You should probably have a mattress that fits them.

Let me tell you a little story.  It's a story about a mattress.  And some sheets.  But we'll start with the mattress.  This little mattress was purchased sometime back in the 1980's.  First, my parents slept on it for a while.  Then, it got moved into my bedroom when they got a new one.  This was a big time upgrade, since it was a queen size mattress.  Woot woot! 

Then, when I went to medical school, I took this mattress with me.  Then, when I moved to Indiana for residency, I took it with me again.

This mattress is more traveled than most college graduates.

(Remember, it's life started in the 1980's.  I was born in 1985.  So it's pretty close to my age.  How close?  I've never asked when EXACTLY they got it... I prefer not to think about those things).

So, the mattress settled into life in Indiana.  At the same time as the move, I ordered some nice new sheets from my mom's friend.  Good, high quality, very comfy sheets.  When they arrived, I put them on my mattress and...

Wop wop.

The mattress was so old and thin that the fitted sheet went the whole way around the mattress AND box spring.

Sad. 

So I decided I needed to go mattress shopping.  The old mattress was destined for the guest room, and my bed needed something with a little more fluff.  After doing mucho research (okay, no mucho, but some), I settled on checking out Denver Mattress Company.  They got good ratings from Consumer Report, and there happens to be one right down the street. 

I was looking for something on the affordable side, since eventually I plan to move the new mattress into the guest room, toss the one that's my age, and get myself whatever mattress I dang well please.

There were many good options, and I narrowed it down to the Arapahoe, Breckenridge Memory Foam, and Breckenridge Latex.  When I found out that I could save $100 if I got a mixed box spring and mattress set, the Breckenridge suddenly became much more affordable, and I decided to go with that.  Seriously, who WOULDN'T get the mixed set?  No one looks at the box spring anyway...

Anyway, once I picked the Breckenridge, I had to decide between Memory Foam and Latex.  I asked the sales guy every question I could think of to figure out what the difference was.  Durability?  Firmness?  Thickness?  Hypoallergenic-ness?  Nothing...  And I couldn't tell a lick of difference sitting on them.  I eventually went with the Memory Foam, for no other reason than it sounds more comfortable than Latex. 

I know you've all been dying to hear about being on call for medicine.  Or at least dying to hear what exactly being "on call" means.  Since yesterday was my first call day of the second block of medicine, I figured I'd use it as an example of what a typical call day looks like. 

This is the meat and potatoes of intern year.  We do five rotations on the medicine service during intern year.  If you're admitted to the hospital, and you don't have a doctor (or your doctor doesn't come to the hospital, or you don't remember who your doctor is, or if we are your doctor...) we will take care of you on staff medicine.  In addition to taking care of my patients, when I'm on call I'm responsible for admitting any new patients coming to our service, running code blues, RAT (rapid assessment team) calls, seeing patients who fall while in the hospital, and pronouncing patients who were DNR and died. 

So, yesterday looked a little like this...

6:30 - Get to hospital and preround on my patients (we just started this rotation so they were all new to me)
7:00 - Breakfast rounds.  This is a Saturday only special.  But I like it.
8:30 - Finish rounds and start seeing patients and writing notes.
9:15 - Rapid Assessment Team call.  A patient on one of the floors is having acute shortness of breath.  We go get him taken care off, transferred to where he needs to go, then get back to regularly scheduled programming
10:30 - I do a circumcision on a baby who was delivered by the OB fellow yesterday.
11:30 - Finish writing notes and seeing patients.
12:30 - I grab a sandwich
12:31 - I do a pronouncement of a patient who just died.
1:00 - Talk to a patient about going home.
2:00 - Go see a patient who developed chest pain.
4:00 - Talk to radiology about test results for a patient.
4:30 - Everyone is tucked in... so I just wait to get called by the ER about an admission
7:00 - Night call person comes in.
7:15 - I go home.

Lucky for me, I didn't have any admissions ALL day, which is unusual.  On my first night call the first month I was on medicine, it looked something like this.
7:00 - Arrive at hospital and get checkout for medicine day team.
7:30 - Go to ED to see first admission.
8:00 - Told I have two more admissions to do.
9:00 - CODE BLUE
10:30 - Head back to ED to work on admissions.
12:00 - I've now been told about 7 people to admit.  That's our cap, so I lined the charts up and just started plowing through them.
1:00 - While staffing a patient with our attending, the CODE BLUE siren goes off again.
2:00 - Call attending back to finish staffing.
3:00 - Go to talk to family of patient who died in second code.
4:00 - Go to ICU to pronounce a patient
4:30 - Go back to ED
6:45 - Finished admitting patients.  Go to Cafeteriahhhh to get coffee.
7:00 - Rounds.  I present my 7 new patients.
8:45 - Go to aspirate knee of patient
9:30 - Try to convince patient to have important procedure, which he refuses.
10:30 - Go home.

Typical call days are somewhere between those two...

Now you know. 

Phew, I'm sure you feel better. 

Peace out.
Kari

Part of being on a sweet sports medicine/orthopedics rotation is not having any call, having short days, and occasionally having a random half day off.  The other part of being on a sports med rotation is working Friday nights and Saturday mornings.  Which I happen to find relatively enjoyable. 

I thought I'd pop back in and let you know how my painting extravaganza turned out.  It took a TON of paint to cover what is a pretty small bedroom.  As in, more than a gallon.  As in I had to run to Lowes yesterday morning to get more paint.  As in my arms no longer go above my head from reaching to paint the sponge-like ceiling. 

But, it was all worth it in the end, because the guest room no longer looks like a 10 year old boys room... which it was a mere 3 months (minus 2 days) ago.

Here are the before shots again.  I meant to snap one of the spider man light switch plate, but I was too busy taking it down.  Sorry.


Clearly I was already started when I took these pictures.  Because I was painting the ceiling, I had to cover the whole room in plastic.  This proved a challenge when selecting painting footwear.  I tried to go barefoot but the plastic kept sticking to my feet, and I had to walk like I had drop foot.  Then I put on socks and it was like trying to walk on an ice rink.  I ended up in shoes.  Good thing I have a lot of old pairs that can get paint-y. 

The top picture has a couple paint swatch options up, none of which are the one I actually chose. 

When I started painting, I realized that no only were there planes on the walls, but there were also stars all over the ceiling.  I think they'd been painted over with a coat of primer before, but you could definitely still see them. 

Not anymore.

They've been buried.  By Ashen to be precise (of the Olympic Premium No-VOC variety to be even more precise).  A coat of high coverage primer, and two coats of paint later, this is where we are.

You may remember me talking about my kitchen cabinets.  My plan to give them a quick coat of paint was upended when I discovered they were not normal cabinets, but old (probably original to my circa 1947 house) metal cabinets that no one had given any attention to since... ever, probably.   I estimate there are 5 coats of paint on the cabinets, some of which are peeling off.  There is grime and rust on the tops of the doors (which I don't think anyone but me has actually ever looked at).  And the shelves have definitely never been washed. 

When I was cleaning out the cabinets (actually, Ian was doing it while I was downstairs scrubbing shelves), I discovered something that confirmed my theory that no one had actually looked in the back of the cabinets in many many years. 

Names of patient and prescriber erased to protect the innocent.

Sad to say, the blue airplane stencil had to go.  Stay tuned for the after pictures.  They're gonna be sweet.  I hope.

Peace out,
Kari

PS.  Yes, I tossed all the extra percocet.  After 24 years (FYI, that's just two less than I've been alive), I'm pretty sure it's expired. 

Today is the start of a glorious 5 day va/staycation!  A little bit will be spent traveling, but mostly, I'm going to be at home, getting my home improvement on.  The list of things I want to get done is LONG, and will involve lots and lots of coffee!  I'll give you a glimpse of the projects I'm hoping to finish...

Find my dining room table (it's burried under a pile of tools, projects, and general stuff that never made it out of the dining room.)
Paint wood cabinet doors
Sand metal cabinet doors
Spackle guest bedroom
Wash/sand guest bedroom
Paint guest bedroom
Switch ceiling fans in bedrooms
Hang curtains in sunroom
Strip kitchen hardware
Files papers in my office
Print pictures to hang in hallway

I think I can get that all done....

,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Have you ever had these before?  Stacy's Pita Chips of the cinnamon sugar variety.  They are maybe the most delicious snack food ever.  And they are pita chips, so they must be healthy, right?  Ha.

They just happen to carry these little gems in the hospital cafeteria.  Lucky for me, they come in small, portion controlled bags.  Unlucky for me, I can get 17 bags of them if I dang well please.  Now I haven't done that yet, but there were certainly days when I considered it.

Lets start with the pita chip.  It's crunchy, thick in some places, but thin and chip like in others.  It has just a HINT of saltiness.  And then there's the cinnamon sugar.  It's cinnamony and sugary.  Nothing else to say about it.

When you were a kid, did you ever take leftover bits of pie crust, roll them out on a cookie sheet, spread butter on top, and sprinkle it with cinnamon sugar and bake it?  No?  Well you should have.  Because then you would have an idea how delicious cinnamon sugar pita chips are. 

They hit the sweet and salty/crunchy cravings in one package.  They are genius.  You should go buy some. 

And they make me very very happy.

I'm on my way home from a wonderful weekend in NC.  Betsy got married!  The weekend could not have been better... well, almost, but I'll get to that later.  First, I'll spoil the surprise and say that the wedding was a success.  Betsy and Devin are officially Dr. and Dr. Odom.