So we've been getting rid of stuff and getting ready for the move. Also Jill's parents have been out helping us get the house ready to sell. The kids had been sleeping on the air mattress and had a good time jumping on it one afternoon. The air mattress was ruined after that and won't hold any more air. I was disappointed in myself for letting the kids jump on the mattress. "I guess we'll have to throw it out," I moped.

El Destructo, ever the optimist, pipes in, "we're going to need to buy a bigger trash can!"

We were talking about where the kids got their names at the table the other day and May turns to her brother and says, "You were named after a bridge, and I was named after an old, old lady."

The kids and I went fishing with our friend Pete the other day. We had a great time and the fish didn't swallow even one hook - they were all released back alive. Unfortunately for me, I pulled a muscle in my tush while standing around doing nothing and it's been very painful. I had to take a few days off running.

I'm going to OT for my broken wrist, which is feeling better (I can type fairly well now with very little pain), it's a weird social scene, we all sit around a big table doing our exercises and making small talk.

Last week, I went to the doctor's office. I had Ben with me and was waiting for the doctor when my phone rang. It was a real estate agent I wanted to talk to about selling our house. I scrambled around the doctor's office trying to find a writing implement. I searched all the drawers and under the sink - nothing to write with. So, I couldn't write down the guy's phone number.

After the doctor came in and talked with me for a while, Benjamin spoke up, "Um, Doctor, my Dad needs something to write with." The doctor was impressed and gave him a lollypop.

Walking May home from school the other day, her friend, Andrew, came running behind us and from about a half a block away was calling her name. May ran over to him and gave him a hug. When she came back she told me, "Andrew and I are on the Listening Side of the Class." She then listed the other kids in her class who were "Listeners." It was a short list.

I'm all faklempt about leaving Jersey today. I've been trying to drown my sorrows in Anime. I've come across a pretty good show, "Mezzo." In short, a girl, a punk rocker, and a lightly older guy ("Pops") are assassin-detective-rockstars. I'm sure that when I say "assassin-detective-rockstar" great volumes of images are generated in your head. Good.

In the episode I watched tonight, the older of the main characters has the following to say after they begin to uncover the latest plot: "I knew something bad was happening here. You could smell it in the air; like cookies; evil cookies." I laughed out loud, told Jill about it, and then wrote this blog entry.

On Tues, I picked El Destructo up from school, and his teacher had something funny to say. "Benjamin had this cup," a Dunkin Donuts paper coffee cup, "and he insisted he had brought it from home. He's been carrying it around all day and drinks from it. I took it away from him on the condition that he be allowed to bring it home."

"I don't remember him having that cup, but..." I shrugged.

On the way home, he tells me, "I found that cup in the hallway at school. When we get home, can I drink sink water from it?"

"Sure."

On Monday, when I picked up May from kindergarten, I asked her, "Did you get a new book from reading class?"

"Yes. It's a book about animals. It's non-fiction."

Then, on the way home, a boy who lives down the street from us and his mother were behind us on the sidewalk. May turns her head and shouts at this boy, "Dominick! Your cat pees on our porch! You need to make him stop!"

A few problems with this embarrassing truth:
1) It need not have been shouted such that everyone on the block hears it
2) On cat peeing is not a problem, yet it has incited our cat to mark his porch not infrequently
3) She kept repeating it over and over until...

"I know." Says Dominick.

"Well, what are you going to do about it!" Demands my daughter - insisting on a total surrender.

"We'll just have to try to keep the cat inside from now on." Dominick's mother replied.

Today I wanted to go to some lectures on toxicology - I was the only one who showed up. As I rarely give a lecture for which I am unprepared to an empty room, I took the subway back to the main campus to spend some time goofing off on the computer. My broken arm is feeling better and I get my cast off in ten days, the day after the match. It's still awkward and frustrating to type (the cast constantly bumps into the Ctrl and Alt keys). In spite of the chaos of the unanticipated computer commands, a true artist soldiers on.

News of the kids:

El Destructo has discovered the sandwich. Previously, he subsisted entirely on a diet of processed meat, frosting, and cold pizza. On Sunday, there was a cold cut spread at church and he asked me to make him a ham and cheese sandwich - which he ate! Now, as long as processed meat is wrapped in the middle, he will heat bread! He came running up the stairs as I was shaving to show me his breakfast this morning, "Look Daddy! A bologna-sandwich-toast!"

