the heavies and a heavy update...

well, here is the relatively quick version of the update on my week.
throw
ouch
tube
throw
lift
ouch
kiddies
etoh
ouch
bike
drive
boone
dinner

what that means i am not sure, but i suppose that i can expound on it somewhat.

to touch on work... same ol' same ol'. i was in a case about to intubate a patient... of course i had to have the md who has it out for me. everything was just freakin dandy and becasuse the guy has a history of gerd [not that i haven't intubated anyone with this before] the attending looked at the crna and said something along the lines of 'i don't really like this set-up... if you know what i mean [as he turned his head toward me". that was a bit awkward and then he finally said that he didn't want me to be doing this. WTF. seriously... wtf! how may times must i do something before this singular a-hole will let me do something. he has been the attending ere whenst this has happened. he also stated that he didn't want this person to have 3-4 laryngoscopies [i.e. tube tries with the blade] because of his history... so what is the next most logical and safe choice to go with this conservative perspective??? you guessed it. let's have the junior [1st year clinical] STUDENT CRNA do the intubation. that would be good... to forego having his lazy self do it or have the crna with 30 years of experience do the job. yep and as we continue with this ingenious logical plan based on prior statements he made to me, lets enjoy the show as the SCRNA misses the intubation and the crna has to take over. so, she missed the intubation anyway... and what would have been the difference if i would have tried and failed [not gonna happen] versus her trying and failing. simple. this guy favors crna's for some reason and greatly discounts med students.
i was a little boiled at this... not so much simmered, but more seethed at this little scenerio.... and i needed a way to bring my boil down [soundly like i have the plague or leprosy or something... bring my boil down, ha]
to do this, i called one of my frineds who owns a gym out in irmo, sc. he was an all-american hammer thrower for usc and has lately been throwing in 'The Heavies' as they call them at the Scottish Highland Games. there are various games throughout the country throughout the year to compete in and i decided that i would do some training with him a little bit and whatnot and throw things. well, just as a plug you can visit his and his dad's website... if you are interested in purchasing any gym equipment:

http://www.sorinex.com/

it is some good stuff and they are soon to be crossfit affiliated as well [whoo hooo... well, i know at least rory would be proud].
also, if you are curious to learn more about the scottish highland games, one of their websites is:

www.nasgaweb.com

so checkit out!!!
anywho... we threw the 56 lb weight for height and the 28 pound weight for distance on tuesday. it sure is a lot of weight to be tossing around and needless to say my back took a schalacking as the weight tossed me just as much as i tossed it. during my last throw a part of my hand decided that it was tiried of letting go of the heavy weight... apparently they formed a closely nit bond throughout the evening and my hand did not want to part yet again. so in order to avoid the bitter-sweet sorrows of departure the callus slilghtly proximal to my 5th digit flew off with the weight. i think that the blood in that region flew threw the air in order to try to catch up with it's recently departed love as well.
needless to say, however, if you know me, that i definatly didn't stop there. something to do with the callus inside my skull i suppose. so, i threw a few left handed, which went rather well. dad, you would be happy to know that bert is a fan of balance and believes in bilateral gains and thus attempts to be amphibious in throwing righty and lefty.
after i dabbed... and when i say dabbed i mean poured alcohol on the wound and cleaned it... i taped it up to proceed to do a little light [ha... light my ass] lifting.
in the end, all in all... it was a good workout and helped bring me well below simmer... simma-down-a... donna summers, nay... summers, donna

wedneday the ever-stressed-over ROL was due. i had a most definately had a panic moment someitme in the am. i headed up to the student lounge in a bit of a tizzy and called my sis [the FA... fat alcoholic] and stared at my list as she helped to talk me through why i put things in the order that i did in the first place. perhaps after the match has been done said i will place my ROL up because if the unthinkable were to occur and i were to actually match, it becomes a cow's opinion anyway... you know, a moooooo point. in the evening, to help distract myself, i proceeded to shave my head. bye-bye hairs on my head. well, not like they were exactly hanging around for the ride to begin with... they were slowly saying their good-byes so i just decided to assist them on their way out.
also, i mustn't forget that it was my mom's birthday today [wed feb 21st 07]. the big 23. this is impressive considering apparently i am 3 years older than my mom, however that works out. so, happy b-day mom... or belated b-day considering i am writing this 4 days after the fact.

thursday was monumentous for the simple fact that i did a lot of highland games stuff with bert and lifted with him and whatnot. to add to my soreness was my goal... and mission accomplished! i love working out at that gym... erika you really need to check it out with me sometime. maybe you can take some of your personal training client-elle over there... or not... thanks... good... i'm glad.
today was also my friend dave's birthday and we celebrated at flying saucer... good beer and good times. i think he was off the next am to denver to do some skiing. lucky dufe. hope that is going well for him... gosh that medical spanish rotation that he is doing must really be taxing.

