Virginia Thus Far

Ok, so I'm just trying to think of what else I need to write about since I haven't really blogged about what I've been up to in Virginia very well. So here it goes. We'll mostly just go along with the pictures, I think it will be easiest :) This Picture is of our 24 hour trip to Delaware to spend one last day on the beach before the kiddos started school. I already had started school by this time and only had Wednesdays off, so it was quick but a blast.

This is my attempting to stay warm. I officially have been damaged for life now that I've living in Phoenix. I just can't get warm anymore. So the quote from this trip was after swimming in the ocean we needed to D-Sand ourselves, and so Jess and I decided to jump on the pool. Keep in mind that the pool was a great deal colder then the ocean and you had to keep moving to survive. David joined us a little bit later. Then Josh came running up and just jumped in the pool without checking the water first. He pops up with his glasses hanging off his face and shouts very quickly "Holy Smokes Its' Cold!!!"

We also went white water rafting with the boy scouts. Since Dad couldn't come it ended up being Jess, Mom, Sarah, Me, our cousin Elizabeth and our friend Ian in a boat. I was the leader in the back in charge of steering. Lets just keep in mind that this was an interesting experience since there were four very dominant females in this raft, but by the time we got to the end we were not only experts at getting ourselves off of rocks, but mom got thrown into the boat by one of the guides after being knocked out, and we were one of the few who made it through without getting help through the roughest section at the end. We rocked it!!
In October I went to Ann Arbor, Michigan to be a bridesmaid for my friend Robin Finn. It worked out perfectly because I got to stay with Nate and Mari who lived 10 minutes away. So I got a lot of catch up time and got to see Mari preggers. It was a fun weekend. Robin took me all around Ann Arbor since that was where she grew up. We went out to eat at fabulous places and just really enjoyed the time together. Her family was very accommodating and helpful. Besides me being one of 4 sober people at the end of the wedding reception it was fabulous weekend, and unforgettable. I also was able to stop by Cleveland on my drive home and spend the night and go out to breakfast with my high school friend Nikki Nadeau. It was so nice to relax and just catch up with friends.
One of the things that I was so excited about moving to DC was because of the history and all that is available to do around the area. From my weekend in NYC with Robin for her Bachelorette weekend to going to dinner and then walking around the capital and library of congress to the Saturday I spent in Harper's Ferry with three other girls from Relief Society. This is a picture of Harper's Ferry. SO beautiful. Even though it was pouring rain. We were able to go on the 150th Anniversary of the John Brown Raid, so there was a lot to do. And of course I wouldn't be living the dream if it didn't include sporting events. Josh, Sarah, Dad and I had the amazing opportunity to show our USA pride by attending the World Cup Qualifying Match against Costa Rica.

It was an amazing game and we ended up tieing them 2-2, scoring 2 goals in the last 15 minutes or so. The energy was amazing and it made me miss soccer games in Europe.
This was us waiting for the metro. We decided that since we can't go to the World Cup next summer as planned (prices tripled so it was a bit out of budjet) this soccer game was completely worth it.
In order to get more involved in the ward I asked if I could organize a ward PowderPuff game, where Relief Society B challenged Relief Society A to a game. It worked out better then I'd planned. Here is Jessica as our amazing QB. We even had a half time show put on by the Elders and a commentator on loadspeakers and quite the crowd came to cheer us on.
As you can see it was really really muddy!! Yes, those are my feet and how muddy my legs really were. True to form I spent most of my time on the ground after trying to grab flags. :)
This Thanksgiving was one of the best we'd had in a long time. The Thompson's came up from Charlotteville and the Riehl's came from Arlington. Our family friend Maren came, and my friend Jonathan joined us for the day, with our friend Laura dropping by and Dustin coming over to play games later. As you can see Jessica is very excited to be baking her pie.
David is sad we didn't play the game he wanted.
Yes, this is Dustin. I'll blog about him next, once I get pictures from Sarah from this weekend. Just a teaser for you to entice you to read more next time :)
Dad decided that this year the tableclothe was going to be paper and we all had to write what we were thankful for. Leave it to Dad to always remember the real purpose of the Holidays. That is why we love him!! And for many many other reasons too!!
Watching some Charlie Brown while waiting for the food to be ready.
Sarah and Alex taking a nap after eating some good food.
And of course it wouldn't be life with the Shepherd's if there wasn't some repelling included. This is Jessica showing off her Austrailian style skills.
Josh is so funny to watch because he's too lite to actually slide down the rope so he has to jump out to go down. But he's gotten pretty good.
We have been trying to find a good place at Great Falls to repel and it was pretty busy this saturday and so everyone kept stopping to watch us.
We went out to Michigan for Isabelle June Shepherd's baby blessing. I flew out since I had a final on Friday and was supposed to work, but I ended up not having to work and going out with Dustin instead. :) But here is us girls in our natural states after a wonderful day at church and spending quality time as first time aunts.
Isabelle all bundled and ready for our trip to Borders. It isn't a visit with Nate unless you go to Borders since he can get us a discount. If you get books for Christmas and Birthdays from now on you know why. We are trying to make sure Nate will still have a job.
The family with the latest addition. Mari was taking the picture or else she would have been in it too. We were just sad to not have Matt and Chelsea there too!
My adorable sister-in-law/old college roommate and my older brother with their adorable little girl. I love her!! She has the best expressions and is so well behaved. She had to have the pacifier however since she was really hungry.
Just one of her many faces. It was so fun to just get to hold her. Mari was so good to let us all hold her to our little hearts content and change her and give her a bath. It was a great weekend.



