kit kat and kaboodle

So if you are wondering what I have been up to this past week, I will tell you that I played soccer so much I threw up and I took an 8 hour multiple choice test on a computer. I attended to stroke patients, purged my bookshelf and watched many episodes of "the Wire." If you are wondering, I will tell you that I slept through the daylight savings hour and then some 12 hours more. I played with my sister's bunny and ate waaaayyy too much candy. I got to hang out with 2 of my favorite couples in both Madison and Milwaukee. I played with my niece and went shopping with my mom. I watched football and ate cheesecake with my dad. I renewed my domain, started working on my website again and tried to catch up on emails. I stuffed squash, lifted weights and bought plane tickets. So that's my story. If you were wondering.

gonna dress you up in my love

So I have been thinking about Halloween costumes as the witching hour approaches and this is what I have (realistically) come up with:

• Bumblebee
• Devil
• Pumpkin
• Flapper
• Reuse an old costume: magic coral reef or space cowgirl
  
• Thunderstorm, although to be really awesome I think I might move this one to the next category...

But then I started thinking about some awesome costume ideas for the future (when I have more time and resources to assemble these creations):

• Edward Scissorhands
• Peacock
• Wonderwoman
• Zorro
• Polar Bear
  

And some good "couples" costumes (although it would be tough to beat last year's magic coral reef and starfish duo)

• Beetlejuice and Lydia
• American Gothic couple
• Raggedy Ann and Andy
• Curious George and the Man with the Big Yellow Hat
• Bert and Ernie as zombies
• Vincent Vega and Mia Wallace
  

And finally, you know about the phenomenon of young women making their costume a slutty _______ (fill in the blank)? Well, I tried to think of costume ideas that would be hilarious as a slutty _______ (fill in the blank):

• slutty rhinoceros
• slutty astronaut
  
• slutty Chairman Mao
• slutty butcher
• slutty grandpa
• slutty Stay-Puft Marshmallow man
• slutty candy corn (although I made a drawing of this one and Jeanne thought it was really cute. I'm not going for cute but I thought I'd list it nonetheless.)

That's all I got for now folks. Please feel free to add ideas to the lists!

a light in the attic

A new week, a new service. I'm all done with brain surgery. Now it is just strokes, strokes, strokes for the next 3 weeks. I am not sure but I think I preferred watching 6 hour brain surgeries on the TV screen (they operate with microscopes and don't let the med students anywhere near the brains) over 6 hours of rounding (aka listening to our attending drone on and on and on). The brain surgery was certainly impressive.

A few key take-home points from my week on neurosurgery and in the neuro ICU:

1. If you ever are so unfortunate as to need brain surgery, I have the surgeon for you. Not only is he a pretty amazing surgeon, he has superb bedside manner, is a great teacher and really cares about his patients. You don't want just anyone microscopically sewing your brain's blood vessels together. Trust me.
   
2. All females of reproductive age really should take folic acid daily. Just 400 micrograms a day can prevent some pretty serious spinal cord and brain problems like spina bifida (spinal cord doesn't close) and anencephaly (brain and skull don't fully form). Having learned that the nervous system starts to form around 3 weeks gestation and knowing that most women don't know they are pregnant until well after that point and ALSO knowing that over half of pregnancies in the US of A are unplanned, it is pretty important to be taking folic acid BEFORE you get knocked up even and especially if you are not planning on it. Just in case. If you have that baby you are going to want it to have a brain.
   
3. Fill out Health Care Power of Attorney paperwork. Especially if you live in Wisconsin. I don't know what the laws are like elsewhere but here in the good dairy state, it is really complicated if you get into an accident or have a big stroke, are deemed incompetent and need some one else to make medical decisions for you. Long story short, if you don't have a Health Care Power of Attorney and you find yourself in an unfortunate state, you get a guardian (a family member can apply to be this person). The kicker is that if you only have a guardian, they only have the power to withdraw care if you happen to be in a persistent vegetative state. Anything short of that, they can't tell the docs to turn the machines off or take all those tubes out because they have to act in your best interest and according to Wisconsin it is never in your best interest to die. Your Health Care Power of Attorney, however, CAN decide on your behalf that enough is enough. You don't need a lawyer or a notary or anything. This article explains things a little better, if you are interested.
   
4. That said, young people can make miraculous recoveries, while few and far between, the possibility exists. Old folk, not so much.
   

Recap: Take your folic acid, fill out that advance directives paperwork and keep your noggin safe in a cancer repelling helmet. And I'll leave you with a poem by Shel Silverstein:

Little Abigail and the beautiful pony
There was a girl named Abigail
Who was taking a drive
Through the country
With her parents
When she spied a beautiful sad-eyed
Grey and white pony.
And next to it was a sign
That said,
FOR SALE--CHEAP.
"Oh," said Abigail,
"May I have that pony?
May I please?"
And her parents said,
"No you may not."
And Abigail said,
"But I MUST have that pony."
And her parents said,
"Well, you can have a nice butter pecan
Ice cream cone when we get home."
And Abigail said,
"I don't want a butter pecan
Ice cream cone,
I WANT THAT PONY--
I MUST HAVE THAT PONY."
And her parents said,
"Be quiet and stop nagging--
You're not getting that pony."
And Abigail began to cry and said,
"If I don't get that pony I'll die."
And her parents said, "You won't die.
No child ever died yet from not getting a pony."
And Abigail felt so bad
That when she got home she went to bed,
And she couldn't eat,
And she couldn't sleep,
And her heart was broken,
And she DID die--
All because of a pony
That her parents wouldn't buy.

