The Accidental Boilermaker

Today at work my project was to figure out how to make 2 tasks last 6 hours. So I first spent 30 minutes in the cafeteria drinking coffee while my colleagues ate breakfast. Then I reviewed a chart for 30 minutes for a patient who never showed up. That brought me to about 9:30, so I cleaned every possible surface touched by human hands. Finally, I had to start task #1 - writing up exit reports - which I dragged out till about 11:30. I got to waste the last 30 minutes till lunch talking with a past patient. I took a nice, leisurely lunch and then began task #2 - creating graphs in excel for our department's end-of-the-year Performance Improvement report. I don't make the graphs look super fancy or anything, but I am seriously the only person who knows how to use excel. Then I came home and ran 6 miles through an inch of snow - talk about a calf workout.

I learned today that Purdue is switching some employees' health insurance from United Healthcare to Cigna. I'm not sure how many employees this will affect, but the big problem is that Cigna has a $30 co-pay per exercise session. The average patient comes to cardiac rehab 24 times, so that is $720 in co-pays! It's a sign of the times; my boss remarked that we're probably going to see more insurance companies charging co-pays for rehab. It is sad to think that even with insurance, some people can't afford the care they need.

Nate took me to see Star Wars - In Concert for my Christmas present. It was a lot of fun. The show was great, Anthony Daniels was funny, and the music was amazing. They had a little mini museum of original costumes you could look at before the show.

I saw my first patient today on Effient . It is a platelet inhibitor just like Plavix . And if you're in cardiac rehab, you're probably on Plavix. Plavix is expensive. Its patent will expire in 2011, but with this new drug, patients may still pay through the nose to keep their stents open. I'm not sure if health care reform will help with the exorbitant medication prices out there, but I hope it does. Maybe doctors won't just prescribe Effient because Eli Lilly has got them in their pocket but because it's best for their patient. Apparently, about 30% of Whites and Blacks (and 60% of Asians) have a gene variation that doesn't allow them to break down Plavix into its active form. So if these people have a new, shiny metal stent in a coronary artery and sticky platelets, they are at greater risk of suffering a blood clot and a subsequent heart attack or even stroke. Effient is easier to metabolize and therefore will work for most individuals, but carries ...

I got a really nice compliment at work on Friday. I had to teach the education class that day. I generally only teach one class - Stress and Relaxation. I wasn't really feeling like teaching and before getting the classroom ready, I said a quick prayer that class would go well. Once in class, I figured we had everybody who was coming, but the wife of a patient said to wait because she thought another wife was coming. I was pretty sure she was mistaken because I had just asked this lady's husband if he was going to class and he said no. But just a few moments later, this woman walks in and says she wasn't planning on coming, but when she saw it was me teaching, she changed her mind. She told me I always have a smile on my face and really seem to enjoy my job, so she knew class would be good. What a confidence booster! Compliments and songs by Michael Buble make me happy.

Finally, a chance to relax. Fun with my cousin. Pumpkin cheesecake - yum! Family picture.

This was a slightly trying week at work. It's the start of the holiday season and our numbers have been kind of low which makes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday really slow. We had 8 new patient orientations this week which is fantastic but didn't really pan out that great for me. I saw one patient who had no idea what meds they were on and clearly were not taking them right, one who had no insurance, and one who had a medicare replacement with a $100 co-pay per exercise session. Needless to say, those last two couldn't afford to come to cardiac rehab - it costs about $175 per session. That first patient exercised today and had just seen his surgeon yesterday, but still had no idea what meds he was on! I was going to call the doctor but didn't have time because despite being slow all day, at 2:30-3:00 it all of a sudden got busy. Anyway, Penny was being silly earlier in the week and on Wednesday, Nate bought me flowers.

Not much happened this weekend. On Friday we went to Bible study where one girl told us about being summoned to jury duty for 2010 and then today when I finally checked our mail, guess what I found. My own personal letter from the Tippecanoe court system. Hurray : ( I may not get called, but I'm officially in the pool. Saturday I worked. I'm still in training for the Saturday rotation. I didn't get to do much because there wasn't much to do. I helped walk an open heart and then walked an MI all by myself - that's a big step for me. I also was introduced to one of the cardiologists and a surgeon from Indy. Doctors are scary. I ran 6 miles which feels like nothing compared to last weekend. I hung out with Nate at his office while he got his charts in order and then we went out to dinner with friends. Sunday - a day of rest. I took a big nap. We made soup so Nate can heat up the leftovers for dinner tomorrow before he sees his clients. I love it when ban...

I ran my first marathon today. I finished (the most important part), feeling pretty good (second most important part) in 4:38. I might run another cuz I think I can do a little better : )

Meredith had her first regatta today down at Eagle Creek Reservoir in Indy. She raced in the novice A boat and they won first place!

