The Return of the Ghostwriter: Dr. Dennis’ Rotation Elation

After throwing back a few glasses of Pinot Grigio last night, Sar and I came to the revelation (funny how that happens!) that her blog hasn’t been updated since the summer. Since “Wicked” is tagged as one of her relatives’ favorite sites, I feel like it’s our obligation to give them what they want! So in the usual manner of having ridiculous lagtime in between posts, I’m back to fill you in on what Sarah’s been up to for the past 5 months.

Uhh, to tell you the truth, I don’t really know.

Sarah started third year rotations on 6/25 and has been going at it ever since, so my shenanigans with her have dramatically decreased—it’s sad. But since the time we now spend together is kind of a big deal, I’ll try to use these moments to gauge what deserves blogtime, and Sarah can fill in all the missing details that I have no clue about.

At the end of June, Sarah returned to the real world (after all that Bahamas and birthday fun) and began her internal medicine rotation at Columbia Presbyterian, where she was assigned to the Oncology specialization. For five weeks, Sarah treated cancer patients and learned everything there is to know about tumors. Going into third year, Sarah was considering neonatology or pediatrics, but after this rotation, she is VERY interested in oncology and placing it at the top of her list of possible specialities…very nahhhhce.

For the fourth of July, Sarah had to work... man medicine sucks. But she did get to see pretty, pretty lights from the balcony after Jon and Heidi made her delicious burgers and mojitos. For labor day weekend, she got to have some nice family bonding time with Matt, Tara, and her family down at the Jersey shore. Running on the boards and swimming in the ocean will clear anybody's mind. You notice that these two holidays are separated by lots of time and, yet, nothing else happened besides work.

Rotation number two brought Sarah to midtown’s Roosevelt Hospital, where she branched out into general medicine practice (correct me if I’m wrong, Sar). This was the ideal location for her “away” medicine rotation, as it was located walking distance from Columbus Circle (and my office and apartment). In spite of the early morning subway commutes, Sar managed to have half-decent hours at Roosevelt while frequently taking mid-afternoon coffee breaks at Starbucks with yours truly.

Following Roosevelt, Sarah began her Subspecialty rotation in Orthopedics and Urology. During this rotation, Sarah tightened her bond with fellow classmate Maya, as they discovered that the orthopedic-surgeons-really-are-ex-frat-boys stereotype is dead on. During surgeries, it was not unusual for the doctors to be blasting Akon’s “Smack That” over the OR loudspeakers and discussing inappropriate topics. Maya and Sar would take frequent afternoon walks to Shake Shack so they were obviously working very hard. Although ortho was a party, Sarah loved urology even more. Her aPEEciation for urology stemmed, I’m sure, partially from the urologists themselves, who I hear are some of the most fulfilled, good-humored doctors there are. But that doesn’t surprise me, because seriously, how can you not love the hundreds of jokes that go hand in hand with this job??

During this rotation, Sarah was lucky enough to be done around 5pm everyday, and she also had weekends off. Since she was no longer MIA 24/7, we were able to return to Keeley’s, our usual stomping ground, for some fun evenings. We even decided to be diehards and go to K’s for the ND/Michigan State game on a Saturday afternoon. Even though the Fighting Irish continued their stellar losing streak that day, that didn’t stop us from having a good time. Since we were the only girls there, we got center-bar seats, and the bartender changed the big flat screen to our game.

Aaaand then that brings us to surgery—Sarah’s current rotation. I looked up the definition of surgery online, and what Dictionary.com has failed to note, I have added below in bold :

sur·ger·y /–noun, plural -ger·ies

1. the art, practice, or work of treating diseases, injuries, or deformities by manual or operative procedures *while incurring 100 hour work weeks and sleep deprivation, subsisting on coffee and cheese, and putting up with jerkhead security “sergeants” that think they rule the hospital

To make a long story short, Sarah is kicking butt in surgery but is also working redunkulous hours and putting up with security guards who have anger management issues. Yes, one of them yelled at her for calling him a “security guard” instead of a “security sergeant!” I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard of a security sergeant in my life—I guess the late night hours got to him too.

Since Halloween fell during surgery for Sar, and I’m an old fart, no longer willing to go down to the Village Parade craziness, we spent Halloween tamely this year with Sarah’s dad, Matt, and Tara. We had drinks at the Waldorf then went to Chin Chin, an AMAZING Chinese restaurant, where we ate everything from dumplings to orange beef to 10 ingredient fried rice to, I think 3..or 4(? yes that would be four, Katie) bottles of wine. Our palates were in heaven, and a good time was had by all. We even got Halloween treats, because the lounge next door had a table outside full of Sweet Tarts and Laffy Taffy, free for grabs. All in all, a great Halloween night

In a week, Sarah is going to be leaving for New Mexico for 6 weeks for another primary care rotation at Ship Rock. While caring for the natives on the reservation, Sarah plans to go camping in the Grand Canyon with Jamie G. and do lots of sight seeing. I am jealous. So for all of Sar’s relatives out there, don’t be surprised if this year’s X-mas presents have some Indian flava to them;)

So I think that’s about it, guys. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a posting pre-Matt&Tara’s wedding

Until next time….KT.

