Taaaaaa-Daaaaa!!!!

I bet you had given up on seeing some new pics.. I almost gave up on actually getting them on here, but here I am at 10pm, making myself load these pics up... Because lets face it, tomorrow is July and it will officially be "pics from last month".... That thought makes me cringe!!!! So I figured that while I was loading pics on photobucket, here and checking emails........ I might as well give the blog a face lift.... It's been green for a while.... Time for a change!!!! Hope you like it.... A few different pics on the side, new icons around.... Little tweaks here and there...

OK, so here are two slide shows.... One of our visit to the Saddle Ranch Chop House and the other of Brayden Mays first birthday party!!!!

I'm sure you've read or heard me talking about the pain management cases we do at our surgery center... Well, since I almost always have my camera.... I've been trying to take more pics of some of the cases we do... So I can kind of put a picture to the stories I tell.... Well here are two pics of one of our docs (This is the doc I went to Oklahoma with) doing a radio frequency ablation of 4 nerves in the lumbar spine area.... We stick a needle into each nerve area and heat it up to basically burn the nerves so they will no longer cause the patient pain. This day we were trialing a machine that does multiple lesions at one time. It looked so cool, I had to get a pic, or two....

I gotta say those pics are awesome... I'll keep taking shots like these and showing them off... Tomorrow I work with our sports med. doc and we'll be removing some hardware from a clavicle, so maybe I can get my nurse to take some good shots of that....since I'll be scrubbed in.....

If I really sit back and think about what I do for my job, I am amazed!!!! It's surgery on other humans... They come in the room, we chit chat for a minute, get to know each other while anesthesia gets all their goodies ready, they drift off to sleep, and then we cut them open.... It's like a switch turns on and we just go to work...I know it sounds so gory and weird, but it's just the way it works.... and I guess you can't be bothered by that to be in our field of work.... We fix them like mechanics fix cars and plumbers fix pipes, but it's people!!!! I become a little awestruck every now and then, because I love what I do, and can't imagine being in another field of work anymore.... The Operating Room and Surgery is my life!!!! I love it!!! Even though sometimes I get down on myself, I just look to the word of the docs that I work with and feel like I've gotten a little pat on the back from them.... I am blessed to work with such a great group of guys... They are all amazing!!!! I pretty much eat, breathe and sleep, surgery... If I'm not at work, I'm watching House or Greys Anatomy..... I'm a surgery fool... But I have to say I would never have wanted to go to med school. I am pretty sure I would have done great at it, but I think I enjoy life more being a lower (wo)man on the totem pole. Physicians have so much responsibility, and unfortunately, the public view of them is so skewed..They do so much work, at such small amount of pay. Did you know that sometimes nurses make more than physicians depending on the insurance of the patient???? I think that is insane!!!! They may be arrogant ***holes sometimes, but if I was getting paid 30 cents on the dollar for every case I did, I'd probably be grumpy too..... OK, enough of that....

I'm looking forward to this weekend..... Since I'll actually have 3 days off!!! Yay!!!! I can sleep in on Saturday!!! Friday will be a fun family day at Tim and Melissa's.... Saturday afternoon, we'll hang out with my mom and sisters, and Sunday (dare I say it???) we will just relax..... Mark, Noah, Obi and I.... Can't wait!!!!

.....And time goes on....

Just haven't found the time to sit at home and blog lately... I've got tons of pics to share and no time to load them up!!!!

This month has been busy busy....

Working like a dog, keeping up with Noah's Tae Kwon Do, going for walks and running when it hasn't been suffocating hot.... We've been over 100 a few times this month!!!!! Can't run in that heat!!!! Obi's little paws can't take the heat of the pavement either!!! So we wait till it's cooler in the evening, or just go swimming...

I also ruptured my extensor carpi radialis tendon on my right hand this month. I was lifting a heavy pizza stone with a heavy pizza out of the oven and heard this loud pop from my right hand. I thought it was just my lifting the pizza a funky way making my wrist pop, but no.... I ruptured it.... I talked to our sports med. doc and he made me take some anti-inflammatory meds.... But I also talked to one of our cosmetic surgeons that did a hand fellowship and he said to fix it would require an anchor and lots of p.t. (physical therapy)... He also said that this tendon is one that is frequently used as a donor tendon for other repairs, so if I don't fix it, all I will lose is a small fraction of wrist strength.... I can deal with that. So I have decided to go anti-surgery on this.... But it does look funky when I play with it... Eventually it will scar down where it ends up..... Que sera sera!!!!

This month was also special because my little nephew turned a year old!!!! Happy birthday to my Little B!!!!! He's such a cute kid!!!! He's mobile now, walking and talking his jibberish all over the place!!!! His birthday party was at a place called jumping jacks... It was really cool.... Two bouncy rooms and pizza, cake and presents in the cake room.... We had a great time!!!!

Mark and I have also been hanging out a lot lately with my friends from work. Veronica and her fiance Daniel and my other friend Christi... They are all such awesome people!!!! We all just get a long really well and like to have a good time. We went to the Saddle Ranch chop house at the Universal City Walk and rode the mechanical bull..... All 5 of us took turns.... I got bruises on the inside of both legs!!!!! I was holding on for dear life!!!!! We've gone to a BBQ at their place to celebrate a homecoming for one of Daniels brothers.... Great times!!!!

