Semester's End (a teacher's perspective)

I love the end of the semester. I love solidifying grades, the excitement of students, the final results of projects and papers, seeing what they've managed to remember, reading their favorite/least favorite topics of the semester, and playing review games. I do not love the grabbing for extra credit, the last minute "Oh, my doctor gave me a note for that day I missed class back in September" attempts, and I really don't like giving bad grades to good people who just didn't do it. I also don't like cheaters. But really, the end of a semester is fun.

It should be noted that poor grammar here is different than poor grammar I've experienced anywhere else. Things like, "I knoe it was wrong," "It isn't fare," and "Everyone has went there before" are typical, and people really do use the word "ain't" regularly. They don't really say "y'all" but there are lots of "you uns" instead. They also say, "I don't care to," which really means "I don't mind." It throws me off. If I ask someone to turn off the lights, they'll say, "I don't care to," and then I think, "Geez, I mean, it's just the lights, but if you don't want to..." but they're up and turning them off. They'll say on their review papers, "I didn't care to learn this chapter," but it really means they didn't think that the chapter was so bad. It throws me for a loop every time. I get even more confused when people use it as a question: "If you don't care to close the door...?" I never know what to say. Yes? No? Much of my classroom confusion this semester came from this.

And now for the semester highlights!

We did some fun stuff in class this semester. I had my anatomy class recreate bones and bony structures with candy, which was very fun. They completed it with varying degrees of success. Here are two of my favorites, both of which feature a foot.
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My biology lab class was supposed to do a science fair type project this semester. It was pretty basic - it had to be biology and not chemistry or physics, they had to do a formal lab report on it (they've been doing those all semester), they had all four months to do it, and they had to do a basic one minute presentation on it the last day of class. This was worth 25% of their grade. The last day of class rolls around, and fully half of my class doesn't show up. Of those who actually were there, here are the best moments:

• One person came who didn't do it. He pretended he did, and gave a fake presentation on what he pretended to have done. He told us about watering plants with tap water, boiling water, and frozen water. (Did he just put ice cubes on it? And wasn't the boiling water also tap water, only hotter?) Apparently, the tap water pretend plants (of unspecified temperature) did the best. (You think?)
• One person decided to go without sleep for as long as she could. Her title was "102 Hours Without Sleep." Her hypothesis was that if she didn't sleep she would experience sleep deprivation symptoms (which she did indeed experience; her formal lab report was simply a journal of her doings and symptoms for those days). Despite the utter lack of the scientific method in her project, her presentation was by far the most interesting. She got pulled over once during these 102 hours, but it turns out she had hallucinated the cop car and only thought she was being pulled over. "Looking back, I probably shouldn't have been driving."
• I loved this title: "Christmas Cactus: Which soil will bring more cheer to your holidays?"
• They struggled with the concept of background information, and researching their projects and past data on them. "Background - I was wondering what would happen." "Background Info - I looked this project up on google to find how to do it and found it in a kid science site." "Background - my girlfriend and her mother were fighting over this so we did an experiment." 
• Instead of "clean up," someone wrote this as their final step in the experiment: "Put all the materials back to their homes."
• Someone used an entire page (a whole page!) to list their three materials and four steps of their experiment, all neatly centered in the absolute middle of the page. This was in the middle of their rather wordy lab report - an almost blank page, just sitting there.
• Someone cited me as a source: "Professor. In class. October 2015."
• We learned all sorts of things: freezing bananas makes their skins darker, some types of bread never mold, painted toes may or may not grow faster, and in a how-long-does-it-take-for-this-to-dissolve experiment, "sometime in the nine and a half hours I was away, the substance dissolved."

Here's to education!

Nashville's temples

On Black Friday we drove down to Nashville to have a mini adventure and go to the temple. It's amazing how much having a child will impact the timing of mini adventures! It was the longest car trip Henry's been on, so we tried to time it so that it would include some of his normal nap times and make it easier for everyone. We...erm...mostly succeeded.

