Friday Dance Off!

Well, I made it.

Today was the last day of my first rotation.

And, boy, did it suck.

If there's one thing I've learned about anesthesia over the past 11 weeks, it's humility. Just when you think, "Wow, I've gotten all my IV starts on the first stick including 18gs and not missed an intubation or LMA placement for the past 2 weeks- I may actually be getting the hang of this," you're wrong.

Even when you know your rockstar streak has been going on too long and it's inevitably going to crash and burn around you any second, you're still not prepared.

And even though you think you've learned your lesson the last time and you promise yourself you're not going to acknowledge your confidence, it happens. And then $%&# happens. Let's put it this way: I peaked at 0630 with my IV start. That's it. After that, it was missed intubation, lost art line stick opportunity, too slow getting supplies- you name it. I really wanted to go out with a bang... I guess I should've been more specific...

Overall though, this has been such a fantastic rotation. Anniston's anesthesia staff is amazing and I was truly blessed to have begun my anesthesia clinicals there- one of the CRNAs even invited me to watch a CABG earlier this week. That's right- I saw a beating heart in someone's chest. AND I saw it stop beating when we went on bypass. AND I saw it go from quivering Atrial Fibrillation to Sinus Rhythm after a shock with the internal paddles. Talk about being jazzed! Anyway, I'm really going to miss the people that have taught, befriended, and inspired me for the past 3 months, and I would gladly go back for another rotation... how great would it be to go back and actually KNOW stuff?! :)

Here are a few great moments from today:


Celebration cupcakes/breakfast- nothing like lemon cupcakes at 0500...... mmmmmm....


The cake we brought for the CRNAs and MDAs
(get it? V-tach-- shock at 360j-- Sinus rhythm? Cute, huh!)


Audra, Jessica, and me outside RMC- First rotation down! 1/8 of anesthesia clinicals done!

And now it's time for Olive Garden with Jenn and Aeron!

Happy Weekend everyone!

So this is more "song" than "dance," but it's my blog gimmick and I'll adapt it how I want to :)

Friday Dance Off!

Coming to you this fabulous Friday afternoon from our sunny backyard patio! Nothing like an on-location blog entry to kick off what looks to be a wonderful weekend :)


"Bet you wish you had this ball.... it's really fun... but you can't have it.... unless you want it..."


"Hey. I'm guarding the yard. I'm busy."

Clinicals went swimmingly this week- I worked with great people, learned some new tricks, and today basically ran a few cases on my own ! My CRNA today told me she was going to sit back and observe- of course answer questions if I had any, but she wanted me to run the cases however I wanted. So intimidating! But I learned a lot and was told that I did a great job, so maybe there's hope for me yet! I've been at RMC for 10 weeks now and have come to really love the staff there- not just the CRNAs (they're wonderful, of course), but the nurses in pre-op and PACU and the circulators and scrubs are fun to work with also. I'm only there for one more week and it's going to stink leaving a place I finally got comfortable working in. It should be a good week though- two of the CRNAs have offered me a day in the heart room so I may get to see bypass before I leave!

We've had a addition to the Pack this week- my mom's lab/chow mix, Ricki, has joined us while Mom, Jenn, and several other church members are on a mission trip in Mexico. Ricki and Smallz are buds- bonded by love of sleep and food.... and my favorite chair apparently.



So Smallz sits here instead:



Tomorrow's weather promises to be amazing so we're heading out to the farm in the morning to hopefully get in a much needed trail ride. I said on facebook a few weeks ago that my horses heal me- it's amazing how much stress I leave behind while I'm out there grooming and riding. There's a reason why horses are used for therapy...




And, much to my dismay, this weekend belongs to basketball. Not my favorite sport. Yes, I went to and enjoyed Alabama games while I was a student and I'll still watch them now... but I can't enjoy it like football. I can watch any teams play football. Other than Bama, I can't say I care a lick about any other bball teams. And I somehow managed to conceal this from my husband who claims he had no idea until we got married. It's ok- he goes a lot of places and humors me on a lot of things that he's not interested in, so I can cave a little in the basketball department... I guess... especially if good friends, wings, and JD are involved... which tomorrow night, they are :)

Sunday= anesthesia care plan #3 composure day... blech. No news there.

