My SuperAwesome Marching Band Wedding (Part One)

Before I wax poetic about the actual wedding, allow me some time to share with you, fine readers, the fabulous events leading up to the wedding.

Shower One: Tea with the Ladies of Michigan

First official wedding event was a shower in Michigan hosted by two of my mom’s BFF’s and her sister. This was an opportunity to allow my mom’s friends and Michigan folk to gather, celebrate, and wish us a happy soon-to-be marriage. It was ladies only and, in the true fashion of my mother’s ilk, was a very fine tea at a ritzy hotel. We sipped finely brewed beverages from fancy antique mismatched floral cups and ate little finger sandwiches.

It was very lovely. Karin and I were truly showered with love, and gifts, and well wishes. Both my siblings were there (a rare occasion - though my brother was banned from the actual shower) and my Aunt and Uncle flew in from Colorado. We were able to touch base with some of my awesome medical school friends who still live in MI and my mother’s friends I’ve known and loved forever, who are like family.

The only down point was that I was still pretty sick from my decompensation the several weeks before. Traveling was particularly hard on me. I was so grateful for the acceptance and flexibility of my friends and family as I’m sure my not feeling well put a small damper on things. I was in a bit of a drugged haze for most of the event (high on anti-emetics and the like) but in all it was absolutely gorgeous! As my mother-in-law would say, it was Fancy! (Photos from the Hotel's website!)

Shower Two: Shower/Bachelorette Brunch with Epic Scavenger Hunt

The second official wedding celebration was the shower/bachelorette event our local friends held for us. We started the day by gorging ourselves on an amazing brunch at one of our favorite local restaurants. After we finished stuffing our faces we waddled out the doors and commenced a truly epic adventure. One of our fabulous friends and shower-hostesses had designed a local scavenger hunt!

The Hunt

We divided in the two teams: Karin’s team, the Blue Team, and mine, the Green Team. We wore as much green or blue paraphernalia as we could cram on our bodies (points for each item of your team color). Then, we set off to scavenge! Almost all items were things we needed to photograph – either as proof or as the item itself. Creative interpretation was encouraged. Below is a random handful of items from the list (note: items couldn’t belong to a team member):

• Convince someone on a wheeled “vehicle” to let someone on your team take a ride (pic below).
• Take a photo of two people in love who are both drinking coffee.
• Photograph your entire team plus two guests jumping. Everyone must be in the air at the same time. (pic above/left)
  
• Take a photo of a pet wearing clothes.
• Take a photo of the most unusual item with the Space Needle on it.
• Someone who has been with their partner for over 25 years
• Someone born in Karin’s/Liz’s home state
• A white wedding dress -- extra points for someone wearing it, even more points if it’s someone’s wedding day!
• Two people playing musical instruments (extra points for both in the same photo)
• Go to a used clothing shop and dress a team member as a lesbian cliché (outfit must include 4 items not owned by a team member)
• Etc... (there were about 30 items)
  

It was so much fun! We did a majority of our scavenging close to home, in Capitol Hill, the LGBTQ and artsy district of Seattle, and where Karin and I call home. We hit our first roadblock at the very beginning. We saw a gaggle of young gay men sitting at a table outside one of the bazillion nearby coffee shops. After our usual lead-in which included the phrase, “we are on a scavenger hunt,” we asked if any of them were in love. The laughed sardonically and very dramatically rolled their eyes. The answer was a unanimously bitter “no.” In fact, they were quite possibly the most embittered anti-love folks we could have encountered. No matter - we didn't let that slow us down! We expressed our condolences and trudged on another block or two to easily find another two big, burly men walking down the street with coffee cups in hand. They were indeed in love, and more than happy to pose for us.

About 2/3 of the way through the hunt, my Green team met up with two of my friends from Boston who joined us for a foray to Pike Place to complete some scavenger items, and then lastly to Lake Union for a sample of water to take to the finish line. They were very helpful, especially when it came to asking strangers at Pike Place (mostly scared tourists) if they were together more than 25 years or from Minnesota. Another funny fact, while the 5 of us Green-teamers crammed like sardines into a teeny 2-door Volkswagen bug for part of the hunt, poor Karin’s Blue team had dwindled to two, and were traveling in luxury in her enormous Nissan Pathfinder.

I have to also mention that the day we had this Shower/Bachelorette Scavenger Hunt was the day Seattle hosted the Great Urban Race! That meant that we were coincidentally in the company of hundreds of other scavengers, also strangely dressed and frantic to get their items from their list! At one point we came across a couple of gals who asked us to help by taking a picture with them - instant scavenger hunt karma!

