Creative Dad Takes Crazy Photos of Daughters

So cute and creative! I like the one where they are both reading "--- For Dummies"!
Creative Dad Takes Crazy Photos of Daughters

Easter Cookout

Ah! Easter again!  But this time it involved a nice little cookout arranged by some brilliant friends.  Along with some awesome burgers, hotdog, chicken/rice casserole, followed by leisurely frisbee throwing with distended abdomens, we had a fun Easter egg hunt.  I hadn't searched for Easter eggs in ages! How thrilling!  Unfortunately I only found one - and it was an ant infested one at that.  Lesson learned: don't hide Easter eggs with tiny holes on them or else they will be ant eggs, not Easter eggs.  

Maintaining Wellness as a Surgeon

Memorable quotes from Hopkins Chief of Surgery:

• On strategies for maintaining wellness: "And my son, he goes down to his x-box.  I think he's having a war or something."
• On staying connected: "Sometimes it's therapeutic to find out what's wrong with everybody else."
• "To really learn how to manage people, take a 13 year old who just had their parents divorce and have them live with you while you are pregnant."
• "It's important to do other activities such as hobby, teach, teach golf" (Really? Teach golf? Who does THAT as an outlet?)
• "I meet with residents every Monday.  I look at them - see if they are disheveled.  For example, I diagnosed a guy with diabetes once.  He had that grayish hue, and sure enough, he had a glucose of 600."

Other memorable quotes from chief resident:

• Regarding knife wound to abdomen: "M--- is post-op day 2 status post ex-caliber" (as opposed to ex-lap, aka exploratory laparotomy)

• ‎"She has a Mercedes in her belly! And the Mercedes has a necrotic patch on it." -resident referring to a patient's $10k biologic mesh.

Love Lies Part 2

Notes from Part 2 of my church's Love Lies Series:
Memorable quote: "sex makes little kids and little kids makes little sex"


Lie3: My Spouse Will Complete Me

• World view: 2 people face to face, love each other, consumed with each other.
• vs. Bible view: two people shoulder to shoulder in mission together
• Adam is accountable to God to love Eve and accountable for Eve's sin.
• For guys: most women have not been loved well.
• So love them like Jeuss - sacrifice most, forgive first.
• Means leadership - like dancing: someone has to lead, but both involved.
• Marriage equals one body.  Not equivalent, but fit together.
• Oneness: so important that you leave your father and mother
• Passion/romance + covenant (vow, decision/choice)
• Shift functional allegiance to husband.
• Don't define self by career
• Wife: give best to spouse, not children (doesn't mean neglect kids)
• Marriage is permanent - cleave ("super glue")
• Insert "Divorce will never be an option" in your marriage vow
• Marriage is to be intimate "soul mingling"
• Marriage starts with God = worship
• if start with spouse = codependency 
• if start with self = selfishness
• Marriage is about worship
• Put on earth not to marry, but for worship

Lie4: Sex is Easy

• Lies:
• sex is simply an appetite
• sex is just physical (it's also emotional)
• 1st corinthian 6:18 - sin against own body (referring to sexual abuse)
• sex strengthen relationships but also clouds judgement.  Gives a false sense of closeness.
• Lie: Marriage will satisfy all desires
• Memorable quote2:
• Girls think marriage is about love, romance, security
• Guys think marriage is about "boom-chicka-wow-wow"
• People look to sex for something only God can give.  It's more than what sex can give.
• Marriage is a place where sex is sanctified.
• Lie: God sets up unrealistic laws
• Truth is what God sets up
• Are we a caretaker of our own needs (we as God) vs. God needs
• If we are taker of our own needs, we indulge in own sex desires.
• If we are caretaker of God needs, we submit desires to God, repent/confess, and practice fidelity and purity; practice sex freely in marriage.
• Your sex problem is a God problem. 
• Truth:
• God created you uniquely sexual
• Proverb 5:18-19 Be intoxicated by your wife and tell them
• affirmation
• seek to be attractive for your spouse
• Sex is a good gift from God
• Sexual fulfillment is possible (most fulfilled = 50-59 married ppl)
• talk about it
• spend time to stay connected
• creativity
• self sacrifice: delight vs. demand from each other
• Road blocks: communication (emotion, belief of God/one another)

Patient Passed Away

Well, this wasn't really a patient I was following closely, but definitely a patient with whom I had some contact with.  It was a very sad case of end stage muscular dystrophy and unknown sepsis.  It was strange finding out the patient passed away.  It was kind of a shock, but since I had only helped change the wound vac, I didn't feel that impacted.  Is this a sign that I'm getting jaded?  I hope not!

