I finished the quilt!!!

This is the quilt for little Olivia Grace!

Vega the huntress

12-11-06 --> 12-18-06

Hello everyone!

Another week has passed, and this week has not been too interesting. On Monday I had an OBGYN orientation which was fine. We had to perform a pelvic examination, and it was nice to see I remembered a lot of it from last year! It was a nice review, and I actually cannot wait until I start that rotation! We had a few tonsillectomies and an esophageal dilation this week… nothing major. Journal club (where we go though our presentations) was cancelled again this week. That’s too bad. I was actually getting dressed and going through my presentation one last time when Dr. M. called me and told me it was cancelled. Bummer. I have prepared two presentations and I am hoping to present at least one of them next week.

The weather has been great! Everyone is worried about global warming, but I am just hoping that this year it wouldn’t snow… I really don’t want to drive in it!

Vega and KC are wonderful—they have both been begging to sit on the balcony, and so I let them. If I don’t let them out right away, Vega starts crying in her little soprano meow.

Yesterday we had a holiday party at one of my friend’s house. It was fun to get together and enjoy one another’s company. Jackie’s baby is adorable, and seeing her made me want to finish the quilt ASAP, but alas, it will have to wait until the end of the semester.

Well, that is about it for now… I realize this is a tiny entry, but not much has been going on this week…

Reut

Getting to know you

Elizabeth sent me this via mail. This was fun and I figured I'll put this here instead of send it out to everyone; you are more than welcome to answer either here or email me back.

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Welcome to the new edition of getting to know your friends. Okay here's what you're supposed to do... Just copy, do not forward, this entire e-mail and paste into a new e-mail that you send. Change all the answers so that they apply to you. Then send this to a whole bunch of people you know, INCLUDING the person who sent it to you.

1. What is your occupation? I’m a scut monkey (aka a Medical student). Just 1.5 years left… then I’ll be a slave (aka a resident).
2. What color are your socks right now? Purple/lavender stripes (very warm)
3. What are you listening to right now? Queen. I’ve been on a queen kick for the past 4 months.
4. What was the last thing that you ate? Vegetable soup.
5. Can you drive a stick shift? No
6. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Orange
7. Last person you spoke to on the phone? Mom
8. Do you like the person who sent this to you? yes
9. How old are you today? 27
10. Favorite Drink? Chamomile tea
11. What is your favorite sport to watch? Men volleyball, tennis, and (when possible) cricket. I also really enjoy gymnastics. But it is so much more fun to play sports anyways.
12. Have you ever dyed your hair? Nope
13. Pets? My two furry trouble makers—Vega and KC (two wonderful cats)
14. Favorite Food? I love tomatoes in any form (minus ketchup, which I have to be in the mood for). I REALLY love stuffed fresh tomatoes!!! Oh heavens!
15. What was the last movie you watched? “Stranger than Fiction”
16. Favorite day of the year? I really love Passover night... so this would be sometime between March and April
17. What do you do to vent anger? Well, I first count to 10, which never works, then I usually vent to my parental unit, brother and various friends. If I am very angry I close my eyes and imagine who ever caused the rage in painful (but not deadly) situations.
18. What was your favorite toy as a child? Kofiko (a stuffed monkey), my markers and swings.
19 What is your favorite season? SUMMER! I love the heat! I can’t believe I am in snow land now. YUCK!
20. Hugs or kisses? One good bear hug could make the world better!
21. Cherries or blueberries? Nope, I can’t decide. They are both SO good!
22. Do you want your friends to e-mail you back? Of course!
23. Who is most likely to respond? Errrrr… Anna maybe?
24. Who is least likely to respond? I haven’t the slightest.
25. Living arrangements? A nice small apartment in NJ.
26. When was the last time you cried? About a month ago—I saw a sad movie, can’t remember which though…
27. What is on the floor of your closet? One of those plastic drawer set and shoes.
28. Who is the friend you have had the longest that you are sending this to? Gosh… I know you all for such a long time now…
29. What did you do last night? Prepared a presentation for ENT surgery and worked on Med-cases.
30. Favorite smells? Freshly mowed grass, morning, the sea, and well… mom’s cooking
31. What inspires you? Moving forward, learning, and that silly Nike commercial (Just DO it)
32. What are you afraid of? The unknown—change is hard.
33. Plain, cheese, or spicy hamburgers? No thank you.
34. Favorite dog breed? Any mutt from the shelter I volunteer at can come home with me (Well, everyone but Derek; he hates me).
35. Number? 11
36. How many years at your current job? Well… 2.5 years of med school at the moment.
37. Favorite day of the week? Wednesday and Friday night (unless I’m on call).
38. How many states have you lived in? 2 countries, 4 states
39. Favorite Movie? Well… Finding Neverland was just too wonderful.
40. Ever driven a Motorcycle or heavy machinery? Hahahaha… well… I was on a vespa, does that count? (and only for like 20 meters going like ‘2’)
All right, enough about me....what about you?!?

Look what I found!

In the archives of youtube.com!
Enjoy the lovely Gevatron :o)

15 days 'till I go home!!!

12-02-06 --> 12-10-06
Hello hello!