My Bahamavention

This continues Katie as the blogger (with me keeping her honest)... for an explanation, see the previous post.

Aaaaand now I can finally get to the fun part: June 10-16…our week-long cruise to the Bahamas!

Day 1: The adventure began on a Sunday afternoon when we decided to subway it to our port. Upon arriving at the Norweigian Cruise Line check-in, we filled out some forms and got to cut to the front of the line because of our Latitudes frequent-cruiser membership (thank you, Sarah’s mom!). We got on the ship, dropped off our bags in our cabin, then did the next most logical thing---hit up the burger bar. If you aren’t already aware, NCL promotes “Freestyle Dining,” meaning guests are free to eat as much as they want, whenever they want, wherever they want—and it’s all included in the initial bill. That being said, you never have to pay for food—just alcohol or mixers. The inner fat kids in us were doing somersaults and cartwheels with excitement!

The first night we went to dinner at a fancy restaurant that offered peach soup. That sounds kind of sketchy in and of itself, so I guess we shouldn’t have been surprised when a bowl of cold melted peach ice cream arrived at our table. Gag me. Sarah’s talapia was narstay, and my jerk chicken was completely sub-par. Needless to say, this was not a good start.

To lighten up the mood, we hit up the casino and won $22 on quarter slots then cashed out and went to Maharini’s (the ship’s night club), which would soon become our hangout for most of the trip.

Day 2: Monday morning was spent tanning by the pool. We attended a cocktail party at 1pm for returning cruisers. Free champagne and appetizers. Rough life.

When we returned to our cabin for afternoon naptime, we found that our TV wasn’t working and we were hungry again. We ordered a vegetable crudite and fruit platter. The fruit platter consisted of one slice of kiwi, one slice of cantaloupe, one slice of pineapple, and one slice of honeydew. WTF. The crudite was not much better, consisting of two pieces of celery and maybe two carrots and a radish. The “spinach dip” they claimed to serve turned out to be two tablespoons of ranch dressing. Alas, further complications with room service arose later during the trip when our multiple 2am calls requesting PB & J were blatantly ignored. Jerks.

P.S. If you haven’t already noticed, we’re pretty serious about our food.

So after napping, we got all dressed up and went to dinner at the Italian restaurant—awesome food, great wine, great time—NCL redeemed itself.

That night we went to karaoke at the pub, and I unleashed my inner American Idol wanna-be that’s been hiding for the past year. My repertoire included Christina Aguilera’s “Genie in a Bottle” and The Righteous Brother’s “Unchained Melody.” Sarah didn’t sing any karaoke..loser. Instead, she decided to revert to her Guatemalan ways at Maharini’s and sing along to EVERY REGGAETON SONG YOU COULD POSSIBLY THINK OF then started reciting rap lyrics to old 90’s hip hop tunes. This really mesmerized the group of 80 Mexicans that were on the dancefloor with us, and we ended up befriending them because we could shake it to “Gasolina” and “Rompe.”

Day 3: Port Canaveral, Florida!

Yay, we made it to Florida! Since I am a native Floridian and live an hour away from our port, my parents were so nice as to pick us up and chauffeur us around for the day! Even better, they brought an entire cooler of water bottles filled with mango rum and other travel “necessities” for us to sneak on the ship…SWEET.

We all went to the Kennedy Space Center and watched IMAX movies about the Int’l Space Station and the moon. They had just opened a new simulated launch experience ride--pretty fun. At the Astronaut Hall of Fame, Sarah insisted we go on the G-FORCE simulation ride. That was hysterical, because we couldn’t move our bodies to save our lives once those machines started spinning us around and around. Oooh good times.

After bidding adieu to the parentals, we returned to our cabin with our liquor stash and I napped while Sarah decided to go for a run and then we had dinner. At this point our ship had left dock and was Bahamas-bound, so a party by the pool was in order. Our entertainment coordinator/motivator/leader/Australian stud, John, started out the party with some other bartenders by giving away free drinks and leading a group dance that was a cross between the hokey pokey, Macarena, and your standard booty dancing. “Coyote Ugly” night was tonight as well, so some electric sliding and boot scootin boogying ensued.

When the dancing stopped, we went up to the bar to get some water and met two guys who we ended up spending most of the rest of the cruise with which was a nice, big step up from our previous cruise ‘friends’ (truckers, Mexicans…)

Day 4: BAHAMAS!

At 9am we awoke to our usual wake-up call: Three low “dongs” over the loud speaker followed by Aussie-John enthusiastically yelling, “GOOD MORNING, EVERYONE! I HAVE SOME EXCITING NEWS FOR YOU. WE’RE IN THE BAHAMASSS!! GET READY FOR A SMASHING TIME—YOU’RE ON VACATION!!!” Heck yea we’re on vacation.

Nassau was beautiful. I have never seen such blue (and crystal clear water) in my life, and the weather was perfect. When walking through town the first thing we encountered was a Starbucks…so much for authentic Bahamian coffee. We decided to go to the straw market and buy souvenirs for everyone and check out some crafts.

