congrats!

(official) congrats to the latest parents-to-be! he's... adorable?

I don't think anyone logs in here at all.

But in case you do, just wanted to say hi.

I was running today, and I totally face planted. It was hilarious. Right into the only puddle of mud in the path. WTF? Covered in mud for another 3 mile run home. I looked ridiculous, mud all down my back and butt. but luckily, just scraped up my palms and a lil calf. Nothing too fancy. Ahhh, running in the park on a pretty sunday. eating mud. it's an exciting time.

smooches,
debs

No posts? How about 2nd trimester baby pics!

It's a boy, due April 18th.

--
Sarah & Matt

wow, nothing? it's almost been a month!!!

wellsers, I've been day attending at Summit the past few days, no one's died or been rushed back to the picu... yet. Fatima takes over tomorrow, so she can clean up my messes. HA! There have been about 1-2 house patients a day... luckily the olympics are on to amuse me.
So just wanted to say hi to the 1-2 of you who read this. Hopefully we'll all be seeing each other soon in Tahoe. TAHOE BABY. Part 3.
smooches,
debs

woohoo! a post!

Those are pics from the roommies roadtrip. Fatima and I took in Portland (brief overnight), Vancouver, Victoria, Seattle, coastal Washington (1 night- see yurt) and coastal Oregon in 2 weeks. And managed not to kill each other. Or anyone else.

Other news: still doing bootcamp- well, I had a lot of breaks, so don't expect me to outrun (or even keep up with) DuBray. We need to get her knocked up and as pregnant as Fox or Lena and then maybe I stand a chance. I am so freaking sore right now, and about to take off for more punishment. Stairs and hill day, jesus.

I start my new job at Palo Alto Med Fndn this week- working in their Fremont branch in peds urgent care. Part-time. Still moonlight at Summit part-time. The rest of the time, you'll find me surfing the net for a husband, making pretty bowls in pottery class, re-starting omnivore's dilemma, and hosting Anu in his homelessness.

Anyways, updates people!
(oh, Mili gave birth to a healthy baby boy on the 17th: Sajen (pronounced SAH-gin). Like a boston'er would say sergeant.
toodles,
d

So, how's it going????

Well, it has been one year since all y'all graduated from residency. Now, what the heck is going on? I will tell you what all I know, then you have to reply back and give the real story. Anu is back from Africa and already writing chemo orders from memory. Kara D is also back from Africa, though not in California currently. Debs and Fatima just went on a road trip to Canada before Debs starts working again and Fatima is in central america now. Kara G and Aaron are road-tripping it (?) in Penn/east coast. David G is in Chicago curing all the baby hearts. Fox and Lena will pop in the next couple months....Hung and Sonal are making it big in the movies in LA. Heidi and hubbie are in Ecuador.


The rest of us, work as usual. Me...still swabbing vaginas and babies for living. Gotta love it!!! And I went to medical school and residency for this??

Please people, especially those with a recent "life change"--post and let us know details of how and what you are doing. I need to hear from people who actually use their brains and think about medical/clinical things.

Yeah, tahoe weekend, coming up! DVL is going to have Lena induced early so she can come with her baby. We decided this was a better option than delivering the baby at the cabin, though my OB skills are sky-rocketing. Can't wait to see everyone!!

Eat your Heart out AFriCa

Well. I know I know not many people are reading the blog or posting. I am quite guilty of this myself. The picu has been keeping me pretty busy. But, I did have time to vacation at the San Diego Zoo sometime ago with Fatima. And, all I have to say is, we saw the same kinda animals that Anu and Kara saw on Safari. So there. For those of you who never make it to Africa, all you need is a trip to San Diego. =)
I wish the blog was a success, but with facebook and all that, I know our sensory systems are in overload.
Well, I move back to Los Angeles soon. My last day of work is Thursday. I had coffee with David here in Chicago and he is doing well. I think he is really excited about working in the cardiac icu. poor fool.

lame ducks

hey, so i'm around. check the blog out q 2 weeks. kara and i are truly lame ducks now. david left for chicago friday. . . :( all feels a bit strange. new interns arrived for orientation. yet, I'm still taking care of lots of patients. last day of rounds with the team today. definitely bittersweet. i'll miss david and kara terribly. i'll miss the residents and the CHO spirit a lot. will miss the hospitalist gig quite a bit. will NOT miss scheduling or jeopardizing at all. diego and i are moving down to palo alto in a little over a week. after that, ecuador for most of july and then reality hits :). I miss you guys!

