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23rd July 2010

wet

So I have basement problems. Water coming into my basement problems.

I’ve known about this since 2008, when I first had water coming in through the windows, and then the floor drain stopped draining and it all backed up. I spent two days, pulling up glued carpet squares and cleaning and mopping floors (and putting my couch and washer/dryer up on cinder blocks). That summer, my church came over and dug a drain to help with some of the drainage and I bought new window well covers and caulked the windows and that seemed to take care of it for a while. Until the next big storm a year later, when it flooded again. My little portable sump pump tried its best to keep up with it and it wasn’t quite as bad. I had real hopes when in April, I got notification that I couldn’t use my plumping for two days because they were revising and rewiring the sewer system: I hoped that that would mean the end of backup problems.

But I started noticing more “leakage”, especially in the bathroom, and with less intense rainstorms. I was somewhat worried that my foundation floor had cracks and I wasn’t sure where the water was coming from. So, my dad and I pulled up the tile; the foundation floor looks fine, it’s leaking from the foundation “joints” where the walls and the floor meet. A big problem, one that to completely fix will require complete excavation of the foundation and the drain tiles. But I brainstormed with knowledgeable friends and came up with a few more reasonable suggestions to help alleviate some of the symptoms. And after I fixed some of the downspouts, things seemed better for a rain storm or two.

It rained hard a couple of weeks ago; and I had quite a bit of water collection. I moved up my plans to convince friends that they wanted to spend their afternoons shoving clay-based dirt to form a better gradient around the perimeter.

And then it rained again last night.

Some of you might have seen some of the pictures, especially this one:

I came home, after a 40 minute commute home, avoiding the flooded roads to find this:



I think it was about 8 inches deep at the location of the drain. I can’t know for certain, because I couldn’t check: the water was deep enough to submerge some electrical equipment that made stepping into the puddle somewhat dangerous. (I think my video cassette rewinder has seen its last day). It took about an hour for it to drain, leaving me with a mud/probable sewage covered floor.

Luckily, my church is still fantastic and I was able to call my home teacher who came over with a friend and we mopped and mopped and got it cleaned. It continued to rain off and on last night and I still had my leakage problems, but those feel almost manageable at this point.

I researched how to fix the problems all day today (thankfully a quiet day, as I didn’t want to deal with anything). It’s probably telling that all of the articles that discussed sanitary water backup in basements mentioned Milwaukee and its terrible sewer drain system. It’s unfortunately, however, a problem that I might not be able to fix; most solutions were to bother the officials until they redid the sewer system. Grrr. I could improve things and make flooding much less likely if I install a sump pump, which may not be too horribly expensive. I’m still exploring options and talking to people. I’ve got some numbers for a basement consultant and I’m going to talk to my real estate agent about people she might recommend; and how much of it I should try to get fixed before I try to sell it.

I’m lucky, there were 7 houses up north were the basements washed completely out and collapsed. And I was supposed to be on call last night, but switched at the last minute. Hooray for small graces.

I have pretty much made up my mind, that even after I finish training and am finally settled, that it’s going to be a long time before I buy a house again.

Oh, and it’s supposed to rain again tonight.

(more pics of the flood and Milwaukee can be found here)

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11th July 2010

tales of me

Random thoughts for random people
1. Longest week ever. Seriously. I had heard tales and legends about the attending that I worked with, but since the first day had gone well and I had managed to keep her on task and we were done by 4:30, I thought that it was all exaggeration.

Oh silly mortal!

Hours of rounding. HOURS of telling and retelling families of what’s going on. None of my opinions mattered. She kept changing her mind as to what was going on. One minute she was harassing the primary teams about consulting us without a properly formulated question; the next, she was condescendingly putting me in my place for “refusing” a consult. I’ve never been so openly snarky before, because I was so tired and frustrated of the endless circles. And did I mention tired?

It also confirmed why specialists SHOULD NOT EVER try to do anything besides their specialty. Hello contributors to the rising cost of health care! Of course, I’m the one who getting the lectures from radiology as why a particular test wasn’t warranted; I knew that perfectly well, thank you, I just couldn’t convince my attending to listen to me. Ugh.

I get a new attending tomorrow, one who I’ve worked with before and adore.

2. I hate non-accidental trauma. Number 1 reason why I decided not to do peds. Heartbreaking.

3. I miss my friends who recently graduated. Some of them are still around for fellowships, but it’s not the same. One who moved accidentally called me on Thursday and I was so excited thinking she was in town. But she wasn’t. So instead I entertained myself looking at pictures from Neurobowl:
Read the rest of this entry »

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1st July 2010

one year

one year

One year from today, I will officially be finished with residency. Four years ago, I was an intern, freshly minted from medical school, nervous about prescribing tylenol to my patients without double checking their med list and past medical history and making sure that they were awake enough to take it without aspirating and are you sure they don’t have to be NPO in the morning???

Time flies, it’s true, but it also feels like I’ve been a resident forever. It’s been hard. There have been times, particularly my entire second year, where I wanted to quit. There were times when I was fighting depression and anxiety and hated my life, but I was too tired to do anything more than just sit on my couch. Times when I wanted to stage a mutiny. Times when the thought of dealing with particular patients would make me cry in frustration.

There have been patients who have died on my watch. Most died because of inevitability of mortality and their disease processes. There are a few who sit on my conscious, a worry that I might have through action or inaction contributed to their demise. I’ve fretted, I’ve worried. I’ve cried during rounds. I’ve told patients and family members about inescapable death and not cried. I’ve held hands with patients. I’ve stood in doors, impatient with the endless questioning, ready to move on to the next patient.

Over the last four years, I have had approximately 300 call nights, where I spent 24-30+ hours in the hospital. The majority of those, I had less than 4 hours of sleep. I can do 24 hours without a problem. It’s the remaining 6+ that kill me still. On call nights, I hate the pagers and I loath the ER. I think I always will.

I’ve written hundreds of histories, listened to a thousand stories of illness. I’ve auscultated over a thousand hearts and still could not tell you what a S3 gallop sounds like. I still hate gaping wounds and eye infections. I’m still terrible with names of muscles and their innervation, and well as anything related to heme-onc and rheumatology. I’m bad at daily studying (I still haven’t lost my natural tendency of procrastination), but love to find little bits of data and explore how to put a challenging puzzle together for a particular patient.

I’ve loved being a doctor. I’ve hated being a doctor. I’ve hated being a resident, treated like a high schooler, with the responsibilities of an adult. I’ve loved having support and backup in making decisions. I’m dreading the moment, a few years from now, when all decisions end with me.

One year more. Another year, another destiny, this never-ending road to Calvary. Or something like that. 😉

(And now off to study before bed… I’m trying to do better!)

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