After completing the scavenger hunt we treated ourselves to yummy frozen yogurt at my summer obsession, Yogurtland (photo left). All in all it was a great event. The only real casualty was my camera, it obtained a mortal wound while serving us bravely taking a photo of a beloved drag queen friend (see photo of her fabulous besocked hand, below/right).

One of the scavenger items was to write a poem. My team had to write one about Karin and hers had to write one about me. I’ll wrap up this blog post with hers for mine and then mine (ours, really, as it was a team effort!) for her. They are definitely corny but we were pressed for time! You should have seen the pictures we drew of each other with our eyes closed! The horror!

Next post may be about the actual wedding itself -- stay tuned!

Liz is great,

Liz is smart,

And she’s crafty,

And good at art.

She likes horses,

I like dogs,

She’s good at games,

And wins them alls.

She likes coffee

I like toffee.

Yay for Liz!

By Karin Riggs

There once was a woman named Karin,

Who didn’t belong to a harem.

Her dog’s name is Lucy,

She likes to chase goosies,

And the two of them together would scare ‘em.

One day Karin met Liz,

And her heart got all in a tiz.

It went pitter, patter,

Flitter, flutter and splatter,

And she said, with this girl I must live!

By Team Green

Increments

Hello dear readers. Long time no blog, I know! Since it's been so long, instead of a chronological, month-by-month review as is my usual routine, I thought I'd cover a few of the most relevant topics. Things that will get some dedicated MelikaGirl time are: The status of my head injury, Wedding Events/Honeymoon and a celebration post for my dearest Sive who I lost October 22nd. So expect a few posts dedicated to those topics coming up soon!

In this post I'll focus on a brief-ish head injury update. As you may recall, I was felled by a decompensation in April. I recovered a bit late spring, early summer at the time of my last post and from there made incrementally slow improvements.

My return to working a regular schedule was painfully slow. At first it was minimal to no computer time. Then it was computer time until I had symptoms then stopping, moving to a dark quiet place and taking a 10 minute break or resting until symptoms went away again. Eventually I was able to work part days, then full days, seeing 1/3 patient load then slowly and surely a full patient load. I threw my expectations of having a social life out the window. I was medicated and in bed by 9:30 and up at 7 pretty much every day. I kept to my routine and even added nightly mindfulness meditation to my daily ritual, meditating from 30 minutes to 2 hours. I rested my brain at every opportunity. I nurtured my body as well. I start lifting weights and doing some interval training. Once I started working out more regularly my incremental improvements seemed to start increasing by, well, larger increments. By the wedding I could say I felt good most days. I even managed to climb a mountain (photo above from the descent), participate with my marching band in almost every parade as a banner carrier (photo at left) and do things that started to make me feel like I was getting my old life back!

I can't say I'm quite back to normal. Not yet. Screen time, loud sounds and bright and/or flashing lights are still hard to tolerate. But since September I have been successfully playing with Rainbow City Band, often with at least one earplug in, but it's been wonderful to make music again! This fall concert (can you find me at right?) we hosted the annual conference of the Lesbian and Gay Band Association and performed with around 300 other LGBT musicians and performers (the color guard also did an impressive number to a Danny Elfman arrangement). It was a great experience and it was so nice to see some familiar faces from Inauguration and New Orleans!

I still struggle with headaches, neck and jaw pain, some dizziness and difficulty sleeping through the night (usually due to one of the above). Additionally, when I get tired or am not taking proper care of myself, I'll have a hard time concentrating -- this can range from difficulty completing complicated tasks (like charting at the end of the workday) to difficulty with word-finding or expressing myself the way I'd like. These issues predictably seem to come up at the end of a particularly long day with a lot of computer use. It's terribly frustrating as problems staying focused or concentrating are things I've never had to deal with before and are harder for me to manage than the more simple symptoms like pain, dizziness, or nausea. I also sometimes find myself with a shorter fuse, more irritated at little things that used to not bother me nearly as much. But, like I said, if I care of myself, keep stress to a minimum, sleep well, eat well and exercise, these things are manageable and I think that maybe I'll someday be symptom free. *fingers crossed*

It's been HOW long?

Expectations are high as this three month hiatus (has it really been that long?) is the longest in the history of MelikaGirl. But I had my reasons: A) Referencing my last post, The Accident, I did not recover as smoothly from my head injury as I anticipated, and, B) Despite my convalescence, Karin and I have been busy with visitors (mom's mainly), trips and misadventures.