Then not long after that, I found that a patient I had helped rub sulfadiazine on for burns also passed away.  This time, this was someone for which I had no expectation of passing away at all.  He was doing well, but unfortunately got burned because he wasn't able to express that his bathing water was too hot.  Such horrible luck!  But the burns themselves weren't terrible, and I had expected a complete recovery.  Ah, so unexpected.  Seemingly perfectly fine, then all of a sudden, passed away.  Can't imagine what guilt the caregiver must be feeling! 

Memorable Trauma Surgery Cases

Memorable Trauma Surgery Cases:

• Lung herniation after biopsy- yup, it popped out with valsalva!
• Foot amputation - I sawed off the fibula!
• Self-inflicted gun-shot wound (GSW) - unsuccessful suicide attempt + VATS (video assisted thoracoscopic surgery)
• Suicide by cops: got cops to go on high speed car chase, then pointed gun at cops so they would shoot him.
• Complete retrograde amnesia after motor vehicle crash (MVC)
• Complete humerus head fracture (humerus head in socket, but rest anterior to shoulder)
• Getting to be first assist on a colostomy (Bovie to clean off colon, manipulate the sigmoid colon, suture opening of colostomy to skin, mayo's to cut, subq umbilicus, cauterize vessels...) Simple but fun stuff!
• GSW to abdomen through liver, transverse colon, small bowel (3 resections), sigmoid colon, bladder, landed in leg)
• Extensive groin/thigh wound about 2'x1.5'x1' triangle.  See muscle, tendons, and all.
• Never been more physically touched by a patient before: when asked how abd pain felt, she closed her hands into fists and gave my stomach a double nuggie.  
• Sewing a skin graft down (okay...mini one that was gonna be thrown away any ways)
• Muscular dystrophy + wound vac - very sad case :(
• First encounter with 2nd degree burns: removing/debriding the bullae. 
• Retired football player.
• Cop getting shot by two 18 year olds & on news
• Appendiceal mucinous cystadenocarcinoma + right hemicolectomy

Sawed off a FOOT!

That was a pretty darn good b-day present - well, unintentionally.  But it was still pretty awesome (not for the patient, obviously).  It's of course very sad that the patient had to lose a foot, but in the long run, it's for the best.  It was already causing or associated with so many issues (sepsis, altered mental status, acute kidney injury, cardiomyopathy,  arrhythmia), that it was a necessary procedure.
Anyhow, I used a Gigli Saw! (put wire saw under the bone, hold the handles, and shimmy the saw under the bone with a force upwards).
 

My Old Lady

Just took a break from studying to watch Scrubs: My Old Lady (s1e4).  Here's the setting: The three interns are each assigned patients with various illnesses. Statistically speaking, one of the three is going to die. J.D.'s patient is 74-year-old Mrs. Tanner, who is in renal failure. 20-year-old David Morrison is Turk's hernia patient and Elliot's patient Mrs. Guerrero only speaks Spanish and might have lupus.

After studying like mad for the last couple of days and reading on my computer till my eyes go red, I don't feel guilty watching this episode.  Spoiler alert!  It really reminded me of the important things to also remember while going through medical school: to take charge and take responsibility, to care for my patients as friends, and to take time for myself outside of medicine.  

Health Care Reform- In Comic Form

Pretty awesome explanation of the health care reform and ACA (Affordable Care Act) in video and comic form by MIT economy professor and advisor to president Obama when he wrote the ACA. He also wrote a comic explaining the healthcare reform.
(video at bottom of link)

Weirdest Phone Convo

Oh friends...they're the best.

*Phone rings*
Me: Hello?
AL: What's that weird music in the background?
Me: It's my study music?
AL: I bet you're doing something weird, aren't you? Like kidnapping a kid!
Me: What?!
AL: He's screaming for help, and you're covering it up with music!
Me: *choking with laughter*...I can't talk b/c I'm laughing, sick, and eating grapes.
AL: I bet those aren't really grapes either

What NOT to say on the ward

After I talk about various hypothyroidism symptoms the patient has:
Attending: So what about the patient's eyebrows?
Me: Oh, he has them.
(Proper response would be thinning of lateral eyebrows)

...

