'Listen to your heart... when he's calling for you'

Today I listened to my heart-I mean really listened to my heart. It was amazing! I just sat there mesmerized in lab listening to my heart. One girl came up to talk to me and gave me a weird look, laughed and then just walked away. I’ve never taken the time to really try to heart everything that I need to hear. There is SO much more to the heart than the lub dub. The more I concentrated the more fascinated I became. I just realized how absolutely amazing it is that all of it (electricital conduction, valves, pumping) is coordinated so perfectly and in most people, the heart works wonderfully for years. The heart beats at least 60 times every minute. I don’t know exactly what that translates to in hours, days or years, but it has to be a ton. How can something work that hard and last so long. It is just such a testimony to me that there is a God and that we weren’t created by accident.

For the rest of the day I kept singing in my head, and aloud, " the heart goes pa-da pa-da and circulates the blood....My body machine is super keen and awesome as it can be. It runs, it walks, it sleeps, it talks and it belongs to ME!" I didn't even care that I sounded like a nutso, I was just so excited about my heart. (after writing that, I just realized how extremely nerdy this all makes me sound- I really am not THAT nerdy. Maybe a little, but mostly the cool nerdy...not the weird/awkward nerdy :))

The last weeks have been pretty busy with school, but there are a few stories that I wanted to share...

I volunteered at the Rescue Mission clinic and this Hispanic guy came in to get some stitches out. He had never been seen before by this clinic so I had to do a more comprehensive note before he could be seen. It took at least 15 minutes to get through all the questions- partially because he kept talking and also because he didn’t speak English very well. Once I had finished and put him in a room a nurse that was working with me said, ‘betsy, you knew he was completely drunk right?’ Now I know there are many positive things that come from not being around alcohol, but this would not be one of those times. I had NO IDEA that he was drunk. I just spent 15 minutes talking to this guy, and I was pretty close to him, so I could smell his breath and I had no clue that he was drunk. NONE! I just thought he was really happy. That’s kind of a big deal, mostly because you can have crazy drug interactions when people are drunk, ugh! My favorite part about the whole situation was when I talked to dad he said, ‘Betsy you just need to hang out at bars more.’ Seriously?…how many Dads say that to their daughters? Haha. Oh I love my dad- and I love that he can say that to me knowing #1-I probably wouldn’t ever go to a bar even if he told me to and #2-if I did, he knows I wouldn't ever drink. Moral of the story is that my new goal for the week is: I’m going to figure out what drunk people look, smell and act like.

Another fun experience was during lecture one day I really had to go to the bathroom. It was right after lunch and I just couldn’t hold it in anymore. It happened to be a guest lecturer so I felt really bad about walking out, but I figured that I wouldn’t be able to concentrate if I didn't go and since my seat is right next to a door he probably wouldn't even notice. So I finally decided to go, I get up and I’m at the door when the lecturer says really loud, ‘ Wait, don’t go yet. I promise it will get better.’ Initially I couldn’t tell if he was joking and then when I put it together, I didn’t know what to say, so I just blushed, smiled and shrugged and walked out. I was super embarrassed! What was I supposed to do, announce to the whole class that I really had to go to the bathroom? When I walked back in-he again interrupted the lecture to say/chuckle, ‘I’m sorry if I embarrassed you.’ Meanwhile the whole class is chuckling and again my face turns bright red, which makes everyone laugh even harder. It’s all good though, because my class knows that I’m kind of a goof ball already, so whateves.

Happy PA day!

Last Friday was PA day. Yes, that's right-physician assistants get our very own day. :) We did a bunch of service stuff –I helped with the rescue mission and we just played with the little kids and we read them a book about healthy foods and then I went around and let the little kids use my stethoscope and listen to their heart. There was this one little kid who was adorable and was so excited when he heard my heart. Little kids make me so happy.

That night after some serious convincing Peter, Ben, Amanda and I watched the movie in the park (put on by the city). The reason it took some convincing was because the movie was New Moon. Poor poor Peter really isn’t in to chick flicks, so I don’t think he enjoyed it at all, but he did enjoy making fun of it and having both Amanda and I laugh…that part he loved…what guy wouldn’t though. I didn’t realize how much the guys in that movie take off their shirts-but Peter sure noticed and it was hilarious! He kept commenting on how anytime anything went wrong it was all solved by the guys taking off their shirts. I honestly didn’t notice before he started commenting and then after that it ruined the rest of the movie. Aside from that, it was just the perfect weather and atmosphere…oh I just loved it, so I’m glad that I did that. Afterwards Lori and Rebecca met up with us and we went to Pops for some ice cream. It was just fun to be with that group.

Saturday I did some studying and that night Peter projected a movie in his backyard and invited a ton of people. I immediately noticed the huge difference between this movie and New Moon…yeah he is definitely more into the intense killing movies. It was just funny how different the movies were.

