June 2005

Sunday, June 26, 2005
Hello from burning Arizona
6-19 (mom’s birthday!!!)-->6-26-05

Hello everyone!

Another week has gone by. This vacation is flying by too fast…

This week there was nothing really too amazingly interesting in lab—I saw a whole lot of things that I have seen before, so it was a nice review.

At home, we finally received our container from Israel—so the whole family has been working on making the house look decent again… Yesterday we finished the kitchen! I love that mom has a kitchen that even a chef would be proud of! Most excellent! Prior to the kitchen, we put everyone’s beds and rooms together—it looks very nice! We still have a lot to do, but we will probably finish it soon.

It was mom’s birthday on the 19th—one more time: Happy Birthday mom!!!

As some of you know, Arizona is now known as “Burning Arizona”. During this week we have had many fires that were started by lightening. It has been so dry that burning conditions are just right for many fires. The “Cave Creek Complex Fire” was about 7 miles north of our home, and for about two days it was very smoky around here. Now the wind has changed and the air has gotten much better, never the less, the plume is still very impressive.

Well… that’s really about it.

Love,

Reut

26 jun 05 @ 9:56 am

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Saturday, June 18, 2005
Another summer week!
6-11-->6-18-05

Hello to all!

So this week in lab was quite interesting, but I’ll tell you only about what I thought the most amazing thing was! Out of the products of conceptions, we had two with fetuses—the first one was maybe 10 week old… (plus or minus a week or two), and the other one was a 4 week old. Now, I was amazed when I saw it, but also sad. This was potential life that did not make it. To see a fetus that has 10 little toes and 10 little fingers was just heart breaking. Nevertheless, I thought it was very interesting.

During the same afternoon I got to see the placenta of twins. After viewing it under the microscope (and reading about it in Big Robbins and having Dr. G go through it with me one more time), we could determine that they were identical twins (this was a Diamnionic Monochorionic)à that was just very interesting and fun!

Anyways, life overall is very calm in comparison to school time. I started visiting the public library for a little bit everyday. I am trying to read ahead on anatomy—So far I have learned most of the bones in the skull—next week I’ll work on the muscles. It really shouldn’t be that bad, and it is actually fun to spend time in our new public library.

Omer and I star gazed a few nights ago—it was very fun! Besides admiring our amazing moon, we saw Jupiter and its 4 moons, what we think was Saturn (both of us thought that we saw the rings… so we are going with that assumption), and other unnamed (to us) stars. Next time we do it, we’d grab a star guide :o)

Other fun stuff I did this week—Mom and I saw two awesome movies. The first one was “Up town girls” with Brittney Murphey and Dakota Fanning. I randomly picked it up at blockbuster thinking it would probably be a B rated film, but it turned out to be a wonderful touching story! The other one was “I am David” based on a book by Ann Holms, and that was another movie we randomly picked and absolutely loved! Also in the movie department, last weekend mom, dad and I went to see the “pants” movie (the Summer Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants)—as I read the story prior to seeing the movie, I was skeptic on how successful they would be at recreating the wonderful book-world, but alas… the movie was just as good as the book if not better (this almost never happens)… What can I say, this week was an awesome movie week for us!

Last thing—I am finishing one more scholarship application this week—and then I’ll start reading some material for another (this next one has an essay question on a topic I did not give too much thought to yet, so it will be fun to learn about it and make up my own mind about it).

That’s it you guys… vacation is great!

Much love,

Reut

18 jun 05 @ 11:16 pm

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Saturday, June 11, 2005
Hot hot hot!
06-04-05-->06-11-05

What a fun week!

Grandma and Grandpa came for a visit and it was really nice seeing them both! We did a lot of catching up. Even though Saba and Savta were here I still went to the pathology lab. I saw several interesting things this week:

-Pleural effusion
-Products of conception and its 3 requirements, of which one has to be present to confirm this is product of conception, (chorionic villi, trophoblastic cells, fetal tissue)
-Many appendices… :o)
-Many gallbladders—learned about Rokitansky aschoff sinuses
-Many distal esophageal biopsies
-Many colon polyps
-Stomach biopsies (and then yellow elastin stain looking for H. Pylori)
-Fatty liver
-Cirrhotic liver
-Adenomyosis
-Leiomyoma (we saw many of these)
-Ovarian tumors
-Small cell- “oat cell” carcinoma
-A case of Hashimoto
-Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL)
-AND I got to see a frozen section done—that was very interesting.

I did not get to see any deliveries this week, which was disappointing, but most of the action happened during night and I was already home… maybe next week!

During one of the drives back from the hospital I got a chance to talk to my friend Deepa—I missed her and it was nice catching up on things. I cannot wait to see her baby daughter (she is almost a year old). Last time I saw her she wasn’t even crawling yet, and now she is walking and talking a little bit.

Today, Saturday, Dad and I got some stuff out of the house and enjoyed a little garage sale. It was fun, but it got so hot that we had to call it a day and go inside—horrid Arizona sun.

Well, that’s about it for now—

Enjoy the week!

Reut

11 jun 05 @ 5:15 pm

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Friday, June 3, 2005
Ahhh... summer!
05-28-05 --> 06-03-05

Hi Everyone!

So, another week has gone by. Vacation is great! Memorial day was this week, and we did… nothing… :o) No, that’s not true, mom and I went to see “Monster in Law” (2nd time for me) –Very cute. Besides that we exercised and watched “the incredibles” on DVD, “the Brook Ellison story,” and “Sandy Bottom Orchestra”. I think that I really was TV deprived :o) and I am much better now. But… we really should start planning something fun for the 4th of July.

On Tuesday I got a haircut—I love my hair stylist, so every time I get my hair cut I have to share with the world. It turned out SO cute!!! My hair is so much curlier here than in KC, which is just bizarre… it should be the other way around.

On Wednesday mom and I visited the humane society. I saw the cutest cats and dogs there—both “schmoopie” and “baby” were adorable cats and “Red-Cowboy” & “Salma” were awesome dogs. The thing is though, I really should visit the humane society in KC, and not here in Phoenix. If I fall in love with a pet here, it would be quite a long way for them to drive back with me. And… both my brother and my dog wouldn’t like another additions (Omer is allergic to cats, and Midi is opposed to having another pet in the house).

At lab we saw tons of interesting stuff. Today I saw cholesterol crystals for the first time. It was absolutely gorgeous—almost like an abstract picture. I loved it. Dr. S is on vacation, and so Dr. R and Dr. G are letting me follow them around. Also, one of the OBGYN Docs was looking for me on the day I was off to invite me to see C-section. I was so sad I have missed that opportunity that when I saw her in the cafeteria today I asked if I could come next week—and she told me she’d come looking for me on the days I’ll be in lab. I am SO excited for that!

In order to make sure I don’t forget everything I am learning in lab, I am keeping a running list of the different cases I see. It is quite interesting. I have seen many gallbladders and appendices, and have seen quite a few distal esophageal and terminal ileum biopsies. I really would love to have more microscope time at school. Hmmm… I might have to find extra time to do just that.

What else… Grandma and Grandpa are coming for a visit next week. Dad is coming home tonight and then he is coming again next week. It would be fun!

Anyways, love and kisses from here,

Reut

3 jun 05 @ 8:59 pm