who's around?

can we do a show of hands (ie comments) to see who actually logs in and reads this blog? And how often? Just curious to know how quickly any info on here actually gets read. I'll start. I just logged in today, and read the post Anu wrote last week. I probably check in here once or twice a month these days. Sort of, I'm bored, what website should I go to... yahoo email, nytimes, gmail email, straightdope, cho email, onion, yelp, ... oh, choblog!
in other news" had a visit by fox and her bump the other day. (right after mili and hers - they compared, mili wins, she's due in july) she's adorable with her babe in tow. we forced her to paint her toenails and then made fun of how it was hard for her to reach. well, i made fun, fatima just felt bad. but then who did the 2nd layer of paint?! yes, that's right, the hair and nail fellowship is paying off.

Almost back...

Wow, hard to imagine, only 3 1/2 weeks left here in Lesotho and then back to the states! The last six months have really flown by and leaving (and coming back) are seeming a bit surreal right now.

This is the longest I have been away from the states. Looking forward to the following things:
1) Seeing everyone of course (+ our doggies)
2) A haircut (I am sure many of you will be happy about this desire)
3) People that are happy to help you

Things I'm not looking forward to:
1) $4 gas
2) Finding a car and place to live!
3) Getting calls at night :(

Here are the links to some pics from all of our visitors in March and April as well as our recent trip to Victoria Falls:
http://picasaweb.google.com/anu.k.agrawal/SeanNickySarahMattMyParentsKarenZethMarchAndApril2008
http://picasaweb.google.com/anu.k.agrawal/VictoriaFalls

And, everything should be set up for Tahoe Labor Day weekend! I even got the weekend off (Hung you better be working on the same...)

Take care everyone,
Anu

IMG_0657

IMG_0657
Originally uploaded by kgar

the boys

WHo else is pregnant?

Anu has alluded to more than one person being pregnant. Would someone please tell me what the hell is going on????
Life at CHO is nice. Weather is good. David is ready to head off to his Cards fellowship in Chicago and Heidi is a little worried about Pediatric Pursuits (we got this one in the bag, Heids!). Did a little karaoke with Fatima at Naps Only III in Friday and it was lovely, just lovely. It's 420, so that's news. I love the cheese in the Doctor's Lounge at CHO. It's great even when it's a little hard and sweaty. Hung's in Japan. Aaron is surfing. Oliver is learning how to not sit on the new sofa. I'm looking for a prom dress. I'm taking care of a very interesting patient who may be vomiting because of a hex. I wish I read the Koran.
Peace.

Yet another trip to South Africa

Sarah and I had a great time traveling with Sean and Nicky. We hooked up with Anu and his Lesotho posse and had a good time in the winelands. Unfortunately we missed Kara who was off galavanting about Greece. I don't have the pics from Sarah's camera here in India, but she'll upload them soon, with more people shots.

Table Mountain, South Africa


Cape Town, South Africa


Cape of Good Hope and Penguins


Stellenbosch


Blyde River Canyon


Gomo Gomo

summit doodlings...

I just wrote this. Sigh, blogger's on the fritz. I'll write it again, cuz it's not like we're exactly busy at Summit(yet). So, for all of you who may still have long calls with nothing much to do: go to this link:

www.addictinggames.com/theimpossiblequiz.html

for a little brain teasing. Prepare to fail a lot. But then feel really clever at times. I'm currently stuck on the "don't you wish you had a bridge" one. And I do. I really do. Luckily, I have a skip. I also skipped the painting one. I should figure that out though.

smooches,
debs.

I am so happy

so many new blogs!!! I am so happy. Anyways, I am moving back to LA for two main reasons 1. my family 2. my sanity. No just kidding, chicago really is a great town and I will miss the PICU here, in the past month I have really bonded with the staff here (i.e. really bad things have happened and we all had a nice cry together). But, I am dreaming of life near the beach and hopefully that will become reality. In the meantime, you all should start planning your trips to visit me and movie star Hung. Really, it is so nice to hear from everyone, especially the peeps in Lesotho.

South Africa pics.

Happy Leap Day. Or unleaped day.
So many posts, so little time...
As anu wrote, South Africa trip with Meg and Kara was amazing. Had no idea that South Africa was so beautiful- well, not Johannesburg for sure, but Cape Town and areas around it, Kruger National Park. Someone told me (on my return) that Cape Town is a sister city to San Francisco, and I can see why.
So some pics below. Anu/Kara's pics are more comprehensive. I think I'll try to figure out how to combine them together. There should be a way on picasa. Then you can see 300 photos at once. Woohoo!
only 3.5 months of this hair fellowship left. I had a dream I quit. Man, that was a good night.
debs

Back in Lesotho

Hey everyone!