May still hates getting her hair washed. I've told her again and again, "When water gets in your eyes, wipe it away." No dice. The other day, it was time for her to take a bath, and I suggested they would get their hair washed. The kids are used to getting their hair washed every other bath/shower, and a bath/shower every other day. May screamed at me, "DAD, WE JUST HAD OUR HAIR WASHED YESTERDAY! WE SHOULD NOT BE GETTING OUR HAIR WASHED AGAIN!" A tiny purple vein at the base of her neck leaped and pulsed with every forceful shout. I'm used to evaluating the discourse of my children with skepticism, but how could one deny the pulsing vein? Later, May's story was corroborated by my wife.

Both kids have been excited about the possibility of moving after the match. They've been "packing" off and on. May told us, "If we move to Chicago or Wisconsin, that would be great. If we stay at our house in New Jersey, that would be great. I'm excited for either!"

Please enjoy a guest blog-entry from my mom, Nancy. The title is Thanksgiving 2006.

_______________________
“I’ll never cook Thanksgiving Dinner for the whole family,” my daughter said after a observing me making dinner.

“Me either,” my daughter-in-law agreed.

“I like cooking Thanksgiving Dinner,” I replied. This was a few years ago. Both my daughter and daughter-in-law are college-trained-this-generation women’s lib. Time will change that.

Thanksgiving Dinner is a glorious hassle. I love it. You cook the rutabaga for the mash potatoes the day before, and you cut onions until your tears flow freely. Some want dressing with giblets. Some think giblets are gross. I owe my most famous creation to Martha Stewart. According to her, root vegetables add zing to gravy.

The year Martha communicated this I’d been given a plethora of a root vegetable. I’m not sure whether the beets improved the taste, but everyone remembers the year I served pink gravy.

Of all my memorial dinners, the hernia operation Thanksgiving is a pinnacle. I flew to Philadelphia ten days early in November of 2006 to watch my grandchildren ages three and six months during my son’s operation. My granddaughter’s third birthday fell on Thanksgiving Day. There was a school party for three year olds and their parents, and a friend’s party for three couples and their seven offspring in addition to Thanksgiving.

My son picked me up at the airport at mid-night the day before his operation.

“I’ve got a five hour exam in four days. I’m not going to talk to you,” my son announced.

“You scheduled your operation four days before a five hour exam? I know you need this operation but can’t you postpone the exam?” I asked.

“No, I’d have to repeat the course.”

“Will they do anything to accommodate you?”

“I can put my feet up on a chair,” he replied. My son was thirty with a wife and two children, and this was his first semester in medical school. He’d quit his job and sold their house in Wisconsin. There was no turning back.

“I appreciate your coming, Mother. I hope you can do this,” he said grimly.

The next day my son and daughter-in-law left at 7:00 am. I strolled my grandchildren to my granddaughter’s preschool and picked her up at 11:00 am. I was confident.

“They haven’t been able to fit Sam into surgery yet,” my daughter-in-law said when she called. Delays happen. It was a new relatively simple laser surgery. He would return home at 3:00 pm the same day, but after several calls, it looked like they would be gone longer than expected.

I’d brought books and toys. We read. We played. I gave my granddaughter her birthday present. I put my grandson to bed for a nap. We took walks, and we watched movies. I made peanut butter sandwiches and warmed baby bottles.

“Your son is ready to be released, but we can’t find his wife,” the hospital called at 6:30 pm. Jill hadn’t run out on him. She’d gone to eat after waiting all day, but my grandchildren hadn’t seen me for months. I was a stranger, and they were getting cranky. I loaded them into a double stroller and took them outside for the forth time. It was dark. I became mildly confused. Which house was it?

My son and daughter-in-law had recently moved to New Jersey not far from my son’s medical school in Philadelphia, an old fashioned small town much cheaper than Philadelphia. The town houses were architecturally coordinated, individually owned duplexes with shared driveways, trees, gardens, and yards. The town was charming, but in the dark all the houses looked the same, and their new address slipped my mind.

At seven pm, my daughter-in-law drove by. “Are you lost? Sam is home. He’s fine. I have to pick up his medication,” she said. She took the baby. Reoriented I took my granddaughter home.

“Your Dad is home. You’ll see him soon,” I said. May was elated. She ran inside crawled into her father’s bed and threw up on him and the bed. Agile for post-surgery, my son changed the sheets and washed his hands and May’s hands--- a prime directive in medical school.

May threw up every two hours all night and the next day. The next day my daughter-in-law got the stomach flu, and then I got it. Each of us threw up every two hours. I don’t know about baby Ben. He didn’t throw up, but he woke up five times every night, and my bed was in his room. We took turns comforting Ben.

My son didn’t have time for stomach flu. Perhaps the antibiotics helped.

“Maybe we should cancel Thanksgiving dinner,” I said to my daughter-in-law.

“Oh no, it will be fine,” she replied.

“I’m going to the library to study. I can’t stand this chaos,” my son said.

