A new perspective

Yesterday in clinical I spent the day in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).  I think I am going to get "DNR" tatooed across my chest.  The patient that I helped take care of was on a ventilator and was sedated.  He had been sedated for nine days.  He was in respiratory failure because he had pneumonia in addition to acute liver failure (his body couldn't process fluid very well and it overwhelmed his lungs).  The theory behind his treatment was that once he got over the pneumonia, he would be able to be taken off the ventilator.  My thoughts were...what if he couldn't be taken off the vent?  Did he say goodbye to his family before they intubated and sedated them?  What sort of mental repurcussions does being sedated for nine plus days have on a person?  This experience really made me reconsider what actions I want taken if I am ever sick or injured.  

Mid-semester vacation

My trip to Seattle a couple of weeks ago was wonderful.  I met John in Seattle the day his post-season meetings ended (Wednesday), he came to pick me up from the airport and then we headed south to The Dalles, OR.  We drove through central Washington instead of taking I-5.  We've both seen that stretch of I-5 more times than we care to count.  The drive was pretty.  Unfortunately John was not excited about stopping at the Historic Mural Museum in Toppenish, WA.  Also, despite what you might think (and contrary to what the billboards tell you), Yakima is definitely NOT the Palm Springs of Washington.  Definitely false advertising.  

We got to The Dalles, ate dinner, and headed out to John's aunts house.  She lives on a farm about ten miles outside of The Dalles.  The next day we headed in to Portland (about a 2 hour drive West) where we went to visit his Grandma in the hosptial.  She had bypass surgery about a month ago and then suffered a stroke about three weeks ago.  She's doing well.  She was unable to speak when we saw her, but she was all smiles when we showed up.  One of John's cousins was there too.  He has been sending out daily updates on how she is doing, and when he sent one that mentioned that John and I had been there...he got more emails back about me than he did about grandma!  After we left the hospital we had dinner with Courtney (my roommate before she moved to Portland) and then we headed to Margaret's house (a friend from college).  Friday we visited John's grandma again and then went to a Blazers game with Margaret.  After the game we met one of John's friends from college and went out on the town (well...one bar).  It was amusing, being Halloween and all.  Saturday, after a DELICIOUS breakfast, Margaret took us to OHSU where we rode the tram down the hill and back up.  Then John and I headed back to Seattle.  

In Seattle we stayed with Kerra (my roommate in college...she still lives in the same house I lived in too).  We did a lot of eating there.  Thai food for dinner, Molly Moon's for dessert (http://www.mollymoonicecream.com/).  I had balsamic strawberry ice cream.  It was amazing.  Sunday we went to Zoka for breakfast, had some Vietnamese noodle soup for lunch, did some shopping at UVillage, and went to Etta's (a restaurant in the market) for dinner.  Monday we said our goodbye's to Kerra and David (they had to go to school) and headed back to Zoka for breakfast.  They had my favorite...ginger peach scones!  We ate at Aladdin's Falafel Corner on the Ave for lunch.  I had the most amazing falafel I've ever had (sorry grandma) and John had a gyro that was rather large and very tasty.  We stopped by the Museum of Flight since we had some time to kill before going to the airport and then returned our car and came home.  

It was a short and relatively busy trip (although I feel like we didn't DO much of substance...but that was kind of the point), but wonderful and much needed.  Now John has run off to Europe for five weeks and I'm slogging through the last five weeks of my second to last semester of school!