Sunday was wonderful. I woke up thinking, I don’t really want to go to church. Now, I’ve thought this several times before, but for the record I’ve never missed church unless I was sick. It really must be Satan planting the idea in my head because he must know that church is going to be excellent. Church was exactly that-I heard exactly what I needed. It was so absolutely needed and wonderful! Needless to say, I’m so glad I went.

That afternoon I had dinner at Justin’s/Brian’s. Justin is from Canada and I guess it was Thanksgiving for them the following Monday and so he wanted to celebrate it. It was absolutely wonderful. He made a turkey, stuffing, pie and everyone else brought stuff. I learned that grapes used for wine taste very very different from regular grapes and they have a much different texture. They are good, but just very different. Also their apples are delicious.

Earlier at church I had asked people ‘if I could look in their ears.’ I know that sounds really awkward, but I didn’t want to have to give the super long intro about clin skills and how I needed to practice using an otoscope…so I just cut to the chase.

Anyway, so after dinner I looked in everyone’s ears. The only awkward one was Peter, because he had a ton of ear wax…enough that I couldn’t see the ear drum. Most people that I had looked at, didn’t have any wax, or just a little, so I didn’t know what to say exactly. I decided not to say anything- except he specifically asked if I could see…I debated for a second if I should lie or if I should be honest. Don’t worry-honesty won out and I said, ‘do you by chance use Qtips in this ear….cause you shouldn’t.’ So I didn’t openly say,’ you have a ton of ear wax and it is clogging up your ear canal so I can’t see your TM' but I felt like it was honest enough.

I just have to say, using an otoscope makes me feel SO official. Yup...

My tests this week turned out well. I spent a ton of time in the morgue for anatomy. Fun fact for the day-it really is a morgue. My school is in the old city hospital and so they had a morgue in the basement where they would do the autopsies. Anyway, we have a test coming up in Anatomy, so I've been spending a bunch of time down there. I just want to say that I’m so glad that I took anatomy at BYU. We had a stellar program there. I didn’t realize how absolutely stellar it was until I came out here and I listen to the other students talk about their college anatomy classes. Many of them didn’t even have cadavers-yikes! and they weren’t forced to know it in such great detail like we did. It is crazy how much I remember from those classes. I guess I did essentially take it twice-one time regular and then the other time for dissection, but still…it is so amazing and super convenient cause this anatomy class womps! The teacher doesn’t really teach/know what he is talking about. At least he doesn’t know as much as Rachel Tomco (BYU teacher). She was fantastic! So in anatomy I refreshed myself on the heart, lungs and spinal cord.

Well that is my life update.

Alias- take 2

A couple Sundays ago I woke up thinking that I should do something nice for the Nutty Putty group. They are a group of guys in the ward, well actually it is the Bishop’s son, his cousin, and then a couple of his friends who are going to ride across the US on their bikes to raise money for some charity. That morning I called a girl in the ward and had her help me write a bunch of notes-mostly lame ones with music quotes-‘don’t give up’ ‘you’re the world’s greatest’ and then some good rhyming ones as well. I thought they were funny, and Lori and I had a blast making them so it was all good. We were having so much fun making the cards that we didn’t realize that it was almost time for conference to start, so we had to rush over to his house to put them up-that way we wouldn’t miss any of conference. Just as we were pulling on to their street we see a car pull out from their driveway. I didn’t look at them, but I was hoping that either 1.it wasn’t them or 2.they didn’t recognize us. Anyway, so I drove past their house for a little bit and then parked –erring on the safe side just in case they did see us, they wouldn’t know we were going to their house-do you see the improvement of my spy skills? By the time we got out the poster and tape and everything and started walking to their house they had apparently decided to turned around and came back to see if we needed something. He rolled down his window and said, ‘we just wanted to make sure you guys didn’t need anything. (Awkward pause where clearly I should have inserted my reasoning for being there) Do you want a key or something?’ Ahhh… I tried to act all casual with my arms full of note cards, a poster, and tape, but I could feel my face getting super red AND everyone in the car (which was completely full by the way) was outright laughing at me. I’m sure I was quite funny to watch. Honestly I didn’t know what to say, so I just changed the topic without even answering the question. I said something like, ‘So are you guys gonna go watch conference over at the Creamers?’ I really really need to work on my Alias skills. I’m clearly very good at getting caught and I absolutely fail at the spontaneous lying thing…I guess that just means I have lots of reasons to practice and plenty of room for improvement. I’m seriously going to have start taking spy classes or something cause this is getting to the point of embarrassment.

At the time, I was actually a bit upset, but I’m over it now that a couple weeks have passed. I am nervous however because on a couple of the cards I wrote something like-‘don’t die cause we love you too much’. After the fact I found out that the reason they are raising money is for his niece and nephew because their dad died a year ago..yikes! Hopefully they weren’t offended. I guess there’s nothing I can do now.That just about sums up my latest attempt at being stealth. I guess it can't get much worse than that, right?