strawberry shortcake

Looks like my motivation to update this regularly is decreasing in proportion to my interest in pediatric PT. But, in reality, it's been a busy week. Ahhh, where to start-- 

Last week was a short one at work-- Monday and Tuesday were full of cancellations, thanks to the holiday week mindset. I spent Wednesday at Children's Hospital in downtown Mpls, where I observed inpatient PT in the morning (sometimes I wonder if I should have gone into diagnostics because I LOVE learning about all the bizarre diagnoses-- Cornelia de Lange syndrome, Duret hemorrhage, osteogenesis imperfecta), then hopped in the pool to observe aquatic therapy in the afternoon. 

As for the holiday weekend-- I spent Wednesday night in Monticello for Kristy and Clay's 25th bday, and had a blast. I especially liked Kristy's strawberry shortcake drinks, the fact that the bar was called Chatters, entertaining tweets, and when Kristy lost her phone... (ok, that one's a lie). Thanksgiving was fantastic-- the whole fam (sadly, minus Grandma L) came over, and we enjoyed yet another delish meal, as well as a great photo op outside thanks to the unseasonably warm weather. We also took advantage of the warmth when we cut our tree down at the farm in Scandia on Friday morning. 

Friday afternoon, Ben and I scalped tickets to the Wild game, though it was a miserable one. Another Buffalo Dog and 10 seconds of fame on the fan cam partially made up for the loss. This weekend, I also caught up with Kaitlin, and it didn't take me very long to realize that I need more Kaitlin in my life (hurry up and move back to MN, woman!). We had a great time talking about how excited we both are to start studying our boards review book (I'm 100% serious). Sunday, I took my first step towards deciding what I want to do with my life after I graduate in June by looking into sports medicine residencies! I think I'll just stay in school forev.  That afternoon, I went to my 3rd Wild game in 8 days (ahh, what a life) with Kayla, which was loads of fun, despite the depressing outcome. We even met four guys from Thunder Bay on the Hilton shuttle that picked us up on the walk (random, but we didn't turn down a free ride), one of whom knew the one Thunder Bay resident I happened to name. The hockey world is a small one, eh? 

Less than three weeks of peds left, which also means less than three weeks until Christmas break! Today was a long day at the clinic, though I was fairly excited to do my first full eval on a baby, until I realized that 1) this baby only understands Russian (SEE, mom, my one semester of Russian at Bowdoin might finally come in handy), and 2) this baby doesn't. stop. crying. Thankfully, both factors made the eval fairly short, but still, screaming babies sure don't leave me feeling rested and energized. As for now-- I'm killing time at Panera before hockey at 9:40, illegitimately streaming the Wild game on my computer and attempting to learn Swedish in the process (it's a feed from a Swedish tv station, apparently). I'm also trying to figure out how I have over 3000 hits (never saw that coming!)-- so thanks for reading, all.

my week in vocab

Badness Heights: I mean, I love Siri, but she sometimes she doesn't understand me. Usually, it drives me crazy, but occasionally, I'm okay with it. For example, I told her to navigate to Vadnais Heights the other day, and she thought I said Badness Heights. I had to laugh. Because that's so much cooler than the real thing. (FYI: Badness Heights native Ben Mess won this surprisingly heavy swing dancing trophy on Friday. Ow ow!)

Buffalo Dog: the latest, greatest savory treat at the Xcel, which I devoured while watching the Wild climb to 1st in the NW Division, 1st in the Western Conference and 1st in the NHL with a rockin' come-from-behind shootout victory over the Blues last night. Hot sauce, blue cheese and cole slaw. Delish. 

Crazy, Stupid, Love: the latest Steve Carell/Ryan Gosling/Julianne Moore flick that Kristy and I laughed at while sippin' Moscato (hands down, my fav wine) in sweats on Friday night. Probably not Oscar-worthy, but highly entertaining. 

Movember: The worldwide fundraising trend for prostate cancer research that takes over the NHL during the 11th month of every year. {here's the official site} It's pretty hard to take professional athletes seriously with some of these ridiculous staches (the top 10, so far), but it's for a good cause. Last year, Ben was a part of the world record-setting group of guys with 'staches at the X.  

NPTE: The program I have to thank for the 7-pound book I just picked up to prepare me for my boards exam in July. Yes, I actually weighed it, because I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to cram that many pounds of knowledge in my brain. (I realize that I'm already supposed to know most, if not all, of it, but I think some of it has faded away since I started grad school...) [It stands for the National Physical Therapy Examination, btw.]

Pimp Limp: Hockey can be brutal...just ask the girl I cross-checked in my game yesterday. (To my credit, I scored within 10 seconds of getting out of the penalty box off of a picture-perfect pass from Bennett.) But then I got a taste of my own medicine, when I went down hard and destroyed my knee, so I'm icing a pretty gnarly contusion as I type. Kristy coined the term pimp limp yesterday, and I'd like to think that it describes my current gait pattern pretty well.

