Living The Dream

When asked how they are doing for the day, I have heard numerous doctors answer "Living the dream." It seems like an odd response at first, but if you stop and think about the planning that goes into being a doc I guess it makes sense. I first wanted to go into medicine when I was 16 years old. From that time everything I have done in academia has centered around requirements and tests I've needed to get into medical school to become a doc. Now I am 27 years old and am just now in residency training. So I've spent more than a decade preparing myself to be in this position and I am still receiving training. In many ways we are living the dream on a day to day basis. To be truthful though, my first dream job is to be an F1 race car driver. My second dream job is to be a rock star. So being a doc really falls third on my list.

Fast forward to the present. The other night I was lying in an uncomfortable bed in a hospital room by myself watching Monday Night Football. This is contrasted to being at home with my wife, which is where most people would be at that time. I couldn't help but to think about how I was "living the dream."

This month I am working nights on the medical/surgical unit. I work 7 PM to 7 AM. It's an interesting rotation because for the first time in my life I am making medical decisions without anyone watching directly over my shoulder. There are usually no attending docs there during the night - I am who the nurses ask when something happens. Of course there is an attending doc on call every night but I figure part of my job is to make their life easier so I try not to call them unless I absolutely have to. So far through the first week I haven't had to call anyone yet. For the first few nights I was getting caught up in this idea of trying to make decisions based on what I thought the patient's attending doc would do if he/she were there. I quickly decided that this was a bad idea. First of all, there is no way I can really predict what someone else would do. Secondly, I reminded myself that I did graduate from an accredited US medical school and that I was more than capable of making medical decisions on my own. So from the second night on I started making my own decisions with one thing in mind: Do what I think is best for the patient.

Truthfully, most of the things I get paged about aren't that difficult. It usually involves people being in pain or wanting something to sleep. And what do we do when people are in pain? We give them pain medication. I am pretty good about handing out the narcotics to hospitalized patients. It is one of my specialties. I just want to keep people comfortable through the night. If I don't our Press Ganey scores suffer, and we all know that is the most important thing in medicine right now.

Overall I like finally having some autonomy in my decision making but the schedule is kind of annoying. I usually get a couple of hours of sleep every night but not enough to hold me over till the next shift. When I get home I usually check my email and do some computer stuff then go to bed for 4 or 5 hours. By the time I wake up it is pretty much time to go to work again. I see Sarah for about two hours between when she gets home and I leave. The schedule is a bit awkward and I am not a huge fan of it but I keep telling myself it only lasts a month.

Get Me To The Church On Time

Sarah and I were in a wedding this past weekend in Covington, KY. Sarah was a bridesmaid and I was an usher. Covington is right across the river from Cincinnati and overall is an interesting place. When I think of Kentucky I think of rednecks and horse racing but I really didn't see either of those things in Covington. Half of the town is made up of old houses and buildings which line confusing one-way streets. Covington is one of the most confusing towns I have ever been to drive in, right up there with Pittsburgh. The styles of the homes and buildings and overall look of the town reminded me of Erie. Being that it is such an old town, the church where the wedding was held was quite old and quite ornate, one of the few minor basilicas in the country. It was a very pretty church. If you head to the far north of Covington, right on the Ohio river, you will be met with high rise apartment and hotel buildings mixed in with trendy restaurants night spots. It's really a happening place.

Anyway, overall Sarah and I had a good time. I'd like to thank the bride and groom for involving us in their wedding weekend and wish them the best. I'd also like to thank Sarah's aunt "Auntie 502" for bringing me her stool sample, pictured below. I am always interested in GI health, even if its on a Friday night at the Claddagh restaurant in Covington, KY.




Speaking of health, all of the pink on the NFL sidelines yesterday reminded me that October is breast cancer awareness month. Despite what the US Preventative Task Force says, I, as a physician, encourage monthly self breast exams. Breast cancer is probably my least favorite disease. Not only does it attack one of my favorite parts of the body, it takes lives too.




I started my night call experience last night. So far I am not enjoying the awkward schedule but I will post more later in the month once I have a better feel about how it is going.