We stayed with some friends who were in our church here last year and then they moved there for their year 3 rotations. James got to see the hospital and talk to someone about rotations, which I think helped him solidify how it works.

We went to visit the Parthenon, which my grandfather says is worth it even if it's the only thing you do in Nashville, and I have to say - it was pretty impressive. Plopped right in the middle of Nashville you have a replica of a Greek temple for Athena (and there's an enormous statue of her inside). I loved it.

Athena's shield

Athena in all her golden glory

Right next to the Parthenon was another statue. We loved the benches surrounding it that had words on such as "integrity," "honesty," and "mechanical." Not all the words seemed to carry the same impact.


We were planning to stop by the Grand Ole Opry on our way back on Saturday but didn't because of...yarn. I needed another skein of yarn that only Joann's sells, so when we saw one off the freeway, we stopped so I could run in and buy it. It seems that at least at this Joann's, their Black Friday event was actually a Super Saturday event. I snagged my yarn and then stood in the long, bustling, holiday-cheery-and-crafty lines and that ate up all of our extra time. But once you've been in line for more than ten minutes, you're committed. I was getting that yarn, dang it. And woot woot, it was half off. Super Saturday! We opted for a local (and not that great) BBQ lunch and Joann's in lieu of the Opry. Next time!

We also wanted to visit Olan Rogers's store (The Soda Parlor) because we love his videos. But with it getting dark so early and such a long drive ahead of us with a Henry who hates driving in the dark, we had to forego that, too. Again, next time!

And that's pretty much all we had time for. On our way there we drove through several of the cities that are core rotation sites, so it was fun to see places we might be assigned to live for the next two years.

Halloween: Han Trio and Meeting Abe Lincoln

For Henry's first Halloween, all three of us dressed up as Han Solo. We were, collectively, Han Trio! We went around all night saying things like, "Never tell me the odds!" and "Who's scruffy looking?"

It was a good thing the church party was a week before Halloween, because Halloween itself fell on a test weekend. This means that James was MIA for the holiday, but never fear! Sariah and Henry went trick or treating with friends.

Out here people don't really go house to house to trick or treat. (Neither of our Halloweens in our area have yielded a single soul at our door. Extra candy for us!)  It may be because houses are so far apart (with no sidewalks or street lights), or maybe the local drug problems make people feel unsafe, but it just doesn't happen. Instead there are all sorts of events where different organizations provide a trick or treating experience. Henry and I went to one such event at James's school. Each sports team (and many clubs and programs) had a table and you would walk by and, in my case, say, "Trick or treat for the baby!" Then you would get candy. I went with friends and their kids, but I felt weird getting candy that clearly wasn't headed for my baby's tummy. I felt less bad when I saw middle-aged adults going through for themselves; I mean, hey, free candy is free candy, I guess. One of the people at a booth grinned at me and asked, "Which of these candies does mom want?" I, of course, chose Reese's. (Seriously, who on earth chooses Laffy Taffy? Pick Laffy Taffy! It's a tooth cement, complete with cavities! Bonus!)

Because Henry's Han Solo costume wasn't as complete as ours (the blaster and holster were not part of his outfit as he would have eaten them), and because we happened to have a baby monster costume on hand anyway, Henry went as a monster to the school event. James stayed home and dressed up as a studious student. Hal and I went with a family with girls, so here we see Henry in a pink stroller meeting the mascot of James's school. Hal is clearly beside himself with excitement.

There was a very long line to get into this event, and by the time I got in and went around collecting candy for...well...myself, Henry had fallen asleep after patting his puffy belly for a while. And that's how Hal spent his first Hal-oween!

The Electric Slide and My Violent Mnemonics

One of my classes I'm teaching this semester is an anatomy lab. Since we don't have cadavers for our anatomy lab, I have to get creative about what to fill that time with. I mean, students can only look at pictures of skeletons for so long.

