Livin' in Utah

Well, here i am, a resident of Salt Lake City for the next two months. I live with two girls in a cute little house (currently i live in the living room but will have my own room on the first) in west salt lake. They are very chill and fun to chat with. My neighborhood is kinda ghetto but I am close to the hospital which is nice. Utah is beautiful and the hospital is really a huge complex of newly built buildings at the base of the mountains. I work with a great woman surgeon who loves her job and has made it her goal to make me into a surgeon too. Today was my first day and all went well. I would also like to celebrate the fact that i have yet to get lost in my new town or hospital which makes me oh so proud and happy (turning the wrong way does not count if you realize it and find your way back, right?). So far Utah has been great for shopping and exploring too. I went to Park City with my sister-in-law and yesterday grocery shopped at a Smiths that was two stories and had an escalator! That is all for my life right now. Sorry i never filled everyone in on my PICU experience but i lost my writing moment and have moved on....

The Sheba Scream

So I have had a long and somewhat sad three weeks (see blog later) and since yesterday was my last day in the Pediatric ICU, Chris and I bough pizza, wings, an beer, watched our favorite show on DVR and decided to stay up late and sleep in this morning. The plan was going well and I was happily snuggled in my husband arms when we heard the scream.

If you ever read about sheba inu's, it will tell you they have a distinctive "scream". I sat straight up in bed as did Chris when we heard this high pitched, super loud, fairly tragic sounding screaming coming from the backyard. Ichiban had been outside for about two hours and when we found him after grabbing a robe and dashing outside, he was in the corner of the yard screaming like no other. Chris got him to the porch and we put our arms around him and tried to calm him down. We examined his legs, paws, face, body, everything over and over to make sure he was not hurt. I brought him inside while chris looked around the yard for the cause.

My puppy seems ok now, though he is extra snuggly and wants lots of love today. We never found what caused our baby to scream, I think it must have been a snake or scorpion. Anyway, it was quite a way to wake up and needless to say our sleep in morning was lost.

I applied!!!

So this morning I sat on my couch, read and reread my CV, personal statements, personal information, everything in my residency application. Then i went through my program choices for the millionth time, checked the boxes, held my breath, and submitted my residency application. I don't think that I have felt so nervous, serious, and excited about anything in quite some time. Will I get interviews? Where will i end up? and the big question, what will i be? So, i felt like i was running out of time in applying and i did not want to miss out on getting interviews at my top choice programs because i waited too long deciding what to apply to, soooo i applied to both MED-PEDS and SURGERY!! I am hoping by interview time i will have made a decision and will only go to one specialty or the other but you never know. Maybe I will let the match decide for me, rank both in every other spot (ie 1. med-peds, 2.surgery, 3. med-peds, etc). Anyway, hopefully the interviews will start coming in and i will be off all over the U.S. trying to make people like me :). BTW, for those interested my top choices are Salt Lake City, UT, Chapel Hill, NC, and Nashville, TN.

Puppies and Kids

While we did not get Ichiban as a child replacement, when our attempts to make a baby were unsuccessful we still felt the desire to expand our family. Ichi has been great at adding something special and giving Chris and I a new focus. I always thought that people who called their dogs their "babies" or "children" were very silly and somewhat over adoring of their pets. After a fantastic week of dog owning, I am beginning to see how easily the comparison can be made. Our little puppy sleeps most of the day, loves to snuggle, and loves his stuffed animals. He also requires me to get up at least three times a night to take him to go pee, even when it is raining outside. Yes, i have found myself standing in the rain at 3am in my flip-flops and pajamas telling my dog to "go outside" (which means pee already!) . He also is having problems wetting his bed when he is asleep and we have had to wash his bed sheets four times in the last week! As with children though, we love him anyway and can't help but rub his belly and smile. He went to the vet today for his shots and he only yelped a little, for being so good he got to go to the dog park and make some new friends. Such a good puppy :)