Windows 7 Was Not My Idea

I've had my current PC since 2005. When I bought it I went ahead and gave it some extra power so that it would last longer into the future. I think that was a wise decision because even though it is five years old I am still happy with its speed. I have been running Windows XP ever since I got the computer. I am quite a big fan of XP. I have found it to be a very stable operating system. They even (mostly) got rid of the BSOD. It is way, way, way better than the previous Windows offering (Millennium Edition) and I pretty much hate Vista. I have heard very few people complain about XP, and I look at what they did with Vista and I ask myself "What were they thinking?" The whole file system reminds me a bit of an Apple so I wonder if they weren't trying to copy Apple's system a bit. Anyway, I haven't had any problems with XP until last week.

It was my own fault. I run spyware scans on my computer and am usually very careful with what I do and what I click on while on the net. Last week I was on a site and I got an Adobe pop-up saying the site was requesting more space to save information. It wanted an additional 900 kb. I wasn't thinking and clicked OK and shortly after my problems started. My spyware would find two trojans and a malicious program. It would quarantine them and upon restart, they would be right back where they were found, slowing down my Internet, popping up random websites in my browser. Making Windows very slow. After trying a bit to get rid of them and failing, I decided it was time to reinstall Windows. I had gone 5 years without having to do this, which is pretty darn good in my experience, so I gave in and started on the process of rebooting my computer from scratch so to speak.

Before I started this I installed Ubuntu on my computer. I have wanted a duel boot system with Ubuntu and Windows for years but never got around to doing it because I didn't want to have to delete all of my Windows files. Let me just say that I love Ubuntu. It installed within 15 minutes, and the very first time I logged in it was ready to get on the web and everything. I think I can do about 90% of my computing tasks within Ubuntu. The other 10% I either can't do or can't figure out how to do, and unfortunately because of that 10% I still need Windows. Ideally I would just abandon Windows all together. Currently I have a duel boot system with Ubuntu 10 and Windows 7, and am writing this post from Ubuntu. I am a big fan of the OS. If anyone has any questions about it or wants to know more info, feel free to ask.

I tried to install XP. They don't sell it anymore at stores so I got a free link from VU thanks to my brother Craig. Unfortunately I couldn't get the install program to accept my passkey. After trying for a few days I gave up and decided to just by Windows. Unfortunately, like I said they don't sell XP anymore. I hate Vista so I refuse to put that on my PC. So I decided to go with Windows 7. I have never used 7 before and really know nothing about it. It cost me $130, the cheapest version the store had. Installing it was a pain in the ass. I kept getting an error code 2 minutes into the install, and searching the net was of no help. I finally got it to work when my friend Ogre suggested I reinstall the bios on my system. I owe him a beer for that one. Windows 7 takes about 90 minutes to install and then it had another couple of hours of updates to install. One of the updates sabotaged my boot loader program so that the screen is black and I have to go through the menus by memory. It is all annoying.

I haven't used 7 enough to have a definitive opinion. On the surface, it resembles Vista. It is more invasive than XP but not as bad as Vista. I am pretty annoyed that one of its updates messed up my boot loader program. I will probably give a review in the future once I have had time to use Ubuntu and 7 a bit more. Again I am hoping to be able to do most tasks in Ubuntu and minimize my Windows log-ins. For now, crisis averted.

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes. I spent my birthday morning at the dentist, which really wasn't too bad. Otherwise it was basically a normal day. Sarah got me the Lost collection on DVD which is pretty cool because it has a ton of behind the scenes features and interviews I hope to watch.

Decent Weekend

A few of my friends from high school and their wives/girlfriends came up to Indy to hang out for a few days last weekend. We had a late lunch and then went to a comedy club Saturday night. Some of them drove pretty far to hang out for an afternoon and evening so I want to thank them for the effort. I hope everyone had a good time. It is a bit difficult to plan something where everyone has fun but I think it went OK.

Some people were asking about my hand. It is in the process of healing, but I would say give it another 2-4 weeks to fully heal. Maybe longer on the thumb. He had to cut pretty deep and the spot on the thumb was big. Since it is healing by secondary closure (i.e. no sutures) it just takes time for these things to heal. It is getting pretty annoying having to wear band aids on the hands all of the time. It gets to be pretty difficult to wash your hands and do simple tasks. I really am looking forward for the hand to finish healing, hopefully this time with no wart.