So, please take those high expectations and save them for some other auspicious event. I will only try to reflect as best I can on my last three months.

March was less like lions and lambs and a little more screaming banshees and whirling dervishes. I actually did have a nearly complete blog post composed for March (never posted since I was struck down by PCS). It was mostly details and some gripes about my new job. However, now that the month is a little further behind me, my gripes about conveyor-belt medicine and quantity of patients over quality of patient care seem ill-timed and trite. I had (and still have) every right to be pissed about that kind of health care system/work environment, but the real issue in March was my own failing health, and I was too blind to see it.

I wonder, was I so blind to my own symptoms because medical school and residency did such a fabulous job training me to ignore how I felt and keep plodding along -- always putting work first? Or was my lack of insight some sort of psychocognitive unawareness that was actually a possible sign or symptoms in itself - a result of the concussion? Maybe it was a bit of both?

By the end of March I crashed. Hard. With hindsight as it is, I can see now that I was getting worse with each week. [WARNING: explicit details ahead.] Through most of March I was kept awake once or twice a week with vomiting. Each time, my denial or lack of insight chalked it up to something I ate, a virus, or some other such excuse. In the daytime I had horrific headaches. In the evening I was dizzy and clumsy and uncoordinated. Sleep was difficult at best. Near the very end of the month I had a handful of days of outright awfulness. I had this horrible sensation similar to that one feels moments before passing out. Nothing helped. I was weak, nauseated, spinning like a top, and essentially unable to do anything. But they passed.

With the hope that the symptoms would just eventually go away, I kept driving myself to keep moving forward. A majority of the month and into April I spent my work days pushing through 9-10 hours in clinic, followed sometimes by hours of band rehearsals, board meetings, social engagements. I even managed to play in RCB's spring concert until the last two songs, when I had to bow out and lay prone on a couch in the green room.

My days off I spent nursing my symptoms with anti-nausea medications and running around from acupuncturist, to physical therapist, to craniosacral therapist, to sports medicine doctor, to massage therapist and so on and so forth.... Eventually I couldn't sustain and I crashed. My doctor was worried about my decompensation and referred me to a neurologist and I had just about everything above my shoulders imaged by MRI. I took a little more than a week off of work. Returned to a couple of half days, was doing pretty terribly (even walking short distances was hard without an arm to support me, my balance and vertigo were so bad) and ultimately the neurologist insisted on a full month off. From mid-April to mid-May: No work, no band, just rest and only doing those activities that I could tolerate without any worsening of symptoms.

This was a hard pill to swallow. I needed the income. I was planning a wedding and training a new horse! I had band and was elected to the board of directors! I was just starting my career! I couldn't just put on the brakes and stop! What if I don't get better, I kept thinking. This isn't fair, I selfishly thought. Why me, why now? Why didn't I have disability or sick leave? Why did I take so much time off and let my saving deplete so low? The injustice of paying back huge loans I had to get the education needed to do the job I was too sick to do made me furious. But the bottom line was: I was too sick to do anything, and statistics were on my side. Rest, and I should get better.

For the first week I was pretty useless, doing nearly nothing except eating, drinking, bathing, and washing dishes for short periods of time. Then it extended to laundry, short walks, relaxing social events (like Easter Egg dyeing - pictured), rides as a passenger in the car (horse therapy!), and after four weeks of solid and strict rest I started to get better. My fears and worries abated a little and I could start to see a normal life for me again in the future. I even managed a short trip to see the tulip fields in Skagit Valley (right) and got to enjoy a few hours of HonkFest West.

This leads us to May. I was still resting most the first part of the month but was a bit more functional. Instead of counting good hours, I was starting to have the occasional good day. Both Karin's mom and my mom ascended upon our humble apartment and we embarked in Momfest 2011. We each had quality time with our respective mothers and had joint planned events so the mothers, meeting for the first time, could get to know each other and have a little fun. Resting most the day, I managed a night out at our annual fundraiser, Swing Fever, earplugs in place, and paying careful attention to not overdo it. The moms really hit it off as evidenced by their dancing photo left!

After the moms departed (Karin's mom had a two weekend stay) I successfully completed my first week of half days back at work. This was immediately followed by band camp. Officially called the "RCB Retreat", it's a weekend of intensive marching and music practice, and bonding for the marching band and friends. As a non-playing member I had time to rest and recoup from my first week back at work and still have a little fun to boot (see first picture atop at the Disco Alien Ball). I even got to sing some Bangles at karaoke!