“Good,” my daughter-in-law and I chorused. He’d been notably glum. His post operative care was a disappointment. At Thanksgiving with two babies, hovering over the patient was improbable even before the stomach flu. As he slumped in to make lunch, we tried not to trample him

“Aren’t you supposed to stop lifting after a hernia operation?” I asked my son as he picked up the baby.

“They don’t say that anymore, and I don’t have a choice,” he replied.

In 2006, my daughter worked at a museum in NYC. She was to arrive five days before Thanksgiving with my ex-husband, but there was a delay. In NYC my ex-husband had emergency angioplasty, a balloon inserted in a vein, and the stomach flu. My daughter couldn’t leave without him.

Back in New Jersey, we sped through parties, and my son took the exam finishing in four and a half hours. We toured the library, the farmer’s market, and the children’s museum. At the children’s museum, I raced for an hour through a child shrieking labyrinth stopping only for a second to envy the lounging python. Invoking glares as I grabbed at someone else’s blond three year old child. Both children cried when we left.

“It’s time to go, May,” my son said quietly.

“Just five more minutes, five more minutes,” May said as tears rolled down her face.

“OK, five more minutes,” my son said. I wasn’t consulted, and we’d left Jill for an hour of peaceful cleaning.

On the day before Thanksgiving, my son picked up his sister and their Dad at the Philadelphia Chinatown bus. Under stress, he failed to observe an auto as he pulled out of his parking space. Crash, boom, not tragedy, a minor scratch, no one was injured. They exchanged information without official intervention. The only addition to our Thanksgiving dinner was that the mother of the driver called my son three times on Thanksgiving Day. “Do you have insurance? Are you sure you have insurance?” she said.

“It was the other driver’s fault,” his Dad opined.

My son’s house was small, so his Dad was to sleep in a relative’s apartment thirty minutes away. They arrived at 9:00 pm. My ex-husband looked like an escapee from an institution. His shirttails were half-out, his collar askew. He was rumpled, dirty, and couldn’t sit straight.

“I don’t think you can drive him anywhere, and he looks bad,” I said.

“You’re right, Mom. I don’t want to drive. He’ll have to stay here,” my son said.

“You’ll sleep here tonight, Dad,” my son reported.

“Good,” my ex-husband replied, and he crawled upstairs into the only double bed. Everybody else scrunched together.

On the morning of Thanksgiving Day, we discovered May’s birthday cake was missing. My daughter-in-law left to find a cake.

May has friends, and the doorbell rang with tribute all day. Piles of toys scattered everywhere. She couldn’t unwrap all her presents in one day.

“I will make quite an impression in this,” my granddaughter said holding up a new dress.

“No food fights, Ben,” I said as my grandson hurled grapes and mash potatoes.
The law practice in Wisconsin was beginning to seem relaxing. Bedtime for me was 8:00 pm, and I was taking naps with my grandson.

The day before I left I decided to make a difference. Every sheet in the house was an emblem of the stomach flu, and the clothes had gone astray while we partied and company came and went. I searched for clothes and did seven loads of laundry.

As I folded the last batch, my son said, “Is that it, Mother? Did you do it all?”

“Possibly,” I replied.

“That’s what drives me crazy about you. That’s a yes or no answer,” he said.

How was Thanksgiving Dinner? What did we eat? Dinner was great. I’m traditional. Fill in the blanks.

Things that are difficult, but not impossible, to do with one hand

- use deodorant (both pits)
- floss teeth
- wash hands
- wash dishes (given that dishwasher is available for assistance)


Things that are absolutely impossible to do with only one hand

- tie (anything)
- open plastic wrapping on anything (unless scissors are used)
- take out trash

On Sat., after finishing shoveling my walk and that of the neighbors', I slipped on the ice and broke my wrist (Colle fracture). After breaking my wrist, I went to the ER and got a splint and some percocet. Then, I promptly updated my FB status. Unfortunately, I misspelled the type of wrist fracture I have. People in medicine thought I was an idiot, for those outside of the field, I'm sure there remains little doubt.

For those who notice irony, I'm in the process of re-scheduling my ER rotations...

I went to the Orthopod today and he had to "reduce" my fracture. A "reduction" is when you cram broken bones back together and take an xray afterwards to see if the bones are lined up any better. My orthopod and I were both pleased with the results of the reduction (which hurt slightly less than the original fracture) and the lines of flow in my current xray are much more parallel and straight. My fingers also move more freely, and, in general, I am in less pain after this horrifically painful intervention.

I was proud of myself for not screaming during the reduction. I was hoping that the orthopod and his assistant would be trembling in fear that I would leap off the table and eviscerate them after the procedure, but Jill, who witnessed, said I wasn't all that fearsome except that I went extremely pale and appeared to be likely to vomit.

