Weather Rules!

Wintery weather arrived at Dallas this morning! The resident I'm working with said I didn't have to come in if I felt driving was dangerous. Well, the major highway I take into Dallas was closed down for hours due to a major accident and the weather report predicts further drop in temperature into the 20's. Soooo, I stayed home! Here's a pictorial rendition of my day:

View from our back porch. None of the snow stuck on the road, as hubby had an easy time driving to work at around 10am. I'm glad for his early return home at around 3:30pm since the commute weather worsened signifcantly and caused over a hundred crashes, per the news.

Can you imagine that the we had high 70's weather just earlier this week!

I had some fun with kitty. I have a goal of taking a good picture of her. Her eyes are always closed (due to camera flash) or she's in a boring sleeping position.

Whew, look at this mess of a kitchen!!

Another mess corner.

Aahh, much better.

I put Teddy and Totoro back in their place.

And finally, several loads of laundry....who doesn't love a warm load of laundry on a chilly day?

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I also wrapped up several Christmas presents. Okay, confession time: I did take a short trip to the mall to return a couple of things and buy a chunky/wide belt to go with my wedding-attending outfit. I also bought hubby some gloves as he requested them. See, wasn't totally a selfish trip.

Found this belt at Burlington Coat Factory. It was perfect for my outfit.

I bought these matching gold jewlry yesterday at the hospital's annual jewlry sale. Profits go to a scholarship program.

That's it for my day!

Medicine, glamorous?

I overheard a resident talking recently, "when people ask me about medicine, I tell them 'don't get into it"; it's not glamorous to have to go to the hospital at 5 in the morning."

Ha ha, I can agree with that sometimes!

A Piece of Good Advice

I am in the middle of my PM&R rotation at downtown Baylor right now. (PM&R = physical medicine and rehabilitation, also know as Plenty of Money and Relaxation). TBI stands for traumatic brain injury. The patients on this service have all suffered, obviously, brain injury, most commonly in the form of MVA (motor vehical accident), CVA (cerebrovascular accident) or anoxic brain injury from drug OD, etc. Many patients are young, and some are left severely disabled for the rest of their lives due to their injury. Unable to move, unable to speak. Often, the family members of these patients are always by their sides, pushing their loved ones in wheelchairs to rehab, helping to interpret the patient's tangled words for the doctors. One day, after coming out of the room of a particular patient who's devoted mother was at the bedside, the seasoned doctor said to me, "you know, I use to pray that nothing horrible would happen to anyone in my family, but now I just pray that God will give me the strength and courage in that situation."

I was touched by that comment. And I think I really needed to hear it. Sometimes, I'm prone to live in fear of the unknown and the future, but fear can do nothing but paralyze me. I need to pray more often for God to give me strength and courage to weather through life's trauma and tragedies. . . like so many amazingly strong family members do I 've see in the hospital.

Thanksgiving 2006

Thanksgiving is all about giving thanks so I'm thankful to had the time off to celebrate this year. Last year this time, I was working at the Terrell State Hospital for psychiatric patients. Ahh, the sweet freedom of a fourth-year medical student. I am noting this because next year when I'll be better known as a "intern," I'm likely to be spending Thanksgiving in the hospital. Paul and I spent four days with my parents in Arkansas. Tradition at my house is that we have a turkey and rest of the meal being Chinese dishes. Like usual, my mother busied herself in the kitchen cooking for us through the long weekend, and we enjoyed the usual fare, dumplings, steamed buns, fish that my Dad caught, veggies from their own garden. We also caught up with old friends and watched football. Ruefully, the Arkansas Razorbacks lost to LSU, :(. Football was something that bought Paul and my Dad together as they can both passionately talk about it. It was all in all, a very good Thanksgiving. I think I ate myself round, as one can tell from some of the pictures.

Mom and I by a pond in their neighborhood. The weather was so beautiful, wonderfully comfortable in the 70's.

Close-up of the darling ducks. They belong to neighbors of my parents. When I saw them, I thought of yummy pickled duck eggs! These two are always next to each other, whether they are on water or on land. They must be in love, or are best buddies.

Another pair of best buddies! So, that's how I look in glasses, which is what I'm wearing most days now. LASIK, I can't wait!!