The weekend after that we flew to Michigan for a bridal shower thrown by my aunt and mom's friends. It was a lot for me and my post-concussed brain, but the event itself was short and with family around and a plethora of homecooked goodness, I could focus on stress-free R&R between the few scheduled events. It was wonderful to see my family and a few friends. I was focused so hard on being present and not overdoing it I didn't take a single photo!

This coming week I hope to extend my work hours to work about 2/3 of a day. I'll give that a few weeks and if I continue to see improvement in my PCS I'll go back to full days. I'm grateful my employer is keeping me on despite my injury and unscheduled time off - I'm not benefited and totally replaceable. Another employer may have just sent me packing and found another locums doc to fill the shoes I should have been filling.

Sunday I visited Gus. He gets to run around all day with his friends in a huge field and work on getting fat (he's still a growing boy) and he was a dream to play with - well behaved and always curious and affectionate. While doing some ground work training with him I realized I felt totally and completely me. No headache, no dizziness, just happy, and just Liz. I hope to have more feelings like that until the point where I take it for granted again... except for the part where I take it for granted.

The Accident

Understatement: The last month has been eventful.

For the few readers who don't know, I was in a riding accident shortly after my last post. In this entry I will try to explain what happened. Fair warning to my readers: there may be unpleasant descriptions ahead.

The Impact
Allow me to first say that I am no stranger to falling off horses. In 30+ years of riding and showing horses it is bound to happen. Not terribly often, thankfully. I have not been without injury, I have hurt my knee, ankle, broken my tailbone, and bruised and banged various body parts. However, with a few exceptions, the worst of my injuries to date have been from conquering jungle gyms and jumping on furniture. This tumble, however, was a bit more dramatic than the other times I've been de-horsed.

The entire day of Wednesday the 19th of January is gone from my memory (*poof), but the facility's trainer witnessed but the moments preceding and immediately following my accident. My dear, beloved Gus, who is truly good-natured but also young and still figuring out his new surroundings, was scared by a couple horses playing rough nearby. It took us both by surprise. He spooked forward, bucked, leaped, bucked again... we went out of sight... and next thing the trainer saw was Gus coming back around without me. She ran to the ring to see me laying on my back, unconscious, on the soft footing of the covered arena.

In the fall, my head must have hit the wall of the arena, or a hoof, or impacted something on the way down, because aside from a bit of a strained rotator cuff, I didn't have any evidence of a hard landing. No bruise, no broken bones, just a broken brain. But I guess you can't call it a freak accident it it makes a lot of sense, eh? Per witness report, I was unconscious for about a minute. After which I apparently got up of my own accord and declared myself fine. Despite my protests I was ordered to the nearest ER for a check up - a very smart thing to do.

On the way to the ER I apparently had a seizure (not uncommon after a concussion). After the seizure I was a lot less adamant about my well-being. Apparently I became very disoriented and confused. I had no concept of who I was, where I came from, who anyone was around me, let alone what had happened. By this time it was evident I had a traumatic brain injury, confusion, amnesia and a partridge in a pear tree. Thankfully, my head CT was without any bleed and for that I can surely thank my super awesome helmet!

At some point I gained more awareness and began to ask questions. The same 3 or 4 questions. Over and over again. With the same inflection, wording. Like a 10 second episode of 50 First Dates, or my very own Groundhog's Day. One of the exchanges on repeat went like this:

Me: What happened?
Karin: You were thrown from a horse
Me: A horse? Was it my horse?
Karin: Yes, it was your horse
Me: I have a horse?
Karin: Yes
Me: That's awesome!
Me: What happened?
Karin: You were thrown from a horse
Me: A horse? Was it my horse?
Karin: Yes, it was your horse
Me: I have a horse?
Karin: Yes
Me: That's awesome!
Me: What happened?
Karin: You were thrown from a horse
Me: A horse? Was it my horse?
Karin: Yes, it was your horse
Me: I have a horse?
Karin: Yes
Me: That's awesome!

And so on...

After everyone was positively 100% sure I didn't have a broken neck or a sneaky little bleed in my brain, I was transferred by ambulance to a hospital closer to home. When Karin arrived I was in the hospital bed, watching a video on fall prevention. I mention this little detail on my blog for a couple reasons: 1) to point out the ridiculousness of "educating" someone with amnesia by leaving them alone in a room with a video playing, and 2) I just had a traumatic brain injury, one thing I certainly should NOT have been doing is watching TV. Shame on you, Unnamed Hospital! While I have no memory of the video, I have it on good authority I still managed not to fall.