i am not sure if i had informed people about my corrupting of the high school kids for 'role models in medicine' day at the usc school of medicine. many may argue as to 'wtf' am i doing as a role model of medicine... or perhaps i should be the one in the course as opposed to giving words of 'wisdom'. well, i say to those, pish-tosh and a barrell of pickled pigs feet. why i say that, i don't know, but it is the first thing that came to mind... if that says anything.
well, if i didn't mention the malfunctioning 1960's version of the ultrasound machine that didn't work the last time... this time we utilized the newly arrived 1980's verson. well, not that i can complain all that much since it actually worked this time and it afforded me the opportunity to talk less and to not have to make the sounds that the ultrasound would make by my own vocal cords.
some of the kids were pretty receptive and others weren't, but all-in-all i think it was a pretty good time.
after the corruption i played some video games with jb.... the crash master if you will, before we proceeded to have another evening celebrating the era from whenst my ultrasound machine came... the 80's. that's right, it was a mcfly night!

it was a late one... or an early one depending on how you look at it and i got a late start yesterday to boone, nc... home of the mountaineers, the 2005? ncaa d-1aa national football champs and former home of my mountain-like roommate for his frosh year of college.
april and i were to meet up and stay at the super 8 hotel... however a further encounter with a little bitchity-bitch prohibited us from staying there and going on a trek of our own to find a place to stay. the lady at the counter suggested that we head to the highland hills motel... because she said they have rooms. after some driving around to find this place, april and i pulled into a parking lot were they filmed the cinematic hit 'psycho'. i didn't know psycho was filmed in appalachia, but apparently it was... or at least it looked like it was. avoiding actually stepping foot into this gore-layden potential april called and found some rooms at the hampton in. thus, this lead me to believe that the first and original bitchity-bitch didn't actually know or look or take any effort into checking whom had rooms for the evening... she just figured that noone stayed at the highland hills so that always have rooms for the night. so, like i said, b-b. well, we stayed at the hampton and after a few cookies contianing morsels of chocolae and macademia [that is a wonderful word by the way which i need to expound on sometime] we went and had an enjoyable meal at Casa Rustica that consisted of some pasta purses [with pesto sauce... it was good, but it was no luigi's!], a 1/2 bottle of connundrum and some german chicken [chicken uffuzi or something.... it was just easier to call it german chicken as i dubbed it]. it was very tantalizing to the taste-bud-studded tongue [how do you like them alliterating apples!]. this was followed by a most wonderful dessert of some magnitude that i don't even know where to begin... somewhere around a tiramisu... or as april spells it tiri--no--tirimusa--no, flip it, tirimasu--no--tirm--no... well she eventually led me to hear spelling. so, tiramisu and some ice cream wrapped in chocolate with some pastries on each side. it was pretty good i must say. for the last 'course' we enjoyed the asu jazz group as we endulged in a cup of coffee... Coffee... COFFEEE.... coffee --huh huh. so good and relaxing was the evening.

so now, after breakfast i sit and type to update the week while april searches for dresses on ebay [well, rory, apparently she needs a dress for coming to my graduation... and i just invited her to our aoa induction dinner where she will probably desire another dress... so just a heads up from bro to bro you know] and then showers and such.

well, off to drive through the rainy day... hopefully the weather is better in columbia than in boone as bert and i are supposed to throw some this afternoon... if it's bad and we don't throw... i am sure that hellfire and brimstone will not keep bert from wanting to lift.

ta-ta and toodle-ooo for now,
supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.... or as chris farley said to save time and space... supercalifragilisticexpialidoshe,
g-money

the OMV...