Just another small entry… nothing too interesting has been going on in ENT… Well, unless you count the dog bite we have seen the septorhinoplasty (septal correction and a nose job), the sinus surgery, removal of enlarged gland and the tracheostomy. I finally got to scrub in on a case—it was so much more interesting to participate! At the moment I don’t think working in the OR is my heart’s desire, but I cannot deny that it really is interesting.

My presentation last week was cancelled, which was completely fine by me… I was ready, but we did have a long day, and I haven’t eaten anything for a while, and the prospect of sitting and listening to presentations and then presenting myself did not sound as good as let’s say… dinner. That’s okay, I will present it this week. Quite unintentionally I managed to complete my next presentation today… I started reading my material (I am doing this one on obstructive sleep apnea) and just put everything together on PowerPoint, and a few hours later I had a complete presentation. I haven’t run through it yet, so I don’t know how long it will be, and if I’ll have to change things a bit, but the main part is done.

The last bit of school stuff is that I finally finished my honors paper for the family medicine rotation. I worked hard on it and despite the fact that it is not even remotely close to being perfect, I am happy with the paper. My topic was ‘medical mistakes and their disclosure to the patients’ and it was definitely interesting to read and write about!

Tomorrow I have an orientation for OBGYN. I really hope that this next rotation will be fun.

Now to not-school-related stuff:
I have been working on a quilt for my friend’s baby girl. This is a complete experiment, but it is turning out quite nicely! I am not 100% sure of how to create the binding, but I have a general idea, so I’ll play with it. I really wanted to have it done before the end of this year (2006), but I have a feeling she’ll receive it sometimes next spring :o) Oh well! The best thing about it is that I am having a good time and learning something that is completely not medicine related! After I’ll be done with this quilt I am thinking of attempting a very small lap quilt that will not have a pre-print to go with it… We’ll see…

Vega and KC are doing great! We sat in the sun (with a hat on) and read for a good hour today (it was cold, but very sunny!) Is anything better than a good book, purring cats and hot tea on a beautiful day? Speaking of reading books, last Thursday I finished reading a great book—שבע מידות רעות it was a good read, so thank you Saba for choosing it for me!

Last weekend my friends Karen and Matt came to visit me—they were suppose to come the week before, but they ended up not making it. We had such a good time! We went out to dinner at PF Chang’s (a Chinese place for all of you unfortunate souls who don’t know the place), talked for a long while and just had fun. It was so nice, and I really hope that I will have the time to go visit them in upstate New York sometimes during this academic year.

The last cool thing is that my friend Lori got published!!! I am so proud of her! I read this specific short story and thought it was wonderful! I cannot wait to see more from her! Congratulations again!

Well, that is about it for now,

Loads of kisses from here,

Reut

ENT

11-16-06 --> 12-01-06
Hello to all,

Loads to tell from the past 2 weeks! Last week I have finished my second family medicine rotation. It was very fun in the last few weeks of the rotation—expectations were set (and met on my part), and it was just fun to see some of the patients again for the last time. It was very nice to receive good feed back from the doctors, and Dr. C offered to write me a recommendation letter.

During thanksgiving I stayed here, worked on my paper and made the Laughlin’s famous secrete cranberry sauce recipe… yum! I also watched over Brian and Keri’s dogs (they are a lab mix and a husky—fun bunch!).
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…since I can’t keep a secrete, here is the recipe for the cranberry sauce:
2 bags of cranberries
2 oranges
1 can of either crushed pineapple or tidbits (Dole’s tastes great)
Sugar (if needed… I used two tablespoons this year)
 wash and stem the cranberries, then pass them through the food processor (on the top knife)
cut the oranges to small pieces
 add the pineapple (if you want a water sauce, add the juice, if not, drain the juice before adding the pineapple…)
 add the sugar if needed
 let sit overnight (but if you are like me, half the sauce is gone within two hours of making it.)
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But I digress…
On Monday I began my surgery service in ENT. So far it is very slow. I don’t think that this is what I’ll be doing after I graduate, but nevertheless it is a good experience to be in the OR and be able to relearn the anatomy of the head and neck. It is coming back fairly easily. We have to make two short presentations for didactics meetings, and I am probably going to do mine on: cleft lips and palates, Obstructive sleep apnea, hemangiomas in the airways or hearing loss. I am not sure yet. As far as what surgeries I have seen so far… I saw I nasoplasty and a sinus reconstruction, hemangioma removal from upper lip, tracheotomy placement + thyroid biopsy, tongue biopsy, and a lymph node removal (that really reminded me of Omer’s surgery a few years back).

That’s about it… the cats are doing great, we’ve been having amazing weather (up to about 70F!!!) for the past week and a half; the cats love to go out to the patio and enjoy the sun! This weekend I’ll try to get both of the presentations done, so I don’t have to worry about it during the week. Omer said he’ll check my honor’s paper and give me some feedback (he is a great editor!), so I’ll finalize that, and then my friends Karen and Matt might be coming to visit me on Sunday.

Anyways, that’s about it… I’m off to take a shower and go volunteer with my puppies!

Kisses!

Reut