The worst of my amnesia and short term memory loss lasted until the next morning. Even though I was able to make new memories and keep them, the week after the accident still has some holes in it. And Karin reports that my personality didn't return until over a week after my discharge from the hospital. I can only imagine how frightening it might be when the someone you love who isn't acting like that someone anymore.

Silver Lining
The most amazing and wonderful thing about all of this was how my friends and family rallied. My friends from band and family in the area signed up to take turns staying with me that first week when Karin had to go back to work. I ended up with more ice cream than could fit in my freezer! People brought meals and cookies and picture books. Some people even had the patience to read to me (as I was unable to read for the first few weeks). Surely I wasn't good company, I would tire after short conversations and spent most of my time sleeping and resting on the couch. But people kept coming by and helping however they could. For two weekends in a row my father flew in from Michigan to help out and made his killer spaghetti sauce which usually only gets revived at Christmas. There's still some hoarded in the freezer!

There is excellent evidence that a good support system improves recovery rates in the ill - whether it be traumatic injury, chronic illness, acute illness; concussion, cancer or heart attack. And my support system ROCKED! I truly think I owe my quick recovery to my unbelievable support system. My accident helped me realize how lucky I really am.

Recovery
It took about three full weeks before I started to feel more like Liz again. Even now, more than four weeks later, I still have symptoms like headaches, dizziness, weird creepy-crawly, feverish-like feelings that come on when I stare at the computer too long, and a poor tolerance for florescent lights, but presumably those will fade over time.

I have started work. It's definitely not easy with the florescent lights and computer screen time, but talking to the patients and doing the exams is nice again after my 7+ month sabbatical. Plus, I am really looking forward to being able to pay my bills (yay paychecks!). And, I must say, I am thrilled to have the brain health to be able to do my job!

I also have learned that I need to get my DPOA paperwork, disability, and life insurance in order. Karin was there from beginning to end, and was as powerless as a stranger. So DPOA paperwork is complete and only awaiting to be notarized.

There you have it. My accident in one blog post. Hopefully that answered a lot of people's questions. The rest of February will hopefully be generally uneventful. In my next entry I may expound further on the New Job and other less traumatic adventures.

(photo borrowed from Google images)

Big changes for 2011

Wow, 2011 is already proving to be a year of change! Here are some of the new things going on in the Melikagirl Universe since my last update.

The New Horse
I know I have already hinted at this, but allow me to officially state: I have acquired a horse! He was a gift, arrived January 8th from Kentucky, and he is all mine. Mine, mine, mine! He is 17 hands high (that's rather big, for those who don't know what that means), a bay (which means brown horse with black mane and tail), a Thoroughbred (America's most versatile breed, in my opinion) and only 4 years old (that's just a baby, he still may even have some growing to do). I've named him Augustus, or Gus for short. He's lovable, sweet, amazingly good natured (no one can believe he's just 4 years old), and he is still figuring things out under saddle. Here is a photo of him getting nose scratches from me on our second ride together.

You may not be surprised, but I'm totally in love.

We have a lot of work to do. Optimistically, he may start jumping in the next 6 months or so at the jumper facility across the street, but in the meantime, he needs to get his basics down a bit better. I'm boarding at a really nice dressage barn complete with very good trainers who can help me train Gus to reach his awesome potential. He is flexible, athletic, willing, mostly brave, and wants to please. I just need to be patient with him and he can go far. Next week we have our first professional training session and I can't wait to see how it goes!


The New Car
My little '95 Civic, with stick shift, sunroof, and oodles of pep, has officially been retired. I worked hard to keep her after she'd been stolen and violated my memorable intern year. My personal goal was to have her last through residency. And that she did. While most Civics are reliable and last forever, this one succumbed years ago to the salt and snow of Michigan. I used to joke with one of my mechanics that she was an Escort trapped in a Civic's body. Her poor rust-addled frame has been held together with spit, love and bailing twine for the last decade or more (I drew the line at duct tape). The amount of cash I've put into repairs in the last 2 years has added up to more than she's worth. The last time she was in the shop (after my calipers seized for, say, perhaps the 5th time) the mechanics recommended about $1800 in repairs right away. I paid them $600 to keep her drivable. Thus, as peppy and fun as that little maroon car was, it was time to let her go. Between the horse and work, I expect to spend about 10 hours (plus or minus) driving each week. And now that I will be dealing with rush hour traffic, I'm not going to lie, an automatic will be a nice break on my poor gimpy clutch leg.