It was nice for me to see all the new posts as well! Sounds like everybody is doing well post-boards. We had a great time with Meg and Deborah and it made me miss all of you and of course CHO and the bay area. Thanks for the gifts from Hung's bon voyage party for Deborah (really a party for us right?). Really looking forward to coming back in June. A little scared about starting fellowship, we don't have ceftaz and tobra and definitely haven't really thought about sickle cell at all or oncology except for Kaposi's sarcoma and Burkitt's lymphoma, pretty low on the differential back in the States...daily blood cultures and CT scans haven't even been on the horizon! And I am still just a BE pediatrician unlike all of you BC ones!

So I finally uploaded all my pictures from the year so far. You can access them if you want at http://picasaweb.google.com/anu.k.agrawal. Some nice pics of the clinic here taken by a photographer from the Houston chronicle. He also got some nice shots of Kara working in the hospital. Including one of a roach on one of the beds (there are a lot there). She left some roach traps during her two weeks there, hopefully it helped! We are working on trying to just burn down the hospital. I have decided there are plenty of resistant strains of bacteria there (definitely MDR-TB) and it would be better for the world if we got rid of the hospital.

I was trying to think of some funny stories to post on the blog. The only thing I can think of is watching Kara do her rickets dance. We had this kid who clearly had rickets that one of the other docs kept delaying treatment, well, partly because we don't have any treatment here and she wanted to make sure the wrist X-ray really looked like rickets...he has flaring of the wrist and is super bowlegged so, who cares right? Anyway, Kara saw him and he is the happiest little bowlegged kid so she started the rickets dance in his honor. And then there was breaking into our own house with a spoon (the only other suggestion was throwing a brick through the window!).

It has been an interesting year. We are still calling it Real World Lesotho. Four more months to go for me...

The most important reason for the post is that I want to try and arrange the next summer weekend in Tahoe...keep it in mind!

Take care.
Anu

36 hours to Miami

Hey guys! I must admit I've not been here in ages. I just had a tough time remembering the link. Glad to see everyone's doing well. As for me, I'm trying to survive the 2nd half of ID first year without Mikhaela. She's now officially abandoned me for the Alta-Bates "Dirty Utility room." I don't even know where to start with this whirlwind. I keep thinking, " it (ID fellowship) will slow down but each month, it's busier."

Just got back from Miami. Decided to take a few days off and not sure it was a great idea. SFO United Airways (don't take it!) got delayed so I would miss my connection flight and had to standby the next morning. I got there at 5am! and couldn't get on the next few flights. So I plan to hop on the afternoon flight. So I grab an early lunch, actually brunch and head to the gate. I somehow doze off and wake up, noticing no one's at the terminal. Umm... I realize the agent told me the wrong terminal. I literally run to the terminal and I'm told I've missed the flight. The plane is right there! It hadn't left! So I hop on the next flight to Chicago and land in Miami 2 days after I should have been there. Then it rained 2 of the 3 days I was at South Beach!!! Had a nice rental car (Volvo S40) and tried returning it. The rental place was in the middle of nowhere about a mile from the airport and took me about 1.5 hours to find the place! I finally got back to the Bay at SFO, waited an hour for my luggage and got stuck another 1.5 hours on the Bay Bridge entrance due to the new construction. Finally got home at 1am!!! And by 8am, back at work in the ID office. I really need a vacation now!

N.B. I left out the parts about meeting a long-lost good friend from college and catching the next flight with Eli to Chicago. Sorry but I forgot how nice it is to blog out.

Chief or Chair

Hi guys,
Congratulations to everyone that passed the boards--you all knew you could do it, it was just the process that sucked so damned bad. So, we had a lot of snow here this winter, the snow finally melted last weekend, and today I was so excited because it was the first day it rained since October (the rest of the time was snow). I forgot how beautiful water is coming from the sky, and how nice it is to see the grass instead of the crummy snow.

Damien turned 18 mos last week. He had his official weigh in: 28 lbs 3 oz (75th%), and 33 in tall (75th%) (he's almost as tall as me, I think--definitely taller than Lily by now for sure... ;) He's talking like crazy, says about 25-30 words (none of them, luckily, are "no"). He's alot of fun.