This week we've been studying different types of motion (different ways you flex or extend your feet, hands, arms, neck, and the ways you can rotate them, what you call each of these types of motion, etc.). I didn't really know how to review this in our lab, though, until one thing caught my attention - the Electric Slide.

You see, last week was the skeletal system. The tip of your elbow is called your olecranon process (uh-LECK-ruh-non) and my kids couldn't seem to remember that. I said, "Well, when you do the eLECtric slide, you use your oLECranon!" and, pleased with myself, I waited for the connection to sink in.  "Um...what's the electric slide?" Fail.

So today to learn these different types of motion, we learned both the Macarena (heeeeey macarena!) and the Electric Slide in lab. It turns out most of my students know neither of these songs nor their classic dances (I'm still reeling at how people can't know the macarena) so it was quite fun. I made them pause every few minutes to tell their neighbors which movements they were using.  Then instead of calling out the moves, I'd call out things like, "Pronate! And supinate!  And plantar flex when you jump! I don't see any inversions out there!" It was a memorable day. I know at least one student took a video of it - watch for us on YouTube! Who knows if the students learned anything, but at least I had fun!

Dancing aside, James would be disappointed if I didn't describe my approach to remembering anatomical features when I teach them. But here's my secret: I don't really have an approach. Whatever crosses my mind when I teach them the word becomes my "this is how I like to remember this word" thing. Some of them aren't so great, it turns out (see the olecranon process above). Some, though, I think are pretty good. And some just happen and it's too late to backtrack. James thinks that I'm unnecessarily violent in these on-the-fly mnemonics, but I think that makes them all the more memorable. Here are my three favorite violent ones: the glenoid cavity, the acetabulum, and the trochlea. Let's see if you can remember them based on my "how to remember this word and its location" tips.

Glenoid cavity: this is the socket on your shoulder that your humerus fits into. Your friend Glen is a big sports fan and always sticks his hands up in the air during sporting events. You get annoyed at Glen. (Glen-annoyed = glenoid) and rip his arms off, exposing the glenoid cavity.  (James thinks I could've just stopped at "Glen's a sports fan who sticks his hands in the air.")

Acetabulum (ass-uh-TAB-you-lum): This is the socket for your hip; it's the part of the pelvis where the femur leg bone fits. Now, old people are prone to broken hips. However, if you're a young person and take acid (take, say, a tablet of acid - acid-tablet-yum = acetabulum) you might be too drugged up to climb stairs correctly - and then you'll fall down and break your hip. Moral: don't do drugs - particularly not acid - because you WILL break your hip.

Trochlea (troke-lee-uh) - the elbow end of your humerus. It's sort of spool-shaped, and it's what your ulna attaches to. You have an enemy named Leah and because she's evil, you decide to choke her (choke-Leah = trochlea) which means you'll put her in a head lock with your elbow.

I promise not all of my tips are violent. But whatever it takes to learn them, right?

TNT: Today's News, Today!

Welcome to TNT (Today's News, Today!), a new Tennessee publication. Headlines and blurbs from the associated press make TNT the hottest issue around!

Headlines from local news correspondents: 

1. Boy Begins and Survives School 

Dr. James has been in school for three weeks now. He had his first test, he's still alive, and he's liking the material (Hearts! EKGs! Blood pressure! Heart disease and how to not get it!). The good doctor thinks it's easier than this time last year, but his interview left us unclear whether that's because he now knows what to expect, because he's not taking the huge old anatomy class this year, or maybe he's just smarter. Continued in a future edition.

2. Sariah's Semester Starts as Expected

Sariah began teaching this week. She's still teaching Anatomy/Physiology and Intro to Biology, but has added a biology lab in lieu of her ecology course. She reports that the first week "went well." More details as it develops.

3. Classroom Mama Drama!! 

After a summer of negotiating for classroom space, Teacher S. has finally found room in the chemistry lab for her biology lab. S.'s lecture room is in upheaval, and its location is still uncertain. Exciting times lie ahead for the unsuspecting students, whose meeting room will change yet again without their knowledge!

