NPO

Here's a pretty funny blog post that kind of sums up my earlier statement about "Stupid" being a big problem in our country. Enjoy! (I sure did)
http://serenitynowhospital.blogspot.com/2009/05/npo.html

Wait... I was supposed to TRAIN for a half marathon?

This is a picture of my big brother Joe and I, happily awaiting the start of our first half marathon this past weekend. For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea, and pitched it to Joe several months ago. He agreed, and came up to Omaha from Kansas City where he lives for what turned out to be a pretty full weekend for him. You can read his post about it here. As for the training part of it... well, as I told my buddies at work, I basically sat down my bag of Cheetos, got off my easy chair, and ran 13 freaking miles. Joe did much the same, lending credence to the "Kumor boys are a little slow in the head" rumor. Apparently shelling out the registration fee was too strong a motivator to not show up but not strong enough to make me adequately prepare. Here's a picture of us crossing the finish line in just under 2 hours, which I was pretty darn pleased with. Joe, of course, could have run much faster, but he was a good sport to stick it out with me to the end.

random occurences

Wow, it's been awhile since I posted something here. I'm feeling compelled to put something up in spite of lacking any real earth-shattering occurences or epiphanies. So, what's happened in the last couple of months?

-I delivered about a dozen or so babies in May, and had a great time doing it. One was a patient I had followed throughout her entire pregnancy, which was especially neat. Makes me think I want to keep doing OB as part of my practice when I get out. Of course, if I'm on the mission field somewhere, there really is no option not to.

-I was on call a lot, making me think OB might not be all it's cracked up to be. (just kidding... sort of)

-Goldfish and I rocked out a month of in-patient medicine on "team B". Yes, there is another resident with the last name of Goldfish. This is especially comical when old demented ladies tell their kids/grandkids about their doctor. Fish (as we call him) called a family member about a patient one day. All I hear is "Yes, ma'am, my name really is Goldfish . . . Yep, I can understand why you wouldn't believe your demented mother . . . Yes, that really is funny, I agree." Followed by the look of "here we go again"

-There were several good stories about a particular patient who was temporarily a paranoid schizophrenic thanks to a good dose of methamphetamines. Unfortunately, none of them are family friendly. Just trust me. Don't do drugs.

-Somewhere along the line, there started the big to do about Obama's plans to reform healthcare. The general consensus at the hospital? Good luck. See, there's this problem that a lot of American's have: Stupid. You can't cure Stupid. Examples are both boundless and protected by HIPPA. I'm not really opposed to universal coverage, and I know the system right now is unsustainable. But... well, that's probably a good topic for another blog.

-I finished my intern year of residency. Woohoo! The workload gets quite a bit easier this year with less call and generally better hours. More time to blog? I guess we'll see. This year has really flown by, and just two more years to go.

-My Orthopedics rotation just got started. Looking forward to lots of joint injections, improving my knee/shoulder physical exam skills, and hopefully doing some casting.

-Been thinking a lot about Papua New Guinea. I can't believe I got to do all that I did last year! I will be much better prepared when I go back, and hopefully I'll be more useful. Only 10 months away!

-I spent the July 4th weekend with my entire family at the old Kumor farm. It was a great weekend. I got to see all my brothers and sisters, not to mention my nieces, nephews, and of course my grandma. She is such a funny lady, and so sharp! If I can be as independent and spunky as her when I'm 90, then sign me up. Anyway, we all got to do the usual fun Kumor things like shoot water balloons at each other, eat way more food than any human being needs, and shoot the breeze 'till all hours of the night. We also got to do less usual things (for me) like camping, swimming, and fishing. I especially enjoyed hanging out with my big brother Joe. He is a good guy and I look up to him in a lot of ways. Hopefully he'll be moving up to Nebraska before I finish residency and get shipped somewhere at the mercy of the Air Force.

The happy side of medicine

Not often in medicine do people come see you because they are happy or healthy. And rarely are folks excited to see you. All that changes, though, when you enter the world of obstetrics.

This month, I am manning the labor and delivery floor here at UNMC, i.e. managing laboring patients and catching babies. Nothing like seeing mostly healthy people pop a living thing out of their bodies! Ladies come here generally uncomfortable but pretty excited, and almost everyone leaves happy. Not bad at all. Of course, the sad side of medicine occasionally rears its ugly head, but thankfully those times are fewer and farther between here. The residents are great and most of the staff have been as well, which makes for a good month.

I would get all philosophical about the wonder of gestation and birth, but since I'm on call tonight and the pager is going off, I'll spare you. Bring on the babies!

All in how you look at it?

So, why do I spend all day taking care of deathly sick kids. . . kids born without portions of their brain, kids with muscles that just don't work, kids with hearts that can't pump right, kids with bones full of cancer? Why, then do I get to leave this place and go home to my two (usually)happy, healthy boys, play with them, make them laugh, and then kiss them goodnight?

Life is definitely not fair.

I'm at Children's Hospital this month taking care of the sickest kids in the region. Of course, most of the kids here are not so deathly ill or permanently handicapped. A lot are, though. The hours are long here, and Stephanie has been really great in spite of not seeing me for days at a time. I miss my wife and my boys. I have to admit, though, that there is a twinge of guilt when I see Caleb watching from the window. My perfectly formed, fully functional, and really intelligent boy. There was recently a mom and baby in PNG who were in the same predicament as Stephanie and Caleb when he was born. The PNG boy didn't make it. Then I see babies, BABIES just about Thane's age, with leukemia fighting for their life and getting poison pushed into their bodies to try and kill their cancer. Why am I and my family so blessed and others so seemingly cursed?

