Minh Ba, medicine and the midwest

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Wrigley



Sorry, I'm lazy like Shaefer and don't feel like writing anything right now, so here are some pics from the weekend in Chicago and Milwaukee with Shaef and Dook:

Shaef in fron of Wrigley before the Cubs/Nats game

Heading towards our bleacher seat entrance

Me, Jerry the peanut guy and his VW bus

Shaefer's head is sooo big it's blocking the entire L field

Drenched from the onslaught of rain, but we weren't about to give up our prime seats

A different view of Wrigley

Shaef's glove against the bleacher wall at Wrigley
(I love my camera)




Sear's Tower







U.S.Cellular






Maddux


The clusterfuck of trying to leave

Milwaukee/Miller Brewery/Miller Park

Miller High Life Cruiser

Miller Brewery

The Lauter Tuns


Miniture "Miller Park"

Miller Park close-up

Miller Park from afar

Random Pic of Marines from Above

The slide in L field that Bernie the Brewer goes down after every HR

Our view
(Not bad for standing room only)


The Hot dog/Italian Sausage/Polish dog race
The fans were more excited about this 7th inning event than they were of the game
(Especially the handicap row in front of me, the ladies actually got up out of their whe

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

#*$@(*&#$ me for being a complete moron

It strange how you can seriously jinx yourself. Today has been slow at the hospital and around 8:30 tonight, I walked by the ER and noticed it was pretty empty, so I mentioned it to my resident...who proceeded to scream profanities, because he knew just as well as I had when I muttered those words, "it looks like tonight's gonna be slow," that I had just screwed us over. One hospital admit shortly after that comment, and my pager just went off to the tune of two more. I love medicine...and it loves me.

Friday, May 05, 2006

Happy Cinco de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican Independence Day, as some may think, and it isn't just another day to get drunk, as some may do. This day marks Mexico's victory at the Battle of Puebla, when the Mexican forces where able to defeat the French and Emperor Napolean III. Spain, Britain and France had all previously gathered in Mexico to reclaim debts owed by Mexico, and although Spain and Britain made agreements with the Mexican government to return home, the French stayed, confident that they could so easily seize Mexico City. In actuality, they ended up getting their @$$es beat by the local militia, peasants and a plethora of cattle at the aforementioned Battle of Puebla. In celebration of that fated day we have Cinco de Mayo. Now we drink, and we act merry, but we sure as hell don't want to legalize those immigrants...but honestly now, we can celebrate something great...today we celebrate Eriberto, probably the only true Mexican any of us really know. So as a tribute to our brother "Burrito:"


Happy Cinco de Mayo


I must also leave you with one last thought....How come we don't celebrate the 17th of May? This was the day, a year later, when the French came back to stomp on the Mexicans, overtake Puebla and destroy their army and eventually take over. We could all spend May 17 in our berets, sipping wine, smoking cigarettes out of long cigarette holders and talking about how much work we have to do or how much vacation time we really need...think about it...with one Great Franco-Mexican war, why not have two holidays to celebrate?!?!

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Super Update....Vegas....Seattle...B-day

OOps, by my "tommorrow" from my previous post...i meant 2 weeks later, but alas here she be, a monstrous update of these past few weeks (It is broken up into three parts, with the other parts to follow this post --> ie. scroll down):

Since this is technically a new month, I normally would be starting a new rotation, but with internal medicine at the VA, they require back-to-back months, so I'll be out here until the end of May. I don't really mind so much, because I hate the transitions every month, getting use to a whole new hospital, system and staff. I'm usually slow to get comfortable with things, and by the third week or so, when I feel proficient, usually it's just about time to go. So I think I'm going to enjoy this month a lot more, now that I've gotten the hang of things around the hospital. The majority of the residents have also switched elsewhere for the month, but I lucked out and got to keep the same crazy "terrorist" resident that I had last month. He's not really a terrorist like Safavi, but he was born in Baghdad, so I still get to give him shit. My attending frequently asks him if he's part of a sleeper cell and one day will come back to hurt us, needless to say, I try to act nice...just in case. Maybe he would get along with Safavi though...i dunno, do Iranians and Iraqis get along?!?!