Mom on my bike. It reminded her how she use to get around in China by bicycling everywhere and I'd sit on the bar of the bike in front of her. I was small enough then, of course.


An "artsy" shot. It did not turn out the way I thought it would, the picture looks all doomsday/Halloween-like, although it was the same day as the above pics. I like the colors of the sky, though.



Ha ha, someone had parked a tractor under this tree. Rather idyllic or bucolic, no? Also reminded me of Mater and the tractors in the cartoon movie "Cars." You can spot Paul as the tiny person in the background.

The cooks in the family.

With friend, David, Paul's old roomie, who's from Malaysia.

With friend, Jill, from Zimbabwe. She's getting married next April!

Family photos. Fun with the tripod and camera timer. It's hard to get four people to look good at the same time! This picture was given an "antique" touch.

This picture was given a "soft glow."

My favorite picture of Paul and I. Untouched. Should I make this into a Christmas card?? Haven't decided.

My mother's favorite picture of the night. Look at her most prized plant, the Zygocactus, also known as the Christmas cactus.

That was our Thanksgiving 2006. We returned home to a very yappy and hungry cat, she was waiting for us outside with an empty bowl. I had left too little food for her. I felt very bad. Since weather was so warm, I had decided to let Kitty stay outside while we were gone. She's now full, content and sleeping next to me as I type!:)

The Story of a Stray

Almost one year ago, Kitty, our cat, came into our life. It was right after Christmas last year, and a small, timid cat followed my husband and brother-in-law, David (visiting from Japan) into our apartment. It was so cold outside and my heart softened when I saw her, so we let her in. The only cat-suitable food we had was canned salmon; she happily ate it. Almost from the start, she seemed very comfortable in our home, as if she’s been here forever. During that first few nights, she would jump on the guest bed and try to share it with David only to be thrown off again and again.

In the midst of trying to find her owner, and then trying to place her in a shelter, it took a while for us to decide to keep her. She obviously didn’t have an owner. I just couldn’t put her in a local shelter, which means she would be euthanized within a week if she’s not claimed or adopted. Then I discovered the no-kill animal organizations. I called and e-mailed almost every single one of them in the area only to be told that they are all full and not accepting new animals. My next idea was to become a new foster parent for one of the no-kill shelters, so that I could foster her until she’s adopted. Well, the commitment of taking her to the weekend adoption shows was just too much. I was in the middle of my surgery rotation.

So Kitty stayed with us and began fitting into our life seamlessly. She was a little sickly at first, weighing just over 6 lbs., and was vomiting and coughing. We dewormed her with OTC dewormer (I won’t go in the gory detail of how I knew she had worms) and began feeding her regular cat food. She soon got healthy and gained weight and now weighs 9.5 lbs. I eventually took her to the vet, got her shots and blood tested. I am so happy to say that she is FIV negative and Feline leukemia free. She was already spayed (the vet showed me a tiny scar on her abdomen) which means she must have belonged to someone at one time. Well, I already knew that because she’s very loving and comfortable around us, not feral at all. Her age is still a mystery, though.

I read that stray cats tend to be very loving and affectionate because they knew hardship and are grateful for being rescued. I truly believe that. Kitty loves to rub her nose against our legs and is the perfect nap partner sleeping next to us. We let her outside when she asks and when we are not home. Invariably, she’s always sleeping outside waiting for us when we come home. No litter box required in our small apartment since she goes outside. At first, I didn’t know if I’d have the time for a cat, but she turned out to be the perfect pet for us. Very low maintenance, very loving.

Paul loves her just as much as me, but he likes to joke that we should just get rid of her someday. My experience with Kitty has showed me the plight of many unfortunate cats. I really do have a soft spot for them. It makes me angry that irresponsible people are having pets! It’s so important for people to neuter and spay their cats and never abandon them, as I suspect is what happened to Kitty. Well, there's a happy ending with Kitty. She's a huge delight to us, and we can't imagine coming home without seeing her face or hearing her meow.

Autumn Fruits

Yummy yummy fruits this season:

The Pomegranate: with just about 100 calories per fruit and rich in potassium and antioxidants, this is a beautiful fruit!

The fruit of my labor. Sweet and tangy.

The persimmon, what hubby calls "the tomato-looking fruit" is the national fruit of Japan. Persimmons are full of fiber and beta-carotene as you can see from the bright orange color. They take so long to ripen that I haven't had one yet!!