Is it just the way the world works? Chalk it up to luck or chance? God's perfect plan?? I have thought an awful lot about it, and I honestly don't know. I'm glad I'm not God. It would probably break my heart even more than it does now.

One thing I do know: I am grateful for a God who meets people where they have need, and not necessarily "needs" as we see them. I know that in the grand scheme of things these bodies are of no consequence, and while that makes my job a lot more trivial, it does provide a measure of comfort.

Igloo

The title pretty much sums it up. Here are some pictures from President's day weekend (a while ago, I know) after we built a heap of snow and dug out a pretty cool "igloo." And, yes, the picture of Caleb and I is from inside our creation. Caleb loved it, but as Stephanie would tell you, I was probably more excited about it than he was. I mean, who doesn't love building huge snow forts? The last picture is after it had been up for about a week. It had shrunk quite a bit, but still showed the quality engineering job. Shout out to Brent, John, and Andrew for helping out their crazy brother!

Science and reason finally win one

Very good story that restores some of my faith in the litigation system:
Court says vaccine not to blame for Autism-MSNBC.com

Some of you don't immunize your children. Thankfully, most of you do. But whether you do or don't, almost all of you are aware of the theory floating around that vaccines cause autism.

At first glance, this does not seem all that unreasonable. After all, kids start showing definite signs of autism around 10-20 months, after getting several shots of who knows what that protect them from who knows what. And what was that? There's MERCURY in some of them?!? Well, heaven knows that's bad for your brain. So, yeah, I can see where the connection can be made. And for anyone who has seen/taken care of/knows someone with a severe case of autism, it is understandable to do everything you can to try to protect your baby from having the same limitations.

The problem is that some people never get past that first glance. Upon closer examination, the whole thing is debunked. So, either trust your doc and get the shots, look at pictures* of kids dying of these diseases and then get the shots, read about how the whole theory got started and then get the shots, or look at the CDC or the Institute of Medicine info and then, you guessed it, get the shots.


*I found more graphic pictures, but I thought this was a nice, informative website with enough pictures to give you the idea

A month in (relative) paradise

Who knew that working a 40 hour week would ever be considered paradise? The fact is, though, that I am absolutely loving weekends off and no overnight calls! It's all relative baby! So, here I sit at midnight, not able to fall asleep simply because I've been "sleeping in" until 7am this week. FREAKING AWESOME

I've been able to spend a lot more time with Stephanie and the kids, which has been great. I feel like I'm finally getting to know Thane, who smiles at me when he sees me now (though the really big smiles are still reserved his mom. who can blame him?) I've also caught up on some serious train and Candy Land time with Caleb. Stephanie and I have even found some time for a little Mario Kart Wii! Life is good in the Kumor house.

By the way...
Was I the only one who didn't know Obama is a smoker? How's that for someone looking to transform our health care system into a more "preventative model." This came up in clinic today and everyone looked at me like I was a moron when I said I had no idea. Kudos to the guy for trying to quit though.

2 months later

Well, it has been around two months since I have taken the time to sit down and write another blog. There are a few reasons for this:
1)It really did freak me out a bit when I learned that at least one of my patient's had read my blog. I mean, can I really talk about the hospital, tell stories, or vent frustrations when people I provide care for are reading what I write? In the end, as long as I am being honest, I think the answer should be yes, but it does make me think twice, or maybe three times, before posting something.

2)I just haven't had the time. It is no joke that since at least the beginning of December, but really since Thane was born, I have been busy every waking moment of every day. If I'm not at work, I'm either playing with Caleb, holding/changing Thane, falling asleep, or finding quality time to spend with Stephanie.

3)It seems like I just don't have much to write about. Now, this is not really true, but who wants to hear about what goes on in the hospital? And if you want to read about my (awesome) kids, there's always Stephanie's blog. She sees them more than I do anyway.

Tonight, though, I have decided to finally get past #1. I am on call here at the hospital and am waiting for a couple of lab results to make some decisions on a sick patient, so no sleep for me, which takes care of #2. As for #3, well, I'm sure I can find something to talk about.

One thing I have been doing quite a bit of thinking on recently has been how much difference a year makes in our lives. December 2007, for example, seems like eons ago. That was before I knew where I would be doing residency (actually that was when I found out I didn't match into a military program--VERY stressful), before Thane was even conceived, and before our life-changing trip to Papua New Guinea. Amazing. I am really greatful that I don't have the ability to plan out my life. Things have not gone exactly how I expected, but I couldn't be more satisfied at this point. I love this residency program, I feel like I'm learning a lot and doing a pretty good job, and it is great to be close to family. I am working side by side with the military guys here, and am realizing the benefits of being on the civilian side for a couple more years. As far as Thane goes, is there anything better than a fresh baby? The biggest x-factor was how Caleb would react, and he has far exceeded my hopes. Caleb is such a loving, protective, and gentle big brother! Now, we'll see how long that lasts, but it sure does work well while Thane is a baby. And PNG.... I miss that place. I really look forward to going back next year (which would not have been possible-at least not for two months-in the military program). I think I will be much more useful then as well, which will be nice.

One year ago I was neurotically working out my anxiety making paper snowflakes, now I'm neurotically working out my anxiety (about a particular patient) by typing a blog.

Maybe there really isn't anything new under the sun. :)

Oh, and it looks like they're going to do just fine. Phew!