the theme here is based on a character in a popular book, read by a few people, name known to some. he goes by the name of adam... the first. if he were alive today he would be old [no shit sherlock, huh?]. nevertheless, though not as old as this minor player in human history, i am no college youth anymore. the topic is based on this quality, heightening such things as fine wines, vinegars, cheeses... and garry... age. well, yesterday, when going to the gym with every intention of succoming to my decrepidly elder ways and riding the stationary bike, i found myself meandering in a hypnotic daze into a wooden-floored space where 10 foot giants reign supreme. before i know it, i found myself on a team of 5 playing some good ol' hoops. well, needless to say, the 'cheesy and winey' qualities came out in me and my age shined through... in the better sense. i ran circles around a those youts [purposfully left out the 'h'] for 2.5-3 hours. though my shooting abilities are not to par as of late as i demonstrated for over 2 of those hours, i found that i could still 'play'... and by play, i mean run around in such a fashion that i don't look like a chicken with my head cut off... there seemingly seemed [at least to me] to be some purpose to what i was doing. then again, i feel like there is purpose to other various things that others may deem worthless and unnecessary... so that really doesn't say much now does it?
so, thoroughly sore, what better to do than the OMV...
omv... i.e. 'old man vault' was an event taken place at the sacred shrine that is the bubble, today. this was the pseudo-first time down the runway from a full approach since early last summer [mayish]. i say 'pseudo' because on tuesday i had that attempt to vault [see below's entry] where i came down the runway from a full approach [7 lefts] twice, one of which left quite the memory mark upon my ancient and easily bruising skin. the other one only proved that i could get into the pit... thus today was the one. it felt good... could have been better [as most things always could] but i wound up clearing 13 feet and wound up getting on a pole that i probably should have a couple jumps earlier on my attempts at 14 feet. i would say that hopefully i will be able to get this by the end of the spring... and 15 would be nice as well, but one step at a time.
anywho, just thought that i would throw that up here, and hopefully i will get the vids up onto youtube soon from the event... i preemptivly thank fred and vica for thier filming contributions and abilities.
have a beautimous evening,
love,
g

hip to the drip...

so, i am not sure what the hell the title means, but it just came out and i have no excuse since in could just go ahead and delete it... but alas, i really don't feel like it. maybe i should have said 'hip hurts' or 'blood drip' or something alon those lines that can also have more than one meaning but somehow not come across so absurdly, un-gorkable to most.

to coment quickly on the pics... april sure loves her 'dead guy' ale or 'old man' ale... whatever! she also very precariously loves to kiss her alcoholic beverages... find the answers not at the bottem of the glass will you, grasshopper.... only go down to the point that you can get back out! haha.

so, monday was awesome for me as far as work goes. i had the wonderful experience of throwing in a good 8 intubations, LMA, LTAs, including intubating a 6 month old [this comes into play later... i.e. today where the crna would not let me intubate a 1 month old and had her student do it. i think that she was a little biased towards her student... ok, i realize that i am just a med student, but she is a student as well and had to have a 1st intubation of a <3 mo old [no internet-heart pun intended], thus since i had been successful a couple of times with smaller and smaller kids, i thought it would be the next logical step... she didn't say that she would do it, but that her STUDENT would do it... i guess i just don't understand. well, i held it together and remained respectful and came to find out that she was the employee of the month for the hospital that i work at... i wouldn't have voted for her.... besides, it took the student crna 2 attempts to get the intubation. she stated that maybe if i was an ER resident and i needed the numbers that maybe then she would let me... wonderful... just flippin wonderful... so teach me after the fact when i could have a kid come into the er or icu and have not intubated a kid at such an age in a controlled setting and am forced to perform this task in the uncontrolled er... perfect logic... perfect... don't teach before, that woudl be too easy... to easy for future patients and situations... but leave it to her to not think about this. at least that was on my mind. can you tell i am a smidge-bit bitter... well, if not, good, becasue i am not anymore now that i got that little rant out of my system... i think that this was the loongest bracketed aside ever!]. anyway, so monday was good for that... and was a great day until the evening.... let me elaborate, shall i:
well, i was on my way to an aoa meeting [ironically enough as it turns out {no april, not a-ok}] where i was going to go and pick up some gas, well, at least have my car pick it up and then off to the meeting. the problem occurred on the way to the gas station when i heard the putter putter of that little golf struggilng to start from a stop light that i was at. sure enough it sputtered out like an old man with bph trying to pee, before it finally came to a stop in the middle of the road... situated in such a location that was not quite close enough to a gas station or close enough to get back home [not to mention the 1/4 mile hill i would have had to push it back up].
so, sitting in my car, i called my roommate, 'the goucho' if i may... and it took a good 20 min for him to get the fact that i called just shy of 6 million times [or so he tells me]. when he called, he was at the track with he who completes our 'old-man' trifecta of running, the EDster. well, he said that he would come right away, but nay i told him... nay. you see, 'the Ed' is currently on baby call and can not be deterred for too long at any one time from his duties [and understandably / rightly so]. thus i told the goucho to go ahead and do the workout whilst the ed was temporarily off baby duty and available to workout with someone. besides, by the time that the goucho would have gotten to me, ed would have been done, the sun would have been set and i already missed my meeting. so it seemed only logical that they got the workouts in... and i called one of the guys at the meeting and 'pseudo-teleconferenced' in my votes. so, it was all good. as it turns out i only sat in my car an hour and a half until help arrived. ahhh... it was nice to see the goucho and the gas can that he possessed. so, after driver [my car's name] had his little snack, it was off to home and ... yeah... that was about it for that day

