Trauma

Since the last time I posted, I haven't been up to too much. I've been mostly working, hanging out with my wife and kids, and thinking about our return trip to PNG in a couple months. This month, I am on the Trauma service at UNMC. If this weren't the land of HIPPA (medical privacy), I would have some good stories and even better pictures. In general, though I have learned - or relearned - several important lessons:

1)Wear your seatbelt.
2)Don't go to work under the influence of anything - especially if your workplace happens to be 50 ft in the air, and even if you think your influence of choice should be legal and it just "mellows" you out. Just sayin.
3)Don't get shot.
3b) Don't shoot yourself - especially if you have bad aim.
4)Some surgeons still really do fit the egotistical hothead stereotype
5)If you have some chronic disease, like diabetes or high blood pressure, for heaven's sake get it under control before the bad stuff starts happening. (This is from clinic - though I suppose a stoke or heart attack could cause a MVA and a Trauma situation)

Feels good to get all that off my chest.

I love my job, but sometimes I wish I could do more to help people see things from another perspective (usually MY perspective). I want to make a difference in the lives of my patients. But probably better than that, I should want God to make a difference in their lives, and use me to help. I think maybe it's me that needs help to see things from HIS perspective. Here's hoping I can do a better job at that.

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!