So all the news is family-related right about now.....

    Bob's parents came to visit last weekend--Ron had an asbestos conference/recertification in Portland (talk about toxic fun!) so they stopped up to hang out with us and take in a Mariner's game.  It worked out so well.. I was on call Friday but slept an hour or so and was home by 9am because I got my work done early, then we had a nice breakfast and headed to Seattle to eat and walked around Seattle Center a bit enjoying the 82 degree (NO JOKE) weather and sunshine before heading to the game!  The Mariners won and it was a great game and we had excellent snacks and looked great in our jerseys!  :)  NICE.  Then we came home and I slept for a good 11 hours, which was pretty much awesome, then we had a nice breakfast together.  Then Carolyn and I played some Hand and Foot while the boys dug up some of our raspberry bushes and some flowers to take back with them.  We had a nice visit and it was fun to see all their pictures from their recent visit to the Jeppsens too! 

 

 

 

 

      In bigger family news, my brother got married!  He and Lesley decided to get married officially before their big ceremony this September, so Congratulations to them!  John, my stepdad, has his minister's license that I believe he got online for a friend's wedding a few years ago, so he married them in their living room.  Mom said Paul was dressed up, but was in his socks.  Way to keep it casual Big Brother!  That's how he rolls.  :)  My stepdad thought the cake was pretty hilarious so here it is:

 

 For those of you who couldn't guess from the picture/don't know, Paul and Lesley have a daughter together, Addison, who's almost a year old now. If I had any pictures of the ceremony I'd post those but I didn't even know it happened until I talked to Mom a few days ago!  I guess this is what happens when you live a few hundred miles away!

 

     The Jaiden update: he's doing great!  He had a second laser eye surgery on Wednesday for his ROP (retinopathy of prematurity--a problem with the back of the eye that happens to premies d/t all the oygen they require early in their little lives).  They also fixed his hernias and it all went well.  The pediatric ophthalmologist will check his eyes again soon to see how that part went, but he's already eating and off the vent so that's pretty huge... hopefully he'll keep doing great and be discharged while we're home!  He weighed 5 lbs 7 oz today!  He's gaining so well... a long ways from the 511g he started at! 

 

      In personal news.... I have a HOLE in my tooth!  Yes, many of you would call this a cavity, and I'm guessing it probably is, but ew!  I could feel a rough spot that felt really sharp on one of my top molars so I kept rubbing my tongue over it, as you do when you have a feeling like that, but it wouldn't move, whatever it was... so when I got home I washed my hands and felt it with my finger and it was really rough!  I looked in the mirror and could see a good sized hole, the edges of which were what I was feeling!  Then over the course of tonight, 3 tiny pieces of tooth have come out from this freak hole.  Of course this would happen on a Friday night.  So on Monday I'll go back to the dentist at work I guess... YUCK!  I think they open at 7am so maybe I'll just skip morning report and try to get this fixed before my first patients come in at 9am?  Yikes.  I'm falling apart.  I've had a RIDICULOUS amount of dental work this year, including a root canal and crown and it just doesn't seem like I should have another thing to fix!  I guess I should be grateful that my teeth were kind enough to wait to crap out until I was active duty and wouldn't have to pay for it... If you added the actual cost I would have paid for all my dental care, prescriptions, and eye surgery from this last year I'll bet that adds up to more than half the salary the Army pays me!  Whoah. HOO-AH!  :)  The good news about my tooth craziness now is that it actually doesn't hurt at all.  I will focus on that and be grateful! 

 

      So Bob's bowling with the guys from Elder's quorum and I'm just relaxing since I'm not on call til tomorrow so that's nice.  I finished my presentation this week for the NICU and OB/GYN conference on Wednesday--I have to do a formal presentation in front of a few hundred people.... gulp.... I will be glad when Wednesday morning is over!  At least it's all done and ready to go... It's only 17 power point slides, so that shouldn't take me more than 15 minutes, right?  Hopefully there are no sharks in the audience... cut the intern som slack, right?  :)  The better part of next week is that we're coming home!  We're planning to leave as soon as I get off Saturday morning.... I'm going to sweet talk one of my comrades into doing 3 South (Newborn nursery) that morning so I can just leave after signout hopefully so we can get home in time to catch some of the partying with the Poteets since we're arriving just prior to their big birthday week!  We'll just barely miss our niece Maddy's birthday (on the 21st) and in other birthday news, Happy Birthday to Erica soon too!  (Also the 21st!)  Kayla's birthday is soon after theirs too--big birthday week!

 

       Ok, that's all the news... Our weather has gone back to normal after our one nice day and it's supposed to freeze tonight and snow above 500 feet.   Silly weather.  At least I wasn't working for our one nice day!  Hope you all have wonderful weekends!

