Good morning! 2 Days left to study for the next gastrointestinal test! Things are a little bit stressful this time around. This course has been a little more disorganized than those in the past and there seems to be more material thrown in at the last minute. I would appreciate any prayers I can scrounge up.

Studying the GI tract has been a lot of fun. I really enjoy the topic but don't think I would enjoy the actual practice of being a gastroenterologist. But then I have a lot more time before I figure that one out. Also coming up, the registrar is working on the schedule for 3rd year. Once they publish it, I believe we have about 2 weeks to trade with everyone to get the rotation that we would like. They've changed the rotations this year to split up our vacation and give us more choices, which I believe will make switching schedules all the more difficult. I am not sure when I am hoping to use my vacation. It's crazy that all these things matter, but there are strategies for how you do your rotations during 3rd year. For instance, they recommend that you take the courses that you are most interested in early that way you know if you really like them. That way when you make your schedule for 4th year, you won't have to rework it because you found out you actually hate the field that you thought you would be doing for the rest of your life. (True story).

Then there is the lovely step 1 always looming over our heads. It seems the faculty love to remind of us of this "next hurdle" as if we could forget that this one test dictates 1 whether we can be a doctor and continue our educations and 2 what types of specialities are still available to us.

So, I am kind of feeling some of the pressure lately. The seconds keep ticking by, the days pass much more quickly than I would like. I won't say that there are not enough hours in the day because I don't need an hour. I just need a couple of minutes to rest. If medical school has taught me anything, it's how to value time.

How To Date/Be married to a Med Student

I found this helpful article when a fellow classmate posted it on facebook. Among the favorites of the class are numbers 3, 8, 10, and 11. Enjoy!

: How to Date a Med Student

1. Don't expect to see them. Ever.

2. Accept the fact they will have many affairs. With their books.

3. Learn to hide your “ew, gross” reactions when they tell you all the stuff you never wanted to know about your bodily functions.

4. Support them when they come home after each test, upset because they failed—and gently remind them after they get their well above passing grade how unnecessary the “I’m going to fail out of medical school and never become an MD” dramatics are.

5. Each week they will have a new illness. Some will be extremely rare, others will be more mundane. Doesn’t matter. They will be certain they have it (no second opinions necessary.) Med school can, and will, turn even the sanest into a hypochondriac. Date them for long enough, and you’ll become one too.

6. There will be weeks you'll forget you even have a boyfriend—friends will ask how he is and you'll say, “What? Who? Oh....right. He's well...I think.”

7. They'll make you hyper-aware that germs are everywhere and on everything. Even though you used to walk into your home with your shoes on, and sit on your bed in the same clothes you just wore while riding the subway, or sat on a public bench in, you'll become far too disgusted to ever do it again. Believe me, it's going to get bad...you'll watch yourself transform into the anal retentive person you swore you'd never become. And when you witness others perform these same acts that, before you began dating your med student, you spent your entire life doing too, you'll wince and wonder, “Ew! How can they do that? Don't they know how many germs and bacteria they're spreading??!”

8. Romantic date = Chinese take-out in front of the TV on their 10 minute study break.

9. A vacation together consists of a trip down the street to Walgreens for new highlighters and printer paper.

10. Their study habits will make you feel like a complete slacker. For them, hitting the books 8-to-10 hours a day is not uncommon, nor difficult. You'll wonder how you ever managed to pass school on your meager one hour of studying per night.

11. They're expected to know everything. Everything! The name of the 8 billion-lettered, German sounding cell that lives in the depths of your inner ear, the technical term for the “no one's ever heard of this disease” disease that exists only on one foot of the Southern tip of the African continent. But ask them if your knee is swollen, or what you should do to tame your mucous-filled cough, or why the heck your head feels like someone's been drilling through it for oil for two weeks straight, and they won't have a clue.

12. “My brain's filled with so much information, I can't be expected to remember THAT!" will be the standard excuse for forgetting anniversaries, birthdays, and, if you get this far, probably the birth of your first-born.

13. You'll need friends with unending patience who pretend never to get sick of listening to your endless venting and complaints. Or, you'll need to pay a therapist who will pretend never to get sick of listening to your endless venting and complaints.

But take this all with a grain of salt. It's not like I'm speaking from experience or anything...

Rearranging the Mantle

Ok guys, I need a little bit of advice on how to rearrange the mantle. Got a great new decorative piece and can't find any other useful place to put it. So I thought I would try it on the mantle. But I've always had trouble with the asymmetrical thing... what do you think?

Here is my starting point, just for some reference...

option 1

Ok, so first we have the simple unbalanced, lazy version.

Option 2

Next we have the slightly more attentive, unbalanced version.