Pracna: The oldest restaurant on the oldest street in Mpls, where I met up with Kristy and a few of her scribe co-workers for a late happy hour on Thursday (after I had dinner with my CIs at Granite City for my MIDTERM eval-- woah, halfway done already?!). Right on St. Anthony Main, this place has so much character, and some pretty cool drinks. Why bother cutting lemons into wedges, when you can wedge an entire lemon onto a glass? (Our drinks came with an entire lemon, stuck with this pin--)

Syncope: The fancy medical term for fainting, which is what I wanted to do at pick-up hockey in South St. Paul on Friday. Woah, apparently my WHAM games haven't gotten me in as great of hockey shape as I thought. (In all honesty, my lungs just hurt. Unfortunately, there's no medical term for lung pain-- pneumalgia, perhaps?) But I realize this is my 3rd hockey-related vocab word, so I'll stop here.

TRX: Monday morning was probably the most fun I've had since starting at Children's. I shadowed the pediatric sports medicine specialty clinic, which involves an MD and a PT tag-teaming two mornings a week to treat the kinds of cases I totally looove seeing-- knee sprains, Osgood-Schlatter's, broken wrists. Just my thing. I even got to experiment with TRX, which is this awesome total-body suspension training system developed by Navy Seals, which I have since decided to do my in-service on at the Maple Grove clinic. 

So, ya'll probably just boosted your mental vocab bank by 0.0001%. As for this week-- only TWO days in the clinic! I also plan to listen to This Is Tha Carter on repeat during every commute (yes, it's been 7 years since it was released, but so. obsessed.), eat at Five Guys with Jack (who arrived in MN last night, but I have yet to see. #priorities) and his roomie London Will tomorrow, and head up to Monticello for Kristy/Clay's 25th b-day cele on Weds. And it goes without saying that Thursday is one of my favorite holidays. CAN'T WAIT. 

cheers to the black rhino

it was one big dog party-- Harv was a hit.

Spending the weekend with vet med students, I sure learned some crazy things about animals. For example, how many toes does an elephant have on each foot? This question was the topic of debate with Alina and Carl during the car ride down to Ames to visit Jess and Matt, who moved south when Jess started vet school at Iowa State this fall. (If you answered 2, you're right. But if you answered 3, you're also right--they have 2 on each of the front feet, and 3 on each of the back feet. Who knew?!) We arrived Friday night, and spent the night catching up, playing with the dogs (people to dog ratio = 1.5:1) and devouring Orange Leaf fro yo (just like Red Mango. LOVE.). 

On Saturday, Jess, Alina and I ventured to West Des Moines to go shopping at one of the nicest malls I've been to (ok, Iowa, I'm impressed). Even though (to our dismay) Cheesecake Factory had an unbearable lunch wait at 2pm (not worth it), the trip was a success-- rocked out in the car, bought new shoes, found Kristy's birthday present ;) That night, we rounded up the boys (Tyler got in late Friday night), and checked out Hickory Park, a local fav, for dinner. The delish BBQ--pulled pork, rotisserie chicken, ribs, sausage, sweet potato fries, mashed potatoes-- was absolutely worth the long wait. Plus, we played a lot of I Spy, were thoroughly entertained by the games on the kids' menus, experienced the fastest service ever, and the boys (who planned ahead and wore plaid shirts, by the way) all managed to finish their ridiculously large meals. 

110,000 calories and 23 pounds of consumed meat later (not as much of an exaggeration as you'd think), we headed home to play games and meet up with some of Jess's school friends before hitting the town. A handy dandy bus took us downtown, and with the exception of a mild left ankle sprain I sustained on the way home (which I didn't care about, btw, because we were done dancing at that point), it was a totally awesome night. A few highlights: we made sure to drink to the recently-extinct black rhino, Carl kicked me out of his wedding four times, Goph hockey beat the Badgers, the bus smelled like maraschino cherries, and of course, the dancin' was awesome.

pure. love. 

Truck fire in Albert Lea on the
way home

I couldn't have asked for a better Sunday, either. Slept till 11, got Jimmy Johns for brunch, and lazily laid around watching football all afternoon. SO much fun to see Jess, Matt and Ty, who I hadn't seen in months! The drive home was long, though, as I felt yet another weekend slipping away... At least I have some great pics and a sexy limp to show for it.

fa la latte

4 weeks down, and I'm officially 112% sure I don't want to do pediatrics one bit. I mean, the people I work with are awesome, the clinic is very well-run and babies are cute, but it's not quite my style. Then again, I'm glad I'm figuring this out during a 9-week internship, and not as I'm accepting my first job. But that's not to say that I'm not having any fun. Here are a few highlights of the week (in and out of the clinic): 

Just a random fav. Completely irrelevant to anything written here, but I love it.