 

Here's B on her new Big Wheel from her favorite aunt and uncle, Maddy and Brooklyn and Kai all ready for church, and Jaiden 2 weeks ago--he's even bigger now!  :)

 

 

 

We had a great weekend with a whole day and a half off for me!  I was on call Friday, but off by 9am on Saturday and only slept a few hours and then we went out and about and had a great time!  My call wasn't too bad--a lot of little stuff but no admissions--I was on the peds ward, not the NICU, so that was a nice change, especially since the NICU exploded after I left!  Thursday was my last day there, and I was off at noon since I was on call on Wednesday, and all the babies were fine.  Unfortunately, 12 hours after I left, the babies went crazy!  2 babies who were pretty stable when I left were suddenly VERY SICK and one had to be transferred to another hospital even!  Then, 2 more very sick babies came... one who was only 24 weeks, and another who was 32 weeks but only 630g, which is the size of a 24 weeker!  :(   Hopefully they're all doing better by now, but YIKES!  Apparently the babies needed me.... The ward was a nice change... happy healthy kids (relatively anyway!).  I only had to go to the ER once, and the kid they had me see looked GREAT so I sent her home, which is always nice! 

  Anyway, after I got home and had slept a bit we went and played mini golf at a place called the "Putting Zoo" in Puyallup, which was great fun, not just because of its cheesey name, but it really did have a lot of good obstacles on both courses... the first one was far too challenging for me and I had a few 7's, but I beat Bob on the second course!  Then we went and had Chipotle for dinner and enjoyed National Treasure 2 at the $2 theater in Federal Way.  A very fun Saturday!  Today we watched conference online and I scrapbooked a little bit, we watched No Reservations, which was cute, and we played Monopoly, which went well for a while, then Bob got me... I made a bad trade early on which I never really recovered from... :) 

  Lots of good news this week, so congratulations to Cristy and Nathaniel on their engagement, to Katrina and Chris for the upcoming bundle of joy, to the Jeppsens on their upcoming baby boy (although that's slightly older news!), and to Jaiden on hopefully leaving the NICU in the next month!  (And for now being 4 and a half pounds!  That's great!) 

   Hope you all enjoyed your weekend! 

   ~Cathy

So to preface this, just accept that I ALWAYS have crazy dreams.  Usually quite abstract improbable things that make little/no sense, but this was definitely up there in that spectrum! 

     I think it started when my friend Erica emailed me last night and mentioned that they're thinking they'll wait another year to try to get pregnant because residency is just too stressful and breastfeeding is a big job in and of itself, so even though she's totally baby hungry she thinks it's for the best, but she said if her husband could get pregnant and breastfeed they'd totally do it now!  I guess I was pondering that more than I thought I was because last night I totally dreamed that Bob was having our baby!!!!  In my dream we were in the delivery room and Bob was screaming in pain and I felt terrible and had all this guilt that I should be having the baby!  Then he pushed the baby out really fast and there was just a nurse and I in the room and no OB or peds people!  Somehow there was no umbilical cord to cut and the baby was just out and the nurse started freaking out because he wasn't moving or crying and I yelled, "Just stimulate him!" and took the baby from her and started rubbing him with a blanket and of course he cried right away and was fine!  The other funny thing is that it was a 27 week premie.. how very specific, huh  Somehow he was totally fine though and I remember thinking, I just want to take him home now and not stay in the hospital or have Bob stay!  Then I woke up.  WEIRD.  I haven't told Bob yet--he's still at work--but I'm sure he will be very amused by this.  I'm sure there's lots of symbolism in this dream!  Obviously it suggests I'm a little baby hungry myself, and probably Bob having the baby is representative of how I don't think it's something I can do right now, but the whole thing is pretty crazy!  The stuff with the nurse is straight from work... every delivery they call us to where they're "failing" a resuscitation the situation's always the same... the L and D nurses always forget to stimulate the baby!!!!!!!  Basic newborn resuscitation is SIMPLE.  Stimulate and warm and suction that baby!  That means you turn the heat on before you put the baby in the crib so it's warm, you remove each blanket/towel as you wipe off the slime, and you just rub that baby over and over to make him/her cry something fierce, because that's how they clear their fetal lung fluid and do well!  Nearly every time they call me in when they tried to do the initial resuscitation and get concerned that the baby's not doing well, it's the same thing.  I walk in and there are 8-10 nurses around the crib, holding oxygen on the baby's face and doing nothing else.  Baby is inevitably lying on the first cold wet blanket/towel, the bulb syringe is still in the package because no one even opened it, and they all have this look of horror in their eyes.  Sometimes they're even shouting at each other in panic while everyone does NOTHING.  Nearly always it ends the same way... I push them out of the way because no one wants to let me in, even though they called me to help!  Then I take away the oxygen (From the bright pink baby) and start rubbing his/her back and a blood-curdling cry flies out and everyone breathes a sigh of relief.  Usually I suction the mouth and nose a little, do a quick exam and then reassure the parents that all is well and leave.  Sometimes I try to politely remind the nurses what the most important parts of newborn resuscitation are.  Usually they interrupt me several times while I'm helping the baby to tell me he/she needs oxygen.  Usually I just smile and say, "I think the baby looks great, but thanks!" 