To Be or Not To Be

I am on the in-patient medicine service at Baylor Garland this couple of weeks. The upper-level resident I’m working with said I can go home early today at 3pm because there wasn’t much going on. I’ve learned to not turn down an offer to go home early these days. As much as I’m learning and enjoying my rotations, the home draws me. Mainly because there’s always something to be done, the laundry, paying a bill, grocery shopping, or just get a extra few hours of rest. If all that’s not enough, the thought of seeing my cutie kitty pie is a great reward.

I am doing what’s called an “audition rotation,” a chance for me to check out their residency program and it’s a chance for the program to scope me out. So far, I’ve been very impressed. All the attendings are personable and engage in non-pimping style of teaching. The residents get along great, hard working, and geniunely enjoys what they do. The whole atmosphere has been relaxing and welcoming.

It has been quite refreshing, actually. I’ve been on rotations (not to mention names, but let’s say it’s something like surgery) and hospitals where as a medical student I was asked to sit in the back of room during conferences, expected to walk behind the attendings and residents on rounds, and pimped ‘til I thought I should repeat the first year of med school. While at Baylor, I was introduced by the attending at their grand rounds, the residents asked me to call them by their first names, and the attendings never came close to make me feel dumb when attempting to teach. Actually, this is the first rotation where I felt like I could ask questions and not felt like I should have known the answer already or tell myself I’ll secretly look it up later.

Any oh yeah, I’m being heavily recruited. I am trying to impress, too, of course, don’t mind the coming home early today bit. The residents are eager to share “why I chose this residency” story and I’ve been taken out to lunch twice. Okay, not trying to brag, but I’m not used to this level of treatment. So, all that courting is working, I’m won over by the whole program. I can really see myself thriving there, developing my expertise and confidence over the next three years.

I’ve been brought to the crux of decision-making, a place I didn’t think I would be at right now. Here’s the deal. I found out that as an osteopathic student, I am not bound to the same rules as my allopathic counterparts. That is to say, I don’t have to participate in the match and I can sign a contract with a program prior to the match! This was all new to me, I never knew I had that option. It has been all but made abundantly clear to me that I would be offered an early contract if I choose to. I’ve discussed this with Paul and he’s all for it.

Here's a list of pros for choosing Baylor Garland:

1. Knowing a full four months earlier before the match where I will be for the next three years. Aka: decreased mental stress.

2. Having essentially the rest of my fourth year “off”, the next 7 months, until I start intern year. I still have rest of my rotations to complete but I can relax and prepare much better. Not to mention, the mental freedom and time to be a much better housewife, time to travel, time to pursue/start a few of my ‘amibitious’ hobbies, time, time, time. . . what a great word!

3. Baylor Garland is just 15 minutes down the street from TI. Paul and I could have lunches together at Chinatown. We did this just the other day.

4. Location, location, location. Garland is like a suburb east of Dallas, which means no long drives to downtown Dallas (execpet for some specialty months) where the other residency programs are located.

5. House-buying. Knowing where I’ll be for the next three years, Paul and I can start looking for a house close to BOTH of our work places right now. With 6-7 months on our hands, we can even choose to build a house.

6. Great program as I already elaborated on.

As for the cons, it can be summed up in two words:

INTERNAL MEDICINE. Ever since my medicine months, I’ve decided I wanted to go into internal medicine, although family practice was my initial choice and was always at the back of my mind. For a couple of reasons, I’m applying to just one IM program as compared to three FM programs. I thought, “if I don’t get into my first choice IM program, then I’d certainly match into a FM program,” so the decision-making as to what specialty I’d eventually end up in was all to be determined by the magical process called the match. Now, however, the choice is back to me. Should I go with my initial plan, and let the match render it’s life-determining decision, or should I not even think about IM anymore and just go with Baylor FM?

Other good question to ask now are, what is it about IM that I liked so much? And do I truly love it more than FM? Will I be happy in FM knowing I gave up my chance for IM? Is going into FM a better lifestyle for my family and my future as a mother? Perhaps I can integrate inpatient work as a FM doctor? Perhaps being an internist will be better for having a family? Am I sacrificing my true love for praticality?

It’s a lot to think about. . .and I need to think. . .