1) Incorporating Jenga, Guess Who, soccer and bubbles into treatment sessions. (I'm undefeated in Guess Who. Swag.) 2) Caribou came out with holiday drinks today. Not an huge eggnog fan, but I can't pass up a Fa La Latte. 3) I discovered that I can wear yoga pants to work as long as they look like dress pants. A fantastic excuse to go shopping...hellooo new Nike sweats. (Trying to use my Dick's coupon at Sports Authority...not so much a highlight. #embarrassing #buttheyacceptedit) 

4) It's actually light out in the morning when I drive to work. Much more uplifting than the last few weeks of darkness when I got to work and darkness when I left work. 5) Managed to work Wii Fit and the agility ladder to 3 treatment sessions today. (Ahh, brings me back to the good ol' days of Acceleration MN and Ole women's hockey dryland!) (And no one has managed to beat my Wii Fit Hula Hoop record...hidden talent?!) 6) Took a break from the Maple Grove clinic on Tuesday to shadow PTs in the hematology-oncology (cancer) and serial casting Children's specialty clinics in downtown Mpls. Hem-onc was fun and fast-paced (just my style), while serial casting was a bit slower-paced (I did like the cup of items collected from inside casts, i.e. leaves, gravel, candy).


7) I'm getting so much faster with my documentation. Today, I only stayed two hours after my last patient to finish writing...seriously, that's faster than it used to be. So. much. paperwork. 8) I've been working on balance and lower extremity strengthening with one of my favorite little patients, and today he told me he just rode his bike without training wheels for the first time. Success. (Try telling me that doesn't warm your heart just a little.) 


9) I've found the perfect place to let loose after my 12-hour days: the treadmill. My workouts have never been better. 10) It would hardly be appropriate to go an entire blog entry without talking a little bit of hockey. So, here goes: the Wild are really pretty awesome. Especially our goalies. I guess I shouldn't talk too soon, though, because we're currently losing big to Brent Burns & Co, but I have faith. 11) 14 days till Thanksgiving. I'm hungry just thinking about it. 

Ahhh can't wait to see my fav future vet this wknd <3 

Tomorrow-- off to Iowa with Carl, Alina and the dogs to visit Matt and Jess. (Rumor has it she has two thumbs and likes to party ;) WEEKEND!!

P.S. A few of my favorite songs from my loooong commutes:

Astronautalis ~ Dimitri Mendeleev

Andy Grammer~Keep Your Head Up

Mike Doughty~ Na Na Nothing

swoop

the wallpaper on my phone-- I can't quite grasp why
 they didn't have anything Wild...

Yet another long week in the clinic, but the arrival of my much needed new phone on Wednesday made the week considerably more bearable. (One of my grandmas already has an iPhone, and the other has an iPad, so it was definitely time to upgrade.) Turns out, Siri and all the other cool new gadgets on the iPhone 4s are certainly living up to the hype. Good thing I got all of my treatment planning for Thursday done during the day on Wednesday, because I dedicated the entire night to my new toy, and to training Siri to obey my every command. 

My fav convo so far-- Me: Siri, what's the best phone out there? Siri: You're kidding, right?

Somehow, I managed to get out of work on time on Thursday (there was no way I was putting in another 13-hour day like last week), and met up with Paige, Layla and Alisa at Don Pablo's to catch up about our first and second clinicals. We were there for over 2 hours (meaning I ate about six servings of chips and salsa), but it was awesome. (We missed you, Kaitlin!)

I spent the weekend at my mom's scrapbooking retreat at a hotel with Paige, Mac and Kristy. But of course, I don't have the patience to sit at my computer (scrapbooking is going digital, FYI) for 55 straight hours, so I took a few breaks--

Paige and her overwhelming supply of paper

1) Eagles' season opener was on Friday night (my WHAM aka Women's Hockey Association of Minnesota team)--chyeah, we're starting the season off undefeated. 3-1 win, and I scored the first goal :)

2) Social hour/wedding planning sesh with Alina on Saturday--tried on our gorgeous bridesmaid dresses and worked on her Save the Dates.

3) Par-tay in Northfield on Saturday night--Kristy, Tay and I headed to Carleton to see Kristy's bro. Pure jam session on the drive down (a little Maroon 5 interspersed with some Party Rock Anthem). The theme was heaven and hell-- Kristy was glowing in her white workout tank and my white Under Armour shorts as an angel, Tay rocked the red devil look, and I'm not entirely sure what I was supposed to be--a fallen angel, perhaps? (I even had wings, but they made life difficult, so I vetoed them early on). King's Cup was a hit, and while the official dance party ended early, props to Kristy for continuing it unofficially. SWOOP.

my fav page of the wknd.

By now, I've settled into a typical Sunday night routine-- Spotify, cinnamon tea and treatment planning. Looooong day tomorrow (a new eval + hockey at night), but pretty dang excited that I get to take Tuesday off to head to Children's Hospital in downtown Mpls to observe hematology/oncology PT in the AM, and serial casting in the PM. Then-- road trippin' to Iowa to visit Jess and Matt this wknd! Friday can't come soon enough.