then tuesday came and brings me to the point where the 'hip' came from. it was my first time gong back to a full approach on the pv runway since earlier last summer. yeah, let's just say my first plant didn't go so smooth.. ok, i didn't do a damn thing right, unless you consider flying into the fence next to the pole vault pit the correct thing to do. because, if you do, then i nailed exactly what was supposed to be done. with a nice bruise across my right hip, in proceeded to come down the runway again... because only pansies and smart people would have stopped at that point... it takes guts and stupidity [both of which i possess plenty of] to bring it down the runway after that. anywho, i did and it went well, but that is about all my hip could take for the day, and i was content to end on a mediocre note. hopefully this will give me the uplifting boost [no pun intended] to vault on saturday... or not so much. who knows, maybe i won't even jump this weekend as chris [friend and former teammate and roommate] is hosting 10 meets this year later on... an i definatly need the time.

i was then told that wednesday was singles awareness day or valentine's day, depending on how you view this culturally instituted, corporate america-introduced, commercially cheapened, money-moving 'hallmark holiday' of sorts. holiday? funny title to tag onto this day, the day of the death of st. valentine. i was a little curious as to the origin of the valentine's card, so i checked it out...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine%27s_day
anywho, the rest is history...

i suppose that is enough for now... off to find something to do with my afternoon... by something i mean food and by find i mean consume... and by 'by' i mean confuse... and by confuse i mean the opposite of apaulingly clear, i.e. GORK [check out m-w.com word of the day]

you know, if this wasn't already long enough i would love to blabber on about various such topics... but shall refrain for the time being... refrain from my inner desire to express in written form a feeling about something... whatever strikes my fance, i guess.
if y'all have a thought or are interested about my views/opinions on something, feel free to ask, drop me a line... poke me for freakin' sake - tee-hee!

well, this blog seems very 'much ado about nothing'... not surprising noting who it comes from...

oh, before i go, chris, yocum and i had some fun twirling on the rope and ring at the bubble... so check out my youtube [medicathle] as i posted the clip samplings of our 'thursday night live' fun at the bubble!

peace to all and love to teh same... i guess,
garry

bubble...

i sit here doing some work... reminiscing this a.m. if i may on how much i truly love the bubble. nay, not for the high caliber facilities, not for the world-class track, the 5/8 of a football field, the finely constructed wall in the middle of the building or the first-rate, top-notch pole-vaulting complex. no, it is not for any of these things alone... it is for the nostalgia of what has transpired under that formidably-fastened roof. the gestault of each cross training event available affords the 'bubble' [or 'booblay' as they say in the french track underground] a place very dear to me... that and i have now reached an ultimately new low in procrastination and wasting time...
love,
g

a tube down the throat... deep what???

well... although it is not a big deal to most, my excitement this week eminates from the mouth. actually, by eminate i mean shoved down...
this week i have learned to and had the opportunity to begin intubating patients. it is definatly a skill and has a feel to it that some of the crna's and anesthesiologists have down to an artform. i have seen er guys intubate, but it was not nearly as smooth or well rehersed as what the or has to offer. granted it is a more controlled environment, but they still do rsi's [rapid sequence intubaions] for various patients for differing reasons. anywho, with a half-dozed under my belt by myself, i hope to get a few dozen over the course of the month... the initial goal was 50, but i would be happy w/ 25 and spend some more time learning some other things. i was happy to hear that one of the attendings thought i did a good job and said i might get a chance to intubate some little kiddies for the peds cases which would be nice to have under the belt... whether going the ER or the Plastics route. other than that, not too terribly much has occurred oterh than a few meetings and workouts and such.
anywho... that's what i got for now... time to get some work done before grey's anatomy!
love to all,
g

p.s. - i am currently taking advice on what i should do with my life... feel free to direct comments or suggestions either to this blog, facebook, email or any other freakin' form of communication you see fit for me to get the info in.... your participation in this is greatly [under or over]-appreciated.

snowboarding sushi...