But for now, let the festivities begin! DBH is on his way home with meat to be cooked so it looks like tonight will be our first grill-out of the year! Pork tenderloin it is! Happy Weekend, people!

(This is so cool...)

Evolution of Dance 2

Drum roll, please...

So I think I'm finally ready to publicize the list I referred to in previous posts... Again, gotta give props to my friend Marcie and her fantastic wedding photographer and friend Amelia for passing this idea along. Not only did it help me think about where I'd like my life to go over the next few years, I was inspired by their lists to add some things I wouldn't have thought of myself. Some of these things are just silly, but a lot of them have been on my back-burner-to-do list or my one-day-dreams list for awhile. Hopefully setting them out here with a general "due date," if you will, will help me accomplish them.

Even though I'm just posting this list today, my Day 1 of 1001 was February 19, 2010- the first Friday Dance Off post (#23) and I calculated that my Day 1001 would be December 10, 2012 (someone may want to check my math). I can check off #62 as of Saturday when my mom brought six of my old prom/formal dresses to a formalwear charity drive at the Summit. A few I couldn't part with just yet (my one-shoulder purple beaded senior prom dress isn't going anywhere anytime soon), but donating six is progress :) I'd post pictures, but don't have time to dig though scrapbooks and scan this morning ... Anesthesia Careplan #2 is due in an hour... this post is just a break so I can look over it one more time before I submit the thing... and I still have to get ready for seminar.

Anyway, I hope at least a few of you will consider taking on this project and make a list of your own. Happy planning and please feel free to comment on whether or not you think I will actually do these things or add your own (REALISTIC) challenges for me :)

My 101 Things to do in 1001 Days:

1. Run an anesthesia case on my own
2. GRADUATE!
3. Go from S.Heath, SRNA to S.Heath, CRNA (aka Pass the Certification Exam)
4. GET A JOB! (Like how the first 4 all revolve around my eventual career?!)
5. Get caught up on my scrapbooks (only a year and a half behind!)
6. Take a vacation-for-the-sake-of-vacation-only with Will
7. Ride our newly-adopted Tennessee Walker
8. Take The Pack to a dog beach
9. Go with a group of friends to Six Flags
10. Turn 29 with Jenn!
11. Throw an awesome 30th birthday cocktail party!
12. Take my Alaskan graduation cruise!
13. Win Wild Wings Trivia with my team- The Cheese (closest we've gotten is 3rd)
14. Find/Move into our next house
15. Sing karaoke (in front of people)
16. Go on a medical mission trip
17. Out-do last year's Christmas card picture
18. Do a black/white photo shoot with my mom
19. Take our horses for a 1/2 or full-day trail ride
20. Go on a trip with my dad
21. Go on a trip with my mom
22. Get my majorly-deserving Jeep detailed
*23. Come up with a blog gimmick (besides this one)
24. Crochet a prayer shawl
25. Go mountain biking at Oak Mountain
26. Somehow extract my UH paper on The Matrix from an ancient A-drive disk
27. Make paella
28. Attend my 10 year HS reunion
29. Update the picture frames in my house
30. Finish my SEC football stadium tour (sigh- except Kentucky... thank you, Anesthesia school...)
31. Go rollar-blading
32. Do a photoshoot with Will for our 5-year anniversary
33. Find/Order a bottle of my favorite Spanish rum
34. Go to a basketball game with/for Will
35. Take the pups back to A-Day in Ttown
36. Hike to the cross and chapel at Sumatanga again
37. Take full advantage of the Tivo
38. Help/Publish a research study
39. Find a new yoga class/DVD/Wii routine
40. Replace my stroked-out PC
41. Attend the 2010 and 2011 ALANA meetings in San Destin
42. Attend the 2010 AANA meeting in Seattle
43. Keep up my at-least-one-non-school-related-book-a-month routine
44. Go tubing down the Cahaba
45. Take the train to NOLA for a weekend
46. Load my iPod and organize playlists
47. Buy my king-sized sleigh bed
48. Go to a shooting range
49. Replace my cowboy hat
50. Eat fruit from our farm's orchard
51. Succeed in forcing Will to watch all of the Twilight movies with me
52. Deep-fry something
53. Buy something without looking at the price tag
54. Change my hair... somehow
55. Get my passport updated with my married name
56. Get my piano back
57. Pick up where i left off with my guitar
58. Join a choir
59. Find a devotion/Bible study book
60. Reread Shakespeare... for fun
61. Go to the Harry Potter theme park
62. Donate my old prom dresses
63. Start documenting my family tree
64. FINALLY make wedding albums for my parents
65. Make an album showing the development of our farm
66. Microwave a Peep
67. Introduce someone to Sips-N-Strokes
68. Shoot another Alabama football game from the sidelines
69. Have a pendant made from my mom's engagement diamond
70. See all the movies nominated for Best Picture one year
71. Pay it forward
72. Start cutting coupons
73. Get my spine realigned by a chiropractor
74. Grow food other than tomatoes in our garden
75. Re-landscape our front yard
76. Recruit a few new kiddos for Music and Arts Week
77. Design a beautiful Christmas mantle
78. Go to the Alabama Shakespeare Festival
79. Watch a sunrise at the beach
80. Go white-water rafting
81. Take another barrel racing lesson
82. Watch It's a Wonderful Life on TV
83. Go horseback riding on the beach again
84. Try a food item I thought I'd never eat
85. Get my pistol license
86. Visit my friends and former co-workers on NICU
87. Have my picture taken with Bama's #13 trophy
88. Convince Will to do couple's costumes for Halloween
89. Learn to scuba dive
90. Get a facial
91. (Finally) replace our couch
92. Own cowboy boots (functional, not fashionable)
93. Unpack my fine china (hopefully into a china cabinet)
94. Donate blood/plasma more regularly
95. Go to a Chicago Bears game
96. Visit the Atlanta Aquarium
97. Buy some other team's season ticket package just for the Bama ticket
98. Liveblog a TV show
99. Do a wine tasting at the Morgan Creek Winery
100. Be talked into something I never thought I'd do
101. Have a big announcement to make

