Pilgrims at Oak Ridge

Today I'm starting my two week elective called "Taking a spiritual history." In this elective, I get to see patients and just spend time talking to them about their beliefs, and whether or not those beliefs affect their health or how they would like to receive health care. I think I'm going to like it. Plus, I don't think the schedule will be bad, which is also nice. I'll get to do some rounds with the chaplain, which should also be interesting. Although I am worried that the chaplains here may be a little too "whatever you believe is fine" for me. I think I may ask our friend Chris Brown, a hospice chaplain, if I can go on some visits with him, too, since I know where he comes from theologically and trust him. It is quite nice to have our computer back, but last night I started the long process of reinstalling various software programs that we had previously, like our camera software, my pocket pc software, etc. I do not enjoy this process. But I gu...

Our computer seems to be going through some troubling teenage years. Its no spring chicken any more. Gone are those blissful carefree days, when you know your computer looks up to you, and respects you, and will gladly do your bidding. No, our computer seems to be entering into a rebelious phase. Last Tuesday it locked itself in its room and wouldn't come out. Ok, well, actually it stayed here on the desk, but it just turned blue and wouldn't budge. I tried everything, I talked nicely to it, offered it gifts, I even just turned it off and let it have some space for a while. But to no avail, it was quite exasperating if you must know. So we called our friend Brian. Brian works with computers for a living, and knows what to say to them. In fact, this was the third time this year that we've called on Brian to help us, so he's developed a bit of a relationship with the computer, and well, we think he's "earned the right to be heard." He came over S...

Even though I'm not yet a full fledged physician, I have diagnosed myself with a cold, and ordered myself to bed for the day. For the first time since starting my med school rotations, I have called in sick. This probably isn't the first time I've been sick, but I guess now that I'm a fourth year, I don't feel like I need to be at the hospital come rain, come snow, or bad headcold. (I wouldn't stay home just because of bad weather, though.) Yesterday morning I woke up with a slightly sore throat and runny nose. I might have stayed home then, but I had my CPX exam yesterday. (For everyone who doesn't go to MUSC, the CPX exam is where we go and have to interview 8 fake patients and then write up their illness. It's to prepare us for this big standardized test that all med students have to take where I have to drive to Atlanta and do the same thing. Oh and in order to take it the test in atlanta, I had to pay almost $1000. You can imagine how much we all e...

For the longest time, I had a hard time figuring out with what I could decorate my front door. I live in a duplex, and it is nice to have something to greet people as they come in besides the black and dusty door on my front porch. I had this one lonely wintery decoration, but that was it. And unfortunately, my snowman/snowflake themed welcome sign (which I like a lot) can't exactly stay up all year. Especially in charleston, where I have seen neither a snowflake nor a snowman. I also can't go out and spend a lot of money buying things for every different season. Last fall or so, I decided to solve my problem. I found an empty lot that had a bunch of grape vines growing in it. (At least I think it was grape vines, although I never actually saw any grapes, as it was fall.) Down here in the south, these vines grow everywhere, in many empty lots and wooded areas. I created a wreath out of the vines. Anyone can make a wreath out of these vines. Just wind a circle out of vine a l...

Two years ago today Jeff and I tied the knot!! We became man and wife. It's been great. What more is there to say? I love my husband. I love being married to him.

I've started going to the gym again. It happens every year about this time. Namely, about the time my gym membership is set to expire. Which means I get real enthused, talk myself into buying another year's membership, then loose my motivation and don't go for 10 months of the year. Oh well. Being a gym member makes me feel like I'm a good person. And isn't that why we all belong to gyms? The best part of going to the gym is not the exercise, it the exceptional people watching. People can be really odd when they work out. After all, where, outside of a PETA rally, and church, can you find so many people pretending to be something they are not? Yesterday I was riding my stationary bike next to Annoying Gym Guy (AGG), who was huffing and puffing unnecesarily loudly, and muttering encouragement to himself as he went. He had also lugged over one of the big fans and put it right behind him. It seems like he should put it in front of him, but maybe he feels lik...