so i am back and safe in columbia after a fun time at sugar hill this weekend on the snowboard. this was my first go at such a venturous sporting event. i was equiped with a burton board generously 'donated' for the day from ken's brother. y'all might not know ken, but he is [i believe] pictured below in this blog sometime back in october during a golfing escapade. well, i would like to say that i strapped into the board, conquerede how to control the stearing, turning, stopping and the like on the bunny hill and then proceeded to demolish in every way each challenge set before my path throughout the day. such was not the case... the demolishing came upon me in the form of mountain clobbering me in the ass and elbow... so much that i feel that my body was basically an ass-bow.
this is because the bunny hill was fully utilized when we got ready and rearing to go... so, it was ken's idea that i should just go to the top and learn on the way down... well, let me tell you i did learn how to get down.. and down.. and down. the first time i tried snowboarding strapped in was down the slope... not something i recommend. straight up balance was ok, but the problem is that i kept picking up so much speed... and not LEARNING HOW TO STOP or TURN IN A CONTROLLED FASHION a priori lead me to picking up lots of speed and finding myself trying to turn at realtively high velocities... this unavoidably disasterous combination allowed me to experience my ass-bow in such a way that i have not experienced before. my virgin bows bruised and my ancient ass assaulted [not in a homosexual manner... just in a homopainful manner], i tried again and again to get down the turning thing.
finally, i was dooped into thinking that i could actually turn as i managed to go from side to side... best with my face up the mountain and not as well with my face down the hillside. i say 'fooloed' because i tried to take a sharp turn which lead to catchin some edge which fully threw me backwards... well, since by this time i was a complete ass-bow disaster, i figured that i should land on someting 'brand-new' and 'untainted' to this point... something soft that could take the fall of a non-graceful rookie... something invaluable to me and others... that's right... [by now i know that april knows what i am talking about]... my head. yep, that soft landing led me to a few moments in time that i now do not remember. so, after arising from my minor concussion [don't worry mom... i'll get a helmet for the future] i decided quasi-wisely that i should be done for the day. april might say that it would be hard to detect the neuances of the affects of this fall on my already-below-normal baseline, i feel some neck soreness the most... BUT I CAN'T WAIT TO GO AGAIN... IT WAS A FREAKIN BLAST!!!!! I LOVE IT, I LOVE IT, I LOVE IT [annoying molly shannon - character voice].
ahhh... so alas... i begin anesthesiology tomorrow [would have been today, but i had found out where i was supposed to be too late and spent the day at meetings and contacting local buisnesses for our black tie white coat gala] and hopefully it will be an enjoyable time... looking forward to it, am i.
sitting her at starbucks... enjoying some jo with yocum... along with some philisophically psychological conversations about sports... good times... good times.
until next time...
love,
g

vault try...

so far vault practice this year has mostly consisted of runway work... more to come...



-g

graauund hawwwwg's daiii...

well, i am not sure who saw whose shadow, but i didn't see mine. thus, if i were punxsutawney phil [the prognosticator of prognosticators if you will] there would be an early spring... luckily this year punxsutawney phil's prediction turned out the same as mine... no shadow and an early spring it is. thus this groundhog is also another to conform to the concept of global warming, that springs are coming earlier and winters are not as long and dreadful. leave it to the freakin' groundhog. thousands of scientists have been spending an exorbarent [sp] amount of money on trying to figure out that there is a 90% chance that there is a global climate change and it is due to the gasses of humanity [including that due to increased bean consumption]. however, the groundhog has been here all along and we could have saved a ton of money and just asked the freakin' groundhog if spring was going to start coming earlier on a regular basis. that sounds like something that would be passed in congress, embraced and adopted by the current political seat of the US house and senate. i think the reason that nothing gets done is they they feel that they have all the time in the world... that time stands still for them... that, quite literally, they never move because their watches and clocks all display the same time from moment to moment... there, splayed under the fluorescent lights of the inner house everyone follows very sternly the sundial's all around the room.

maybe, since i didn't see my shadow i should apply for the job as official groundhog next year... or not.

did you know that good ol' phil is said to see his shadow 85% of the time??? i guess that they have some pretty good weather [at least sunny] on the dawn of feb. 2nd on a yearly basis for him to see such a shadow. well, fayetteville was not the case this year in it's rain and winter woes.

it was a fantastic drive back home to an ever-so-loving and embracing neurology shelf exam. if i were to venture a guess... like i did on 97 if the 100 questions displayed... i might have just barely passed... or not... who knows? [not i obviously]. well, so at least that part of nerulogy is done... now i just have to make up 5 days over the next month or so, including a quiz [crummy].

other than that... my day included some relaxing working out... pole runs x 10 for 40-50 meters and then 'fran' [21/15/9 of 95lb thrusters and pullups]--5:00 btw.

i am just a bit exhausted and off to bed for the evening... to get up early in the a.m. and head up to sugar hill to hit the slopes... it is a test if you will... to see and to know... and KNOWING IS HALF THE BATTLE... GI JOE!!

love to all,
g