4. "Cooking, a Culinary Creation": Cross-Country Visitor Creates Meaty Meals 

In our cooking news, Grandma Jen is in town to help supervise Henry (aka The Mini-Doctor, Mini-Man, or Small Person) while school begins for Teacher S.  A participant in the paleo diet, the grandmother has had largely single-person meals consisting of meat and raw vegetables. Other household members prefer grains and sugar in addition to their meats, but declined to comment further.

5. Phone Scam from Miscellaneous Visitor

Two weeks ago a visitor came into the lives of Dr. James, Mini Doctor, and Teacher S. She was a much lauded-guest, a great friend of Teacher S, and a great time was had by all, but her sterling qualities were doubted after filling local phones with unsolicited fish-face selfies with Mini Doctor. Readers, take appropriate precautions to lock your phones in the event of visitors.

6. STORY UPDATE: If the Boot Fits, Take it Off!

In a much anticipated turn of events, Dr. James has the green light to not only remove his walking boot, but also to resume walking in normal socks and shoes! James commented, in a tearful confession, "It's great. I just wish the swelling would go down." He says it's nice to be able to walk: "It's nice to be able to walk."

James vs. James's Ankle

Once upon a Tuesday night James went off to play a little basketball with some friends at church.  About 10 pm he arrived home. I heard the door open and then James said, "Hey, Sariah, want to see something cool?" The "something cool" was an extremely swollen right ankle, which James seemed remarkably calm about. He acted like he was ready to just go shower and then to bed. But quickly the adrenaline of the injury wore off and the pain set it, and off to the ER we went.

I know you're all wondering how, specifically, James hurt his ankle. There are two answers to this.

James: "It was roughly the last play of the game. The other team got a steal and passed it up to a guy who was alone on the fast break. I ran up to try and block his shot, but I knew that he was going to pump fake. I waited for the fake and, sure enough, he faked the shot. I was trying to get in front of him to have a better chance of disrupting his shot and I jumped off his foot. I'm not sure if I landed on it too, but it's very likely that that happened too."

Sariah: "He was playing basketball. There was a foot involved."

The ER was actually surprisingly fast, for an ER. We got there around 10:45 and were out by 1. The parking was in a sketchy alley by the hospital, which is in a seedy part of town, but we hobbled in, with James hopping and leaning on me while I carried the car seat and diaper bag. Once we were in a room inside, a nurse came in to bring us an ice pack for James. "You probably saw the cops out there by the nurse's station," he said. "Don't worry. But if you hear yelling, close your door, okay?" So there's that.

The doctor told us that James had both sprained his foot and fractured his talus, and that he should use crutches "as long as he needed." This seemed too vague to be helpful, but when we asked for clarification, he repeated himself. The doctor was a mumbler, and I missed a lot of what he said anyway. He was very impressed with the amount of swelling, and he let James look at his x-rays where he pointed out some invisible line we couldn't see and said that was the fracture. 

Fast-forward a week full of learning how to use crutches to James's appointment with his primary care doctor, since the swelling hadn't gone down at all from the day of the injury. (Did you know James had never used crutches before? He didn't know how! Whaaaat!) The doctor looked at the ER doc's report which said nothing about fractures and instead reported a "dislocated ankle." They took new x-rays and the primary doctor said it was not even close to a dislocation, and the type of fracture we were told about wasn't there, but she couldn't rule out an avulsion fracture, so she referred us to a specialist for 5 days later. She gave us a nice boot instead of the little splint from the ER, much to James's pain relief.

Specialists are awesome. One glance at the x-rays and he says, "Yep. Avulsion fracture. And also this spacing here we're gonna watch." After less than one minute poking James's foot and asking questions, he says, "Okay. You've also got a grade 2 sprain, and it looks pretty bad. Impressive pain tolerance, though." He was fantastic. 