I passed my advanced cardiovascular life support ( ACLS ) certification class today. Ask Nate, I was pretty stressed out. But now it's done and I do feel more prepared to deal with emergency situations. In happy news, my Dutch patient who teases me about going to Hope is coming back to rehab. He got sick with the flu and had to be admitted to the hospital, but today he stopped by to say he's better and got the okay from his doctor to come back!

This music video reminds me of my sister.

Boiler Up!

I couldn't find an actual music video that I could upload from youtube, but if you go here , you can watch it - which I highly recommend you do.

I ran 20 miles this morning. 3 more Saturday runs till the marathon. I'm finding it a little hard to believe I ran that far, but then I try to get up off the futon and my legs remind me that yes, I did indeed run 20 miles. I made a yummy side dish for dinner. I found the recipe in the Spirit of Women magazine at the hospital. 7 Veggie Couscous: Ingredients 1 T olive oil 1 medium onion 2 garlic cloves 1 medium yellow crookneck squash - diced 1 medium zucchini - diced 1 small butternut squash - peeled and cubed 1/4 tsp cumin 1/4 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp salt 1/4 tsp black pepper 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes 1 1/2 c chicken or veggie broth 1 c frozen peas 1 c halved cherry or grape tomatoes (I did not use tomatoes and it tasted just fine) 1 c plain couscous Heat oil over medium heat, add onion and garlic, cook till onions are tender, add squash and spices. Cook for 1 min, till aromatic, stirring frequently Add broth and bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer till squash...

A lady I work with gave me and Nate tickets for the game today. It was cold and windy and a fairly disappointing game with Purdue turning over the ball 6 times, but we had fun. Tubas! It's hard to tell, but that's the Boilermaker train The classic block "P" On the field Final score : (

Setting: work Characters: me, Peggy (a nurse), and a Purdue nursing student Nursing student: "So where did you go to nursing school?" Me: "Oh, I'm not a nurse." Peggy (jokingly): "She just pretends to be one." Me: "Yeah, I just play one on TV." Then this afternoon, a patient tried to set me up with her grandson.

It was parents weekend at Purdue and since we're considered Meredith's surrogate West Lafayette parents we went to everything too. Saturday Meredith took us to the Discount Den for a Den Pop - a 32oz soda for 60 cents (a college student's dream) - and then at night we watched NCIS and had Blue Moon's seasonal fall beer. Sunday was the Purdue Crew team's open house. Here's the boats on the trailer. Closer picture of what the boat looks like. Meredith's on the novice team for her first year. The lovely Wabash River. Meredith says this boat is called "the barge." It's two boats put together and it can't tip over - it's how the novice kids learn to row. Meredith and Nate raced a 500 on the ergs. Nate did it in 1:44. Today was the Hunger Hike too. The crew team is the grand marshal of the hike and they carry two boats on their shoulders for the entire two miles. I walked with Meredith and all her friends from the team. In other news,...

This week was pretty crazy. I ate out for at least one meal every single day. Yikes! Monday - Meredith treated me and Nate to dinner at the cafe/grill in her dorm Tuesday - we went to Applebee's because 15% of your meal went to support the Lafayette HeartWalk Wednesday - lunch at Arni's to celebrate Mindy's birthday at work Thursday - in Chicago; breakfast at Blueberry Hill in La Grange and dinner at Subway at the Hinsdale Oasis Friday - out to Mancino's for work just because and then we got together for pizza and a movie with friends for dinner I had two days off from work this week. One for Labor Day. The other for my great-great aunt Irene's funeral. She was really more like a grandmother than an aunt. It's very strange losing someone who has been such an enduring fixture in your life. She was the kind of person you thought would be around forever. She would have been 87 in October. And today was the HeartWalk. I volunteered at the survivor's...

Nate bought me coffee before dropping me off at work The ladies at work took me out to Arni's for lunch Nate also bought me a giant cookie cake - completely covered in icing! Plus all the cards I got in the mail today. And less you think all Nate got me was coffee and a really big cookie, here's a link to my "real" gift which is coming. Thanks everybody : )

Last weekend we went camping with some friends at Turkey Run state park. It's a super nice park with lots of great trails. We mostly sat around the camp fire and did some hiking too.

My gerontology minor certificate came in the mail today - frame and all. The flowers came from Nate on Thursday because I had a bad day.

Nate and I went up to Chicago for a little weekend get-away. We went sailing with Nate's advisor on Lake Michigan and saw the start of the race to Mackinaw Island. Then we spent the night with Katherine. It was a pretty fun 2 days. Here's some pictures from on the boat.

In this video, the group right after the pace car are the fastest bikers of the race. The bikers before the chase group are lapped riders and then comes the "peloton" where Nate was for the race. He finished 12 out of 25 today!