Dog Envy

I love to watch Skye (my 4 year old yellow Lab).  There is something about watching the actions of a dog that can be fascinating.  What is even more interesting to me is how she affects the way I feel.  

She can be amazingly entertaining, causing me to laugh right our loud at her antics and acrobatics.  She loves to chase the ball and then play a determined game of keep away.  I swear she is laughing too as I fruitlessly chase her or play the flinch game with her.  

She can be irritating and annoying and has more than once cause me to loose my temper.  The furry thief stole 2 peanut butter and honey sandwiches that I had made for my lunch and dinner and had them eaten before I could rescue my meals.  And as a younger pup, she mistook my ipod for one of her chew toys.  I must admit, I can have a nasty temper but I feel I was totally justified on the ipod case.  Even now, I still find underwear scattered about the back yard when she is irritated or angry with me!  Luckily, I don't have a back neighbor or they would definitely wonder about my sanity as I collect my laundry from around the yard.  

She can my best friend and provide more comfort and love that anyone could ever want.  What more can a person ask for than to have someone or something waiting at the door and excited just because you came home?  She may just like my lap as a pillow but I can't help interpret it as love and affection when she could lay anywhere in the house, but she chooses to lay her head in my lap.  Watching a dog sleep or giving them a gentle scratch to the head provides me with a sense of peace that can be so elusive in this complex and difficult world.

Mostly though, despite what Skye gives me.... frankly.... I am really just jealous!  Skye has three goals in life.  Eat (#1 by a long margin)  play and sleep (in that order).   If only my life were that unfettered and uncomplicated!  And to top it all off, she has trained me well to provide all of it for her, in large quantities, in a comfortable and pampered environment.   She is a master at the manipulative use of the pathetic puppy dog eyes to get what she wants when she wants it.  If only I had those skills!   Is it demeaning to admit I envy my dog?  

Regardless of my fickle emotion state that Skye seems to put me in, she is a great dog and I wouldn't trade her for even the purest bread papered pedigree.  But....  I might trade places with her!

Peru Expeditions

I have just returned from visiting Peru and I am trying to slide back into my usual life without too much fuss. It was a more difficult trip than ones in the past. For those who don't know me well, I have helped organize a humanitarian effort to provide free medical education to native Peruvian physicians and nurses. We hold a two day conference on trauma in Cuzco, Peru, a mod large city in the Andes Mountains that is the starting place for the famous Inca Trail. I have gone every year for the past 4 years in this effort. This year was more difficult than usual as I struggled to get enough participants to make the trip possible. I have been working much more than usual at both my jobs while negotiating new contracts, juggling other volunteer work, other work responsibilities and various other projects. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed and ready to throw in the towel but it turned out ok and now that I am back, I can "objectively" look back and wonder at all that I learned. Here are the highlights of some of the pearls I gleaned in Peru.

1. Misery doesn't always love company.

2. South American time is 10 minutes slower than Mormon time.
3. Airports/Airlines/Layovers/Delays SUCK (except when a close bathroom is an essential need)!
4. Always check your Soles to ensure they are not counterfeit.
5. South American Church meetings are as boring as North American Church meetings.
6. Always be careful when talking about bladders in Spanish.
7. Ambien can make you feel fague in the mornings.
8. Lazy overweight out of shape doctors should never try to climb Huianu Piccu no matter how much peer pressure.

9. Nothing feels better than your own bed
10. If you are emotionally challenged, to remain safe, stay away from religious and personal discussions.

11. God and Heaven is in the Andes Mountains

 
                    

Slacker poster

Well, its been awhile since I posted anything. Shame on me! The Vicker is chastising me and calling me to repentance. 2 Our Fathers and 3 Hail Marys should do it! Whoops, maybe a little blasphemous....

So, my problem is that I have no life to post about. I am either working, working, or occasionally sleeping and that is just not exciting blog fare. I was sick for the past two weeks, I guess that counts. I have to admit I am not good at being sick. As a matter of fact, I really suck at it! I am an ornery wench and wallow in self pity. The only problem is there was no one around to hear my wallowing and whining! And, what do you do when your a doctor? I think most people go to the doctor so that someone will listen to there whining but they have to pay for it. I just end up talking to myself and I will tell you, I am not very sympathetic. I usually just end up telling myself to suck it up and take a couple of aspirin and call...well you know. Today someone asked me what I did to take care of myself? I said I took a couple of ibuprofen and then went drug seeking to the local ER. (OK, not true but I was tempted).

Techno-computer geek??

You know you are a techno-computer geek when....

1. Your direct TV repairman installs a new dvr wrong and you fix it for him.
2. You subscribe to at least one computer magazine.
3. You own more than one computer and the excuse is that "they specialize in different things"
4. You have purchased an electronic gadget that has been out less than a week.
5. You watched the keynote address from at least one computer conference. (on the internet of course)
6. You can discuss the advantages and disadvantages of computer hardware for hours.
7. You can't go more than 24 hours without accessing the internet in some way.
8. You spend more on computer gear than you do on cloths
9. Other people come to you with computer problems and you usually can fix them
10. You have some kind of computer gadget on your person at this minute.