For those interested, check out Anna K in the new issue of Maxim. I really have no idea why she still does this stuff. I am guessing someone on her marketing team is telling her it is necessary to make appearances in such magazines every 18 months or so to stay relevant in the 18-34 year old male market. They are probably right, but to me it is a bit of a broken record. She looks great, regardless, so I won't complain. Did I ever mention that I met her? It is one of my top accomplishments.

RIP HPV

I have never in my life had a problem with warts. Then two and a half years ago I had one randomly pop up on my right thumb. Since then I have tried everything imaginable to get rid of it. I have had it frozen numerous times. I've used aspirin on it. I've used compound W. I've used duct tape therapy. I've taken high dose vitamin C (something I don't really believe in but I tried it any way because I am desperate). I've even had it cut out of my thumb and it came back! This thing is a freak of nature that I have not been able to get rid of.

It troubles me for two reasons. First of all, it is an eye sore. It doesn't hurt, but it is cosmetically troubling. And in a profession where I am putting my hands on people all day, I think my patients would prefer if I didn't have these lesions on my hands. Secondly, they are starting to spread! Within the past few months I've had two more pop up on my right hand. Once I had my insurance switched with my new job, I decided it was time to see a specialist in dermatology.

He suggested surgical excision to remove the lesion. He said that in his experience, freezing warts on the hand didn't work too well. So today I went to his office and had him take a rather large chunk out of my thumb. I am really, really, really hoping this works. If it doesn't, I think I will let him inject me with bleomycin, an anticancer drug used to treat squamous cell carcinoma. If that fails, I might amputate. But I am really hoping this surgery works. I am tired of looking at this ugly thing.

Below is what my thumb looked like today after he was finished with it. Make sure you are ready to see it. It is a bit graphic and gross.










About HPV (off the top of my head):

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a virus that infects mucous membrane epithelium and skin. There are several types (maybe 100??) and depending on the type the infection can be quite dangerous. The most notorious types are 16 and 18. When females are infected with these and certain other strands of HPV, it turns their pap smear abnormal. If the infection is aggressive, it can lead to squamous cell carcinoma of the cervix. The strands that cause skin warts (verrucae) are different than the sexually transmitted strands that cause cervical cancer, so they usually do not transform into cancer. However the dermatologist said in his career he has had one that was squamous cell cancer, so he sent mine to pathology to be tested. Warts are notoriously difficult to get rid of. They often resolve on their own and don't need other therapy, but when they are resistant to your body's immune system they can be quite difficult to take care of.

Keep On Rocking

Sarah, Craig, and I went to Verizon Friday night to see one of my favorite current bands, Kings of Leon. The show was excellent. We had pavilion seats right in front of the stage, probably 50 yards or so from stage. We had a great view of the stage. Overall I enjoyed this concert better than their concert last year. They played more older stuff this time around which I liked. Sitting pavilion is fun because you have better views of the stage and the music is louder since you are sitting closer to the stage and all of the speakers. This was one of the louder concerts I've been to. All and all it was a great show and a fun Friday night.

I enjoy going to Verizon a few times a year to see some concerts. It is really convenient for me to drive there as it is just like 20 minutes down the road. Plus I really enjoy music, especially really loud music. One of the worse parts of going to Verizon, however, is the traffic situation. I have sat in the parking lot for up to 90 minutes before trying to get out. Because of these past experiences, I decided to get the VIP parking upgrade this time. I think overall it is worth it. We were out of the parking lot in just a few minutes this time. You will still have to wait on side streets once you get out, but it isn't such a big deal because at least at this point everyone is already in a formed line. I would say the VIP parking is worth the extra coin and less hassle.