Option 3

This one is the flabbergasted one.

I tried positioning the piece on the right side of the mantle.

I think this arrangement is perplexing to some...

Option 4

This is a more active version, kinda for the indecisive at heart.

I don't know how I feel about it...

Option 5

I call this one the moody modernist.

That style has never really been my thing, but I thought I might give it a shot.

I think it's a little too moody for my tastes.

Got any useful suggestions?? Can't wait to hear them!

all roads lead to ...

Ok, I've been slacking on the blog but have been doggie-paddling in school with a group of olympic swimmers. So here is my interesting tidbit of the day then it's back to the books. Test is tomorrow at 100pm. (say a extra prayer for me, please: retention, confidence, peace, clarity of thought and ability to understand the questions-what they are asking)

You've heard the expression all roads lead to Rome. Well, it seems that the same thing can be said of the gut. Atherosclerosis affects most other vessels of the body. Even in the anatomy lab, the arteries that have been affected by atherosclerosis are hard and break when handled. This, however, never happens to the vessels of the gut.

The reason why the heart, aorta, brain, etc are so prone to this build up of plaque is because there is usually one vessel to supply one area. In order to get blood to that area of the body, the body has no choice but to travel that road. Plaque, therefore, is deposited only in that one vessel each time the blood passes that way.

The gut however, has an extensive collateral system. As you would guess, there are many many roads to get almost anywhere in the gut that you want to go. This goes for arteries and veins. The gut even has two venous systems to get blood back to the heart. Most travels through the portal system through the liver then to the heart. But, in case there's a problem with that system, the body also has areas that connect to systemic veins (or the veins that bring blood from everywhere else in the body back to the heart). This way, there is always a way to get the blood back to the heart, even in less than ideal situations.

I found this fact very interesting. The body will often demonstrate what is most important by it's blood supply. And as you can clearly hear, the body is telling you that the gut is very very important. However, if you ever have to run from a bear the blood going to the gut is sacrificed and re-routed to the muscles...but that's for another time.

Superbowl Weekend

This weekend was great! We got to spend some time with some great friends. This weekend, Roger and I got to help some friends get their house ready for their home visit. They are adopting and their home-visit is on the 11th. So Roger headed up the remodel crew while I got to help rearrange their back room. They have a 17 year old living with them until he finishes high school. So Warren and Lisa decided to convert the office into his own bedroom. They wanted to him to feel at home in their house. so we converted it all on his birthday while he was away at a surprise birthday party. I felt like we were on a design show where you completely rearrange a room in a day. It was wonderful and Warren cooked for us two nights in a row AND gave us the left overs. We are so very blessed. It was a great time with life-giving friends.

Then for the superbowl, we were able to go to a friends house to watch the game. We had a great visit and talked long after the game ended. Had a little trouble getting up this morning but it was so worth it.

It's amazing how God has blessed us recently with such amazing friends. Although I do not consider Shreveport home and don't think that I ever will, having such great friends here has made the experience of living away from our friends at home such better. I am excited about the new friendships that are developing and look forward to growing those friendships. At school, the relationships are not the same and it's easy to get into a negative attitude. Several people would describe themselves, joking or seriously, as miserable. I don't want to be that way. I want to be happy about where I am at. I am in medical school. I worked really hard to get here and I'll have to work really hard to stay. This is what I want to do . Whether I make money at this later or not (Thank you, Obama), this is the career path I want to take. I believe that this is exactly where God has placed me and I plan to enjoy the journey.

I love you all and really miss y'all. Getting a little homesick lately and look forward to seeing each of you soon. Until then, it's back to the book and dinner with some great friends.

Snow Day!

Being in medical school has a lot of benefits but getting school cancelled is not one of them. Yesterday, we even had mandatory lectures so everyone had to brave the weather to listen to a physician tell us about how to give an abdominal exam (she didn't want to be there either so it was quite amusing). Then we were able to come home and play in the snow again!

We had a lot of fun playing in the snow. Molly wanted to play nonstop. When we woke up, Molly was panting. I think we solved that problem! Thankful, there were no golfers on the golf course. Molly got to go play out there twice in one day and both times were during the daylight!

Apparently, Feiona didn't like snowballs being thrown at the steps she was hiding under! Excuse me! How were we suppose to know?

Feiona was not a happy camper but we think that's just because she just realized she's not a dog like Molly. Those are sad days when she remembers she's a cat. She's all pissy and doesn't want to see anyone. It's really sad. Then she forgets again and continues to act like a dog and the world is a better place.

We had a great time. After this, Roger went to help some friends paint and mend holes in their sheetrock. They are trying to adopt and have a home-visit come up soon. I stayed home and relaxed (instead of studying) in front of the fire place. It was wonderful.

