Frozen February

Winter is here, finally. After a December with nere a flake of snow, and a January where it rained as much as it was cold, we now have some winter weather. We have about 4 inches of snow on the ground, that blows around, and for the next 3-4 days it is forcasted to be well below 20 degrees F.
We now have carpet picked out for the office downstairs, someone to come out next week for to tear up our bathroom (they laid linoleum down on top of carpet and now it stinks and will come up) and put down some new linoleum. So, maybe next weekend I will be able to put the office back together and have a place to hide and study and pay bills and such.

From January 07

While we were at Home Depot picking out carpet last night, the lady in the carpet section told us that Home Depot has a craft day every Saturday from 9-11:45, so I took the three older kids to Home Depot and we put together race cars, visited their bathroom, and then made it out of there, but not before they hooked me with their discounted snow sleds. Jan wanted the Red one, and was nearly in tears when I said "no." She got over it. Alec really wanted the Orange one and was in tears because he said "I don't know how to use the other one." Actually, he doesn't know how to use any of them, but he got over the answer I gave Jan just a few seconds earlier.
I got the fancy one that looks like a wakeboard, and we went to the park just past our house, where there is a sledding hill. Actually, it is a pretty nice sledding hill, and is sort of like a bowl, so they sled down and then sort of slide around in the bottow until friction overtakes gravity, or big slow kid doesn't get out of the way fast enough. I decided to take them down with me, and that worked well until about 3 times into it Jan says to me, "can I go by myself?" I started to say no, but I thought about that turtle Crush on Finding Nemo who says "it's time to see how Squirt does flying solo," and I said "uh, sure."
After some instruction which mostly included repetitions of "hand on tight" in various flavors, Squirt flew solo, and actually did very well, except I forgot to tell her not to walk back up the middle of the hill, where everyone else slides down. Oh well, that's how you learn, I guess. Next, Alec wanted to go down by himself too, and so both Squirts did very well flying solo. So much so that by the end of the time I decided to add some speed and put them on together. I almost bowled a perfect strike, where they nearly took out a pack of about 8 14-year old girls at the bottom, who were talking and joking until Jan and Alec came blasting through the pack.
We will have to go back and bowl again, and maybe I will bring my camera, so I can share it with you all.
At many of these parks here, there are ponds that are converted into ice rinks... Which we decided maybe we will plan on doing next year, after a year of solid shopping for ice skates for the family. I had some old russian hockey skates, but gave them up a while back. Actually, we could most likely find some skates quite easily, but I need a good year to get stretched out so I don't pull something trying to help the kids learn to skate. I have visions of my dear Father, trying to avoid a wild 4 year old, as well as a hazard marked with cones, and then slipping on a "slippery spot on the ice" nearly made himself a wish bone. Actually, maybe kids learn faster if they just go out there by themselves and figure it out. That sounds good, maybe I can watch the baby and keep the hot chocolate company or something.
This month I am back to the land of general surgery, which is nice, actually. My first day on was Thursday, and I was on call. I got to take out two gallbladders with an attending I have barely met, and the second one he let me do practically the entire thing. I helped put in the gas port and then put in two ports on my own, and held the gall bladder for him while we did cholangiograms (injecting the cystic duct to image the bile ducts and confirm we have the correct duct, as well as look at the specific anatomy (there are plenty of variations to the "normal" bile duct anatomy).
After this point, we started the actual operation and he let me operate the camera as well as do the dissection, isolate and clip off the duct and artery, cut them, and then use cautery to dissect out the gallbladder itself and then put it in a bag and pull it out, followed by careful inspection for bleeding or oozing and then irrigation and quick inspection of the bowel and then taking out and suturing up the port holes.
It was my first real abdominal operation where I was the primary operator, and it was great. Helps to confirm to me why I am here and what I am trying to get out of it.
Well, that is about it for this time. We left the sledding hill just perfectly: everyone had a good time and was upset to leave. Maybe we will let mom go back with them tonight and sled again while I keep the baby and Anne company here in the warm house.

I looked up the park website and there are at least 4 parks here that have sledding hills, and 3 that have ice skating ponds. Fun times.

Dr. Meat

From February 2007