So what am I going to be driving now, you ask? Karin wanted to upgrade to a larger vehicle so she can fit her piano and associated equipment without shuffling too many seats. We were also thinking about having the option to haul the new beast. So Karin settled on a Certified Used 2007 Nissan Pathfinder SE. Not the kind of vehicle I ever thought I would have (admittedly, I still lust after a 5-speed manual transmission V-tec Honda Fit...) but she's from the wilds of Minnesota and can handle a truck like a pro. But I don't plan on driving that behemoth! I'll be driving Karin's previous chariot, which is now officially mine, a 2005 Honda Civic LX. I will take over the remainder of Karin's payments and we traded in my '95 to go toward her new beast. I think she may call her new car Bo Jangles. I think I'll just keep calling it The Beast. The '05 Civic still remains nameless. (Grainy picture above was taken by my phone: my new car, Silver, is at left, and the old carl, maroon, is at right - the angle makes the sizes funny be trust me that the new one is a tad bigger than the old one. The stock photo at right is The Beast, Bo Jangles).

The New Job
My planned 6 month sabbatical was extended just one month longer than anticipated as I will be starting work this February.

I have accepted an offer of a locum tenens job with HealthPoint here in King County. Of course it's the the furthest point of the County, in the city of Federal Way, just about to Tacoma (about 40 minutes with no traffic), but it's the opposite direction of rush hour (mostly) and just 3 days a week. I was commuting from Seattle to Tacoma and visa versa about 2-3 times a week all last year anyway, so I think I can handle the drive again for another 8 months.

Admittedly, I have been worried about launching my fresh-out-of-residency career in a similar environment to my old clinic. I was a bit burned by my patients taking advantage of me and the fact we were a residency clinic. We were often the last place a patient could be seen after they had been "fired" by numerous other health providers (for prescription drug abuse, fraud, inappropriate behavior, and other various issues) and had to deal with some very difficult patients. Residency clinic and "real life" clinic are two very different animals, and while HealthPoint is a federally recognized community health center, and their patient population is largely uninsured and underserved, I feel I might be in a better position to set some boundaries right off the bat.

I am excited to see what clinic life is like in a new work environment. I am appropriately skittish to be practicing on my own (will certainly double check my own advice before doling it out to my patients for a while) and understandably ecstatic to start getting a pay check! I have no benefits or paid vacations but I also don't have a long term commitment and am only working part time.

So, new horse, new car, new job, a wedding to plan... this next few months will fly by. I am going to try and slow down and savor every morsel of the good stuff.

2010: Year in Review

Time for my third annual "Year in Review" Post. Get your popcorn and diet soda and settle in for some nostalgia...

For those who like swimming in summaries, here lie 2008's and 2009's reviews. 2010 was indeed a memorable year. I started out in indentured servitude and am ending it in a very different, much more enjoyable place. (Aside from three obvious photos, pictures here are from the eventful month of December.)

Now, on to the very serious business of my annual month by month review, divided into the tidy categories of Uppers and Downers.

January: Rotation: ER, and the usual burden of "back-up". Downers: Slave labor in it's truest form. Scheduled to the max 6-7 days a week with little time to breathe, sleep, eat, care for myself. Uppers: A freak flooding rainstorm in the Southwest led to a canceled flight, a glorious weekend off (the only one for approx 12 weeks) and an engagement! Three cheers for happily ever after!

February: Rotation was NICU with q4 call. A meh rotation with lots of time sitting fully scrubbed and waiting for babies to get sick. Not the best time. Downers: My one golden weekend was a required residency retreat where I ended up getting food poisoning. Uppers: After recovering from said food poisoning my class won the TFM Talent show performing a song I wrote about a lost pager - it was a huge hit and lots of fun! Also, I enjoyed a post-call stuporous Valentine's Day dance with my fiance.

March: Rotation: Cardiology. Supposedly a break from all the call. Supposedly a break from working so many weekends (by March, aside from the freak storm and the work-related retreat, I had worked every weekend in 2010. Yes, I'm still bitter). Downers: due to coverage for other residents, official back-up duty, and my own laboring patients, I was still sleep-deprived and dearly missing my sweetie in Seattle. Uppers: I got to perform the 1812 overture with RCB, complete with [electronic] cannon fire! I managed a short escape to present at the AMSA conference. Passover Seder family reunion in San Fransisco! The Countdown Clock continued...