Following my mom’s advice to “make deals with them like Sarah does with the gypsy cabs!”, we purchased some presents for our friends and fams then headed back to the ship to tan by the pool. Unfortunately, we only stopped at Nassau for a few hours, so we couldn’t do a lot on shore..oh wells.

Around 2pm, our ship left Nassau and was off to Great Stirrup Cay, NCL’s private island. Once near the island, our ship anchored, and we were transported to Great Stirrup Cay in boats. An island party took place that night, and once again, John led our group through an intense dance routine. So intense that after 15 minutes everyone was covered with sweat, and we began to liken this “dance-party” to more of a jazzercise-kick-your-ass-workout disguised as “fun” to get the fat people moving.

Once the party ended circa midnight the tenders transported everyone back to the ship where the party continued at Maharini’s. More dancing. Obvi.

Day 5: This is probably my favorite day out of the entire cruise, because we got to enjoy the wonderful BEACH on Great Stirrup Cay. For three hours, we relaxed on a giant circular float and just drifted around in the water. Sarah thought it would be cool to play King of the Mountain on our massive float, so she stood up a few times to show off then fell down right on her bum. We then took lots of Sports Illustrated style bikini shots on rocks and stuff, because we are that cool.

Around 2pm we were back on the boat and leaving the beautiful Bahamas. *Tear.* After dinner we went to an adult game show in one of the lounges. The adult game show made us nearly pee our pants. To make a long story short, the host distributed numbered cards to audience members that formed teams. Members from each team were then encouraged to run onstage and flash their numbers when they fulfilled the fashion requirements called out by the host; the team that filled the reqt’s the most won. Before I continue, I just want to say that I really can’t give this scenario the justice that it deserves—you had to be there to see and understand just how absurd this was. So the host would call out “I need to see two guys up here booty dancing in their underwear.” Sure enough, fifty year old men would strip down and grind together on stage in their tighty whities. Our favorite contestant was part of team #34 (her nickname inevitably became #34, because she WAS the team)—an 80 year old grandma who walked up on stage in her bra…then proceeded to dance with the “ship n’ dales” dancers later that night. Way to go, Grandma. You are my idol.

As I mentioned, “Ship N’ Dales” dancers put on a little show for the ladies at the night club. My favorite quote from Sarah that night: “OMG, this is like a bad movie.” OK, so most of the “strippers” were FOBs with bellies whose regular jobs were to serve drinks at the burger bar—but to make up for the not-so-hots, there were a few talented crew members, including our Aussie, who put on a good show.

Day 6: Day 6 we were worthless. Exhausted from the events of the past few days, Sarah and I decided that today was the perfect opportunity to relax and unwind..and eat a lot. Too bad the ship was rocking harder than Grandma on the dancefloor the night before. We went to the library to read our books, and a little kid threw up right next to us. Poor thing. When we went back to our room for naptime, we noticed that the crew had placed barf bags at the end of each staircase—luckily neither of us needed them. So after passing out for 2 hrs in our cabin, we went out for our final dinner on the ship and ordered a bottle of champagne to commemorate the experience.

Day 7: We docked in NYC at 9am, dined at the breakfast buffet one last time, then said goodbye to the Norweigian Spirit.

Sarah started transition week today, so her summer is officially over. If you’re lucky, I’ll update you on her life in the next month..or two☺ Byebye for now!

FINALLY POSTING 9 MONTHS LATER!

Hello blog stalkers—it’s Katie! As you’ve probably noticed over the past few months--OK 9 MONTHS (the entire school year)--Sarah has abandoned her duties of blog maintenance and has, in fact, turned “The Life and Times of Columbia Medical School” into “The Life and Times” of NOTHING (with the exception of last summer’s adventures). As someone who actually enjoys writing and has to witness this pathetic display of blogging, I have taken it upon myself to write my own damn entries and make Sarah’s life sound interesting once again. (CLAP CLAP!) Note: I, Sarah, did edit this before posting and therefore added things or edited things I felt were needed. Now back to Katie.

Before I delve into details about Sar’s one-week summer vacation that we just returned from, I’ve been told to give a quick run-through of the past year, starting where the blog left off in September. Basically, Sarah’s second year of med school was a lot like the first, just with more tests to study for. In true Pre-MD form, however, post-Bacchus debauchery and post-exam parties coupled with multiple Keeley’s nights kept Sarah and the rest of her crew sane.

Highlights of the past months include:

September: Orientation fun included seeing Drowsy Chaperone (highly recommend it)

October: We all went down to the village for the Halloween parade. Sarah dressed up like an Indian, and I was a COP. Luckily Adam dressed as a construction worker –Village People represent. Other characters accompanying us were the Iron Chef, a librarian, a sumo wrestler, and Jason Hove was a drunk (way to be creative there).

