Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Is October in the Fall?

From October 2007


Well, we are nearly past the summer, but you wouldn't know it. The weather is still in the 70's, seems like we just started school again, and we have more trauma patients than normal on the trauma service here at work.
As I knock on some substance that appears to be related to a tree, I marvel that the Carne family has not made it to the Emergency Department for some time in the patient capacity. We have been riding bikes, hiking, swimming, playing baseball and Frisbee and learning all sorts of new things in our home school time. Kristi went out west for a wedding of a dear friend, and promptly contracted the west coast flue virus, or whatever it was, and was ill enough to have to postpone a return flight to recover. We had expert help back here on the homefront, in the form of Mary Beth Copper, so all was well. Was nice to have her here and the kids shed many a tear when she left to go back to Washington.
Jan has been growing up, looks much more like a big girl now, and is reasoning and asking questions enough to get responses from the parents like "can you please just be quiet for a while, or read a book, or draw a picture, or go play outside?" She is curious about most everything and wants to know exactly who is calling, what they are saying, what socks they are wearing, etc... She is excelling at school work, and says "did you know I would be so good at art?"
Alec is getting much older. Connects with a baseball quite well, throws a frisbee like a champ, and is a pretty protective brother for all of his girls. He is pretty quick to pick things up, and is quite sensitive to negative waves. Very helpful and likes to do boy stuff with dad, especially if it includes tools or fixing things.
Anne is still rashy below the knees, but much better than she was. Still fights gravity without much success, and is the most radiant sunshine or the most gloomy cloud. She is quite verbose and continually astounds me with her vocabulary and grasp of the events around her. The Chiropractor the other day was treating her a little younger than she likes and commented about her top "this is red, isn't it?" To which she quickly replied with a finger on her pant leg "this is blue, isn't it?"
Pati has to be one of the best babies, and I think weighs more than Anne does, or nearly so. She is standing by herself now (10 months) and is not fond of any form of correction, but seems to persist in getting it. She appears to have a good sense of humor, and laughs heartily.

Work has been very busy lately. I am on the Trauma team this month, and it has been the most busy month all year, by far. We have had about 40 trauma patients over the past 6 days, which accounts for over 15% of our yearly number. Lots of car wrecks. Lots of drunken people. Some of our own residents. That new sport of Hood Surfing seems to be catching on... Or maybe it is a new effect of lots of alcohol and cocaine together. Who knows, but usually you lose. Maybe that is not fair, as I am not sure how many people are actually out there hood surfing and I am only seeing the losers.

Okay, I will end for now. Have to go back to Call duties. I have discovered Facebook and have been experimenting. Not sure if I like it yet or not.

David

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Hiking Spree



We missed it last year but found out what all the signs for "Fall Hiking Spree" mean in time to complete it this year. Every year the Metro Parks here in our county put out a list of hikes. If you hike eight of those on the list you earn a hiking stick and the current years spree badge. After you earn your stick each year you finish the hikes in the months September-November you earn a new spree badge. The old-timers around here hike in the fall with their hiking sticks sporting 10 to 20 badges. Now we know what they mean and both Jan and Alec are impressed when they see them. I am sure that they have visions of showing off their own sticks plastered with badges someday, but for now they are proud as can be to hike with their sticks and the single white badge that they earned. All six of us earned hiking sticks and hope to use them for several more hikes this fall before the snow starts to fly here. Jan and Alec hiked every mile on their own. Anne didn't. But she is working on it and next year she will probably make it without help. Since Pati isn't quite walking it might be a couple years before she can keep up.