April: That was my "No Happy Bunnies" post, as you may recall. Rotation was in-patient family medicine. Downers: We were short-staffed and thanks to work, Karin and I missed out on our first anniversary and Honkfest, and I missed out on just about everything that makes Seattle Spring superawesome. I was still horseless and barely able to find time to play my trumpet. However there were Uppers: I groggily made one post-call Renegayde gig for the Roller Derby, and the month eventually ended. But the best upper was that it was the last month like that. Ever! The thrill of my last call was dampened by the fact that I was called in to cover more calls, but at the time I thought it was my last and I celebrated in style: Rounding on roller skates (as above).

May was a breath of fresh air! I finally had less back up and could use that vacation time! Downers: Not much. Just the surprise black weekend call after my much needed vacation, more residents down for the count and more chaos at TFM. Uppers: Band Camp! Vacation in buttery Minnesota! Sleep! Tick tick tick on the countdown calendar...

June was the last month of residency. It flew by. Rotation: Bastyr elective in Seattle. Downers: everything happened at once which was seriously stressful. But, all those things were overall pretty good (moving, the visits from my family, finishing residency). Uppers: Did I mention I finished residency? Moving in with Karin, Pride, Summer solstice festival, family. Oh, yeah, and as of midnight on 6/30 I finished residency! Woot! Countdown clock zero'ed out (I had two countdown clocks, one online and one on my iPod - the zeroed out one from my iPod is pictured at left)!

July: First month without an associated rotation since the month I had off between medschool and residency! Holy moly! Call it my rebound month. Downers: Board exams - ick. Some drama around RCB. Merging two households was way more stressful than I anticipated. At the end of the month the biggest downer was the death of a close family friend, as well. Uppers: OMG I got to do laundry! OMG! I got to do dishes! OMG I got to sleep in! OMG! I got to watch TV! Traveled to Boston for for a week for a GLMA Board Meeting. Rocked some parades with RCB. OMG I finished residency last month!

August: Oy. The biggest Downer occurred Sunday, August 1st: ripped my left gastrocs in two pieces, rolling it up like a window shade and rendering me useless for a large portion of the month. Uppers: Seeing some Aussie pals, Lisa and her mother. Camping with Karin's Neice. Storm games. And BLUE HAIR! Plus, all those rippling upper body muscles from those crutches!

September: It was full of so much adventure that I posted my entry late. Downers: what are those? Oh, right, I was still pretty injured but getting around a lot better and Uppers: No more cane! Seattle Storm Mania. GLMA Conference in San Diego. Another great Lullaby Moon gig.

October: The real recuperation month. As I reflect back, it wasn't until the end of October that I really felt I was starting to heal. I had more energy and dug into life. I looked for horses, barns where I could ride. I did some serious wedding planning and I went through a lot of old boxes and papers and finally finished unpacking. My blog posts were full of nostalgia about medical school and rotations. I was starting to get ready to get back into the workforce. Downers: More band drama. Karin took the Pysch GRE's (ick for her). Uppers: Huge headway made on wedding planning! Plus all the aforementioned healing! Freedom feels so good!

November was eventful. Downers: Snow put Seattle on hold Uppers: Snow put Seattle on hold just before Thanksgiving (making for a loooong weekend!) and Karin and I hosted a Little Gay Thanksgiving at our house. I made some headway on the job and horse search!

Bringing us to this month, December, HanuBirtMas time! Downers: After 34 years I still get bitter that my birthday is lumped with Jesus'. Is that selfish? Uppers: RCB Christmas concert! Birthday sushi (yum at left) with friends and family and ice skating. And, of course, the much anticipated Trip to Minnesota.

In the Tundra of Middle River, MN, among other things, I helped make a traditional Norwegian flatbread called lefse and drove a snowmobile. Ah the snowmobile lesson... it went something like this, "Here's the throttle, here's the brake, here's the emergency shut-off. Follow me." And with snowsuit, helmet and an 11 year old sitting in the seat behind me, I took off in the dark winter night, following faint tail lights and a cloud of snow. That first ride I can't say with total honesty that I had a lot of fun. Terrifying would be more accurate. But the following day was another story. Off we went, in the blazing sunshine across field and dale, through woods and trails. Glorious adventures were had. I smiled so hard my face hurt. And while I missed my family and my usual family traditions, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the in-laws and actually look forward to another snowy Christmas in northern rural Minnesota - snowsuit and all (see photo above near February's summary)!

