Ambizions of a Rida

"So many battlefield scars while driven in plush cars, This life as a rap star is nothin without heart, Was born rough and rugged addressin the mad public..." 2Pac (from Ambizions of a Rida)

Above is me on Bierstadt in Evan's. I call this thing V10 if you climb it straight up. I feel like the sequence out left that uses totally different holds is a different problem that deserves a different grade. If you were in the gym and did a variation of a gym problem that didn't do the crux moves or most any of the moves of the original taped problem would you say that you had done the taped problem and then feel like down rating was in order?

I've been riding my bike to Denver Health lately, it's easing the carbon guilt, the morning commute and helping me get through the long hours I've been putting in at the nursery, I dont think that the ride is helping keep my legs small for sport and bouldering but maybe that's a ambition I hold in vein. Got another month at Denver Health starting this afternoon in inpatient medicine, from newborns to adult chronic disease.

Caring for newborns over the last month has been an amazing expereince, I went into the rotation with dread; it was my least favorite rotation my 1st year to the point that I felt near panic attacks when I had a wet diper and a crying kid to deal with. This time around was so much different, not to say I'm going into peds now but I got to the point where I enjoyed doing the goo-goo ga-ga thing with the little ones and I even had fun... much of this was due to working with rad, motivated, good people.

If the baby was cool with it, I'd hold them and do part of the exam, like red reflex or cardiac exam, while in my arms. Figuring out how to calm a baby became an art, as I'm sure any parent has experienced. For me, I became acutely interested in cardiac sounds, was that s1 and a muffled s2 or what that the kid moving or was it the breath sounds, was that an arrythmia or a jossling of the kids onesy, do they have a hiatal hernia or is it just a loud baby gut. During my month I heard a couple VSD's, a tetrology of felot, saw an ectopic kidney, saw duodenal atresia, 2 Down Syndrome babies, a lot of jaundice and poo and much much more. Cool stuff.

The neonate exam had a certain weight of importance to it that I haven't felt in other exams. If I miss something will others brush off possibly equivical finding on their physical exam? I made an effort to be slow and methodical and not let haste come before listening and being confident with what I was documenting.

Also of note from this rotation was the population. 90% of the mom's were young and mexican, spanish speaking only, and delivering their 3rd or 4th kid. There were tones of issues with drug abuse, depression with suicidal idiation, and domestic violence. All that said, I'd walk into the room to chat with mom about lactation and their child and every room would be filled by a festival of extended family. It made me consider that my own cultural glasses are a bit to quick to see a situation as unstable or unfit for parenting. My own expectations of the perfect parent I havent seen but maybe once or twice in the clinic but maybe these moms bent my glasses and I'm rethinking my bias... though I do wish they'd have less kids, not because I was tired of delivering kids but I do think that having the huge family is a set up of continued poverty that drains a health care budget that is already strapped.

Below are a few photos of the area I'm now calling The Post Office. The Post Office is the area that I've been exploring while post-call this last month (aint much else to do post call but go for a hike and feel numb). I'm putting further exploration on hold until the fall when I can finish these harder lines. The best line up there I'm not showing, yet. Sorry these images came out a bit foggy, settings on the camera must have been off that day.

New-V9ish rig:

New v7ish thing:

Lastly, Jonny Copp passed away during my last rotation. To me Jonny was a embodiment of dreams I've stowed away, a zen master, a vision of old aspirations that I haven't yet found total peace with, a human present pushing my future, a reminder that we all get clouded by fear and expectation and that some of this is under our control.

"Our everyday falling evasion in the face of death is an inauthentic Being-towards-death. But inauthenticity is based on the possibility of authenticity... but Dasein does not necessarily and constantly have to divert itself into this kind of Being. Because Dasein exists it own character as the kind of entity it is, and it does so in every case in terms of possibility which it itself is and which it understands" --Martin Heidegger from "Being and Time"

Another view of that V9sih thing: