Life as a 3rd year medical student

Tammy is typically the one who enters posts and I am so glad that she has been able to do so. This blog has become a journal of our family.
I want to create a post so that I can remember this time in my life. I am currently in my third year of medical school and it is definitely much better than my first two years. Nevertheless, I sometimes feel like I cant go another day. It is difficult to stay focused day in and day out, working hard, studying for tests and realize that it will be years before we can settle in a town or live a "regular life". Tammy has been an anchor to me, I know that she inspires me to be better. She does not have to take a test each month but she deals with all the duties at home each day, raises our children and supports me in my career. I cant be thankful enough for all the she does for me.
I have enjoyed my clinical rotations so far, although sometimes I get tired of being the student. It feels sometimes like an act on a play. It feels like each person has their role and though the scripts are not written, there is an unspoken rule about being a medical student. It does not matter whether I like the physician I am with or not; I must show interest, respect and desire to be there. It reminds me of the psychological study back in the 60's in which a group of people were told to act like prison guards and another group to act like prisoners. After only a short week both groups of people became the role they were acting. They talked and behaved as prison guards or prisoners. In similar fashion I feel like I have been told that I am a medical student and I catch myself talking and behaving "like a medical student should". I hunger for independence and for the freedom to be act like I want.
My last rotation (October) was general surgery. I enjoyed observing and assisting in procedures. I enjoyed the feeling of the operating room and so far I think I want to do some kind of surgery for my future career. It was funny to observe the different roles "played" in the OR. Some were the OR techs, some were the nurses, etc. Each person had their role and it was fascinating how serious each of them took their roles. Now, I am not saying that it is not good to be serious when doing surgery but I am referring to the attitudes and language used. Many of the people were offended if I helped them or asked to do some of their jobs. It was amazing to realized how personal some of the people took their roles. I cannot imagine seeing them behave the same way in their personal lives. Nonetheless, while I was in the OR I felt like I was in a Shakespearean play. I had to follow the script or I was booted off stage. There was another student from a different school in Tennessee; apparently she did not follow the scrip and I often heard "how terrible" she was.
I think one of the most difficult challenges of life right now is not having an income and realizing each day the I am accumulating more and more debt. My parents need help as well as my brother but I can't do much for them. I don't have the money or time to travel to see them. It saddens me that my parents have not met Levi or Malachi. At the same time I have responsibilities at home. I am a father and a husband. Some days it does not matter how tired or frustrated I was at the hospital when I get home I must be ready to be a father and a husband. I am glad to be those things but it is hard sometimes to keep up with all.
I have a few more rotations here in Utah and then I am kind of on my own. I have to set up my own rotations at the end of this year and during my forth year. I am not really looking forward to that as I will have to make calls, ask places, etc to set up my rotations. Not to mention that there may be times when I will have to travel outside UT leaving my family here alone. There is a lot to learn and although my daily routine is not excessively physical is mentally and emotionally exhausting. I am considering the field of OBYGN as I think is a field that has clinic and operating room. It seems like a good mix and I think I will enjoy it. I still have my mind open for pediatrics or other field but for now I am shooting for OBGYN. We'll see by next summer.
This week, Tammy and the kids left to Cedar city so that I could have time to study for my surgery shelf exam. They left monday and I will meet them on Thanksgiving. I have been alone for about 6 days and although I got to sleep in on Saturday (normally the kids are up by 7 am) I miss them like crazy. I realized that I need them in my life and I know I would not be the person I am without them. I start my second family medicine rotation on Monday at the Ogden Clinic. It seems promising so I hope to enjoy it and learn a lot.
I am excited about the future. However, I can't stop thinking on some of the challenges that may lay on our paths. I worry about my parents, they are getting older and some day they wont be able to work. I only hope that I will have the resources and ability to help them when the time comes.
For now, I am having a good time and regardless of the challenges we are blessed beyond measure. I have two healthy beautiful children and a wonderful wife. My life is full of love and I am thankful to my Heavenly Father for all that I have been given.

The last of summer

Having two kids definitely keeps me busy. I can't believe summer is gone.

We've settled into a new routine around here. It seems all our time is taken by meals, naps and walks. Malachi naps 3 times a day and Levi still takes one long nap in the middle of the day. We try to get out of the house in the morning and evening and that is usually going for walks. We have a park really close to our house and that is usually where we end up. 

We have a neighbor who has a boy Levi's age and we get together with them frequently and I'm even going to start babysitting him a few hours a week while his mom goes to school. We also get together with some friends I had before we moved who have kids around Levi's age. Levi does not like to play with other kids. He goes off by himself and will even shut himself in his room so he can be alone. We're working on his social skills. I've noticed other kids are more aggressive and they frequently take toys right out his hands (exactly what he does to Malachi). He doesn't ever fight to get his toy back, he just gets sad like is feelings got hurt :(

Levi has a decent appetite. He's pretty picky and will not any vegetables. He is getting better at eating meat.

Malachi rolls around both ways and scoots short distances. He sat up at 5 months. He is such a happy babe. He only fusses when he's tired or hungry. I stopped feeding  him at night around five months when I started him on solids. He is entertained by watching Levi most of the time.

My days are spent entirely taking care of the kids and the house chores. I was able to get their halloween costumes made while I visited family. Every day is much the same, but I love seeing my kiddos grow and wouldn't change it for anything. I do work about every weekend, usually just one day a week. I do enjoy that and really miss the kids while I'm gone. Adrian watches the kids while I work and he is doing a great job. He's learned that the better days are the busy ones when he can get out and about.

Adrian is doing so well in rotations. Every doctor he's with tells him he is the best student they've ever had and that he totally exceeded their expectations. Adrian goes in and is aggressive to learn. He is learning so much and is starting to get a feel of areas he may want to work and some he definitely would not work.

Here's the end of our summer in pictures:

This is how Levi eats raisin bran, dumps the whole bag out and picks out and eats the raisins and throws away the bran flakes. 

He's wanting to be more and more independent.  He likes to butter and jelly his own bread.

Like father, like son. Levi walked into the room and laid down and copied Adrian.

Malachi's first time eating solids. He loves food. He'll eat anything.

Levi was seriously in the backyard pool at least once a day. Any time I would open the back door he would strip naked and hop in. Even if he escaped through the garage he would run into the backyard and get in the pool. Malachi loved the pool just as much. 

This kid loves to help me cook.

They are best buds. You can definitely tell they love each other. Levi loves to wrestle Malachi by laying on him and rolling around while holding him. It makes Malachi laugh and smile. We are still working on teaching Levi to share his toys. Levi just does not want Malachi to play with his toys, he will take a toy out of Malachi's hands and throw it down the stairs just so Malachi cannot play with it. 

Levi loves to drive the car. He likes to sit in the drivers seat and pretend he's driving. He likes even more to sit on Adrian's lap and help drive. Adrian lets him sit on his lap and drive the couple blocks home from church every week. 

Malachi is so aware and into everything. He grabs at everything as I walk by and never holds still.  He's already had his first haircut to help tame down the bird hair!

He sat up at five months. 

He's such a smiley kid, but I can never catch it on camera!

My husband, the drug dealer

So Adrian bought a new car. And when I say new I mean it is 18 years old, but new to us. It is a Mitsubishi Eclipse which is his favorite affordable car. This is the 4th eclipse he has owned.

Four days after he bought this eclipse he got pulled over because his temporary license plate "looked suspicious". Now, he did not get pulled over by any regular cop, it just so happened to be the K-9 officer with the drug dog who pulled him over. Right away, Adrian was asked to step out of the car because his car smelled really strongly of marijuana. Adrian tried to explain that he just bought the car and had the bill of sale to show the cop right there. The cop did not care what Adrian had to say, he made Adrian sit on side of the road in the 100 degree heat with his hands on his knees. Adrian was not allowed to move while about 7 more cops showed up and began searching his car. He was told if he tried to run for it, they would send the dogs on him or tase him. The cops all said the car smelled really strong of marijuana. At one point the main cop told Adrian that Adrian smelled strongly of marijuana too and that if needed they would send Adrian to a medical clinic to check all his bodily crevices to find the drugs. Adrian said he was a bit scared at first because the cops were being so harsh and mean to him, but after a while and them finding nothing, Adrian was making jokes to them. They searched Adrian's car for 4 whole hours. They took it to a shop and had parts of the car taken apart looking for the drugs.  The whole time Adrian had to sit on the side of the road, this was the end of June so it was so hot. After 4 hours of nothing turning up, they finally let Adrian go, giving him only carwash coupons for their inconvenience to him. We did notice when we bought the car it has a distinct smell, but to us it smells like an old oily dingy car, we're so naive that we did not recognize the smell of marijuana. In the end we now get a laugh of it, but Adrian keeps saying that it was his brown skin, brown eyes and black hair that made them so suspicious of him having drugs. This probably would not have happened to an old white lady driving the same car. 

First family camp-out

Our ward is having a camp-out this weekend and we initially wanted to join in the fun. But, I picked up a shift to work on Saturday so we wouldn't be able to go. I still wanted to go camping so we took the kids and stayed Friday and Saturday at North Fork by Eden, Ut. It was a very pretty place to stay, but it cost us way more than we anticipated to stay one night so we will probably never go back.

It was a perfect temperature when we got there and it felt so nice to get out of the city.

Malachi loved to play in the dirt. I could not keep him on a blanket, he would pull the blanket so he could get his little hands in the dirt. 

Levi was so excited to go camping. We had a little creek right next to our camp site and it was perfect for him to play in.

It was fun to camp, but it was a lot of work with two little kiddos.

Levi copies everything Adrian does. After Adrian was done pounding in the tent stakes, Levi picked up the same rock Adrian used and pounded them all in a little more. Notice the gray rain fly on the ground. Once we got the tent up we thought there was no rain fly. We probably said 10 times or so how much warmer we would have been in the night if we had the rain fly. We discovered it under our tent as we took the tent down the next morning!!! We got a good laugh!!

Levi had so much fun that evening we were there. He stayed up late with us and we even saw two shooting stars. He kept holding out his hands wanting to catch a falling star.

We got to bed quite late that night and Adrian and I hardly slept because we were up all night trying to keep blankets on the kiddos.

Malachi's night routine was not bothered at all. He slept the best out of all of us. He was so good the whole time we were camping. He's entertained by watching everyone else.

We weren't able to have a fire because we could find absolutely no fire wood around. I guess that's how a public camping site is, everything's been so picked over.

Good morning to these two handsome boys :)

Levi was so grumpy when he woke up. Malachi woke up at his normal time of 0630 and we all got up with him. Levi did not get enough sleep and in the morning he kept saying he wanted to drive back home. Here's one picture of him happy after we ate breakfast.

 We did a small hike to a waterfall. Had we known how steep and strenuous it was we probably would not have done it with kids. But, Levi was great at walking on the easy parts!!

Notice how dirty his face is, it amazed me how I could not keep this boy clean. At one point he was literally laying in the dirt rolling around.

Levi also got soaked in the creek and ended up walking around with no pants or shoes. 

We had some good old fashioned family fun. Adrian said he's had his fill of camping for a while though. It's just not as relaxing as it used to be before kids. We sure love our kids though and can't wait for more adventures with them!!

It's summertime

Spring in Kirksville was a wet one. It seemed like we got rain about 4 days a week starting in April until we left in mid June. It actually made for perfect temperatures to play outside in. And with the rain came puddles. We got Levi some water shoes just because he was always getting in the puddles in his sandals and they took forever to dry.

Check out the happiness a rain puddle brings this boy. This puddle was always here, it was the deepest one and just when it was about to dry up the rain would fill it up again. It even had a swamp stink smell to it.

Besides splashing in it, Levi liked to throw rocks in it, ride his bike in it and push the stroller in and out of it.

We were never able to make it to the pool in Kirksville because I did not think I could handle both kids there by myself. So, the next best thing was getting the sprinkler out. Levi never seemed to play in the water, but he played with it. He would hold the sprinkler and get things wet.

Here he is checking out a worm. Levi said the worm came up for a drink.

After we moved to Utah we went down to Cedar to visit my family. We had not been to Cedar or seen most of my family in a year. We had a really really fun time. Levi keeps asking me to go to grandma's house. I agree with him, it's more fun there than it is here.

We went to the Canyon Park and played in water. Levi loved the water. He mostly picked rocks out of the water and threw them back in. We also floated my shoes down the stream.

We spent a day with our niece Abby and her sister Ellie. We took them all to the aquatic center. Levi had the most fun jumping off the side into the pool and going completely under and having us pull him out. They also had a kid area there he enjoyed playing on. Malachi missed out on the pool action, but he got some quality time with aunt Cari.

While in Cedar we went to the Independence Day Parade, for a minute that is. After about 15 minutes Levi told me he was all done and wanted to go home, so we did. I could tell he was not into any of it anyway. After the parade we went up the mountain to our family's ranch. Levi loved riding the 4 wheelers and spending time at the lake. He saw so many animals and got to go fishing with grandpa. He had been asking to go fishing with grandpa for about 3 months. He then spent the rest of the day in aunt Stacia's trailer enjoying opening and shutting the door. 

Adrian and I had so much up the mountain. Mountains are the one thing we missed in Missouri. We enjoyed a yummy dutch over dinner complete with cobbler and homemade ice cream. 

Levi loved the fireworks in the sky. He loved how they popped. He was not into sparklers much but he got really excited every time we got pop its out.

While in Cedar we blessed Malachi in my parent's ward. Adrian did a wonderful job with the blessing. My whole family came for the blessing and it was the first time in a year we were all together. 

We got Levi's swimming pool out and he and Adrian took a dip. The weather was 100 degrees and the water felt refreshing. I have never seen Adrian cheese it like in this picture, but he looks just like Levi when Levi is having a good time.

Here they are blowing bubbles.

This is how Malachi spent his time next to the pool.

Kid update

Having two kiddos makes time go by twice as fast it seems. I can't believe Malachi will be 4 months in a couple days. 

Here's an update on Malachi:

He started rolling over on June 30th. He rolls from belly to back. He rolls any time he's put on his belly. I used to be able to put him on his belly and he would fall asleep on his own. Now, I lay him down and he immediately rolls. I've been having to train him to fall asleep on his back. Needless to say he's been sleeping a lot less during the day because he rolls all the time. But I have learned that he likes a blanket by his face to snuggle into. He stills sleeps well at night, getting up only once to eat.

He coos a lot and giggles and laughs. He easily smiles any time he gets attention.

He is able to grab things with his hands. I even caught him switching a toy from one to another. 

He likes stroller rides, as long as we are moving.

He nurses really well and I only give him a bottle when we are out and about. And even with a bottle he gags on formula so he hardly eats it.

He is content most of the time. He only fusses when he's hungry or tired. Or when I've eaten ice cream cause it gives him a belly ache.

He is entertained by watching Levi run about, which is a lifesaver to me cause I couldn't entertain them separately. 

Here's a pic of the little guy today :)

Here's how Levi's been:

He is talking so much. It amazes me how everyday he says more complete words and sentences. 

He has started to sing. It's the cutest thing. He mainly sings Twinkle Twinkle little star. He even will sing to Malachi when Malachi is sad to try to cheer him up.

He has started to scream loud really randomly. I hate to say this, but it is quite annoying. He will even purposely scream at Malachi when Malachi is sleeping so it wakes him up. 

He loves riding his bike. He hardly gets off his bike when he is outside. We have even let him ride his bike around in the mall when we go the mall. 

He graduated to a big boy bed (twin bed) when we moved. The first couple nights I found him on the floor, but that only lasted a few nights. He stays on it really well and he lays right down for naps and bedtime. He doesn't even try to play with the toys in his room, he just lays right down and goes to sleep. I do keep the door shut during the night though, I caught him once in the middle of the night heading to the kitchen saying he wanted some juice. Now he actually prefers the door shut, he will get up and shut it if it is not. We do not have the box springs under the mattress yet. We tried it one night and he fell hard right on his face :(

He is starting to eat a more varied diet. We cut his milk intake back from 3 cups a day to 2 because we found out he was anemic (milk inhibits iron absorption). We've been supplementing him with iron pills and have been trying to get him to eat more meat.

He still loves to read books.

He is still quite shy in social situations. If there is more than 2-3 kids he will more likely watch them play than participate himself. He still likes Adrian or I to hold his hand and play with him when there is crowd around.

He is so fun to be around. All he ever wants to do is play and he loves to play with Malachi. He is such a good big brother. He loves to hold Malachi's hand.