    The fact that we had a micro-premie is probably just representative of my fear of bad things happening to me because I'm an over-worrier and I know all the bad things that can happen, because I see it at work.  Wanting to leave is probably because all the parents I see just want to take their babies home!  Even babies born at 27 weeks, which is 13 weeks early, for those of you counting!  AKA, babies who typically have to stay in the NICU a minimum of 3 months.... most of those moms want to take them home in the first few days so maybe this means I'm still an empathetic person and feel their pain and I'm not totally jaded yet?  Hopefully!

  Ok, just thought I'd share my crazy dream.  Hope you all had a great day!

~Cathy

We had a great Easter weekend.  I was on call on Friday so off by noon on Saturday AND I actually slept about 3.5 hours so I was actually functional when I got home!  We drove up to Ikea and got a few more things (file cabinet, lamp and lampshade, etc) and stopped at the Rainbow store so I could jump on the trampolines! 

                                                                  

So that's a long story... basically, they make these awesome trampolines with no exposed springs to get your legs caught in and a really great protective cage that's soft and you can bounce into it and not hurt yourself... anyway, we spent some time at the Puyallup fair this summer talking to the sales lady there because they had a booth, but at the fair all their trampolines were locked up and she couldn't find the key to let us bounce!  So she said to stop by their shop and we could try them out, but we hadn't ever done it, but Bob was feeling agreeable so we stopped and it was great fun.  :)  I bounced for a good 1/2 hour and was good and bounced out.  Unfortunately, their trampolines are very expensive.  The special at the fair was $1200, but now they're down to $950, but Costco has them online right now for $800 delivered, but that's still way too much for a toy especially since we live somewhere it rains all the time.  (Although it's totally rust-proofed!)  Not to mention that our neighbors would always want to jump, and it would be so hard to stop them... these do have a strong zipper that you can put a lock through on the cage part, so we could definitely lock them out, but I know they'd want to jump, and I know I wouldn't want them to die in our yard.  Especially because as a pediatrician I'm supposed to be morally opposed to all trampolines!  (Every year the American Academy of Pediatricians lobbies unsuccessfully to have trampolines banned from being sold!)   I personally think trampolines are great, and the fun/exercise totally outweighs the injury-potential.  The majority of injuries are kids going off the trampoline, landing on their necks while trying to flip, or colliding with each other when multiple people jump at once, all of which are solveable probleems, especially with this awesome trampoline!  The cage keeps us in, the zipper part allows parents to more easily control whose jumping when to make sure they're jumping only 1 at a time and supervised, and if the kids really want to do flips, sign them up for gymnastics first so they can learn how to do it safely.  These are my thoughts.  Back to if we had a trampoline...  I would be fine with our neighbor's kids jumping one at a time if they had a parent to watch them, but like that would happen.  So I'd either never use it or always have the neighbor kids bothering us to jump.... Or we could build a higher fence so they'd never know about it!  :)  I definitely miss Vegas with the Sky Mania... for those of you not in the know, it's basically a warehouse that's one huge trampoline where you can go and jump for an hourly rate... it's pretty sweet.  There's also an area roped off just for trampoline dodge ball, which is of course quite fun.  So yeah, no trampoline for us yet, but someday!!!!

    After that we had lunch at Chipotle which was great as always, especially because last time we had Chipotle I brought my leftovers to work for dinner on call and clumsily spilled the whole thing (except literally 1 bite) on the floor!  So sad.... this time that did NOT happen, I'm proud to say!  I successfully heated up my leftovers at work today for lunch with no spillage whatsoever!

     Next we wanted to go race Go-Karts, but when we went to the place, the guy told the people in front of us that without reservations they wouldn't have a spot for them until 7pm!  It was maybe 2pm at this point... crazy.  Who would have thought you needed reservations for that?  So then we went to some batting cages and a driving range and hit lots of balls.  I hit a golf ball crazily far to the edge of the driving range and smacked a big metal pole and it made a huge "DONG!" and everyone cheered!  It was hilarious.  We are definitely no pros, as Mans and George know since they've seen us in action, but we had a great time.  Bob is way better than I am and hits them REALLY far.  Mine cut all over the place!  Someday we'll take lessons.... I'll bet we could get great prices on lessons at the golf course on post, but it's really a matter of time... I can't be a doctor and not golf, right?  

    So then we rented a movie and got groceries for our Easter feast and headed home.  We got Enchanted, and we had low expectations but actually were pleasantly surprised... you already know it's cheesey from the previews, and it was, but it was entertaining.  We had a nice relaxing evening and just enjoyed relaxing together after our busy day and week.