November: Umm IDK, Ask Sarah..All I can think of is Thanksgiving break. THIS IS SARAH: Apparently SOMEONE forgot about the musical Guys and Dolls that took over my life for all of October and a good portion of November. I helped out with the choreography, which was a lot more of a task then I first envisioned (you try teaching dance to medical students). I even made a brief dance cameo before I got to punch the lead girl in the face and then have a catfight with Jeannie. While it did run my life for a bit, it was worth every second of it. Also the big news was that my brother got engaged to his longtime love of his life, Tara. I am so thrilled to have her in my life. Good job picking out my new one-and-only sister, Matt.

December: More exams, Christmas Eve her whole family went and saw Jersey Boys on Broadway (absolutely fabulous… highly recommend it!) Christmas in New Jersey with her family, then New Year’s in NYC. Went to lots of parties and paid cover to spend the evening at Keeley’s with an all-you-can-eat buffet and open bar. That was probably not a good idea considering we hit three parties beforehand and could not stomach any more booze after an intense drinking game of “Roxanne” with champagne… bright idea there. We also made challah and brought it as a gift to a party—then smuggled it back once the clock hit midnight. (Umm we didn’t like the hostess and didn’t want her eating Sarah’s gorgeous challah!!)

January: No clue either--ask Sarah: I drove to Buffalo and Niagara Falls with Jeannie and Jono to visit Allison. We actually ate the original Buffalo wing that was quite tasty.

February: I turned 24 (woot!), and Sarah and I traveled to DC for my cousin’s wedding. We tore up the dancefloor =D and made complete fools of ourselves rapping with the DJs.

March: Spring Break with Jeannie and Laura in San Diegooo. They went to the zoo and took pictures with goats! They also learned how to surf, sail, and went hiking in the lovely hills.

April: Jamie G’s Bro’s Wedding in Chicago (where Sarah got her fill of Lou Malnati’s and Roselli’s and was basically in heaven with her other family)
May: Boards studying aka No-Life-Sarah
June 1: Sarah’s Bday/Boards Celebration at Keeley’s
June 2: Matt and Tara’s Engagement Party in Jersey. A BLAST. It even included an 11pm hot dog cart to keep the crazy partiers going. I cannot WAIT for the wedding!

a much delayed entry... end of Guate and Peru

SOOO I haven't written in this thing since July and have had many complaints. I don't know how to explain what's happened in the last two months... but I'll try. Sooo Guate ended with many outings with my ppl in Xela and then Kristen and I met up with Margo in Guate for one last night out. Good times and a relatively easy flight back to Houston. All I can say is that I nearly kissed US soil when I landed, but refrained because I think Customs would have thought that was weird and I didn't feel like being questioned. When I got back to the house, I immediately went and put EVERYTHING in the laundry room because I needed to wash the bed bugs/fleas I was probably carrying out of my stuff. I showered with a STEAMING HOT stream of water from two faucet heads at once for approximately 30 minutes before I felt I scoured myself enough (and used the hot water I had been missing for the last two months). Honestly, best shower of my life.

After three days home (which was AWESOME... I saw the Lion King musical which was so unbelievably good, but I did know the movie well enough to know that the musical was basically verbatim hehe which made it even better), my dad and I left for Peru. We spent one night in Lima and went to Cousco the very next morning. I tried to take that elevation meds they gave me, but I had such bad tingling in my feet, knees, and hand that I took myself off of it. We spent three nights in Cousco with the group we were with and spent each day going to museums and churchs around the city. I was the youngest person in the group by 30 years, but that's ok. The people in the group were all so nice I felt completely comfortable with them. We hiked around the city and spent a night with an indigenous Andean band, having the local food of guinea pig (so gross its cannot even describe it). While I had an awesome time, I got so extremely sick that night... it was like Lake Atitlan all over again. I puked all night long (slept on the bathroom floor... awesome) and the next morning decided to try to do the hike. I arranged to have the bus pick me up if necessary from the hike. Uhhh it was very necessary. I couldn't keep water or even Gatorade down. SO Dad and I left the hike and I stayed in the hotel all day.... the maid walked in while I was puking and an hour later the manager showed up with a huge bouquet of flowers. I thought it was cute hehe.

The next day was the second hardest hike of the trip. Thankfully I am very resilient and did the entire hike with no problems. It was an awesome hike, taking us to 14,600 ft (Cousco is at 11,000). We saw some awesome ruins and learned a lot abou the ancient Andean culture and the traditions that still exist today. Lunch looked basically nasty but I had a built in excuse not to eat it... unfortunately for my dad, the entire group found out exactly what a freaking picky eater he is because not only did he not touch that lunch, but also he never touched a single lunch. Anyway, the next few days are a blur of hiking and massive amounts of ruins which were all cool. Our hardest hike took us to 15,425ft and that hike was beyond amazing. We were with llama and alpacas just roaming the lands. I got to hold a baby lamb that had been born two hours before I held it (which promptly pooped on me... but whatever it was still cute). We saw two HUGE condors flying above us and the hike down followed a babbling brook with waterfalls. Everything was so picturesque. We ended that hike with more traditional Andean food.