Our friends are amazing cooks, so Roger came and picked me up and we had the most amazing brisket, mash potatoes, baked beans, green beans and chocolate/cherry cake you could ever imagine. AND they gave us all the leftovers!! I need to contract Roger out more often. They also introduced us to the concept of beer mugs in the freezer, used for drinking milk-they even gave us an extra set of beer mugs that they had! It was truly a great day. But that being said, I'm done with the snow until next year. Anyone want to come take it for us??

More than you wanted to know..

Ok. So I think this is interesting but I am not sure who else will. Fiber.. and how it works.

Fiber is not able to be completely broken down by the gut and therefore adds mass to all the other things that are being processed. The amount of water in your gut is determined by the amount of stuff you have in there. More stuff means more water. So you can see how adding fiber to your diet creates more mass and therefore the body adds more water so you get less constipation. You also wouldn't get diarrhea because the fiber is there to provide substance. I know, kind of gross. But what's worse is that you can have fermentable fiber.... think about that one for a second. ferment...makes gas. Yea, it ferments and then you release the by-products of digestion...carbon dioxide and methane gas... which I hear they are now trying to use as a fuel source. So, the moral of the story is: with you and your fermentable fiber, you could power the world!

It's up!! It's up!!

The church's new website has been silently launched. I have to keep my mouth shut for now until the church announces it. So my mouth is shut while I excitedly type this message to y'all!! :)

I love my husband so much and he is so amazingly talented!! check out the website and let us know if you find any glitches, spelling errors, etc.

www.churchatredriver.com

Where do you feel pain..

OK, I think this is pretty interesting and maybe you will too. Today we learned again about visceral and somatic pain. The way I tell the difference between these is somatic pain is specific pain. It is easy to localize and these receptors are found in places that have a lot of nerve receptors (because they are use to being touched). So you finger would have somatic or specific pain receptors. Visceral pain is vague pain. These receptors are located in areas that normally don't need to tell you what's going on except when something is wrong. So visceral or vague pain receptors generally only transmit pain (aren't they sweet).

Now, to go one step further...stay with me here. Here's where it gets good. Somatic (specific) sensation is pretty important because it usually tells us a lot more than just pain. It is our general sense of touch. So somatic (specific) receptors can have their own relay station in the brain, or it can share a relay station with the visceral (vague) receptors. But the visceral (vague) receptors always have to share because they aren't nearly important enough to have their own relay station like the specifics.

Because of the sharing of relay stations, this is where we get referred pain. When you have a tooth ache, your body is telling you that the area below your teeth is having a problem. This area generally doesn't tell you anything and so when it does speak up, it's always to tell you that there is a problem. Because this part of the body is usually silent and is going to a shared relay station the brain sometimes will say that the specific fibers in the relay station are the ones that are firing, like the ear, which seems to share a spot with the teeth. This is how tooth pain can feel like ear pain. Also interesting is that somatic (specific) pain trumps visceral (vague) pain every time. Vague pain can be mistaken for somatic but somatic is way too important to be mistaken for vague pain. Pretty cool, huh?

Back to the grind stone

Well, I had an amazing weekend. It don't think it could have gone better if I had planned out every aspect of it. Our visit to Lake Charles was short, but packed with meaningful visits. I am so glad we were able to see everyone that we did. Still wish we had been able to stay for Sunday. But Sunday church in Shreveport was incredible! The sound was truly great. I could even tell a difference and that truly is saying something. God has given me a heart for the girl who sang on Sunday (she also cuts my hair). While she was last cutting my hair she was telling me all the ways God is moving in her life and it is truly incredible! He is doing amazing things in and through her. I can honestly say that one day, I'll be able to proudly tell you that the lead singer of the wildly famous band "They say" did my hair! Such an incredible humble woman of God.

Well, after this weekend, it's really been hard getting back into the swing of things. Ever sense Thursday, I've not had to do anything school related. So now, transitioning back into hard work and loads of concentration is a little bit more difficult than I had imagined. The good thing is, I now go back to school very refreshed and ready to face the next course.

We are now starting GI, then we'll do endocrine. Easter break for 5 days comes next then it'll be time to study for boards!! So much in such a short period of time. That just means I get a short amount of time to make it all count. I am excited about the place God has placed me and the things he is doing in my life, Roger's live and those around us in Shreveport. It is a unique opportunity and I want to spend every day being thankful for where I am and the amazing people God has placed in my life.

Well, now back to studying. I am not very good at keeping this thing updated but I will try harder. I thought about added my tid-bit of the day on here. hmmm, we'll see how that goes.