Valentine's Day Antics

Russell and I spent the weekend at his lake house off Lake Livingston to "celebrate" Valentine's Day. Most girls would love to have a boyfriend that willingly celebrates v-day and I do love it but I'm also cursed. Despite all of my previous bad luck it turned out to be such a great weekend and we couldn't have asked for better weather! Biggio got to take a road trip up there with me and had a weekend of chasing bugs and rolling around in dirt/dust. Needless to say if he was a dog he would be getting a bath but since he still has back claws I'm not risking it!

Anyway, we basically spent the weekend watching movies, sleeping, cooking, and making numerous trips to wal-mart. A few adventures were inevitable with my bad luck but all turned out for the best. We decided Saturday afternoon to take the boat out on the lake, fish and relax. Relaxing was about the last thing we did. The boat died in the middle of the lake with no other boats around! I mean...who goes out on the lake mid-February besides us right? Oh, did I mention there was a storm heading straight for us at this point! Of course we both became meteorologist and predicted how long it would be before it got to us and at what point we should call the police to come rescue us! Luckily after about 20 minutes of waiting and a panicked phone calls to Russell's parents, I saw boat was in the distance and I said something to the extent of "boat, BIG ARMS, yell" to Russell and we got their attention. They towed us into his dock and about 15 minutes later the storm hit. We were dry and warm thank goodness!! It was a very laughable situation even at the time we both couldn't stop laughing at how stupid we were! I think we even resorted to sweet talking the engine a few times. So that was our big adventure of the weekend. A few minor freak outs about big spiders and roaches throughout the weekend but nothing on or near me so I won't complain.

The biggest excitement of the weekend is that I am now the owner of a Wii. I have been wanting one for quite some time now and finally broke down and bought it. Thank you to the GameStop in Livingston, TX! I'll take any recommendations on games. I think Russell is just excited he never has to think of presents for me again since there will always be fun Wii games for us to play :-).

The Hospital is Nothing Like Grey's Anatomy...it's even better!

I haven't talked too much about my practicum so I will fill everyone in.

I'm at Parkland Hospital on the trauma unit. It's a really cool setup they have for the speech pathologist. Basically every 4 months the therapist rotate between medicine/burns, trauma, outpatient rehab and inpatient rehab. So for this semester my supervisor is on trauma rounds and so am I!! I absolutely love it. It is challenging and crazy every day but I get to see and learn something new with each patient. Parkland has quite a diverse population coming through both in types of injuries and ethnicity. In fact I have been greatly inspired to learn spanish so I converse with many of our patients! It is frustrating to not be able to communicate with them in anyway. Parkland also offers a lot of help to unfunded patients. I think it's great and I won't get started on my views of our healthcare system. All I will say is that it's angering and inefficient and the more I learn and see each day makes me wonder how our healthcare system is so terribly run. Mind you it is run by predominately by insurance companies who never have contact with the patient but decide their future treatment...go figure! I only hope for a change...no it's not socialism!

Some things I've worked with at the hospital:

1. Traumatic Brain Injuries caused by:

• Car/Motorcycle/ATV accidents
  
• Gun shot wounds
  
• Horses in general
• Aggravated assaults
• Drugs (Did you know how many people do drugs? Cause I didn't!)
• Diseases (One in particular was caused from undercooked pork! Mom..don't freak out it happens rarely and "boot leather" :-) meat won't help!)

2. Strokes

3. Swallowing Disorders

Who knew a speech therapist had so many roles!!!

I currently have a patient right now that has a love/hate relationship with me. She hates everything about the hospital and won't let you forget it but secretly I think she loves the attention. She is a sweet woman, has a good heart, just stubborn as hell! I have now gone from being told to "get out of here" at the end of the session to "get out of here honey." haha, I can appreciate it.

Anyway that is a big summary of a just a month of being at Parkland. I'm sure I will have more stories to come!