We got to Machu Picchu around 2pm on Friday. Instead of fighting the crowds on the actual site, we decided to hike up to the Sun Gate (which is the entry point from the Incan Trail to Machu Picchu) and then over to the condemnded bridge. Both sites demonstrated just how isolated this site was from the rest of Peru. We started our personal tour of the ruins when everyone was clearing off and got through a good portion of the history. Our hotel that night was the actual Machu Pucchu Sanctuary Lodge at the entrance to the ruins. It was a beautiful night under a full moon... just magical.

My dad and I woke up super early on Saturday morning to catch sunrise over the ruins. That was an experience that just cannot be put into words... I took a bazillion pictures of the sunrise, one every minute basically. This way I can try to show people what it was like, but I realize that there is no comparing to actually being there for it. We spent the entire day at the ruins and hiked Little Waina Picchu (spelling?) with our group. Most people climb the actual Wainu Picchu, but it was soooo crowded and people are soo pushy that we decided against it. The great thing about Little Waina Picchu is that we were the ONLY ones at the top of the mountain! We got great pictures and were able to just chill on the top. The actual climb was pretty cool... at one point, we had to use a rope to get up the side of the mountain. After the hike, we basically just chilled at Machu Picchu... taking in the whole feeling of being there before we had to go. We headed back to Cousco, Lima, and were home, sweet, home by 6am Monday morning.

All in all, my summer was pretty freaking amazing. I got to have the most unbelievable experiences with my friends and family AND add a little medicine to it too. I feel so lucky that I got to go to all of these places and have SO MUCH FUN while doing it. I guess it was the perfect way to spend my very last free summer =)

Time with the Comodrona

Monday morning I headed to the Comodrona´s alone since Sara has left me for a week of fun traveling. While I was there, Ronnie and Tami showed up and he realized that she can just stay with me. I felt miserable because I had caught a nasty cold from the kids at the Guaderia (I guess... who knows where these things come from) and Ana felt bad for me. All the sudden, Ana came back from the other room saying there was an emergency birth that we needed to go to immediately. Tami and I entered the birthing suite and a woman was in active labor on the bed. The poor woman was obviously in a lot of pain and out of breath. Ana told me to grab both of her legs and pull back... she let both Tami and I feel how dialated the woman was and then we were all just trying to help her push. As soon as the baby came out, Ana ordered me out of the room since I was sick (totally makes sense... I don´t want the newborn getting my cold!). From what I saw, the baby was a girl but looked a little blue. Later I found out that the baby and the mother both had a cold. Ana therefore did not wash the baby again and only worked on getting the baby warm. A little later Ana came out with the mom and baby to put in the recovery room. The whole process is just so beautiful and Ana just knows her exactly what to do (it always seems). After the birth, another woman came in to be examined and I correctly found the head, hips, and figured out the age of the baby. Ana only said "I guess little by little you are learning something" and then laughed. Tami and I decided to leave and Ana wondered if I needed anything for my "gripe." I said Sure why not... and she went into her garden and picked me some leaves, then sent her son up another tree to get other leaves. She told me to take the calypso leaves, the leaves of the orange plant, and some cinnamon and boil it right before bed to make me better. OK sounds good to me.
That night after class I had my mother here make me the tea. She kept commenting that calypso leaves are really strong and this should totally help me. I drank the tea (and also took a double dose of Sudafed Cold Relief) and went to sleep. In the morning, I felt much better... the world will never know which worked haha.
Tuesday we tried to go to the museum again and it was closed, again. We shopped around, looking for presents and books... and just ended up coming back to the school to just hang out. I went home for lunch and packed my bag for the night because I had decided to spend the night at the Comodrona´s and see what her life was like at night. My host mother packed me a dinner to go (refried beans and cheese paste on a roll mmmmm) and I headed out. Because Buena Vista is two bus rides away, Amy and I decided to leave the school at 430, run some errands, and get the bus as soon as we could (because of the danger of traveling at night and the fact that busses can just stop running at anytime).
Amy and I got to the clinic around 630pm and Ana was still seeing patients. After a little while, she asked if we would like to have dinner with her family. She made us a soup and corn tortillas and kept insisting we try her tomatillos. I know from my family that I don´t like tomatillos but she was very insistent and made me taste it. They were SO GOOD!! Not salty and from papas like the other ones I´ve had, but sweet... mmmm. Her husband is hysterical and the two of them kept me laughing for hours. I found out that Ana has been the midwife here for 20 years and just figured out that she has delivered 11,000 babies in her time here. Already the babies she first delivered are having kids themselves!! She´s also only 38 years old... so amazing to already have done so much! After dinner I played games with a swivel chair and her 4 year old son, and the two girls (8 and 12) that Ana has taken in because they don´t have families. Ana has 5 kids of her own AND kids that she just takes in. Wow. Franklin, the 4 year old, is out of control but kept me laughing as well. By 9pm Amy and I were wondering when these kids would go to bed so we could watch some TV in English. I drew the line when they started watching Barney and turned on CNN haha. I cannot handle Barney in English, let alone Spanish. Anyway, Amy and I had to share a bed (a very rickety top bunk) and Ana said she would come get us when a woman came in. Sigh... no women came in the entire night. Ana was basically shocked. She hadn´t had a night with no births in an extremely long, long time. Just our luck.
In the morning, Ana saw some patients and I told her it was time for us to go. It was my last day there, sadly. She got really excited and told me that she wanted to do something first, I had my camera, right? I said, yep I have it... but why? She just had us follow her into her room and she started taking out the traditional Guatemaltecan women clothing. She then dressed me and Amy in the traditional clothing claiming "Now you are officially Guatemaltecan!" I told Ana that her clothing was a lot more difficult and more involved then our American clothing and she proclaimed that we would have to learn quickly how to dress if we wanted Guatemaltecan novios. She mentioned her son liked Americans... hahaha. We took pictures with Ana and she presented me with some traditional linen to have as a keepsake. We also exchanged addresses and numbers. I will hopefully be able to send her some medicines when I get back, but they use a bizarre package service here and I´ll have to find where in the States they are located. All in all, my experience with Ana was amazing and I feel so lucky to have been able to see how she practices medicine and learn from her.