I had a classic "East Coast" encounter with the receptionist. Mon. morning, early I called the orthopod office and left a message explaining the situation: slipped & fell, broken wrist, ER, yadda yadda yadda. Naturally, I was ignored - I mean - why would they return *my* call? So I went to the office to try to see someone.

The receptionist *freaked out*. "You can't just walk in here! You can't just see a doctor!" I was able to convince her to allow me to make an appointment to see a doctor, but just barely, "If there were anyone else in the waiting room, I would not be allowed to schedule an appointment for you! Because of the privacy laws! This should all be handled over the telephone!" (total BS, by the way. Restricting patients from making appointments is the most ridiculous and utterly heinous mis-interpretation of HIPPA I have ever seen - AND I HAVE SEEN MANY!) Finally, this crazy lady, after noticing my splint, made me an appointment and had to reluctantly admit, "The doctor may see you today when he gets out of surgery. He does have a few slots for emergencies."

After my reduction today, I was told to make a followup for xrays in one week. I stood in front of this crazy lady's desk for a minute or two while she sighed like George Castanza and shuffled medical records back and forth. Finally I worked up my courage and said, "Can I make my follow-up appointment now, or do I have to leave the office and call you?"

It's the heart of the tax season which means Jill is working a lot and I am going to bed early and working on my blog. I fed the kids macaroni and cheese tonight - which they love. I gave them green peas for their vegetable. Ben ate two peas, which is not enough for him to get desert, but certainly enough for him to gag theatrically upon.

May told him, "You should eat your peas - anything is good as long as it has butter and salt on it!"

Ben has a new bad habit which is, even by my relatively lax standards, utterly revolting. He takes the toilet plunger and runs around the house sticking it to walls and using it to pick things up.

I told him, "Don't play with that! It's only for unclogging the toilet."

He replies, "But I want to clog the toilet!"

"You'll have to wait until you're a little bit older."

This month, I will be studying in the emergency room of Albert Einstein hospital in north Philly. I started off the month well, by showing up for a series of lectures that was cancelled. I will instead use this time to update you on the business of my children.

The big news: I have no news about my residency to report. For those of you who follow me on facebook, I will report promptly on Mar. 18th the results of the match. I interviewed at 7 places in the midwest and 2 in Philly. We'll see...

I just came of a month of GI medicine, which was fun. The fellow I was 'working' with was so nice to me, and was constantly apologizing for the hideous hours we were working. Finally I had to tell her at the end of the month, "I feel about this rotation the same way I feel about medical school: I had to wake up early and read a lot, but I learned a lot. If I had to do it all over again, I probably would." When conveying my feelings to another student, Colin, we agreed that if I had to do four more years of med school right now, we would probably not do that, but if able to travel back in time to four years ago, and pressed to make the decision to matriculate again, I probably would.

May is doing well in school and is learning a lot about penguins and math. She did something very naughty last weekend and walked all the way to the library by herself. The library is about four blocks away and she had to cross several streets to get there. Nothing happened to her and she is safe and well, but it was an important lesson to us both. Because she's a smart kid, she can do more than the average six year old, but doesn't understand the danger involved in the world; intellegent but not wise.

When I was on GI, I scored a cigar from one of my attendings. His friend, the radiologist, gave it to him after reading some CT's for us. I was given the cigar because I promised to smoke it on match day. Ben was jumping around in the kitchen the other day and saw the cigar in the freezer. He said, "Dad, what's that?" as he jumped and tried to grab it from it's resting place beside the orange juice concentrate.

"That's a disgusting habit." I told him.

Ben also asked me the other day, "What's inside of you that makes you hard?"

"Bones are the hardest part of your insides." I replied.

"I have bones in my arms, legs, and tummy." He told me.

I came upstairs after breakfast today and found Ben with Eucerin cream smeared on his chest legs and arms. He told me, "I wanted to have scars so I would look like a burglar. Then I could put on my Spiderman costume and be a spiderman-burglar. But I can't wash this off. I tried in the sink and in the toilet."

Sure enough, there was evidence to back up his assertion. I helped him smear in the moisturizer and get his spider costume on.

May was to wrapped up in reading her Scholastic book catalog until I told her, "The kitchen will close in just a few minutes, so eat your breakfast if you're still hungry."

"Okay, Kiki." She replied.

Then, after fishing her pancakes, "Look! There's nothing left on my plate but some applesauce and a schmear of butter."

I went for a run this morning and took a shower afterwards. The kids have started taking showers and I found May's sunglasses in the bottom of the bathtub. She wore them last time she took shower to keep the water from getting in her eyes. By my judgement they were only so-so at their intended purpose.