Valentines Day

We had a fabulous Valentines Day!  I have always loved this holiday.  Jordan and I went to an amazing Mexican restaurant, Plaza Azteca, for dinner.  Jordan usually avoids restaurants on V-day, but I convinced him that Monday evening wouldn't be as busy because people would have celebrated on the weekend.  We were able to get right in and enjoyed Tacos de Carne Asada and Lobster Enchiladas with fresh quacamole!  Yum yum yum!  Afterward Jordan left for a bit to "surprise" me and I worked on his gift.  He knocked on the front door and lo and behold, my darling was standing there with a dozen roses and playing "I've Had the Time of my Life" from Dirty Dancing.  Love it!  He is so romantic :)  We danced and watched Charlie Browns Valentine's Day and had a grand old time.  Happy Lovers Day!

The Fellowship of the Unashamed

I HAD to copy this from my friend's blog. She is serving a mission in Rochester, New York. This is a rallying cry to stand for the cause of Christ.

I am a part of the fellowship of the unashamed. The dye has been cast. I have stepped over the line. The decision has been made. I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. I won't look back, let up, slow down, or be still. My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, and my future is secure. I am finished and done with low living, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tamed visions, worldly talking, cheap media and dwarfed goals. I no longer need preeminence, positions, promotions, or popularity. I don't have to be right, first, recognized, praised, or rewarded. I now live by faith, lean on His presence, walk with patience, am uplifted by prayer, and labor with power. My pace is set, my gate is fast, and my goal is Heaven. My road is narrow, my way is rough, my companions are few. My guide is reliable, my Mission is clear. I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, divided, or delayed. I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of the adversary, negotiate at the table of the enemy, ponder at the pool of popularity, or meander in the maze of mediocrity. I will not give up, shut up, or let up until I have stayed up, stored up, and paid up for the cause of Christ. I must go until he comes, give until I drop, preach all I know, and work until He stops me. And when He returns for his own, He will recognize me. My Banner is clear. - Unknown

Isn't that beautiful!? Nothing else matters - except furthering the cause of Christ and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

My Wife the Organist

I'm so proud that my wife and her new calling which brings music into the church every Sunday. I don't know if she's made this clear, but she's secretly wanted this calling ever since we moved into our Ward last Summer. She already had a great talent in playing the piano and wanted a chance to develop her skill playing the organ. I like her having this calling because they let me sit next to her so I don't have to sit alone in the congregation (at least until we have little munchkins of our own running around). Why would I want to sit on the stand? Well, for one thing we always have a place to sit, the chairs are more comfy, and I sit right behind the organ so no one can see me in case I ever nod off during sacrament meeting.

The calling is also a little hard on Melyn because it means she has to be to church extra early every Sunday. Every other week she works the Saturday night shift, so often she won't come home until after midnight. This gives her less than 7 hours to sleep (like today, for example). On top of that, she has only a couple hours after church until she has to go back to work again for her Sunday shift. But miracles sometimes happen like today when the power suddenly went off near the end of sacrament meeting. It never came back on, so the Bishop excused everyone to go home early. This meant Melyn would have time to take a nap before work. Melyn felt guilty about being happy about church ending early, but I told her that Heavenly Father had blessed her since she was so faithful in fulfilling her calling. Normally she would have to stay to the very end regardless because she also plays the piano for Relief Society. I didn't mind having time to take a nap either.

Preceptorship

As part of my medical school education I get to work along real live doctors during my first year. They call this a "preceptorship". I was assigned to work with a pediatrician in a clinic a couple miles from downtown. What this preceptorship entails is that once every other week during the Spring I go to the clinic for the afternoon and see patients and write up what they are there to see the doctor for. I ask the basic questions like "where does it hurt?" and "how long have you noticed it?". I also do basic physical examination stuff like listening to the lungs and heart, taking blood pressure, and checking eyes, ears and mouth.

What's a little unique about my preceptorship is that it's in a clinic where 90% of the patients are hispanic. This means that a lot of the parents bringing their children in to see the doctor speak only a little English and not very well. This is great because I speak only a little Spanish and not very well. Time to start brushing up on the espanol! Because I served my mission in Brazil, I have a lot of experience speaking Portuguese, which is closely related to Spanish. I also took 3 years of Spanish during high school, though most of it went in one ear and out the other. So now I have a real opportunity to build up my conversational Spanish skills. As extra practice, I signed up for a medical spanish elective at school that meets once for week for about 6 weeks. I need to get my Spanish going real fast though, because until I'm fairly fluent I won't be much use to the doctor.

In fact in my first two visits I mostly followed the doctor around. I can understand a good 90% of what people say, but speaking back is harder. I do see whatever English-speaking patients he has on my own (one so far) and that was a cool experience to do actual doctorly things with real people. So far it's been a lot of check-ups, runny noses, coughing and vomiting (not in the clinic on that last one, thankfully).