Brian's Birthday in Guatemala

Saturday morning, Brian, Dave, Maggie, and I got up early and rented bikes at a nearby store. We had decided to head up the mountain to the hot springs in nearby Fuentes and thought that it wouldn´t be that hard to just guide ourselves. After finding our way out of Xela, we took a road that basically went straight up and then straight down a mountain. It was so steep heading down that we all had to walk our bikes... good times. My favorite part of going down into whatever city we were heading towards (we were extremely lost) was the kids yelling at me that it was very dangerous and I was going to die. Hahaha... oh kids. They were probably right though because of my brake situation... Anyway, after finding someone to give us directions we finally found our way to Zunil which is at the base of the climb to Fuentes. It was then a 8K climb straight up to the hot springs. I believe at one point I wanted to kill some people because I was so out of shape, but I made it thanks to Brian because he hung back and talked to me up the very last part of the mountain to the springs. The springs were pretty damn cool. The sulfur smell was strong, but that´s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. There was one wall that was really just hot to touch and the water by it was just awesome. We stayed in for awhile and then it began to rain. We imagined it was letting up and decided then would be a good time to start the descent. I mentioned that I had a ¨brake situation,¨ well what that means is that my back brakes didn`t work and all I had were my front brakes. This is very bad because if you pull the front brakes you´ll just flip right over your bike. So here I was, in the rain and fog, going down a mountain with no rear brakes. Maggie told me to just stick close to the wall and to keep my eye out for places I could jump off the bike to in case of an emergency. I know how to jump off horses, so that´s the same, right? Anyway, I think that was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. I probably would have felt better if they had at least provided helmets, but I guess that Guatemala doesn´t really believe in basic safety. Luckily we only encountered one chicken bus on the road which scared the crap out of me... but that´s OK because I survived. We got back to Xela with just enough time to get a cake for Brian´s birthday party and head over to the Chinese restaurant. They served a lot of food and were so cute about it being a birthday celebration because they played the longest rendition of ¨Happy Birthday¨over the loudspeakers when we had the cake out. Very cute. We headed over to Salun Tecun where it was unequivocally proven that I cannot chug if my life depended on it. Eight people going in sequence against me and I STILL LOST. Sigh oh well, I just must be missing that gene. After Salun, we headed over to an EntreMundo party which was quite hilarious. At first the music was awesome and we were all dancing up a storm... Toby even did the worm in the middle of the party in a puddle and proceeded to kick over the candles that were lighting the party haha. When the music turned bad, we all took turns trying to make the DJ play good music... at my turn he yelled at me to get out of us booth because I didn´t appreciate is ¨vision¨ Right... All in all we had a fabulous time and celebrated Brian´s birthday right in Guatemala.
Sunday we all met at Cafe Babylon for breakfast/lunch and tried to go to the Natural History museum (which is supposedly hilarious). Unfortunately it was closed, so we came back to school and just watched pointless American TV (CSI, Law and Order, E! countdown) for a couple hours that had Spanish subtitles (totally counts as studying). As my one and only weekend spent in Xela, it was definitely a good time.

I still love the Guaderia

Thursday morning I accompanied Brian and Dave to their clinic in the outskirts of Xela to see what they did and help out myself. The clinic is an American endeavor with rotating groups of helpers coming from the states and a couple of permanent workers (doctor, pharmacist, lab worker). At first there wasn't a lot for me to do so I shadowed Dr. Freddy with his patients for a little while. After a couple of patients, the nurses needed some help translating the triage area so I helped them as much as I possibly could. I realized I needed a little more medical Spanish to translate from English to Spanish, but going from Spanish to English did not cause as many problems. I was then able to work with the current volunteer doctor from Oregon who was only down for the week which was really nice because he had me more actively involved in figuring out the diagnosis and showing what he was looking for with each patient. When we had some down time, we made the mistake of looking at tap water under a microscope.... gross. There were things swimming in the water with big pinchers on the end. I can't even imagine what those bugs would do to my intestines. Really don't drink the water. After the best pizza ever for lunch (that might be withdrawal talking though), it was class as usual. The good bye fiesta for the Iowa people (most of my friends here) was that night. After dinner, we went salsa dancing with Megan and Patrick's host mom and family. I think the highlight of that was when Brian decided to climb up a pole and show everyone how he can stretch himself horizontal over the crowd... and then jumping on top of us all. It was sad to say goodbye to them all, but we had a good time while they were here and I myself will be heading home in one week anyway.
Friday morning I decided to go and help out at the Guaderia with the little kids again. I had bought one of the girls a birthday present the day before but hadn't been able to go to the actual birthday party on Thursday. I was really hoping she liked it and asked Amy, the head volunteer, if she knew. She didn't at the time, but the second we walked into the door to the Guaderia, one girl starts yelling at Amy "I got a doll for my birthday!" over and over again. The girl was Chavala and was the one I had gotten the gift for. It made me so happy she actually liked it! We split into groups and I read the Spanish versions of "Green Eggs and Ham " (instead of Sam I Am it's Juan Ramon hehe), "Hide and Seek", "Penguins", and "Lemon Moon" to the kids. I was also outside with them for a bit reading while they ran around me in circles to get their energy out. Those kids are just too cute.