Friday Dance Off!

And so we find ourselves again on Friday afternoon! WOOHOO! And with a lot of random updates to boot!

I'm not sure I'd classify this as a "Rockstart Week," but I did have a great week at clinical- started some tough IVs, took some chances on independence, and have been learning to use a new drug- Fospropofol, the precursor to Propofol (our main induction/sedation drug). (Happy Sigh). Propofol. Fast onset. Quick duration. Also perfect for ICU sedation- we'd stop our drips just minutes before our neuro attendings would round- just long enough for a quick neuro exam, then right back to sedation. Ahhhhh.
Here's a picture of our lost dream drug, aka Milk of Amnesia:

(Frustrated Sigh) Yes, this is the same Propofol that made news with Michael Jackson's death, which was basically a case of a great drug used in the wrong place and without appropriate monitoring.
(Couldn't find a picture of Fospropofol... probably cause no one thinks it's cool enough to be photographed... but it comes in a similar bottle... and it's clear, not white (chemical composition reasons that would interest no one who reads this besides me).)

Our hospital currently has no Propofol available for general anesthesia use due to contamination in the manufacturing plant causing the plant to shut down. Fos has a longer onset and duration- messing up our normal timing for giving other drugs and basically running cases, so it's taking awhile to get used to making things run smoothly.

Sunday afternoon bike rides are still going well. Last weekend we did about 20 miles- still lagging behind the group of hardcore cyclers, but didn't stop and I don't die a little inside every time a car goes by. Moral victories can be victories too. I'm learning to view these rides as lessons in humility- which is good... cause at the end of these rides, my pride is nowhere to be found.

Quick update on my 101 list- I think it's done. I need to look over it one more time because my Type-A-self just can't let it go public yet.

Tomorrow is our Children's Choir Festival at St. Mark UMC. As dean of the children's division at Music and Arts Week this year, Jenn has worked really hard on putting this thing together. I hear that we have 12 kids coming that have never been to MAW, so hopefully we can show them how fun and special MAW is and increase our numbers this summer. I'll post more on MAW with a follow-up of the festival later this weekend. If you're not busy, their concert is at 2pm tomorrow- feel free to come and listen!

Gotta wrap this up- DBH is on his way home and tonight is Date Night- so I'll leave y'all with this week's Dance Off. Since I referred to him above, here's the King of Pop doing what he did best:



Happy Weekend!