Lava Hot Springs...mmmm!!

(For those of you who are following along...yesterday's little comment at the PALS course was followed up with new rounds of humiliation at this morning's session. Awesome.)
Last night Young-Me and I went to Lava Hot Springs, which is about 30 min southeast of Pocatello. We'd been told there was a great little Thai restaurant there, and that the hot springs pools were great, too...so down we went. The food was pretty decent, but made me miss Seattle!!
The HOT SPRINGS, though, were amazing! The place was in really great shape, for a town the size of three large families, and the pools were astonishingly clean and well-maintained. The water was hot, hot, hot, crystal clear (and not smelly) and you could see bubbles coming up from the natural-colored black gravel at the base of the pools. It was so hot that my heart rate was elevated by at least 20bpm! (yep, I counted.) When we got out, it felt like we had just had an hour's worth of massage therapy...that lovely tingly feeling all over. Lava Hot Springs was an unexpected surprise, and a wonderful one at that! So if you're ever driving down I-15, make a Left at Hwy 30 and see it for yourself!
Who'd have thought the Pocatello region would have so much to offer??

There is nothing so humbling...

...as taking a PALS course (Pediatric Advanced Life Support) with a couple of NICU nurses, a paramedic, and a fireman. Two years of medical study hold not a candle to the experience they possess! Today, Young-Me and I took on the course, not knowing exactly what to expect. They gave us these large text books that we were supposed to, ahem, "read" before the class. We failed to find time. At any rate, toward the end of the day, we found ourselves in front of the classroom with an 8-y.o. mannequin which we were attempting to resuscitate. We decided that we needed to give epinephrine. Our examiner said, "Okay, how will you give it?" Hmmm..... We hmm'ed and haww'ed for a while...suggested a peripheral IV, a central line, and intubating and giving it through the endotracheal tube. Our examiner was clearly looking for another answer. Young-Me and I looked at each other, unsure of our next move.
Exasperated, I suggested, "well, there's that scene from Pulp Fiction where they just give the Epi right into the heart...." My comment was followed by unanimous laughter, including my own, ha ha!! (After we all hooted for a while, the real answer came out: an Intraosseous Line.) I left feeling glad that I could entertain all of those highly trained medical personnel, but also a bit incredulous that my brain could resort to cinema for answers to life and death situations. Yikes! Scary, eh?!

Denise Austin STINKS!

If y'all could've seen me this morning at about 5AM, you'd have felt my pain. Due to the fact that it's getting cold and dark out in the mornings, and I have to be pre-rounding in the NICU at about 6:30am, I've been substituting exercise videos for AM jogs. Now, I know that sounds crazy, because maybe you can't see me doing step aerobics or Billy Blanks Bootcamp, but I swear I used to do kickboxing and hi-low faithfully in undergrad! Anyway, due to my love of dance, I thought I'd try to find a video that combines Dance and Aerobics. I went to Amazon.com, read all the reviews I could find, and made a relatively well-informed decision (or so I thought) about a Denise Austin video called "Burn Fat Fast: Cardio Dance and Sculpt." BIG mistake. This morning I drug my butt out of bed only to find myself wiggling around like one of the two year olds I see in clinic...that whole butt-sticking-out, asynchronous, ridiculously silly dancing of a groovin' toddler. Yeah. I actually tried for a good 25 minutes to get into this uber-cheesy workout. Yikes! Good thing I remembered to close the blinds on my windows!

The Grand Tetons: A respite from Pediatrics

Young-Me and I finally made the 3-hr drive to the Grand Tetons National Park for a personal viewing. It was another lovely fall weekend and we hiked upwards of 9.5 miles! Great views, fresh air, and delightful conversation were some of the highlights. The lowlights?? A rather UN-helpful ranger telling us the road to our initial destination was closed for the day. We made do with a hike around Lakes Taggert and Bradley, and all the way through the Lupine Meadows. Jackson, WY didn't disappoint later, either: we had some tasty calzone with whole wheat crust..mmmm.
For those of you wishing to actually see a picture of the Tetons, I tell you: I would've put one up, but none of them did the peaks any justice whatsoever, and this picture is cuter, anyway!

Yet Another Reason...

...that Pediatrics is less likely and Ob/Gyn is more likely: I have really cold hands. Cold hands are a very, very bad thing to have when you're examining infants. Especially infants in the NICU. Those little wee ones don't liked to be touched in the first place, let alone by someone with cold hands! I have YET to get a decent abdominal exam on any baby less than 29 weeks gestation...they start clenching up their little tummies when they feel my cold digits and the game's over. I guess they haven't gotten the "Cold Hands, Warm Heart" Memo. HOWEVER, pregnant ladies happen to run a little "warm" in general, and I haven't met a pregnant lady yet who wasn't thrilled to have my cold hands on her hot little belly!

At least Pocatello does Autumn well....

...because otherwise it's not impressing me much lately. (Granted, I'm not available to be impressed much these days.) Fortunately I had the good luck to find myself on a beautiful trail in a nearby state park for a solitary hike. It was just the thing I needed to clear my head after a quite "rough" (to put it mildly) two weeks of Pediatrics.
It's not that those little kids aren't cute: they are! they are! It's just that I wasn't expecting such a demanding rotation here. At any rate, the rotation's rigor will only help me be a better physician someday.
But oh! I love the Fall. The lighting, the leaves, the crisp mornings and warm afternoons...little kids starting school again, and Halloween, of course. I like the way the fall makes you start wanting to huddle into warm places and drink hot cider, and the way it signifies fresh beginnings (i.e. a new school year). Most people probably assume Spring is the hallmark of new life...but I find the fall to be altogether more welcoming, so I designate it as my new life season. Take this leaf, for example. It's dying, sure. But look how it dies!! In a show of bright color and brilliance! What other living creature makes such a beautiful show of its demise?

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