On Saturday Craig and I went to the US Nationals drag races at O'Reailly Raceway Park. I've never been before but Craig said it was an interesting event so I thought it would be a good way to spend a nice Saturday afternoon. I truthfully know nothing about the sport and felt a bit lost in terms of the specifics of what was going on. I found the racing action to be a little repetitive and things happened so fast it was difficult for me to even notice small wiggles some of the cars had that slowed them down in their run. I was mildly entertained by the whole thing, but the top fuel dragsters blew my mind. These cars run a mixture of nitromethane and methanol, produce around 10,000 horsepower, and reach speeds over 300 mph. Words can't describe what its like when these cars go down the track. Their engines produce in excess of 120 dB. You don't just hear them go down the track, you feel them. You can actually feel the sound waves as the car goes by. It is really pretty remarkable.

The other cool thing about the event was that you were allowed to go into the pit area and roam and watch them work on cars and stuff. After one of the runs I was standing about 20 feet from one of the cars when it revved its engine. I wasn't really prepared for it and it scared me quite a bit. Luckily I had my ear plugs in, but the noise was so extreme it actually made me feel a little uncomfortable. But the ability to roam freely in the pits and get so close to the action is really cool and unique among modern day sports. I even saw John Force. Didn't see Ashley, sadly.







On a side note, I am thrilled with the weather we are having this weekend. It is finally starting to cool off a bit and transition into the autumn season. Fall is one of my favorite seasons, and I am excited about the cooler weather and the start of football season (despite Purdue's dismal performance Saturday against Notre Dame)!

Where Are The Noodles?

I ate at two restaurants last weekend that I wanted to talk about here on the blog. I don't review every single restaurant that I go to but I try to talk about the ones that I especially like or if I was really disappointed I will talk about them as well.

Five Guys Burgers and Fries
Location: Multiple
Price Range: $
Rating: 5 cheeseburgers

I first ate at Five Guys probably 3 or 4 years ago when I was out in Baltimore. This fast food burger chain originated in the Baltimore/DC area and has since exploded in popularity opening restaurants nation wide. We have several locations here in Indy but truthfully I don't eat here too often because all of their stores are a bit out of the way. That has changed since the last few weeks, however, as they have opened a new restaurant just 5 minutes down the road from us. As the name implies, Five Guys is a restaurant that specializes in burgers and fries. In fact, that is all they serve. It is a fast food restaurant and the prices are competitive to other fast food chains, although no dollar menu here. The potatoes are cut fresh daily. GQ named Five Guys the "best cheeseburger man can buy for under $5" in 2009 and I couldn't agree more. This place is fantastic. If you are in the mood for a cheeseburger and are in a hurry, you honestly cannot beat this place. The burgers are amazing and you will not be disappointed.

The Melting Pot
Location: 86th Street & Allisonville Road/Castleton
Price Range: $$$$
Rating: 4 cheeseburgers

Sarah and I went here to celebrate her birthday, along with some of our friends from Sarah's job. The Melting Pot is a fondue restaurant where there is a tabletop burner with a fondue pot sitting right at your table. The waitress brings you ingredients to cook various things that you eat for appetizer and main menu. You even cook your dessert in the fondue pot. When I first heard it was a fondue restaurant I thought that meant it was going to be Asian-themed and feature a lot of rice and noodles. I obviously don't know anything about food because that wasn't the case at all. We had 4 courses: appetizers consisting of melted cheeses and various things to dip into the cheese. The second course was the salad. The third course was the main course, consisting of various meats and shrimp. The final course was the dessert. All four courses were quite good. When I heard we had to cook our own food I was immediately turned off by the idea. Why would I want to go somewhere and pay them money just to cook my own food? In reality it wasn't that bad and honestly it was a bit fun. The waitress more or less tells you how to cook stuff and she does most of it for you. Then for the meats, you just stab some steak with your special fork and sit it in the fondue pot for a few minutes. That is all it takes and you are ready to eat.

As I already mentioned, the food is pretty darn good. And eating here is an event. We were there for three and a half hours. It is a unique experience and I would suggest going here for a special event or if you are just looking for something different. It is a bit pricey and honestly you could probably get better food overall for the same money. However, the food is really good and you will spend your whole evening in the restaurant so it really isn't too bad if you look at it like that. I think the overall eating experience makes this place a must for someone looking for something other than the usual steak dinner.

Craig is coming up later today and he, Sarah, and I are going to the Kings of Leon concert at Verizon. Should be a good time tonight.