Life is good

I'm just sitting here tonight reflecting on what a blessed guy I am, and I thought I'd put a few of those thoughts down on paper... er, I mean a screen, I guess. You must forgive me, I'm sort of into lists right now. It helps me keep my day straight at the hospital, which leads me to #1 (these are in no particular order)

1. I have a job I really enjoy. Looking back, I really don't know how I ended up in medicine except that the Lord must have had a hand in it. I mean, I didn't even want to go to college for goodness' sake. The only job I had before this was in a concession stand! Now, I have just today finished my first clinical month of residency. I was on the OB service and worked a good amount of hours, but I never got sick of it. In fairness, a better test will probably be how I feel in February after not seeing the sun for a few months, but things are going really well right now. As a bonus, I've been talking to several people within the program, and it looks as though I'll be able to spend at least a month or two overseas in my 3rd year of residency -- perhaps back in Papua New Guinea!

2. I have a great family. Stephanie and Caleb are great, end of story. I wouldn't change a thing about either of them. Okay, so maybe that's not quite true, but I sure do love them both exactly as they are. I am so happy to see them at the end of a long day, and they are happy to see me. Stephanie is still pregnant, and getting bigger by the day! We are now all hopeful she can keep this up for another couple of weeks, which will significantly shorten little Thane's NICU stay.

3. I have a great family. I have really enjoyed being back in Nebraska the past couple of months with my dad, his wife, and all my brothers and sisters. I've kind of given my dad a hard time in the past about not being super involved when we were kids, but the guy did his best and loves us all, even if he doesn't always come out and say it. He and Pat have been real supportive of us and great to Caleb, and Caleb sure loves them for it. It has been so much fun hanging out with all my brothers and sisters and their kids. Now that Andrew and Brittanie are all moved in (great wedding by the way! and here's a shout out to their pastor Jonathan. What's up man!), everybody but Joe and his family are in the Omaha area. We always seem to have a fun time when we're together, and it is great for Caleb to get to know his cousins. Hey, we all know the kid needs a little more social interaction!

4. A God who loves me, and Everything else. To be quite honest, I'm getting tired, so I'll have to cut this blog a little short. I could go on and on about our good friends, a place to live, my wife's cooking (which has improved significantly in the past 6 months!), and a bunch of other stuff, but I'll spare you. One thing that amazes me more everytime I think about it, though, is the way the Lord keeps loving me and reaching out to me. He really is with us all the time, which I guess is why life looks so good and full of promise right now. Crappy stuff happens and life deals some big disappointments. I think everybody and their dog understands that. As I've mentioned in a previous blog, though, it's just really nice to know I'm not in it alone. And, if I keep my head up, I might just learn something.

Yep, I'm a lucky guy. If you'd ask just about anyone in Papua New Guinea, all of us are pretty darn lucky.

Oh, and for some icing on the cake, Nebraska beat Western Michigan on Saturday. You gotta love all the new T-shirt slogans: Bo knows football; Got Bo?; My Bo Friend's back; Boses leading us to the Promised Land. Great stuff. Go Huskers!

"Bed Rest" - well, sort of

Well, Stephanie made it home on Tuesday, and things seem to have quieted down. You can check out her blog for her take on the whole matter. We are glad to have gotten things calmed down and her out of the hospital, but I think this whole inactivity thing is going to be especially tough on Stephanie. Caleb will manage (with the help of his trains), but Stephanie has trouble sitting still for 5 minutes, much less 5 weeks. When I got home from work, I caught her hauling laundry around. She says she is just trying to get a good handle on how much she can do and still keep her uterus quiet. I feel bad for her, but we all know how important it is to keep this kiddo in as long as possible. We'll see what happens!

Deja vu all over again

Well, in spite of all our hopes and plans, Stephanie is in preterm labor again. It all seemed eerily familiar as Stephanie had a really uncomfortable night Friday and woke me up in the wee hours of Saturday to take her to the hospital. She was banging out contractions every 2-3 minutes at one point, but the docs got all that quieted down with the dreaded mag sulfate. It hasn't made her quite as loopey this time, which is nice. The steroids for baby take 48 hours for full effect, so she's just chilling out at the hospital now, hoping things stay calm tomorrow after they shut off the mag (at the 48 hr mark). If so, she'll be able to come home on some modified bed rest, but if not.... well, we may end up with a baby this week.