So, dear readers, 2010 was great, but I trust 2011 will be even better! It will be a big year - a real job, a wedding, and a horse! Yes, a horse. I know I keep promising more word on the topic... s0 stay tuned for more word on work and horses...

Happy New Year!

Sagittarian FTW (Happy HanuBirtMas)

Thanksgiving, a horse swap, seasonal festivities and the Snowpocolypse... it's been quite a busy month since my last update. I sit here shortly after my ophthalmologist visit on our new Couch of Amazingness with my ginormous pupils and belly full of left over spinach dip contemplating where to start.

I suppose tossing a term like "snowpocolypse" in my intro may elicit some questions so I will start there. The snowstorm we had around Thanksgiving was a doozy. It's wasn't so much the fluffy stuff that caused the issues, it was the frozen wet stuff underneath. When one lives in Rain City, temperatures below freezing leads directly to total chaos. Especially in my neighborhood, where the hills are steep, and the salt trucks non-existent. In sum, the white stuff was lovely coating for the carcasses of abandoned vehicles and closed up shops while the city had their dry run for The End of the World and shut down the week of Thanksgiving. Commuters spent up to 8 hours in gridlock on the icy freeways and after running out of gas left their poor cars where they died. Click here for a recap of the madness (follow links therein for more video and photo fun) and note below an entertaining video of a street not far from my house. Oh Seattle, you amuse indeed. (Also amusing, Seattle men and their all-season shorts apparel as my photo above).



By the time Thanksgiving rolled around Karin and I had managed to create a cozy little space of our home and as the snow continued to fall, our guests arrived to partake in a true feast! We had incredible homemade pies (pumpkin and apple - crusts from scratch of course - see left), turkey for the carnivores with gravy, gluten free stuffing of awesomeness, cranberry sauce of glory, scrumptious mashed potatoes, the required yams with marshmallowy sweetness, crunchiferous green bean casserole, olfactory bliss home baked bread, and more! Five of us sat around the table and gave thanks for the food, each other, and leftovers. The the next few days involved finishing the foodstuffs (that Karin pretty much made on her very own with minimal help from yours truly - I was the clean-up crew) and preparing ourselves for the next Big Three: Hanukkah, Birthday and Christmas... which in this blog entry I am now naming as HanuBirtMas (strategic capitalization optional).

This year, for HanuBirtMas I want a horse. No... not a pony, a horse (although I do love ponies and if one should happen upon my doorstep with a note saying "free pony" I would surely take it in and love it and cherish it forever. Especially THIS pony!) Everyone should know by now horses have been a critical need of mine since my brain was developed enough to understand wants and desires. My first word may have been interpreted as "cookie" but what I meant to say was "double clear" - an obviously big mouthful for a baby but certainly reflective of my equestrian intentions. So to follow up from last months' horse report: King, the great big push-button gray gelding with "Grand Prix" written all over his massive head, was sold. I'm sure I'll see him on CBC someday, rocking the international jumper scene and will be able to say with pride, "I almost got to ride that horse." However, my consolation prize promises to be quite fantastic. ...And you fine readers will have to wait to hear all about it! I fear talking about it here may again tempt the fates, and out of pure superstition I will withhold full details in cyberprint until everything is settled. (Plus, I don't have any cool pictures to share yet!) Hopefully by my next blog post or two I can shed the superstitious malarkey and fill everyone in on the horse saga. In the meantime, appreciate my relaxed riding style, circa 1988, above.

Albeit still (momentarily) horseless, I have been busying myself these past few weeks with more job searching, present-buying, Christmas caroling with my band, preparing for our upcoming concert and enjoying in the birthday cheer of my many fellow Sagittarians in my social circle. I've been lighting Hanukkah candles and bought a little Christmas tree from the nearby Seattle AIDS Support Group annual fundraiser tree sale. Later this month, after a concert and some birthday sushi, Karin, LucyDog (who just turned 8 yesterday) and I will be getting the TSA-pat-down and boarding a plane to Minnesota (via Grand Forks, ND) to understand the true meaning of winter wonderland and to have a Midwest feast courtesy of the in-laws-to-be that will surely rival our turkey-optional, pie-fest, snowpocolypse Seattle Thanksgiving!

Happy HanuBirtMas everyone (photo: me + cake + fellow Sag = yum!)