Rah Rah Happy Birthday America

So my first call on the OB deck as a solo resident went surprisingly well. There was a three or four hour period where things were a little crazy. I had to call in help from the resident on call for internal medicine. However, by actually running between deliveries (literally) I was able to catch all the kiddos. The nurses, I cannot emphasize enough, are really amazing. In OB it's standard to have one nurse for one patient. Sometimes a nurse will go to lunch break (ah, unionization) but overall it's really consistent for the patient and, I have to admit, great help for me. The nurses really know their stuff. Sometimes there are conflicts as they have their idea how to manage the labor and you have yours, but overall the coordination of care goes pretty smoothly and we have a baby at the end. My nurses saved me last night. When I had five laboring patients, a cesarean section and triage was full with concerned moms-to-be, they help manage things to the point where I could pretty much just run from vagina to vagina to OR to vagina and catch babies. Heck, I even got about an hour or two of sleep in the 30 hours I was there...

...which is good since here I am, post-call, and there are fighter jets and B52s flying around outside my window in celebration of the USA. Sometimes, when the fighter jet flies spiraling up into the sky, flips around upside down and back toward the waterfront, it emits a sonic boom and all the car alarms go off. It's all very exciting but definitely not conducive for sleep. However, just to show how tired I was, I did sleep through it for about an hour or two. (photo, by the way, is patriotism, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence way).

I was on call last 4th so I'm not sure what is Tacoma typical, but especially exciting now is that the Tall Ships are here. Those who don't know what that means (like me until I looked it up) it translates as really cool ships with big sails (a rigged sailing vessel according to Wikipedia. - source of the photo). It's a yearly festival and at a different location each year. Tacoma is the lucky waterfront this year. For pictures of some of the ships and info about the various "villages" as part of the festival you can check out the Tall Ships Tacoma Website. Traffic yesterday when the ships were sailing in was apparently atrocious (2 hours to go two exits on the freeway per one report).

So this weekend is a Golden one for me. Which is particularly nice since I'm still recovering from pediatrics. Case in point: there's a stack of unsorted mail and random papers surrounding my couch like a moat. I haven't vacuumed since who knows when and I think the dust bunnies are so plentiful they are starting to organize a guerrilla attack.

The most ambitious plan for my sleepless post-call Fourth will be to ride my bike down to the waterfront to see the Tall Ships... if I can muster the energy (and if this iced coffee I'm drinking now does its trick). The rest of the plan includes laundry, sorting mail and watching fireworks from the windows. In all, not a bad post call day. If I'm lucky I'll get decent breaks between loud things to sleep! Tomorrow I head up to Seattle for my little cousins' joint b-day party. I bought them hula hoops. And couldn't resist so I also bought one for myself. (One of my cousins at left hula hooping - and, look, another Utilikilt behind her!)