Love Lies

Lecture Series at the Journey regarding misconceptions of love:
Love is a feeling

• Lie 1) Love is basically a "skill set" compatibility business.
• Evaluate whether I'm using this person to help me achieve something (entertainment, profit, God) vs. the goal is to love this person.
• Lie 2) Love is only sacrifice
• But in Christianity, love is both duty and delight (possible to have both)
• Lie 3) Love is only a feeling
• Feeling follows action, so a vow is a daily choice to be loving.
• You may think you do things for others b/c you love them, but in reality, you love people because you spend time on them.
• Nature of true love: 
• Love is the ends, not the means
• We think we do for others, but actually we often do stuff for ourselves
• Farmer + carrot story: love others for their sake, not for ours
• Perfectionistic - wait a minute, God's doing all of this.
• 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
• Start actively receiving love [from God]

Talk is Cheap

• Silence vs. encouragement:
• We all remember distinctly encouraging words from our past
• But we forget what we didn't hear/silence
• E.g. Darrin wish he had heard: "You are not a dumb jock," "You are better than this," etc.
• Silence kills
• There are people around who desperately need to hear your words of encouragement
• Criticism and correction
• Criticism tears other people for our own good
• Correction is for other's good
• Fans vs. friends: friends wound you (for your own good) whereas fans never wound you.
• Criticism is general
• Tear down words
• Gossip - words you wouldn't say if they were in the room
• comparison - to make yourself look better
• Flattery - manipulate others with kind words to get something
• Loose lips -refuse to hold tongue, must have the last word, always tries to one-up someone with story
• vs...Build up words: think - would I want to hear that when I'm in emotional distress?
• Slander vs. Prayer
• Slander: some of it kind of true; exaggerates weakness and defines a person by that weakness, often something you're strong in.  Attempt to gain control over a person.
• Prayer: acknowledge God is in control.
• Tongue tied to heart
• to deal with words, need to deal with the heart
• If you are utterly grateful for what God has done for you, your words will show it.
• What you say is what you hear. 
• Listening to other voices vs. being attune to God's voice
• You can't affirm yourself.  We are made to need affirmation from outside - specifically from God (not job, hobby, significant other, etc.)

Non-violence...with a cow?

This has gotta be the strangest weapon ever:

Source: facebook

Can Genesis Be Compatible With Evolution?

Very interesting discussion:
Can Genesis Be Compatible With Evolution? at University of California Veritas Forum.

Some interesting points:

• To read the Bible, you have to ask, "what type of literature am I reading?" Historical, poetry, law, wisdom, letters...?
• Genesis: God breathed into Adam and gave him life.  But God is a spirit, so breath is a comment on humanity and its dignity (vs. Babylonian creation - from spit and blood of a demon God)
• Two creation stories in Genesis, and they have different order of creation - indication that it should be taken figuratively?
• Genealogy of Bible doesn't correspond with scientific date of earth:
• Genealogy of Bible skipped generations
• Days in Genesis are figurative: How can you have a day when you haven't even created the sun, moon, and earth? Genesis was written as rivaling Babylonian texts and other creation texts, saying it was Yahweh (God) who created everything.
• Adam as a historical figure?: 
• Genesis 1 illustrates man's relationship with God. Genesis 3 tells how God didn't create man as sinful, but man chose to rebel.  And regarding actually there being one couple? - can't say; overly speculative.  But based on genetic evidence and patterns of diversity mapping, humans are one blood, one origin. Polyphyletic theory is incorrect, and belief in it has spurred holocost and other ethnic cleansing.  "There's ambiguity, interpretive room"
• Humans on being unique: 
• Being able to feel guilt
• Altruism - no genetic basis b/c less selfishness will die out (although I disagree with this point - there have been groups of bird that have been known to be altruistic for the colony)
• Are there places that science shouldn't go?: 
• Not that there are questions science shouldn't ask, but that there are some questions that science can't answer.  Like does one person love another person.
• How do you know that your religion is the right one? And not all the others?
• God approaches us and engages us in concert with our personalities and gifts.
• God approaches people differently, some rationally, some more anecdotal
• Prof. Schloss: went through a period of voraciously examining religions and their denials.  Had a "period of despair... had a dramatic, life-changing encounter with the presence of God. This may sound shockingly irresponsible, but it was for me self authenticating. I lack the capacity to doubt it...I was enmeshed in a variety of self-destructive patterns...those were gone.  My father is Jewish, ... my uncle was giving me flack and said, 'Why have you become Christian?' and my dad said, 'Shut up Gary, I don't know who this Jesus is, but the change he's brought about in my son's life, all I can say is God bless him.' "
• "The heart has reasons that reason knows not" - Pascal
• "If I allow it for the possibility that there is a God, the most sensible historical interpretation of the gospel accounts was that there was a man named Jesus, who claimed to be God, who predicted his own death and resurrection, who then died and resurrected."

What Do Doctors Do and others..

Haha, right on (yup, from facebook):


And ode to Washington, the best state: