Tuesday, July 21, 2009

lesson 2


I read somewhere that Sierra Leone is considered the poorest country in the world.

Stop and think about that.

The poorest country in the world.


Then think about the US.

We have so much.

And what do we do with it? Does it make us happier, better, closer to God?

So then, what do we do with that?

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Starting to Process



There's no easy way to summarize my time in Sierra Leone. The easy thing to say would be that I had a great time and the food was great. That doesn't even begin to describe my time their.

Especially in the last several years I have been a quiet, shy person that never knew quite what to do in social situations. The whole culture in Sierra Leone is very interpersonal. I think the one of the lessons I learned is that I need to work on being more relational. I don't quite know how to interact with friends much less people I have just met, but I shouldn't let that stop me.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

car trouble

First of all, I'm home safe and sound. I'll write more about Sierra Leone. I need more time to arrange my thoughts on that particular topic before I write about it.

Having said that... my car...

I wanted to drive down to Cortez to visit Jules, which is a 7 hour drive from Denver. About 2 hours into the drive I stop at a gas station in Pueblo. When I'm walking back to my car I notice a ton of coolant on the ground around my car. My car has a history of overheating and I have to add coolant occasionally just because the car is a beast. I decide that it must have been from another car because my car hadn't been that hot when I pulled in and there were no other signs that I had overheated.

About 2 miles down the road, my temperature gauge is ALL the way up.

A tow and 6 hours later, it turns out I blew a hose and now I'm all patched up. Ok, I'm back on my way.

I stop at the Wallmart in Alamosa because I forgot to return a Redbox movie I have in my purse. I notice coolant dripping out of the bottom of my car. I look under the hood and a cap in the system hadn't been tightened properly, so I tighten it and add some duct tape for good measure.

Sweet reunion with the husband in Cortez.

On Saturday we decide to go visit Mesa Verde.



On the way back at an intersection at the entrance to town I hear profanities from the driver seat. We are overheating. We made it off the road. Jules starts taking my car apart with his leatherman. We're not quite sure what happened. We're tightening everything up when we hear an aweful gurgulling sound in the system. I blew another hose!

We pulled it out and walked to the parts store, got a new hose and installed it.

I hope that's the end of my car troubles for a long time.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Clerkships and Sierra Leone

Given that the title of this blog is plural and that the wife is currently on the other side of the Atlantic, I thought now would be an appropriate time to throw the husband hat of opinion/perspective/news into the ring.

Today I finished my first eight-week clerkship of third year. The subject was general surgery, the location St. Joe's hospital here in town. My daily schedule began on arrival at 5:30am for patient rounds, after which I would spend most of the day in the OR, and generally ended around 5-6pm. Throw in at least one call night at the hospital every week, and additional weekend call (i.e. come in Saturday morning, leave Sunday afternoon) and you get the picture. In any case, I enjoyed the rotation considerably more than I had anticipated I would, and depending on my final grades for the block will consider doing a general surgery sub-internship next year (much to Amy's chagrin, - a general surgery residency is two years longer and demonstrably more intense than one in family medicine).

Monday I leave for Cortez, CO (7+ hr drive away from Denver) to begin my family practice clerkship. The first four weeks are rural, the last four here in the Denver area. Should be quite the change from what I've been doing the last eight weeks, but I'm looking forward to it. The caveat to that last point is that when Amy gets back in a week and a half I probably won't see her for a few more days after that. Hopefully she'll be able to drive out to Cortez and we can do some camping etc. over the weekends that I should for the most part have free.

Speaking of the wife, I managed to reach her today via choppy, delayed, but viable phone connection. She and the group are doing fine and in good health, and their teacher in-service sessions have for the most part been well recieved. Tomorrow they will hike three miles to a neighboring village, something that appears to be a recurring theme as their appearances are apparently quite popular and everyone wants to meet our Denver contigent. Word has it that the woman who prepares their meals there does a stupendous job with both American and African cuisine. I'm hoping to reap the osmotic effects of the latter on the wife's return.

Well, that's about it for this spousal report. I'm going to enjoy the next two days with no obligations other than to get the house back to looking respectable (reversion back to bachelor habits has been alarmingly swift). Going to hit up a Rockies game Sunday with a friend coming up from Alamosa. After that, back to the third year med student grind, albeit hopefully a tamer and less abrasive one when compared to the previous eight weeks. I'll leave you with a quote I came across recently that seemed appropriate in regard to the obsessively heirarchical and goal-focused nature of Western medical education:

"Since most of us would rather be admired for what we do, rather than for what we are, we are normally willing to sacrifice character for conduct, and intergrity for achievement."

Please kick me if I ever give that impression.

Monday, June 8, 2009

tick tock

I leave for Sierra Leone tomorrow afternoon. It doesn't quite seem real. Probably because the night before a trip I am just starting to think about what I am going to pack, and this time I'm already packed. Very, very impressive for me. I usually finish packing at 3 in the morning for my 7 o'clock flight.

I can't believe it, but I'm kinda bored. I am rereading a favorite book to pass the time while Jules studies.

I also took my first dose of Doxy this morning which got me thinking. I am so thankful that we have the access to health care that we do. I am in general not a fan of our system, but when I stopped to think that I can get Doxy at little cost from my local pharmacy to keep me from getting malaria (hopefully), I realized how wonderful that is. I actually don't know much about the health care in Sierra Leone, but I can't imagine they have the same access to drugs, doctors etc that we do.

tick tock, tick tock...

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Auction

So the team I'm going with to Sierra Leone is holding an auction on our blog. We're still trying to raise the money we need. Take a look, there are some fun gift cards and art. It's a win win situation. You get something and we get your support.

Thanks!

Score

Julian got his score!!!! 216

The avg. for people applying to family medicine residencies is 210 and the overall national avg. is 222.

I'm so happy for him. This is a big weight lifted off his sholders. To celebrate he will be working 30 hours striaght this weekend. Doesn't that sound like fun?

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Boards Step 1

Jules is taking the 1st step of the boards on Friday. He is now is super-cram, freak out mode. Actually is dealing with the stress pretty well. Prayers would be great though!

Friday, March 27, 2009

Newest Member of the Family

On Sunday (I think) Julian's family got just a little larger. Julian's brother and wife had their first child, Jaqueline Kathleen. They sent us pictures and she is adorable! We are so happy for them. What a blessing!

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Here are some of the cellphone pictures alluded to earlier by my blogster wife. Peruse with abandon!

A nice picture of Amy, her friend Sarah, and a stray bear cub named Nigel.






Saturday, September 6, 2008

Camping

We love to camp. The last two weekend we were able to go up to Guanella Pass and camp with our friends. It was so good to get away from the city and all the stress. I think I could just sit and stare at a campfire for hours! The first weekend, we sadly did not have a camera so Jules took some pictures on his phone that we can't figure out how to download.
Here are some shots of the second weekend with my co-teacher Nicole and her husband Eric. That weekend happened to be labor day weekend so we thought that there would be people everywhere. Oddly, there weren't very many people around where we camped. That picture of the beautiful stream... well you should know that those rocks are VERY slippery! I decided that if Jules could make it across the stream, so could I. I made it onto one of the rocks in the middle but when I shifted my weight to go to the next one my right leg slipped right off and into the stream. We decided that we would try to dry my shoe and sock over the fire. That's my shoe in the top right hand corner.




It worked pretty well except until I noticed my shoe was smoking. Then we turned it over and after a while I noticed that the sole had two large bubbles. My shoe is still wearable, it just has more character now.

Here are some more pictures.









Monday, August 18, 2008

Homesick

We went to Alamosa this weekend and I realized how much I miss it. Even though I grew up in Denver, Alamosa is definitely my home. The pace of life is so much slower there. I can't even express why I love it or what I love about it. It's just everything. Getting to see Mt. Blanca everyday. Being able to drive from one end of town to the other in 5 min. A church where we feel like we belong. Sigh

Now I'm back in the city. As if that wasn't depressing enough, in our training at school today we found out that we didn't do so great last year. Well that's putting it mildly. A lot of our kids lost ground last year. We new that would happen with our crazy curriculum, but it's still not fun to see.

My light at the end of the tunnel - Jules is applying for a scholarship which would require him to work 2 years in an under served area i.e. Alamosa.

1 year down... 6-7 years to go. Big Sigh.

Friday, August 15, 2008

More Links

Our wedding pictures are online! And so is a highlight video of our ceremony.

Video - http://www.vimeo.com/1446703

Pictures - http://www.pictage.com/449810

I'm so happy with how everything turned out. I can't wait to see the whole video.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Wedding Pictures

So here is a link to some pictures that a friend took at the wedding. http://www.flickr.com/photos/brooks1986/sets/72157606292048042
We're still waiting on the professional pictures. Here's one of my favorites that she took from the ceremony. Hopefully anyway. I'm still trying to figure this whole thing out.

So for the honeymoon we were fortunate enough to go to Mexico. We were on the Yucatan Peninsula in Playa del Carmen. We had an amazing time. We were only a few hundred yards from the beach.



We spent a lot of time lounging on these chairs. Surprisingly, there weren't that many people and we always got a front row seat.







Our room was amazing! It also had a little balcony we we could go out and sit. This is the view we enjoyed while eating room service. We got very spoiled!






My favorite adventure was going to a cenote. There are these underground rivers in the Yucatan and occasionally the ceiling gives out so you end up with this whole in the ground and about 30 ft down there's water. So kind of like a cave but the entrance is through the roof. We went on a tour thing that took us to one and some mayan ruins. The Mayans used to swim in the cenotes because they believed they had healing powers.

We were supposed to repel down but Jules and I decided to jump instead. It was awesome! Jules climbed out (using a ladder) and then repelled down. Our skin was so soft after our dip.


So I'm having a heck of a time trying to format this with the pictures. Someone is going to have to explain to me how to do this.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Why Not

So we finally gave in and decided to create a blog. We probably won't be good at staying current, but what the hay, it might be fun.