    This was the first Sunday in 3-4 weeks where I wasn't on call the night before, so it was the first time in forever that I didn't fall asleep in church!  The past few weeks have been bad... after being awake for 30 hours, I just bob the whole time!  This week I definitely got more out of it and it was nice to catch up with some people since I never see anyone since I'm rarely there/or am there for only Sacrament!  (After falling asleep in the first hour of meetings, I'd usually go home and sleep the past few weeks) 

   Then we came home and I made gnocchi and Bob made rotisserie turkey and we had rolls and garlic asiago cheese bread and it was delicious.  We found some exciting desserts at the store because we couldn't decide on what we wanted to make for our Easter dessert, so Bob picked cheesecake and I picked a dark chocolate torte, but we didn't thaw them soon enough, which is all for the best because we were way too full.  Around 8, Bob pointed out that they had to thaw in the fridge for 4-6 hours... so looks like we'll be enjoying them tonight! 

     We had such a nice Easter together, but more than the anything else it was just nice to be together.... I only have another week and a half left of the NICU then my hours should significantly improve!  Woohoo!   I can't wait.  I do the NICU again in July, and that will come fast, but the next 2 months coming up are both clinic, so I'll enjoy a normal schedule for a little while!  We hope you all had a great Easter weekend too!!!!

  ~Cathy

So yesterday was my day off and I got my hair cut and highlighted which is always fun, and it's definitely shorter, blonder, and spunkier than I had intended, but it's always good for me to go to a hairdresser who's a bit more autonomous because I'm too indecisive to really ever know what I want to do.... I enjoyed my day off and can't wat til next Monday now.... Hope you're all having a great week so far!

Hey there everyone!! Things have been busy here as always!  I just got back from my 8 days in Texas for my training down there, and worked 5 nights in a row in the ER prior to that, then I started in the NICU on Friday when I got back and was on call there Saturday so didn't get home til noon yesterday.  I went to the first hour of church then came back and slept since I was falling asleep the whole time!  Now I just get to relax a little though because Monday is my day off, so that's nice!  (After 16 days of work in a row, I'm overdue!)

       My C4 thing in Texas was actually pretty fun (C4 = Combat Casualty Care Course)  Basically it was trying to teach us about operational medicine and better prepare us for when and if we get deployed.  It was tri-service and doctors, dentists, and nurses, so fun to meet a lot of new people.  I made a few new friends--2 Navy girls and an Air Force guy who were all in my "hutment" (little shack we lived in).  Unfortunately, Jamie lives in Florida, Colleen is in San Diego, and Brock is in Ohio, so the 4 of us will never hang out again probably.  Hopefully our paths will cross again someday.... we'll see.  Definitely a situation of the people you're with making all the difference in how much fun you have, ya know?  Other people complained the whole time and did not enjoy the week at all, but we just joked around together and had a lot of fun, which made a huge difference.  The weather was crazy though... San Antonio weather is nuts... it was nice and in the 60's and 70's during the day in the beginning, which was great, then Monday when we went into the field to camp in tents it was down in the teens/low 20's that night with 30 mph wind gusts which made it ridiculously cold and our tent was old and the flaps wouldn't close all the way so the wind just blew in all night and we just had one thin sleeping bag each and MAN was it frigid.  Definitely the coldest night of my life and I was sure I was going to wake up with frostbite..... My toes couldn't move!   Then the next 2 days got up to 80, so I got a little sunburned!  We did some cool things though... played a lot of war games and practiced taking care of the wounded a lot.  There was this cool tactical simulation center they've made which was in a huge warehouse that they've remodeled the inside of to look like a battlefield and the lights are off but there are strobe lights and smoke and there are people firing blanks all around and our mission was to go rescue and treat our wounded comrades so we went in with our team and an infantry guy who went ahead of us and shot the bad guys and then we went and dragged our people to a safer zone and started treating them, then they got evacuated to the Battallion Aid Station (the most forward mini-tent-hospital we have in a war zone) where we treated more patients and stabilized them for transport.  At that part they gave us 5 minutes to stabilize them so they'd be ready to get in the helicoptor to be transported to the bigger hospital for definitive treatment.  The people we were treating were these awesome mannequins that talk and breathe and have heartbeats and you can start IV's on, needle decompress their chests if they have a pneumothorax (collapsed lung), intubate if they're having trouble breathing, do a surgical cricothyroidotomy if you can't intubate (cut a little hole in their neck and put a tube in it), etc.  So neat.  They also had "blood" so one of my patients had his leg blown off and "blood" was spurting out of his stump when I first walked up!  It stopped once my tourniquet was tight enough which was pretty cool. 

    Basically, it was just really nice to get out of the hospital for a week and not be doing hospital stuff.... even though we were still doing health care I guess, it was definitely different, and it's always fun to meet new people... I did miss Bob and Lilo and it's definitely nice to be back and he definitely missed me because he's been so extra sweet since I got back!  When he picked me up at the airport he had 2 presents for me even!  He bought me the new Jack Johnson cd that just came out and went to the Kohl's near the airport and got the silverware we've been hunting for for the last 6 months!  We first found it at our Kohl's when it was 50%off but we just weren't sure if that was really the pattern we wanted, but of course safter deciding, we've been looking ever since then and they never have that pattern in!  So that was fun.  Then we had dinner at Chipotle which was delicious as always.  While I was gone he started re-doing all the kitchen cabinets!  He's making great progress and they look great.  They were just light colored wood, and he's adding crown molding above and below which looks great, and doing grooved vertical slats kind of like wainscoting on the sides and fronts so they have some texture and painting them white.  We had talked about doing this a while ago but hadn't really come to a final decision about anything so he just started.  I love that he's like that!  I'm so indecisive and will just hem and haw and think about things forever but he just decides to do it.  :)  That's what's great. 