THE BIRTH

After many trips to the midwife´s clinic and checking many pregnant and sick women, we finally had a birth while Sara and I were there. It was quite lucky for Sara because today was her last day. It started with a woman entering the clinic sobbing... she had had many problems and pain during the night and she was terrified she had lost her baby. Ana immediately slammed the door and locked it so that she could take a look. The poor woman... she was already fully dilated. Ana and I rushed the woman into the birthing room and Ana proceeded to break her water with her finger. She then massaged the stomach and basically pushed the baby most of the way out herself. By the time the mom was told to push, I could already see most of the head. The baby came out... and it was sooo tiny. Obviously premature. It was also a little blue, but it had a good set of lungs on it. Ana started asking questions to the woman and demanding to know why she hadn´t come during the night when Ana could have stalled the birth. The woman said she didn´t think it was that far along. While Sara was told to massage the woman´s chest for increased lactation, Ana continued massaging the stomach until finally the placenta came out as well. This whole process, from her showing up til end of the birth, took probably less than 20 minutes. Ana started dressing the baby in the clothes provided... she explained that she did not wash premature babies because they need all the warmth they can get. When we weighed the baby, we realized just how bad a shape this poor thing was. She was only 3 lbs 6 oz at 8 months gestation. Ana handed the baby off to Sara and me so that we could wrap the baby in as many layers as physically possible. Ana continued to take care of the mother and demonstrated to us how to make sure all of the placenta is out and it is safe to say the birth is over. 10 minutes after giving birth, the mother walked out of the birthing room to the recovery bed with me carrying the baby behind her. We got the mother situated and explained to her and her husband that the baby needed an incubator and they had to go to the hospital as soon as possible.

I think I´m going to try and stay at the midwife clinic for a night next week...

Tuesday...

In the morning, I studied with Brian and bought a present for one of the little girls at the Guaderia for her birthday (a little doll hehe). For part of my class, I went to an exhibition of Anne Frank... the reason this is going on in Guatemala is because they are using her story as a case story for the crimes that happened against the indigenous people of Guatemala during the war: the genocide, discrimination, and violence. Technically all of this ended in 1996, but the exhibition was trying to bring up that many of these problems are continuing today. After that uplifting experience, I had dance class... I love dance class but I wish we could learn more then the time allows. It´s so fun! Anyway, while Dave and I were walking home from La Parranda, we ran into a boy of 9 or 10 hopping down the street. We immediately asked if he was ok and in very rapid Spanish he responded that he had been hit by a car! The car had taken off and he needed an ambulance. Niether Dave nor I knew the number for the ambulance, but luckily someone had already called and it soon showed up. I was just happy that we understood what this kid was saying because if he had needed help we would have known what was going on.

Atitlan is supposed to be fun... right?