(This is a good story
To read to your folks
When they won't buy
You something you want.)

fun times

Oh, hello! Did you have a nice weekend? We had a lot of fun, I must say. Lots of celebrating: a birthday and an engagement (what a lucky girl!), plus an undefeated soccer season for the Green Revolution and a surprise visit from an old friend. Not to mention I don't have to work (go to school/the hospital) so I slept in like a champ.

Long story short, it was a good weekend: farmer's market, biscuits and gravy at brocach (the best), laser tag, shuffleboard, soccer, hockey, lots of beer and pumpkin cake for every one (rave reviews, see recipe below).

Pumpkin cake/bars recipe:

• 4 eggs
• 1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
  
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 15-ounce can pumpkin
  
• 2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
  
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 8-ounce package cream cheese softened
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Using an electric mixer at medium speed, combine the eggs, sugar, oil and pumpkin until light and fluffy. Stir together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and mix at low speed until thoroughly combined and the batter is smooth. Spread the batter into a greased 13 by 10-inch baking pan. Bake for 30 minutes. Let cool completely before frosting. Cut into bars.

To make the icing: Combine the cream cheese and butter in a medium bowl with an electric mixer until smooth. Add the sugar and mix at low speed until combined. Stir in the vanilla and mix again. Spread on cooled pumpkin bars.

What do we want? Brains! When do we want them? BRAINS!

This weekend Nick went up to Minneapolis for a weekend with the boyz - you know, drink some beers, watch some football, and um, turn into zombies . . . you know the usual. Yeah, I guess about 5,000 zombies turned up Saturday night to drink and eat brains in Minneapolis.

Maybe this is what Harry Potter and his friend look like right after they eat some brains.

So, zombies. I mean, can you blame them? To tell you the truth, fresh bloody brains look a lot more appetizing than the ones soaked in formaldehyde that I've seen in the anatomy and pathology labs. No, I did not get to eat brains today, but I did get to watch some brain surgery. You know when people say "it's not brain surgery" -- well sometimes it IS brain surgery. So, I've been wondering about this for awhile -- which do you think is a less complicated task: brain surgery or rocket science? Like when some one says, "it's not brain surgery" or when some one says, "it's not rocket science," which is easier? Well, on the one hand, during brain surgery you are working on this microscopic scale and if you really mess up, it is one person dead BUT if you mess up some rocket science, you could kill a whole bunch of people or aliens, maybe even bomb the wrong part of the moon and definitely blow up a lot of extremely expensive equipment. On the other hand, if some one were to warn me to be quiet while a brain surgeon vs a rocket scientist was working, I would probably be way more quiet around the brain surgeon like I was today. I have had the privilege to know both brain surgeons and rocket scientists. For what it is worth, I definitely like the rocket scientists more.

Of the things I fear, getting a brain tumor definitely makes the short list. Worst case scenario, it's a brain tumor, right? Well that is what I thought but some of the patients I saw in neurosurgery clinic today kind of jarred that notion for me. Notably we saw 2 different patients - both in their 80s - with very scary big brain tumors on CT scans. Looking at the images of their brains, the tumors were more than obvious, impressive even, I couldn't really believe what I was seeing it looked so bad. But. The neurosurgeon is just following these folks with serial scans and continues to opt against operating on them. Partially because of their age but also because they were functioning just fine! And I am not talking about staring out the window at the nursing home. I mean high functioning, like writing manuscripts and dancing! With big ole brain tumors just sitting in their head! That just blew MY mind, I feel like I don't even know which way is up.

Have you ever said, "I need a man like I need a hole in my head?" You have probably at least heard some one say that. Well, I don't know how badly you do or do not need a man, but sometimes a person really does NEED a hole in their head or else something really bad might happen like they might DIE. Forget internet dating sites, get this woman a bone drill! Or how about "I'd like to pick your brain." Well as intriguing as a person may seem, I don't think that tediously dissecting their brain's blood vessels under a microscope for 5 hours is anything to get too excited about. The skull sawing is the exciting part! The actual "brain picking," YAWN... But I think "I'd like to saw your skull open" would be kind of a severe thing to say to some one you want to get to know better. Might scare them off. They might think you are a zombie. Unless that is what you are going for, of course.

Brain surgery and injuries are really intense stuff. And scary, kind of like zombies but not in an ironic way. Today a doctor came right out and said that in some situations there are worse outcomes than death. Like having your head smashed in and ending up brain dead. I have to agree with him. So boys and girls, next time you go out drunken drag racing, be sure to buckle up!