            Ok, hope your Monday is off to a great start!  Here's a picture of a similar door front to what Bob's doing.  Looking good!  We'll put pictures on the blog when it gets closer to done. :)  When we looked at prices for refacing our cabinets it was pretty ridiculous, but this is a really low cost way to do it and it's looking great!  He put the trim pieces on to frame it after laying the panels on and it was done!

  ~Cathy

P.S. I didn't take very many pics in TX at all, so those of you craving "Cathy plays war" pictures might be a bit disappointed.  When I do develop the 3 I took on my little disposable camera I'll definitely scan them in though! :)

This morning was very bad.... I forgot completely that I had clinic!  I have my continuity clinic every Wednesday morning this month, but somehow I totally spaced it and was just thinking I had my ER shift that started tonight at 5:45 so I slept in!  I woke up at 9:15 to my pager going off and when I called back it was one of the docs asking where I was!  Then I got another page from someone else right after wondering the same thing.... YIKES.  I got dressed and came in really fast but was so flustered.... that's the worst way to wake up!  I've been sleep-deprived forever because of my shifts, but also because my stupid cough wakes me up so much, and last night I actually slept through the night for 12 hours!  The one night it would have been helpful to wake up early!  So it goes.  Luckily, one of the docs saw my first patient for me and that was really really nice of her, so I saw the rest of my patients and it all worked out.... Now I'm home for lunch and to read a little before my shift at 5:45.  I definitely need to make cookies for her or something... UGH.  I hate being late!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I'm so on top of my schedule because it's always changing... I check my schedule every night before I go to sleep but somehow I just blew it.... What's done is done and I can't fix it but it's sure frustrating! 

   Hope all of you are having a MUCH better day....

   Overall I'm enjoying my rotation in the ER because I've seen some cool stuff.  What I think is cool is often synonymous with what most people would define as GROSS, but that's ok.  I've seen a cut off finger (dang those table saws!), cowpox in the eye and an arm  (a soldier who's roommate just got the smallpox vaccine, which is made from cowpox--he wrestled half naked with his roomy shortly after he got the vaccine and hence the lesions), a few heart attacks, (including a 16yo with a true heart attack--that was actually the week before my ER rotation--I admitted him to the ICU), oral cancer (a woman who came in for low blood sugar--I found the lesion and had to tell her it was probably cancer), a woman who died of a terrible clot (who I wrote about before), and a lot of routine stuff, including a lot of people who have come to the ER a LOT less sick than me! 

  Time to go back to work... just had a break to eat lunch in between.  Have a great day everyone!  This is a great video if you have a few minutes: reall good basic life advice/philosophy:  http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=ithct48cqw

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!  Hope you all enjoyed the big day yesterday!  I have the worst cold I can ever remember having, and yesterday was probably the worst I've felt yet with this awful cold, but my ER shift was done by 3pm so we both got home MUCH earlier than we usually do and had a nice relaxing evening at home together which was so nice.  Bob brought me some nice flowers, including a stargazer lily, which is always my favorite, and we had our heart shaped pizza (a Valentine's tradition we've kept for the last few years) and watched a movie.  I coughed and sniffled a lot, but it was still just nice to be together.  I'm lucky to have such a sweet husband who puts up with my whining and takes care of me when I'm feeling so bad.... he made me tea and cleaned everything up and has really just been great while I've been sick..... I'm finally starting to feel a teeny bit better today though, so I won't be so needy or whiny soon!  :)  I definitely did not feel at my peak of attractiveness this V-Day... I have a nasty raw nose from my cold--I brought a stack of Puffs with me to work yesterday and set them by my computer in a nice neat stack, but while I was in seeing a patient, one of the docs decided to go on a cleaning spree and threw them all away!!!!!  Despite all my round the clock cold medicine, my nose is a FAUCET so I must have blown my nose 50 times in my 10 hour shift.... so needless to say, I was pretty ticked that she threw away my PRECIOUS Puffs and I had to use the sandpapery hospital tissues......  I'm also coughing so hard that I almost throw up several times a day... definitely concerns the patients when I have to stop my history-taking for a coughing fit!  Many many old folks have made the joke that I should be the patient.... 