The doctor I'm working with is very experienced, in fact, he's set to retire this Summer. He did a summer internship at Primary Children's way back when he was in med school, so he already knew quite a bit about Utah even though he went to school in Arizona.

Hopefully in the coming weeks I'll be able to talk about more about this experience as it develops.

Chorale Performance

Full story is detailed in Melyn's post below. Melyn is in the lower right corner of the choir (though you can't really see her because of the video quality). Note: It starts out very quiet then gets very loud.

I thought this was a fantastic performance. The choir represented itself very well amongst all the other churches. I think more people stood up to applaud for their performance than any other.

What an awesome weekend.

It seriously was so great. I made a vow to not talk about work or anything that would make me unhappy the whole weekend and it made things so much better! On saturday we went up the the DC temple together. It's the first time we've been able to go to the temple together since we've moved, and it was a wonderful experience. The DC temple is so beautiful. We listened to the radio on "scan" almost the whole 2 hours up there because we couldn't find a good station to play more than one good song in a row. We finally found one about 20 minutes before we arrived :) I had been to the DC temple once with my friend Lyanna and there were about 5 other cars in the parking lot. I thought for sure it would be the same on Saturday...not so! The ENTIRE parking lot was full (about 200 cars), plus the church parking lot right next to the temple was full. It was absolutely insane - a madhouse! I couldn't believe how many people were there. It was a wonderful session though and much needed.

After the temple we decided to go to Cheesecake Factory in Arlington, Virginia. The drive through downtown DC and the suburb of Arlington was so crazy! The lanes were so narrow and people were driving like mad. We finally made it though and walked through the 15 degree weather to Cheesecake.

Sunday was awesome too. I got another calling (I know, I know!) as ward organist. I'm really excited for this calling because it will help me accomplish my goal to learn new organ pieces every 2 months. It went very well during sacrament meeting.

After church, I got ready for a Richmond Mormon Chorale performance downtown. We were singing as part of an interfaith concert celebrating the efforts of Martin Luther King, Jr., and commemorating the lives of those who fell on September 11. It was held at a Jewish synagogue, Beth Ahaba and was sponsored by Living the Dream. The concert was called "Sing out for Freedom, Pray for Peace". Eleven choirs sang: Episcopalians, Gospel choirs, Jews, Christians, Presbyterians, Mormons, and Unitarians. It was great! We had an amazing time, and I may be a little biased, but our chorale was the best there :)

Death

I really don't know what to title this post. It's been a rough couple of days in my career. For those of you that don't like reading medical/sad things, don't read this.

One of my favorite patients at work has been hanging onto life these past few days. She had been on hospice for about a month. Cancer - cancer is what did this to her. It ate away at her body and whittled her already emaciated body down to that of a skeleton. She was in excruciating pain. Even the morphine that we as nurses administered to her didn't help at times.

When she was first admitted to my wing, she was FULL OF LIFE. Absolutely. She was up and walking around, talkative, so funny, and annoying at times. She always wanted to get up to go to the bathroom. She would always pat my arm after giving her the medication and say, "You are always so caring for me!" She didn't know who I was every day I worked with her, but she would always thank me, up until she stopped talking last week.

I just couldn't believe at how awful she looked at the end. Her feet and hands were bluish/purple. Mouth dry. Eyes closed. Skin so fragile, it would almost break if you touched it. She could barely even get a moan out. I went in to give her some morphine and other medications at 5:00. She took the morphine, but couldn't swallow the other medications, even though I had crushed them and put them in applesauce. She couldn't even swallow water. I left the room and not even five minutes later, the roommates visitor came and got me.

"I think she just passed away. She hasn't been breathing for a minute."

"Oh my gosh. Crap."

I rushed into the room. Tried to feel for a carotid pulse. Nothing. Got my stethoscope and tried to hear for a heartbeat or breath sounds. Nothing. She was gone. Slipped away. I kept thinking that the last thing I did for her was get rid of her pain. I got the other nurse I was working with to listen for any heartbeat and she said she was gone also. Since I'm an RN, I can declare death. I had no idea I held that power - to declare that someone's life had just ended. It ended at 5:17 PM. Call the family. Call the hospice. Call the doctor. Call the mortician. Perform post-mortem care. Those CNA's that did that did a wonderful job. She looked like she was sleeping after they took care of her.

Her poor daughter. Oh man - she had just asked me the other day how her death would be. I hoped for her sake that it would be quiet. It was. I thought it was fitting that she passed away on a Sunday - the day of rest. The day when her body and soul are finally put at rest and she goes to be with her Lord.

It made me think about how I want to die in the future. I don't want anything bad to happen. No heart attacks, no violent death, no pain. I just want to slip peacefully away like this sweet lady. It really makes you think about your own life. How are you living? What are you doing with your time on this earth? Are you really doing the things that are important? Are you taking the time to demonstrate your love and caring for the people around you? Life is short. Live it to the fullest.