The downside? This is even earlier than when she went into labor with Caleb. He was a 30 weeker (she went into labor at 29 weeks, then spent almost a week in the hospital). This little guy is only 28 weeks, which doesn't sound like much of a difference, but a lot changes in a week or two for those little babies. We'll see how it goes, but this might signal the end of biological children for the two of us.

The upside? Well, she's not had any issues with blood pressure this pregnancy. Many of you will remember that with Caleb, she had pre-ecclampsia, which is basically high blood pressure in pregnancy and some associated badness. That is not the case now, so at least we have one less person to worry about this go 'round. This also means that we can pull out all the stops to keep the kid in. With Caleb, Stephanie was in such rough shape it just couldn't wait any longer. Here in Nebraska, there is also lots of family around who have been great about offering to help with Caleb while we get through all this. And there's always the advantage of working where she's staying, so I can pop in throughout the day and see how things are going.

The other thing that worked out so well was just the timing of it all. My little brother, his fiance, and her dad just happened to be staying at our house Friday night, and I just happed to be home with the weekend off. As a result, Stephanie could wake me up without worrying about me working the next day and Andrew et al could be at home with Caleb while he slept. Makes me wonder how much of life, at least at times like that, are coincidental vs orchestrated. There were also a few "coincicences" that brought us to the doctor when Stephanie was in labor with Caleb that very well could have made the difference for both of them. It all just serves to remind me that even when things happen that are less than ideal in our minds (to say the least), the Lord is always there in the midst of it, letting us know we're not in it by ourselves. He has showed over and over that whatever the situation and whatever the outcome, He will be by our side, sharing our joys and our burdens. That is what He promised. It is more than we need, and infinitely more than we deserve.

Hotdog Heaven!!

I've decided to finally end my blogging drought with an experience of a lifetime: All You Can Eat Seats at a KC Royals game. Yeah, baby!! My big brother Joe, who happens to live in Olathe down near KC, sent me an email a bit ago making me aware of this opportunity, and I've been licking my chops ever since. Stephanie and Caleb tagged along to my brother's house to hang out with his wife and the kids, and my oldest brother Brent met us down there to take part in the gluttony.

It was set up to be a showdown for the ages, with Brent out to prove he's no old fart, Joe defending his home turf, and me trying to out do my big bros. Let me tell you, folks, it did not disappoint. Brent came out of the gate with masseters blazing, downing four hotdogs and a nacho before the first pitch! (of course, we did get there reeaally early to get our money's worth) Alas, he could not keep the pace, and I emerged victorious with the following consumed:
7 hotdogs
1 nacho
2 bags of peanuts
1 bag of popcorn
5 fountain drinks
1 cup of water

At around the 4th or 5th inning, a thunderstorm came and play was stopped, so we decided to call it a night before any vomiting could get started. All in all, it was a successful night, and one I hope to repeat before the season is over.


I am almost done with me first month of residency, which comes with some mixed feelings. I am really looking forward to getting my feet wet on the hospital side of things (this month I've had clinic and tons of lectures and certifications), but on the other hand, the hours have been so nice!! I've gotten to spend a good deal of time with Stephanie and Caleb, and I know it will be awhile before I get to see them this much again. But, this is what I signed up for, so here we go! I will start Friday on the OB service run by the family medicine residency, so I'm hoping to learn a lot and catch some babies. We are fortunate in this program to have a staff physician who is double boarded in Family Medicine and OB/GYN, so the teaching and experience should be great.

This past month has also been a good time of getting to know some of the other residents who are starting the program with me. There are a few people from the far reaches of the globe - Niger, Malaysia, India, Venezuela - and there are several from here in Nebraska. Add to this the Air Force residents, and you have a pretty good mix of folks. It should be a fun three years getting to know everyone and having the chance to work with everyone.

I'm an intern! Well, sort of

I just completed my first week of my intern year of residency, a week I have been dreading as long as I have known about it. This is the week you start in a brand new hospital with new people, a new computer system, new lingo, and of course, the new responsibility of actually ordering tests and medicines... basically saving lives vs killing people. This is the week the new doctor is thrown into the fire of sleep deprivation and intense scrutiny, hoping only to make it out alive.