     So my ER rotation is going well overall, but it definitely reminds me every day why I picked Peds...... too many old people in the ER!  They have so many problems and there's no way to fix them all!  And of course there's the death thing.... My patients never die.... until now, I've really had great luck and only ever witnessed one patient die, and it was horrible, because it was a baby when I was on my OB rotation in med school, but that number doubled this week....   Her name was Mary,  and she was a very nice 74 year old woman who came in with her son because her legs were "a little numb."   She wasn't a complainer at all, but she was VERY sick.  I took a quick history, but already knew it was BAD.  I couldn't feel pulses on either of her legs and they were white and cold.  She could only move her right leg a little, and couldn't move her left leg at all.  I couldn't get a reflex on either leg when I hit her with my hammer (see, ther IS a reason we do that!).  She was pretty alert and told me her legs had felt a little achy and numb over the last 3 days and it was getting worse, and since she'd had a history of strokes before, my first thought was that maybe it was another stroke, but it was weird that it was both legs because strokes usually affect one side of the body.... Further history led me to discover she was on a blood thinner because she had chronic a-fib (top of her heart doesn't squeeze well, just wiggles irregularly, so blood can pool and clot there) and then I knew what we were dealing with.  A bedside ultrasound revealed our worst suspicions.... she had a HUGE clot in her abdominal aorta (big artery that carries blood to your lower half) so there was virtually no blood flow to her body below the waist, hence her cold pulseless legs she couldn't move.  We called surgery immediately and they took her to the OR to take out the clot, but all the ER staff told me as soon as I started explaining what I was concerned about that she was going to die.  Unfortunately, they were right.  She made it through surgery, but the following morning she had a massive heart attack and they weren't able to resuscitate her after 30 minutes of CPR.  I'm sad that she's gone, but it doesn't seem real because I was talking to her when they were taking her to surgery and she was still so coherent.  At least I was nice to her.... some of the ER folks are pretty abrupt, just because it's their job to get people in and out as fast as they can, but I'm still pretty naive and really tried to reassure her that we were going to do everything we could for her.. hopefully her last few hours were a little less stressful because of that...   To add to the sadness, her husband came in the next day with chest pain... no doubt from his broken heart!  Also his bone pain--he has bone cancer and will be joining his wife soon.  He kept saying he hoped he'd be with her soon.  Definitely tough to see this kind of stuff.  Makes me long for the kiddos.... at least I still have my continuity clinic once a week.... this week I had a few of my favorite patients too--my friend Liv, one of the other interns, has a 9 month old Zoe, who's in my clinic and it's always fun to see her and her fun parents!  And one of my favorite teen patients, who's LDS too, and was going to BYU Idaho came in for a physical because she's going to China, so that was fun to chat with her about that.  You all know I love to talk, but I also love to fix things, and kids are so fixable, so it's great.  I know it's cheesey, but I really feel like I can make a difference every day so it's great.  It's fun to teach new parents the basic stuff, it's nice to be able to reassure them about what's going on and how we're going to fix it when they're sick, and it's fun to help teenagers stay on track and just encourage them because you remember what an insecure time in your life that was when you were trying to figure everything out....  

  Ok, enough rambling.  Sorry I haven't updated this more often!  Things have been busy.... Bob and I both had a day off together recently and went snowboarding, and we're both off on Tuesday and going again--twice in one season!  This never happens... My boots have been rubbing my ankles raw the last few times we've gone so I've been wanting new ones for a while, and we found some nice Morrow ones for $30!  So I'm excited for my feet to be cozier for this trip too!  We're going with a few other peds residents so it should be nice!  Speaking of the other residents... our only outings kind of revolve around them... on Monday we went out to trivia together--there's a place in Steilacoom (15 minutes away from us) called Jake's, where they have trivia on Monday nights and our team almost won.... but as Ricky Bobby says, "If you're not first, you're last!"  We just watched that tonight again and it always makes me chuckle.... if you haven't seen Hot Rod either, that's the same kind of funny.... we laughed through 90% of that movie!  Ok, time to go take more cough medicine and go to bed.... Hopefully I get well before I go to C4 (Army training stuff) in San Antonio in 2 weeks!    We're sleeping in tents in the field the whole 9 days so it will probably be rainy and cold.... Who knows, maybe I'll get lucky and I'll be healthy and the weather will be good--cross your fingers!

   Lots of people have asked about Jaiden, so here's the update: He's doing really well!  It's like he just doesn't know how premature he is.... he's just on oxygen now and off the ventilator completely... that's pretty huge!  His grandma's pretty certain he smiled at her today too so that's pretty cool... He's still tiny, only 1 pound 13 oz, but I'm sure he'll be gaining more soon... he's been fighting pretty hard so far!  He had heart surgery to close up an extra blood vessel in his heart and is recovering well.  He's definitely a trooper! 