**warning to those who don't like medical stories or have light stomachs (ahem...Jeff Tell) you may not want to read further. This post contains some material which may not be suitable for those who get woozy.*** Being a fourth year so far is great. I feel like I'm actually learning how to do things that doctors do. Today, for instance, we had a very nice hispanic man come in because yesterday while on the job he shot himself with the nail gun in the knee. The nail went completely in all the way to the hub. I guess he didn't think too much of his injury yesterday so he didn't come in, he just pulled it out. (That's right. Apparently SHOOTING A NAIL ALL THE WAY INTO HIS KNEE didn't concern him too much.) So today he came in because he started having lots of pain and he couldn't really bend his knee. Amazingly, he didn't break anything. I guess he managed to aim it in such a way that it went not through any bones, but into his joint. Today it was swollen ...

Tonight I had a great ER shift. First of all, I was working in the Peds ER, which I think is much more fun that the regular ER. I had some great patients, including this incredibly nice and polite family that really was a joy to work with. And I also got to sew up my first laceration!! I have gotten to sew people up in the ER, but I haven't yet had the chance to sew up people when they come into the ER with big cuts. I did my first digital block (that means I numbed up this guy's whole toe.) For a first time it was probably ok, but I did kind of hit his bone on my way in, which he didn't seem to appreciate. It closed up quite well, and I thought it was pretty when I finished. But then my night got even better!! (I know some of you are probably thinking, how could her night get better when she had already gotten to sew someone up?? But it did.) Jeff came and got me when my shift was over, and I walked into our apartment only to find that he had rearranged our living room! H...

One doesn't go on a 17 day road trip covering 16 states and not come home with a few life lessons. The road, it might be said, is an analogy for life, and there is much to be learned from cruising its scenic stretches, its winding byways, its forested freeways, from rolling along on that hilly, sun soaked ribbon of road. Such was certainly the case for Aubrey and I, and so I wanted to take some time and share a few of the lessons with you. 1. Everything can be automated, but not everything should be. There seems to be some sort of contest among rest area owners, to see who can automate the most features in the bathroom. Automated toilet flushers, sink turner-oners, hand dryers, paper-towel-dispensers, everything goes by itself. You can almost go in your sleep, the bathroom does all the work for you. However, most of it is silly, and not as good as the old fashioned kind. Toilets flush at all the wrong times, sinks turn on and off so quickly you think they're OCD, and ...

more trip photos...

Here's the post that should have been up on Sunday, but wasn't. Day: 17 Final Trip Odometer: 4,688 miles. Books Aubrey read: All of them. Location: Home! Back in Charleston as of Sunday evening. Our Road Trip extraordinaire 2006 is over. It was a wonderful success. The last few days were spent in State College with Bro and Hannah and our favorite nephew Jackson. It was very restful and vacationy. Bro beat me at frisbee golf, we cruised downtown State College, and Aubrey cleaned house in a game of Scrabble. We also got to spend some time with old friends Jamie and Darcy which was fun. Despite all the fun we are very glad to be home, and not have to do lots of driving anymore. We spent looooooooooooooots of time in the car, and we're tired of it. Check back soon to read lessons from the road, and also check out Andrew and Melanie's new blog here.

We are home!! So for the next few days, I'll be posting some of our favorite pics from the trip. Here are two of my favorites.

Day: 14 Trip Odometer: 3,824 Books Aubrey has read: 327 (estimate) Location: State College, PA, Jackson's house. We have made it to the final stop along our journey. We got into State College last night around 7:30, just in time for dinner. Jackson was already in bed so we didn't get officially introduced until this morning. He's very cute. Hannah had a doctor's appointment this morning so Aubrey and I are babysitting. Jack is snoozing so we're mostly just sitting. Tuesday was a great day in Chicago. We only got to see downtown by quick driving tour, but the highlight was our trip to Wrigley Field. We got to the stadium about 3 hours early. So we found a parking spot and still had 20 minutes before the game started. Well not quite, but close. The cheapest parking we could find said $15, but $15 only got you a spot were you would get blocked in by the next car. One of the spots you could pull out of cost $20. What a racket. We ponied up and walked arou...