Noah also tested for blue belt this month.... and after a few tears of laziness.... He passed!!! His form, sparring segments, and sparring matches were great!!! but when Master Nice asked him to perform one of his old forms, he choked!!!! So I thought for sure he would fail, but she explained to me that she is preparing them for black belt by testing their old forms, but it is not a requirement at this time for him to get to blue belt. So my little man is now a blue belt!!!! Congrats to Noah!!!! He is bored out of his mind right now being out of school. He goes to Kindercare full time and they do great trips, but it's still a long day.... So hopefully July will fly as fast as June and August will roll in quickly so he can get into the third grade. He will begin in the GATE (gifted and talented education)program this year at school... So we'll see how the work load differs....

For Fathers Day we went to a family BBQ at the park in Orange County that we always go to. It was a really relaxing day!!!! Mark and I even played some tennis.... Other than both of us being really sore from the bull ride the night before, we played pretty well!!!! The kids all had a blast playing together, and we even had some of the family dogs out at the park!!! Obi, Miley and Daisy!!!! Too funny!!!!

Today Jeff and Brandie are coming over with the kids and we're all gonna go to the pool, BBQ, and just hang out!!!! Should be fun.... Tomorrow my sisters are gonna come over and again we will head to the pool for some fun in the sun!!!!

Next weekend will be my first weekend off since I went to Oklahoma.... And it will probably be the last one for another 7 weeks or so..... I think the next weekend I will be off is at the end of August... I'm actually going to start taking call 2 nights a week, so that I can make some extra cash. I will be on call from 11pm to 7am. Phew!!! Life is going to get busy... or should I say busier????

Alrighty then... I better get home and get ready for my company!!!! I'll load pics soon, I promise!!!!! Have a great weekend everyone!!!!

Well hello there....

Just haven't had a lot of time to update... but I am still alive!!!!! I'll probably update tonight and if not, definitely tomorrow from work. Got lots of pics to share!!!

Even through the bad times... SMILE!!!!

I must smile... things are great!!!!

Well, things are great, but daily life stresses eek up on me.. and build up on me.... and just when I feel like I want to explode, I just take a deep breathe, shed a few tears, and then smile... It'll pass.... It always does... Anyway, there's a lot of fun out there to be had in this world... Let's go find some!!!

Well, this week finished off fun, with a graduation party for my nurses daughter... I went over to their house with my coworker Christi last night and we hung out till late just laughing, eating, havin some BUD LIGHT (kellys beer of choice) watching dumb videos on youtube, and listening to music.... We came home and Christi crashed on the couch till I had to go to work this morning...

Work has been fun today... We had a really fun crew... I love workin Saturdays here.... And having a great team makes it that much better... Talkin shit to each other, crackin jokes... I love the OR!!! Where else can you talk like we do and get away with it!!!! We did three cases, and were done by 1, so we all had lunch and are now hangin out waiting for the time to go by so we can go home.... Just one more hour!!!!

The surgery center is doing well.... We have a new sports medicine doc that is going to be doing hip arthroscopies at our place... We've never done them here before so this will be my new baby. He asked me to scrub in all of his procedures :) which puts a smile on my face to feel the love.... Then he asked my boss to send me to hip arthroscopy training with him and our rep. for this special equipment... So it looks like I will be going to this training the first weekend in August!!!! Yay!!!! I'm so excited because this time I will definitely be able to go to the cadaver lab and scrub in and help.... What a great opportunity!!!

As for the fam, Mark and Noah are going to the gym this morning, and then when I get home, we'll be heading to the pool!!!! I'm kind of tired, so I think I will just be catchin some sun.... Lord knows I need a tan!!! My legs are so pale!!!!

Alright kiddos, have a great weekend, and hope to hear from you all soon!!!

Love ya!!!

Half gone..

Can you believe it's June already??? Wow this year is half gone!!! Amazing...

Well before anything else I want to spread the news that we finally got our car back... I went today to pick it up after 6 weeks!!!! It looks like new... Drives perfectly.... Ahhhh... Can I say relief??? I am SOOOO relieved to have gotten it back... Mark is going to rebond with his baby for the rest of this week and then I assume we're going to switch because of gas prices.... It was $70 to fill it up?!?!?!
That's so crazy!!! And it's only going to get worse!!!

Other than that news... I worked on Saturday and had a great day!!! Also, this weekend we went to my friend Veronica's birthday party... She turned 21 again....:)~ I made chocolate cream cheese cupcakes, pumpkin cream filled cupcakes... and a personal mini pineapple upside down cake for her.... We went to her place, had dinner, drinks, listened to music and had a great time!!!! Here are the party pics!!!!

We spent the rest of the weekend resting... I even started my guitar Rock Band career on expert... I haven't finished it on hard because I am stuck on Metallicas Enter Sandman, but I figure if I start on expert and get through some of them, maybe it will make that song a little easier... Who knows!!!! I at least got through the first set on expert... On to the next... I haven't been singing lately but we've downloaded a bunch of new songs, so I'll have to pick up the mic soon and catch up... We have over 100 songs on the game now!!! PHEW!!!! That's a lot to sing!!!

Well, Mark just finished dinner, so I better get going...... Hope everyone is well...
Take care!