   Hope you all have a great weekend and thanks for reading such a LONG blog! : )

This month has flown by!  Bob and I have both been busy at work, as always.  He's busier because he's still installing bathrooms in one day for Bath Fitter, but also is an "apprentice plumber" now so he's doing a lot of the plumbing for his jobs too, making his days a bit longer.  I'm on the ward (inpatient peds unit) this month, so I've been working 80 hours a week as usual and on call 1-2 times/week so it feels like I just eat and sleep here.  Last Saturday (a week ago) we went to Maggiano's and had a great dinner and then went to Ikea afterwards and found a sweet new bookshelf for my scrapbooking/study room so that was nice.  The week before we went to Seattle to the Experience Music Project at Seattle Center which was really cool--the centerpiece of the whole thing is a 3-story tall sculpture of different musical instruments that all play!  Pretty impressive both to look at and to hear!  We had lunch at the restaurant there which was really good, then went to a home show a few blocks away at the convention center.  That was a ton of fun too just to look at all the cool stuff we'd like to have someday/do to a future home!  Probably not planning to take on too many projects here both because of time constraints, but also because it's in decent shape already, and we're not too likely to really up the resale value by doing much to it, especially since we'll only be here another 2.5 years before the Army tells us where to next. :)  After the home show we wandered around an upscale shopping center nearby and saw this sweet penguin made of random pieces of metal.... I like things made of other things.... at street fairs/art shows I always like the things people make out of collections of other things...   Although we've been busy we've been making the most of our free time--I was on call Friday for both of our Saturday outings, which meant that I was sleepy and fell asleep in the car both times, but we still had fun!  This weekend I was on call Saturday, which meant that I fell asleep in church yesterday.... whoops!   I did wake up though and am still glad I went.... I probably didn't get as much out of it as I would have had I slept well on call (stupid E.R. paged me 4 times all a few hours apart about stupid things.... if it was a sick kid I actually went down to see that's one thing--that's what I'm there for!  But of course it wasn't...) but I still got something out of it.  :) 

    In family news, Baby Jaiden (Ronny and Monika's baby and our newest nephew) is still fighting--he's now 5 weeks old and slowly getting bigger and doing more on his own... he's been off the ventilator for about 2 weeks now and is on CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) to help him breathe--it kind of just keeps his lungs inflated and helps him exchange oxygen better.  CPAP is great though--typically babies go from the vent to CPAP to just  a little oxygen through a nasal canula and then to room air so he's making great progress especially considering he's only 27 weeks gestational age now (still won't be full term for 13 more weeks).  Keep him in your prayers.

    Hope you're all enjoying your day!  Today is my day off so I'm trying hard to not think of all the things I should do, but to instead relax and have a little fun.  I definitely need to run today though because I've been slacking in that department lately with my busier schedule! 

~Cathy

P.S. I can't believe I almost forgot to mention the weather!!  It snowed last night!  There was a good 1-2 inches covering everything when I woke up!  It's definitely starting to melt in the sunshine now, and at home our parents said they got about 20 inches this weekend, so not quite the same, but snow here is a huge novelty so I'm excited!  :)

In less than an hour I'm having my eye surgery!  How exciting is that?  No glasses or contacts for me after today until I'm in my 40's-50's and might need reading glasses!  And a nice bonus of all of this is that I'm required to take 5 days off of work for this so I don't go to work again until Monday!  Hopefully I'll be feeling well and be able to see well enough to do some scrapbooking and make some more Christmas cards over the weekend!  My visiting teacher is going above and beyond and driving me to the hospital, waiting while I have my surgery, and then driving me home, so that's really nice!  (It was hard enough to find anyone available during the day to pick me up, but even more so someone who could get on post, so she suggested this)  I'm sure I'll be catching up on my sleep for the next few days so that will definitely be nice too!  Hope you're all having a great day and next time you see me my eyes will work MUCH better!
~Cathy

Hello again everyone!  We've been BUSY lately, as you probably guessed by our lack of bloggage!  We've been having a great time though.  Bob's parents and his sister-in-law Monika, and our nephew Kai all came out for Thanksgiving so that was really fun!  We had way too much food as always but it was just nice to not be working and to enjoy some time together!  I did have to be on call Friday so I worked my 30 hours but then had the rest of the weekend off so it wasn't too bad.  We even did a little Christmas card-making so that was fun!  We made some very cute cards so you're all in luck this year! :)  Unfortunately I missed the joys of Black Friday shopping due to my call on Friday, but Bob and his parents were nice enough to get a few things for me while they were out so that worked out well for me! 

   So work is going well... I was on the NICU last month so my hours were much crazier and Bob was working a lot of hours too so we both were not home that much but it definitely makes us enjoy our time together that much more!  And it makes us really look forward to internship being over!  My hours will be much better next year!  Now I'm back in the outpatient clinic this month so I"m working 7:30-5 most days and only have call once a week most weeks so that's much better. If I'm not on call I get weekends off too.... what a crazy concept!? 

    We're hoping to get our Christmas tree up this week and our lights on our house too, but it was raining cats and dogs today so we'll definitely wait a bit!  We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and hopefully we'll see most of you in less than a month--we'll be home for Christmas!

~Cathy

We had such a great time last week while we were home visiting our families!  We took tons of pics as always and believe it or not this is way less than 10% of them but we hope you enjoy them!  We'll add more to this tomorrow but I worked almost 30 hours already in the short time we've been back so I need to sleep!  Hope you're all enjoying your summers! 