I was fortunate to participate as Hermione in our little skit for the Ward Talent Show. This was our rendition of remaking the Youtube video of Potter Puppet Pals. Dustin is Snape. :)

Saving Lives

I've been working the past two months in the ER at Virginia Hospital Center with the official job title as "Scribe". My job is to do whatever the doctor needs me to do to help them see more patients in a more efficient and timely manner. So I take the chart into the room and chart the patient history and complaints, gather and record labs, page other doctors, or get juice or a warm blanket for the patient, or whatever else the doctor can think of that they need help with.

That is my job in a nutshell. I work the evening shift usually from 3:30pm-1am ish 2-4 days a week while going to school during the day. I need to unwind after tonight so I thought I'd share some of the craziness that is my job. I get to the ER, and as the doctor I am working with is waiting for the other doctor to sign out their patients to us, a nurse comes out of a room saying this patient needs to be seen STAT. He was brought in by the paramedics in a mild coma. So we ran tests trying to figure out what was wrong since he was non-responsive, but stable. Turns out he was a diabetic on dialysis and with a blood sugar of 1225!!! So we have to admitted him to the ICU and got him on some insulin. Patient number 1.

We then saw an 86 year old man who tripped in the hospital parking lot while leaving after having a procedure done and fell and broke his nose and was really beat up with abrasions above the eyes and the lips who needed to be sutured up. He decided to make a scene and kept coming out of his room demanding the doctor so he could ask him about his regular medications. So we had to go into the room numerous times to calm him down. Then the son showed up who also decided to make a scene and got upset about the abrasions on his fathers hand and kept making a big deal of everything. Then we lost the father momentarily while reassuring the son, because he went off someone to find a place to put his pants back on. Patient number 2.

Then an elderly woman brought her husband in because he was suffering from depression and was suicidal and she normally takes care of him even though she herself is in her 80s. But she brought him in because he was "belligerent" and "aggressive" and even tried to run out the front door in his underwear, and then after his wife locked the door, he tried to escape out the second story window. You get the picture. Patient number 3.

Then we have the Paramedics bring in a patient who was in the middle of a heart attack. Long story short we were able to save his life. Literally. And the ER was so busy with all the rooms full and 8 patients in the hallway with 10 more to come back from the waiting room, that the doctor, the nurse and I had to bring the patient up to the Cath Lab where they were going to put in a stint. Seriously, whenever have you heard of a doctor transporting a patient up to another floor? Patient number 4.

Keep in mind that we also got 7 patients from the previous doctor and so all during the time we were saving this man's life, all the patients, except for the man in the coma, were having a fit that they needed to be seen and get out of the ER. Now this is about 2 hours into the 10 hour shift.

With so many people waiting for rooms we tried to discharge a patient who came in refusing to speak, except that he had to stay for a week. So we ran the work up on him since we didn't have any complaints, and everything came back negative. So we tell him he needs to go home and he continues to pretend he is asleep. He "wakes up" when we ask him if a meal would help him feel better. So he eats and when he is done we tell him he has to leave since all of his tests came back negative and we need his bed for patients in the waiting room, and that we are not a hotel. He refuses to get out of the bed, let alone sit up. The nurses try, the doctors try, he just keeps saying he needs to stay in the hospital for a week. So we call security and go through an entire ordeal trying to get this man out of the ER. Finally they wheel him in a wheel chair to the front door when he gets up and starts going crazy and running around the ER being chased by security. The police come and the man runs out the front door into the rain with the police chasing after him. We still don't know if they ever found him. And I felt bad because he ended up being a homeless man who just wanted a place to sleep and a meal. We tried to find a place for him, but he ran off too quickly. But still it was pretty funny to see, and took about 45 min to get everything resolved.

Needless to say that the night continues to go on in this manner. All the patients we saw after that had every complaints you could think of, all of which had been going on for at least 3 months, some for a few years. Note to all future people who read this: the ER is not a place where you go when you have a chronic illness that needs tests and someone to follow up with. We will not figure out the cure to your abdominal pain and dizziness that you've been having for 9 months in one visit. See a primary care. It is a waste of your time and your money. They will run a Chest xray, CT, get CBC, CMP, and a urine and when it all comes back negative they will just tell you to follow up with your primary care physician and go home, after you waited 3 hours for all the labs to come back.

And to top this all off, the doctor I was working with is a very nice man, and I'll be working with him a lot in the future, but this was my first shift with him and I almost went nuts. I spent half the night trying to find him or trying to get him to focus and read the labs and xrays so the next patient could go home. Granted it didn't help that he was exhausted after dealing with everything, but he was just all over the place!! And he even admitted that he would not have made it through this shift with his sanity still in tack without his trusty scribe. Haha. Lets just hope that I can figure out how to keep better tabs on him and get him to focus a little better next time.