Turns out, it's not so bad for a family medicine resident at the University of Nebraska. Here, we have an entire month of stuff like orientation, occupational medicine, lectures, and clinic to sort of ease us in to the whole thing. The hours are GREAT! This has come in quite handy because last week, while moving into our house, a storm came and knocked out the power to approx 125,000 people in the Omaha area. Our neighborhood got trashed with trees down everywhere, even blocking a few roads. A tree branch in the yard next to ours fell on our power and cable lines and ripped them out of our house, which was quite exciting as we unpacked boxes.

No worries, though. We just stayed an extra several days with my dad and Pat and moved in little by little in the daylight hours. Now we finally have a permanent (at least for three years) place to stay with furniture, electricity, and internet (as of yesterday)! We are pretty pumped, and Caleb is happy to see all his old toys that were packed up for 6 months while we traversed the globe. I'll leave you with a shout out to my brother John and our old friend Tim who worked their butts off loading all our stuff up and getting it in the house. Well done guys!

The Name Game

Many of you know by now, but I am pleased to report that we are going to have another baby boy! I'm glad I don't have to join Deputy Kumorski into the uncharted waters of parenting females (yet). It would have been nice for Stephanie to even up gender teams, but I am glad Caleb will have a little brother. Now, the name debate starts in earnest. Naming a kid is pretty intimidating in my book. I thought it'd be easier the second time around, but no dice! We'll see how it goes.

It's Official

I am now "Dr Ben Kumor, MD." Weird. Ask the 10-years-ago me or any of my family if they ever saw this coming in a million years. I mean, I used to hate school, love sleep, and was terribly lazy. Some things never change, but at least now I'm done with school! My style has been severely cramped in the sleep and laziness departments, though, and it doesn't look like that's changing any time soon.

At any rate, a full 20 years of school (21 if you count kindergarten) has culminated in a pretty cool degree. The hooding ceremony was nice, and some folks even came out to see it. Stephanie and Caleb were there, of course, with some of our good friends from our time in Ohio: Paul and Sheila Majewski and James Lee. Stephanie's folks and her brother David were there as well, and I have always appreciated the way her family makes occasions like this a big priority. My family was represented by my oldest brother Brent, who was a real trooper and drove the 13+ hours all the way from Nebraska in the middle of the week. Like I said, the ceremony was nice. We all had our names read as "Dr So and So" for the first time, got our hood (a goofy piece of academic regalia worn around your neck and down your back), and recited a cleaned up version of the Hippocratic Oath - no swearing by Apollo, no promising to educate other doctors' kids for free, no forbidding surgery or abortions - along with an oath some members of the class came up with basically promising to do right by our patients and be good doctors.

Do I feel any different now? Nope. Should I? I hope not! Maybe it's the 3 years of training I still have left, or that I didn't really pour my heart and soul into med school like some of my classmates, or because I haven't dreamed of being a doc my whole life, but whatever the reason it seems a little anticlimactic.

I think one reason might be a post PNG hangover. I finally got to see there what I got into medicine for. It wasn't a bunch of rich people looking for a pill to make them skinny and happy and full of energy. It wasn't doing every test remotely related to what is going on so you don't get your butt sued. And it wasn't even doing a darn good job practicing medicine to get a nice paycheck and help a few people along the way. Medicine at Kudjip Nazarene Hospital is all about doing a ton with very little to help out needy, hurting, sick people and pointing them to the Lord while you do it. What more could a young, not-yet-jaded doctor want? If you asked my fellow classmates, I think you'd get a lot of different answers. I guess I'm just not looking forward to American medicine again. I've got a ton to learn, though, and this is the best place in the world to learn it. I just hope I can stay objective and do a good job of picking out the good and the bad of how things are done.

Where am I going with all this? I guess I am reminded during this graduation time that life really is a continuous process. Even though there are these milestones along the way, there's still a lot of work to be done in every aspect of my life before I can look at myself and be satisfied with what I see. So, even though this is a big milestone, what I really need to do is get back to the work of serving and growing so I can be prepared to serve better.