After our marathon car ride of Day nine, we awoke on Sunday and decided that we just didn't have enough driving. So we hit the road about 8 am to drive for another 1.5 hrs to go and visit Jeff's seminary roommate and good friend, Mark Jicinsky. Mark is the pastor of Ebenezer Reformed Church of Leighton , IA. Just in case some of our readers have never heard of Leighton (which would be a complete shocker) it is located Southwest of Iowa City, about 1.5 hrs from there, and about 45 minutes from Des Moines. The "town" is about 5-6 streets wide and 3-4 streets wide, and is surrounded by farms. It really is a beautiful area, and Ebenezer Reformed Church was a great place to visit. I finally got to meet a few more of Jeff's relatives, his cousins Lois and Arlan, which was a treat for me. Everyone at church was quite friendly, and introduced themselves to us, making us feel very at home. The area around Leighton is full of people of Dutch descent, and here is listing ...

Day: 9 Miles: 2,723 Books Aubrey has read: 7 Location: Iowa City, IA, Andrew and Melanie's house. Today took us from Mom and Dad's house in Colorado to the rolling hills of Iowa. It was a long day in the car. The big question on the table all day was the perennial debate: Which state is worse to drive through, Kansas or Nebraska? We wanted to make a contribution to the state of the question, so we scheduled our trip to take us West through Kansas on I-70, and then back East through Nebraska on I-80. We must start by admitting that both states were pretty boring, but still there are many issues to consider. On the one hand, Nebraska is slightly longer than Kansas, which would tend to make it worse. And believe it or not, Nebraska is flatter than Kansas, is this a pro or a con? Both states take good care of their roads, and construction was minimal on both interstates. The Sunflower State has Kansas City and Topeka, the Cornhusker State has Lincoln and Omaha, so I think...

Our week in Colorado is going altogether too fast. Just one more day tomorrow, then on Saturday we'll head to Iowa. The air here is as dry and thin as I remembered, more so perhaps. But the mountains are just as beautiful, and I would love to spend the whole summer here exploring them. We got a tantalizing taste on Tuesday when we camped up in Rocky Mountain National Park. Today we were going to hike up to the punch bowls, but were thwarted by a late start and an early hail storm. We're gonna try again tomorrow, with a little earlier start. Also we have had fun seeing friends. We got to see friend Stephanie on Monday, who is spending her summer in Paonia, and tiny little town on the western slope. She seemed to be doing quite well. We have seen Connie, who we will also see tomorrow night for dinner. (At our house, so no meatballs.) And today at the Glen we hung out with Megan Dunham, who Aubrey had never met before in person, although we read her blog a lot, and she has read ou...

Day: Three Trip Odometer: 1,740 Number of books Aubrey has read: 3 Location: Colorado Springs, Mom and Dad's house. Today was the longest day of driving yet, about 13 hours, most of which were in Kansas. In Kansas we passed through Manhattan "The Little Apple", Hays "All American City 1996", and Russell, the birth place of an astronaut. We passed up the opportunity to pet the baby pigs, and see the world's largest prarie dog. Since we were skipping church we started the day with a Tim Keller sermon, and listened to another one in the afternoon. Today was also the best public radio day yet, we heard a good This American Life, and almost all of A Prarie Home Companion, which is impressive to get one radio station that long when you're driving. As we came into Colorado we listened to The Thistle and Shamrock. The best part, of course, was getting here. We'll be staying here for the week, doing some hiking, and generally enjoying ourselves.

Day: Two Trip Odometer: 920 Location: St. Louis, Sara "Fiesty Fireball" Allen's house. Day two took us from Atlanta to St. Loius. We slept through our alarms this morning, so we weren't on the road quite as early as hoped, but we were still driving by 7:15. We passed through Chattenooga, Nashville, Paducah, and crossed several big rivers. Today we listened to a bit of Car Talk with Click and Clack, more Psalms lectures from Phil Long, and some good St. Louis radio. St. Louis has such good radio stations. After meeting up with Sara we tried to get tickets to a Cardinals game, but to no avail. Only high dollar tickets were left, and even the scalpers we talked to we selling pretty pricey tickets. So we walked around the new Busch stadium, and sadly left without seeing the inside. We got food for a picnic and watched Shakespeare in the Park instead, which was somewhat cool in its own way, although a lot different from watching a baseball game.