Well, I'm finally a doctor... doesn't feel much different yet but it's great to have graduated!  We drove down with Bob's folks so of course we went to another Mariners game Thursday night and left Friday morning and drove down 101 all the way down the coast so that was really pretty.  We stopped at the Tillamook cheese factory and had a great time there touring the factory and having lunch and ice cream there so that was fun!  We also spent a little time enjoying the redwoods and still made it there by 4:30 on Saturday afternoon.  Our friends the Townsends had a party on Saturday afternoon/evening with friends from our ward in Vallejo so that was really nice to get to see them after so long!!  Graduation was on Sunday and it was a nice sunny day for the outdoor ceremony and it would have been a pretty short ceremony if it weren't for one very long-winded speaker!  They did a promotion ceremony for my military classmates and I at the end so that was neat too.  It was so great to have my folks and brother Joe and Bob's parents all come down for graduation--we really had a lot of fun and it meant a lot that they could be there for the big day!  We hope you're all doing great!

love,

 Cathy and Bob

We're making progress with the unpacking, and I added more pictures of the house before we moved in all our stuff.  I'll add more as we get things put away!  There are some more pics of another M's game we got free tickets too--our seats were high up but we moved down later in the game and had a great view of the action!  There are also pics of when we were home last weekend visiting our families and the Poteets, as well as the weekend before when Bob's folks were here.  The Coast Guard pics are from the Seattle Coast Guard station that's right next to Safeco field--we parked there for the last two games and it's great--much shorter walk!  We leave tomorrow morning to drive down to California for graduation so things are busy here... time to go finish packing!  Hope you're all well!

Yesterday was the big day!  We're officially moved into our new house!  Our first HOUSE ever and man are we feeling spoiled already!  It's beautiful and we're lovingit... Lilo and Stitch have a yard for the first time ever so that's great, and we are loving the yard too!  There's a small garden so we're going to plant some corn tomorrow and we have strawberries and raspberries and rhubarb and lots of flowers... We have lots of room inside including a formal dining room that we're still deciding what to do with since we're not realy formal dining room people!  I am most excited for a scrapbooking room which is already taking shape! 

   Bob's parents were here again this weekend because Carolyn came out earlier in the week to stay with Karla and Ron came out with Tim on Friday so they could spend their anniversary together (33 years!) and of course because they both LOVE helping us move!  That was the unfortunate minus of their anniversary weekend, but we sure appreciated the help.  Our 24 foot truck was full of 6000 pounds of our stuff!  So we definitely got our workouts moving it around!  2 guys from our last ward helped load up and then 3 guys from the new ward helped unload so we were very appreciative... would have taken the 4 of us quite a bit longer!  So far the kitchen is unpacked and some of our clothes... still a lot left to unpack but we've made progress.  :) 

    The rest of these pictures are from when we were home last weekend and then when Bob's folks were out here the weekend before that for Mother's Day weekend...  

  Hope all is well with you all and definitely feel free to come visit--we have tons of room now and would love visitors!  :)

love,

 Cathy and Bob

We were lucky enough to go to another Mariner's game last night, this time with Bob's folks!  It was against the Yankees and it was a far different game than last time--they won!  Not only did they win, but they shut out the Yankees so definitely a great game to watch.  We had some riled up Yankees fans sitting near us who got a stern talking to by security, then their supervisor (who had a CLIPBOARD) had some more words with them, after which they sat quietly for the rest of the game... funny stuff.  Blake Lewis from American Idol sang the national anthem at the start too so that was cool. 

  We're having a nice visit with Bob's folks--we picked Carolyn up at the airport on Wednesday night when she flew back from visiting Monika, Ronny, and Kai in Puerto Rico and Bob's dad drove out yesterday afternoon.  Today we're doing the final walk through on the house which is cool so they'll get to see the inside, and then we're going to try to visit Karla today as well.  It's another beautiful day here so we're going to enjoy it!  Have a great Saturday!

~Cathy and Bob

Not a whole lot of news here but we went to a Mariner's game last Saturday and are lucky enough to be going to another one this coming Friday against the Yankees!  Bob's mom is flying back from Puerto Rico on Wednesday so we're picking her up at the airport here and she's staying a few days and Bob's dad is coming out too so we're all going to the game together so that should be fun!  My rotations are still going well--only 3 weeks left and I'm done with med school, as crazy as that is!  Graduation is coming up fast, as is our move into our house!  The appraisal came back at the exact amount it was listed for and we got it for a little less so that worked out well and things are on schedule still to sign final papers on May 24 so we're getting excited to get out of the apartment full of boxes!  Work is going a little better for Bob... he's catching on to the ins and outs of that branch but also looking for something closer to Lacey, where the house is, so he won't be commuting so far to work.... right now it's great but from the new place he'll have a 35-40 minute drive each way so he'd be happier with something a little closer.  Hope you all had a great Cinco de Mayo yesterday!  We celebrated by having lunch at El Toro, a Mexican place here we like and we started watching Lost... definitely gets you hooked! Hope you all have a great week!

~Cathy and Bob