Updates, Pictures and a Video of Will

Greeted by my baby after coming in from the cold

Will wanted to play some cards with the rest of us

Taking a nap in his favorite carrier. Matt is post-call.

Last night we gave him a bath and he cried though the whole thing. In his doggy towel afterwards he immediately calmed down and ended up sleeping for 9 hours!! NINE!

Watching daddy play Wii in bed.

Well, we haven't updated the ol' blog in a while and for two reasons mainly. First, I'm working in the ICU and on call overnight every third night. So I've been coming home, taking a nap, I'm up for a few hours in the evening, then back to bed early before the next day. So basically a lot of working and sleeping, and not a lot of blogging. Second, my computer is in the shop so I haven't been able to use it. I'm using Kim's for this post.

My computer has been running slower and slower for a while now; I finally got fed up and dropped it off at the computer repair shop. I figured it was probably a virus or spyware or something. It turns out, there were no viruses, and instead the hard drive is failing and will need to be replaced. So we're paying for the bare minimum: diagnostics, a new hard drive, data transfer and, as a bonus: 1 Gig of memory to speed things up. So when I get it back things should be in better working condition: faster and with more hard drive space. First thing on the to do list will be backing up all those sweet picture of Will. We're saving a copy on disks in the house and sending a copy to the safety deposit box in the bank vault, just in case.

My time in the ICU over at the VA has been interesting so far. Over 5 call days I've admitted 18 patients, pronounced 4 patients, ran one code (unsuccessfully, but there wasn't much else we could have done), inserted a temporary dialysis catheter (a large-bore catheter used for dialysis access - it's big because lots of blood has to flow through it which also makes it a little harder to insert) in a femoral vein(for the first time), inserted a couple central venous catheters, drawn tons of ABG's (arterial blood gas - its an arterial IV needle stick in the radial artery rather than the usual venous sticks). I've had one day off, but every other day we round at 7:30am on all the ICU patients then write daily notes. After getting all my procedures and miscellaneous work done, I either head home (if I'm post call or on short call day) or gear up for a night of on call work.