HOLY COW.... That's me!!!

Hiking alone revisited

Skye and I went for a hike up Dry Canyon, just east of where I live in Hyde Park, Utah.  It is a beautiful hike that does not allow mountain bikes.  I took a few pictures but they really don't do justice to just how beautiful the landscape is.  A couple of the pictures are like that great kids book "Where's Waldo"  where you have to find Waldo in the picture only with these pictures, try and find Skye.  She just blends right in to the fall yellows and the trail.  It is getting quite cool in Northern Utah and  I doubt these colors will last long.  

       

Walking through the colors and through some of the unique rock formations that this canyon has, I thought about why it bothers me to hike alone.  I have thought it was because I was afraid to fall and have no one around to help.   I also have thought if was because I am pathetic and have no friends to go with but the real reason is that I love to share things that affect me with others.  I love to boat on the lake not because I love to ski or because it is always a great time but because I am deeply affected by the feel of skimming across the water on a boat at 35 mph and by the beauty of the morning on Lake Powell and I love to share those feelings with people I care for.  I am similarly affected by a quiet walk up a canyon with the most orange and red that you will find in nature.  I feel myself wanting to turn and say, look at that and isn't this cool but then there is no one there. 

doctor heal thyself

Lately, I have been getting a bit of teasing about my competence in dealing with my own self-care. Of course the dialog goes a bit like this: "Shouldn't you take better care of yourself? After all,  you are a doctor."    I thought I might look into this  and when I did, I realized I wasn't the only one this is a problem for.  Here is an excerpt from the British Medical Journal (1994:309:557-558):

It has long been recognised that doctors, as an occupational group, experience excess mortality from some causes, particularly suicide and self injury, poisoning, and cirrhosis of the liver.1 Reviews of morbidity among doctors have suggested a relatively high occurrence of psychiatric and stress related disorders as well as drug and alcohol misuse.2,3

A study carried out under the auspices of the Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust set out to explore perceptions of and attitudes to sick doctors as well as the provision of services for them in eight health service localities (p 561).4,5 The messages from the interviewees (senior and junior doctors, health service managers, industrial relations officers, and representatives of community health councils) were that doctors' health problems are poorly dealt with, interventions come too late, and appreciable attitudinal and organisational barriers exist to the uptake of services. Respondents' views on why help is not sought encompassed the stigmatising nature of illness for doctors (and consequent denial), misguided professional loyalty, attitudes formed during medical training, the perceived irrelevance of services (particularly occupational health services), and a tradition of self treatment and direct self referral to hospital consultants.

1. Office of Population Censuses and Surveys. Occupational mortality 1979-80, 1982-83. London: HMSO, 1986.
   
2. Pilowski L, O'Sullivan G. Mental illness in doctors. BMJ 1989;298:269-70.
   
3. BMA Board of Science and Education. The morbidity and mortality of the medical profession. London: BMA, 1993.
   
4. Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust. The provision of medical services to sick doctors: a conspiracy of friendliness? London: NPHT, 1994.

So....  I just want everyone to know that it isn't my fault that I have a hard time with routine medical care fore myself.  It is a profession thing.  And,  just so everyone knows, my blood pressure today was 110/60, sats 97%,  heart rate 100 (which is normal for me), and blood sugar of 110 (after a big breakfast). Why would I want to live to be a hundred anyway??  Why would I want to live past 50 for that matter? 

Things that make me happy.

The hospital I work for has several contracts with the local mental health care services.  This allows me to see and try to help many people in crisis.   Evaluating patients who are having mental health issues is something you learn in medical school but as with most difficult things, you don't really learn it until you do it a couple of hundred times.  Even after this,  I am still often surprised and amazed at the experiences that I have each time I walk into work.  I know you want a surprising or amazing story right now but, alas, that old HIPPA looms ever present and unless I want to go to jail or be fired, I better stay with my own thoughts and feelings. 

One of the text book questions that medical students are taught to ask to assess for severe depression is "Is there anything in your life that makes you happy?"  As I was taught in my psychiatry rotation, profoundly depressed people are unable to find joy or happiness in their lives.  I was thinking this morning in the shower as I blearily got up at 6:30 for another long day at work and asked myself this question as a reality check.  (Kinda of like the self breast exam that you'all should be doing in the shower each morning, only for mental health!!)

So,  here was some of the things that have made me happy recently (not in any order):  

1. Playing golf with Vicki and winning a game against Steph and Marylyn
   
2. Watching BYU slaughter UCLA
3. Morning boat rides on Lake Powell
4. Watching Skye on the trail
   
5. Naps
   
6. Dinner with Denice
   
7. Personal scapbooks made by your sister
   
8. Birthday parties on the houseboat
   
9. Skye wanting to sleep on my lap
   
10. Dry Canyon
    
11. New hiking shoes
    
12. Weekend visits to Illinois

Have you asked yourself this question lately? (You don't have to be in the shower to do it)