflective vest.

Our Christmas cactus is blooming. I bought this plant right after I moved into my apartment starting med school. It was seriously neglected for a while, but I guess it's not called a cactus for nothing. These are probably the best blooms we've ever had. Part of the reason why I love Christmas cactuses so much is that my mom has always had a HUGE one, one that she inherited from her aunt or great aunt, and every year it always blooms around this time. We've had a wonderful time with Jeff's parents this weekend. My folks even came down today for church and lunch. We are grilled pork and salad and dessert. Yum.

I went on a bike ride today, rode a little too close to a rock and ended up with a flat. Here I am sitting on the side of the road, waiting for Jeff to come and pick me up. (He was nice enough not to make me walk the several miles back to the house.) We also went out to a Christmas tree farm and cut our own tree! A new experience for us. The tree looked smaller out in the field than it does in our house, since in our house it looks huge. At least we have a high ceiling... Pictures of that to follow.

The post-call walk. ps - Happy Birthday to my big brother, who's now become a great dad AND a doctor. I love you.

It's now 3:45 in the am. And I am sitting on the 8th floor of the hospital waiting for an EKG to be done on a patient. Then I can go to bed. Jeff's parent's arrived safely last night (That would be Wednesday night) and we are very excited about fun activities during my weekend off. More photos to come later.

Having family come to visit is a good excuse to finally get some things hung on the wall. And buy some new Christmas table linens.

I've finally finished reading The Cancer Ward by Solzhenitsyn. It took me months, not because it wasn't good, but mostly because it was long. And some days, after coming home from work, my brain was not exactly ready to delve into serious Russian literature. But I found this great quote, which helped remind me why I'm a doctor, and the attitude that I always want to have. So I thought I'd share it here: "At such moment the whole meaning of existence--of his own life throughout the long past and the short future, and his late wife's, and his young granddaughter's, and everybody's in general-- seemed to him to be not in their chief activity, in which they were constantly engrossed, in which all interest was supposed to lie and by which they were known to people. It was the degree to which they were able to keep unmuddied, unfrozen, and undistorted the image of eternity that sits within each person. Like a silver moon in a calm pond."

Since I felt bad for cheating, I ran around and took a few photos. Here is the best one. This is a cool gift given to me by my sister-in-law, and it's sitting on top of my kitchen cabinets, which I'm trying to finally do something with. Tonight I hung (my myself!) some plates after buying these little plate hangers (by myself!) at Lowe's.

This is one I took a few months ago. It sort of feels like cheating, but 1) I like this photo and 2) I worked all day (which is not unusual) and it was dark when I got home, making it harder to take a picture of something. Tomorrow I'm off (Hoorrayy!!) so you will get a current photo then.

I do not like giving up on patients. I'm finding I have a very hard time talking to families about giving up on their loved ones. This week I had to talk to a family and counsel them that their mom was not going to make it. I wrote the order after they decided to stop aggressive treatments to pull out her breathing tube, and stood by while it was removed. Only 45 minutes later, she was gone. A nice woman who, although she was sick when she came in, was only 58 and walking and talking and living a fairly normal life. And then she was gone, ushered out of this world and into the next. It is still very strange for me to be standing looking at a patient who is alive one morning, only to be standing by that same bed a few hours later, performing an exam to pronounce her dead. You cannot hide from mortality in a hospital. Daily I am confronted with the realization that it only takes a few short minutes for life to slip away. I think a lot about something C.S. Lewis said in his book Mere ...

This is my real photo for the day, taken at the hospital Christmas party. There were great decorations. I also liked this one, mostly because you can see a reflection of the party. I'm holding the camera, wearing my nice dress . So today you get a bonus photo.

There will likely be a lot of pictures on the blog this month, as Aubrey has signed up to take part in the December Photo Project . But Aubrey and her artistic eye are at work all day today, so I am stepping in to make sure the daily photo gets posted. The instructions for the project were to take a daily picture that "shows what you're looking at." Well, between preparing to lead bible study tonight, and an exegetical paper that's due on Thursday, this is pretty much what I've been looking at. Too much perhaps. Now when I look at a page in English, my eye instinctively tries to read it right to left. That doesn't work so well.

A few days ago, I admitted a 63-year-old man who also happens to have Down's syndrome. That's right. He's 63. (So do NOT try and tell me that people who have disabilities cannot have long and meaningful lives.) He came in for pneumonia from a residential facility where he lives. (And where apparently he enjoys flirting and hugging all the ladies - or so his mom tells us.) When I did my initial physical, he did seem to have pneumonia, but I also made a rather stupid mistake. He had a bandage on his foot and the nurse who normally takes care of him told me he had an ulcer there. She didn't make it sound very bad. So since it was bandaged, I didn't feel like spending the extra 15 seconds to take off the bandage and actually look. Two whole days later, after he continued to have problems with low blood pressure, our wound nurse at the hospital took a look. He had BONE sticking out of his skin. His pressure ulcer had actually eroded down to his BONE. And I didn't lo...