Anyways, I guess I'll start off with my new happenings for the day; as typical of these last few posts, I'm on overnight call again at the hospital and as of recent, I was deemed the black cloud by my resident because when I was in Seattle last weekend and he was on call by himself, he had only one pt. When I'm around we get at least 5 new admits a night and today didn't appear to be any different. To start off the wonderous day, I noticed "bounce-back," a pt. that was recently discharged, and now for some unfortunate reason is back in the hospital. He was assigned to another resident, and it appeared that he was going to be discharged, ready to go home again for a second time. I remember seing him go down the elevator with his wheelchair, and then several minutes later...I hear a "code" paged overhead. Of course, it was this pt., and by the time I got there, there was already too many people around trying to rescuscitate him. I have never been that close to a code before, but it gets your heart thumping and your mind racing. It gives me a lot of anxiety, knowing that someday, I'll have to run a code. It's amazing to see the organized chaos that ensues between the attendings/residents/nurses that arrived first at the scene. Luckily, the pt. came out of it, and is currently in recovery in the ICU.
My resident finished helping with the code and looked at me to say, "great start to the day...we're fucked tonight." But, thankfully he was wrong, or at least so far he is. We've had two admits today, and they came relatively at the same time, so he worked up one, and I did the other. Both are ICU pts, mainly there to rule out an MI (myocardial infart = heart attack). Plus side to being in the ICU today was watching "The Amazing Race" with some old nurses...that sounds kinda gay... but that's what keeps me entertained. If you watch the show...I'm rooting for the hippies.

After the ICU I stopped by another "bounce-back" who will have his infected foot drained tommorrow. I kept passing by his room all day, and he hadn't had any visitors and was looking quite bored, so I made a social visit. We chatted about his work/travel/previous military service, then watched some of the Wizards/Cavs playoff game. It felt good when I finally left the room, and I realized that overall today, I've been in a different mood. Not that I'm not normally the most pleasant person in the world, but today, when I look back, I've just been going out of my way to talk to people and being jovial. I think a lot of is had to do with going to church yesterday during worship and just getting time to reflect and think about many different things. One of the last things the speaker said before the night was over, was to make it a point to do something this week to make a difference in another person; ie. use what you know, and do what you can to impact someone else. Although it wasn't much, just spending those few minutes to chat with the pt. made me feel like I belonged working in a hospital and that I am on the right path that I was chosen to be on.

Alright enough of the moooshyness...my highlight of the day: plane tickets to Chicago!!!! I cleared the days off with my resident, so I will be joining Dookie and Shader in Chi-town from May 17-->21 for hopefully at least 1 Cubs game, 1 Sox game and maybe even a Brewers game. I'm hoping that James, one of my classmates that is doing his rotations at home in Chicago, and Tricia, will get a chance to come hang out and even go to a game or two.

For anyone out there that may pass by this blog and has tickets or knows of people in Chicago that might have tickets to the Sox-Cubs game...let me know. We do not have tickets for that weekend game yet and if we can't find any, it'll be up to Shafer's scalping abilities.

Speaking of baseball this week:
Fantasy baseball lowlight: F#$K Eddie Guardado... blown save #3!!!!!.
One out from getting right back on track, and ?!?!?!? Pablo Ozuna...you give up Pablo's first career HR!?!?!?!?!? Crap...of course it has to happen on the week that my team is up against another team that has monsters of closers. Holy bunghole.

Fantasy basball highlight: Scott Podsednik --> 4 stolen bases...1 game, 'nuff said

Allright, that's all I really have for now, the following three blogs to follow directly under this one will recap Vegas, Seattle, and my b-day on monday. Since my pics are on my laptop at home, if you are reading this early...the rest of the blogs won't be done until tommorrow night (Thu)

If you guys are still reading this and checking up on this blog even though I don't regularly update it, thank you for taking the time to read it

"My name is Minh Ba, My name is Minh Ba, My name is Minh Ba, My name is Minh Ba, My name is Minh Ba, My name is Minh Ba, My name is Minh Ba, My name is Minh Ba, My name is Minh Ba, My name is Minh Ba, My name is Minh Ba, My name is Minh Ba, My name is Minh Ba, My name is Minh Ba, My name is Minh Ba, My name is Minh Ba, My name is Minh Ba, My name is Minh Ba, My name is Minh Ba, My name is Minh Ba"

-The end...for now

Seattle

I'm tired...here are some pics...I"ll write about this tommorrow...or next time I'm on call...


Dook and Davis tryin hard to flex for the camera...Mike is already naturally flexed


Screwin with my new camera, this pic reminds me of an old 80's video


What's a wedding without some alcohol?
Kickin back some Jaeger bombs in chowder bowls with the boys


Dook and Davis well protected from spillage


Mike sealing his fate


B of A crew
(L-->R, Mrs and Mr. Bossman, don't know, Becca, Hyo, don't know, don't know and Merchado)


Good friends = good times
(L-->R, Julie, Stiffy, Dookie, Tasha, Bunghole pirate, Davis and me)




Clusterfuck of Psi-U's causing trouble
(Who the fuck is the old guy with the glasses right behind me, why does there always have to be "that guy" in every picture, that just pops their damn head in....Holy hell...)