This past month I took on an additional job: Chief (or is it Chair) of the Dept of Pediatrics and Ob at our community hospital. Yeah, basically, no one wanted to do it, so they asked me (they had to bend the rules b/c you're supposed to be here for at least 1 yr before being the chief). I had to run my first meeting, which was a hoot because I'd only been to one other meeting, plus, I'm still learning everybody's names and faces. Oh well, it will get better--I just hope I don't screw up while I'm trying to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to be doing.

Sonal, how come the change of plans to LA? Did you not like it in Chicago? Tammy, hope you got lots of skiing in this winter--I'm sure there is tons of snow and the season should last pretty long, too! Ok, I gotta go, I promised myself I would catch up on sleep tonight, plus, I have to work on some notes (I HATE our EMR, I miss MEDITECH!!)

PS: Why use Ampicillin when you can use VANCO?? (it's stronger, right?) Hey, just put everyone on Linezolid, that way you don't have to think or worry. (I have a budding career in ID)

measure A

i was surprised that it didn't pass and it wasn't even close. for those of you who aren't living/voting in alameda, measure A sought to help raise money for a 300 million dollar (?) renovation to CHO by imposing a small parcel tax. everyone in alameda received description of the measure written/signed by ann petru, james betts, and a bunch of other attendings (including the rehab attending). there were lots of commercials running locally with sad-looking children on them.

i assumed that it would pass because who can say no to sick children, but i was really surprised by the local news on tv which showed an angry CEO and a bias towards the people who voted against it. the local neighborhood really rallied against our bad private and therefore affluent hospital, saying that the new plan was for 12 floors and it was going to take away the view and block the sun. also how some people may have to move out of their houses for the development of the hospital. and that "children's hospital has been a bad neighbor".

i wonder what this means for the future of CHO. i guess as long as we don't move to livermore (no offense lauren if by some small chance you're reading this) like the rumors were saying and stay in oakland it would be fine.

nightmare

So last night, after reading all these posts, I had a dream that I decided to give up my 4 day a week clinic schedule and once a month call to join Sonal in the PICU... And no matter how hard I tried to leave, I kept seeing Arup's disapproving glare. Then I woke up and realized this is my day off, and I get to sleep in (no offense, Sonal...you rock and I admire you), and life was better again. It's fun to hear how all of you are doing. While some of you are off on exotic (and warm) trips, here in Reno, it's 8 degrees outside and there is snow piled up to my nipple line. We bought a snow blower, though, and Jason's proving that ours blows snow farther and better than the guy down the street (what's with men and their toys?).

I, too, was a little upset with abp.org, but even more so at my hotmail account that decided that any correspondence from abp.org went to my junk mail (and I don't check). I was vacationing in D.C. when I saw Deb's blog and then went to the website and realized my scores were sitting in my mailbox at home... Oh well. Still had fun.

Anyways, I just thought I'd write and say we bought some more furniture, so we now have lots of space for anyone who wants to visit and hit the slopes. We are having a record year this year. I miss seeing you all. Hope everyone is doing well! And I agree, keep blogging, cuz I like to see what everyone's up to.

Love,
Tammy

omg, posts!

wowsers. I don't log in for a few weeks, and omigod there are posts. Craziness. I too thought post-boards and results peeps would be excited, but alas. No. y;'all are of course we passed, whatever, it's sooo mundane.
Off to South Africa tomorrow crazy early morning flight. 6am, do I really need to be there at 4? 5 hours to JFK, another 17 to Jo'burg. Wish me luck. Actually, I just found out we get a little layover in Dakar. Leg stretching and whatnot. I'll run around the airport for 30 minutes.
I can't remember, did i get a window seat for easy sleeping, or an aisle for the ease of the bathroom runs?

Meeting up w/ Meg in Jo'burg, hanging out there, safari'ing and then flying to Cape Town to meet up w/ Anu and Kara. Then it's wine country, beaches, hiking and more touristy stuff that our crazy travel agent set up for us (that'd be Anu- thanks again).

Fun seeing some of you last night, catching up, wining and dining.
I'll bring back pics to upload if my camera makes it thru the trip. There's some tape holding it together right now. heh.
shoot. hiccups.

procrastinating

Hi friends,
I am suddenly highly motivated to clean, exercise, and blog :) as I avoid the next in a line of approximately 155 intern applications awaiting my perusal. I find that after a half year of Chiefing, my standards have become quite high as I try to protect next year's Chiefs and the Residents from pre-existing pathology. Or perhaps it's just that it seems pretty tough to live up to Class of 2007 standards. :) And, Kara and David and I have decided that any cheesy statements about only wanting to take care of the babies and forgetting the Mom on OB, or previous experience babysitting making someone ideal for Pediatrics should be banned and lead to point deductions. So jaded we are. But also happy I think. Really enjoyed Hung's holiday party and recent outing to the Kingfish to celebrate Board passage. Felt like old times. Definitely getting nostalgic as I think about moving on in July. Hope everyone's well. -Heidi PS Although I am a sometimes nervous attending, I promise I'd switch to Amp for you Mikhaela! :)

I agree

Hey Sonal, you're right, we all should be posting more, as we want to stay connected. I would post more, but I didn't want to bore people with my jaded and bitter tirades. :)

Everyone should just post daily happenings or funny stories or whatever.

So, this intern called me and asked what she should do if when she placed a ppd and the kid moved his arm and half the liquid did not make it into the arm.

A very nervous attending won't narrow to ampicillin when it is pan-sensistive Strep pneumo.

4 medical calling about a patient that is not my patient not on the ID service but it is rule out TB all over the chart and can the visitors come if they wear the N-95 masks?

ID note states give Drug A q24h and Drug B q8h. Non-pediatric resident writes Drug A q8h and Drug B q24. Nice.

This was in between the 10 notes I was writing while trying to make it to a wedding on time! (Missed the ceremony, made it for the reception.)

Anyhow, we miss you Sonal!!! We can't wait until you're back in the West. You and Hung will be our excuse to visit LA (Titos anyone?) Hung says he really is going to LA to make movies. Yes, we will be famous.

Back on CALL...

Aren't you jealous. back in the picu. just worked sedation service and got to work with propofol or Milk of Amnesia ( ha ha ha..anesthesiology humor, all I need now is a fanny pack and better IV skills). I had one kid decide not to breathe after getting some, then she decided to make her heart stop (damn kids). But she is okay now, although I think I had minor coronary dysfunction during the event. Speaking of dysfunction...hello the ABP sucks. I am a bit disappointed in the amount of bloggin going on. I figured there would be a million posts about the general suckiness surrounding our ABP results FIASCO. But alas, only the lone voice of the debs was heard. BLOG people! dammit, its not like the rest of you are on call every fourth night (hmmm. sean working 8 days a month...blog mang...blog). It is so nice to hear updates from everyone (and yes even you Debs, who is probably the only person reading this anyways). BTW, I am moving to LA in July...which is good and bad news, I'll miss Chicago, but -20 degrees is getting a little old. all my love.

To all you BE not quite BC'ers.....

Hey all you in-limbo peeps. I feel a bit bad that I got through, posted about how I'm all happy and celebratory, and that Vera got me a bottle of champagne (which I think I should open in my office, cuz she's gone, and I'm so congested, maybe the bubblies will help... or a neti pot- fatima I'm gonna try it out later today, and if I drown, I leave you the laptop that's arriving in the mail, green phone and my BR jacket; if it's only a near drown, though, you get nothin! nothin but my angst) and you still don't even know your fate (whatevs, y'all passed, our class rocks, rocks!). It must be really infuriating to not know... (anyone want to blog about it?) to know that someone knows your fate, but that someone t'ain't you. And gosh, I only hope you updated your addresses, cuz man, that's gonna suck when you have to wait even longer for the mail to be forwarded. (Duders, I seriously hope you notified the post office of your new address.)

abp.org... crappy website bastards.

Okay, so I dunno about you fools on the east coast, but it took us west coasters 5-8 hours (plus? anyone still attempting to log on?) to log in to find our results. Bastards! hello, highest traffic day of the year, they should be able to handle it. Jeeeez. Apparently the screen is freezing up after the "certified" page pops up... but don't you kids fret, it says it like it is. There is a page where you can print out an official letter of congratulations, and also a little break down reminding you how little you still know about cardiology and the yowsers, i just barely passed type of shtuff. But why bother- it's all about the passing score. So celebratory drinks tonight to all those who passed, and hey, if'n it's Hawaii 2008, hells it's just one day this year, one day! wusses. Just remember, bugs in the ear, mineral oil it. Feeding your baby non-dairy creamer, CPS.
Anyone wanting to join up in SF, give me or LE a holler. Sorry to the poor folks on call- but maybe you'll just walk a little taller, introduce yourself with a new title (as in, hi, yes, I'm the board certified pediatrician on call tonight). We'll toast you all the same.

Cheerio!