Friday was a nice end to the week because I had class in the morning and then spent the afternoon hanging out with Carolyn for her last day. She convinced me to buy some movies in spanish to enjoy when I get back to the States (including the Lion King hahaha). Friday night was the fiesta night where a student makes dinner for everyone. We had this awesome strawberry-raspberry cobbler (dessert first as always haha), pasta, fruit salad, and guacamole. Delicious... afterwards Dave, Carolyn, and I went out for one mojito as a good-bye party.
Saturday I woke up feeling uhh questionable. My host mother had already made me a decilious pile of pancakes, so I devoured them but couldn´t handle the thought of drinking coffee. I should have taken that as a sign to NOT go to Lake Atitlan again... but instead I jumped in the shower and ran off to catch the bus with the group. While walking to the bus, I could tell I was not feeling 100%. On the bus, I was sitting next to Dave and I must have looked as questionable as I felt, because he then tried to distract me with singing different Coldplay and Weezer songs. But to no avail. I asked Sara for her bag from Xelapan (bread store) and she found a holeless one for me. WARNING NOT FOR THE QUEASY Yes... I puked in the bus for a good hour... pancakes and all. The people behind me started asking Dave if we wanted some pills for me for motion sickness and he kindly declined. I thought it was all over, but no. When we got out to change busses at Los Cinquentros, I was puking in the middle of the street and the group scattered to try and find more bags for me. The vendors all around me were just staring at me, trying to figure out why I was in the middle of the street throwing up. When the group all returned (with black, not clear, bags), I couldn´t figure out what to do with the bag I currently had and the bag´s integrity was beginning to be questioned. No one around me answered when I asked for the basura, soooo after much debating, I left it behind one of the tiendas and ran... I felt kinda guilty, but not enough to take it with me. The sickness continued on the following two busses and then we finally arrived in Panajachel. The group was hungry, so we got lunch as I drank water... and soon discovered the water wouldn´t stay down either. Good times. After walking around a bit, we decided to head to Santiago... I felt great on the water with the wind and fresh breezes, but then we arrived and all I wanted to do was lay down forever. Which is exactly what I did for three hours while the rest of the group checked out Santiago (apparently I didn´t miss anything great). I felt better around 7pm or so and was able to eat some chicken noodle soup and grilled cheese. We then walked around the completely dead town... or so we thought until we stumbled upon a carnival in the middle of the town. Complete with a ferris wheel!! Although, the ferris wheel wasn´t really hooked up to anything so guys were pulling the wheel in a circle for the kids. I swear, we were the side show to the carnival. Greg is a very tall white guy with blonde hair, so is easily seen among these short dark haired Guatemaletecos. A kid on the ferris wheel kept his laser pointer concentrated on us the whole time we walked around the carnival so that everyone always knew exactly where we were. I felt completely out of place there but it was interesting nonetheless. We decided to just head back to the room and one of my favorite disney movies, the Sword in the Stone, was playing on Disney (in Spanish). The hilarious part was that Dave and I had been discussing that movie and the animated Robin Hood earlier that day (songs, plot, and all, as a distraction haha) so we were both pretty psyched.
Sunday I woke up feeling more myself, maybe not 100%, but better. I turned on the TV and the animated Robin Hood was on!! What are the odds? Haha we all watched Robin Hood and got going for the day once it was over. Dave was definitely not feeling 100% and people were not happy with Santiago, so we caught an early boat to Panajachel. We took a hotel right on the water and then ate some breakfast. After getting situated and finding the rest of the people from Xela, Sara, Jay, and I decided to check out what was east of Pana... which is basically the sewer system for Pana. Excellent. After walking through/over that, we found a Guatemalteco beach where we were the only white people. Some little girls came over to have us swim with them, but after seeing the sewage coming in 20 feet away, we decided against it. After watching the sunset with the group on the roof over the lake, we headed out to dinner... mmm 3 for 10Q tacos (can you hear my intense sarcasm??) I decided only to have one very very weak drink which turned out to be an awesome idea. Dave went home without eating, while the 5 of us decided to make friends with the owner of the taco stand by giving him some of our alcohol. After 3 of the people finished off the alcohol, we decided to find a disco... which doesn't really exist on Sunday nights of course. Kristen wasn´t feeling well, so she headed home to join Dave. The rest of us ended up wandering around Pana and different bars trying to find the gringos. I encountered a group of Guatemaltecos trying to talk to a group of Americans and it just not working out. After interpreting for them for like 10 minutes and fixing their communication problem, I split. I took the thoroughly wasted people home around midnight to their room and returned to mine with Kristen and Dave. Ooooh man. Dave was feeling better, just hungry, but poor Kristen was really, really sick. Dave and I stayed up with her all night as she was violently ill in the bathroom. All I could do was hold a cold compress to her neck and let her use me as a pillow when resting. Around 2am, she was starting to get worse with her breathing so I found the manager and Dave and I tried to figure out if their was a hospital or doctor nearby. Unforunately, only a public hospital existed an hour away and we didn´t want to take our chances with that (public hospitals suck and the odds of an actual doctor being their during the night is slim to none). So all we could do was wait it out.
Around 830 we decided to try and get some breakfast and head back to Xela. I took a shower there... and I can honestly say it was the best shower ever. Hot water at high pressure... omg I hadn´t had a shower like that in four weeks. Totally worth the 60Q to stay there. Anyway, back to the sicklies... Sara was sick that morning from a really bad hangover. She couldn´t eat breakfast and ended up puking all the way home on the busses. I had an interesting conversation with a man from Solola who wanted either 200Q or for me to give him my blood at a hospital. I politely declined. We had many troubles on the bus rides home... we got split up in Los Cinquentros and most of us got on a coach bus. We were stopped by the police and everyone needed to take out their passports. Some people were taken off the bus. First those without passports (who were not American thankfully since Dave didn´t have his) and then indigenous people who looked, I don´t know, like they needed to be taken off?? They were questioned for like 20 or 30 minutes and then allowed to return. I asked one of those questioned what was going on and he just said the police can do what they want. That bus was supposed to take us to Xela, but it didn't. It ended up taking us 6 busses and a taxi to get from Pana to Xela which should only take 2 to 3 max. Poor Sara was sick the entire time.
On a happier note, I have a new teacher who is just awesome. She really makes me work hard. I think these last two weeks are going to be awesome and I´ll really learn a lot =)