It's still very swollen and bruised, and James is having an interesting time trying to elevate it at school, since the chairs are attached to desks there, so he can't just move a loose chair over near where he is. For now he's just taking up two spots in class. Fortunately, he's surrounded by med students who are only too happy to facilitate healing as long as it comes with the story of how the injury happened!

Oh BOY oh BOY!

At one week late with my baby, my I'll-be-a-mom-by-Mother's-Day plan flew out the window. I really didn't want to be induced, because inductions are more likely to lead to complications, more painful contractions, etc., and most of all I wanted to avoid a c-section. The quick-do-an-emergency-surgery idea didn't appeal to me.  Many first time moms are overdue, so no big deal to wait for him to come. Now, in this community, the doctors really don't like to let you go past your due date because so many mothers are high risk. My midwife had to fight some battles for me in order to let me delay being induced - one of the reasons I love her.  But eventually, all big and bloated things must end, so an induction was scheduled for when I was 9 days late.

The night before my 7 am induction I was to report to the hospital at 9 pm for "cervix ripening."  I can't imagine a more off-putting name, can you? Right. At least it's not as bad as the name sounds. Each round of the medicine takes 4 hours, and they gave me 3 rounds before they gave up, since my dilation had only gone from zero to zero.  Plus I started getting grouchy when they'd come to check my dilation. When you're on this medicine, they have to have constant fetal and maternal monitoring, which means they strap these uncomfortable monitors to your belly that aren't so bad at first, but become surprisingly awful as time goes on with them smushing into your independently squirming belly.

I should mention that the instant I got to the hospital and got hooked up the monitors, the nurses said, "Oh!  You're already in labor!"  Hurrah for me!  Labor I couldn't feel!  Bonus! Oh yes, surely I was made to deliver babies.  This is my calling.  Forget teaching! Labor Warrior Woman am I! The contractions were 5 minutes apart, too, so I was on my way!

James, me, and the belly

I started feeling the contractions in the morning, but they weren't awful. They were maybe every 3 minutes apart. At around 11 am, the midwife decided that since the ripening meds didn't work, they'd start me on pitocin to make the contractions a little more intense, since that often helped you dilate anyway.

Enter pitocin.  Bam.  Instant increase in intensity, duration, frequency.  I had something they called "coupling labor," which I'd never heard of.  It means I'd have two contractions immediately next to each other and then the normal break until the next pair came along.  I no longer felt like Labor Warrior, Born to Birth Babies.  About 4 pm or so James pointed out that they weren't giving out any awards for avoiding pain killers, so I got a shot of something I can only describe as delicious and smooth.  I would look at my little contraction monitor and see that a contraction was, in fact, happening, and I could not, in fact, feel it.  Amazing.  James claims there were other side effects on my level of sanity, but I disagree. It was delicious and smooth. And and an hour later, gone.  The nurses told us that it only really works the first time they give it to you (bummer!) and the only other pain control option at this hospital was an epidural, which they only allowed once you reached 4 cm in dilation.  I was still at 0, with my double contractions coming one minute apart.  They told me that sadly, if I were dilating normally, I'd be pretty darn close to having the child, and typically with contractions like that I'd be much farther than a 4, but rules are rules.  Nothing left but to wait.

Around 9 pm or so the midwife came by to talk to be about my failure to progress. My water broke 30 minutes before she came. She knew I didn't want a cesarean.  She talked about how I could try laboring through another night, considering that my water did break, but as overdue as I was, and coming up on 24 hours of labor with nothing, it was unlikely that laboring overnight would change anything, and then I'd have 12 more hours of pain that might lead to a c-section anyway, with potential problems the longer we waited. Ultimately, after discussing it with the other OBs, the consensus was that the baby was almost certainly too big to be born vaginally. The midwife had warned us of this possibility at around 5 that afternoon when I still hadn't progressed, so I wasn't entirely surprised. But I was disappointed in my cervix. Still, I felt oddly peaceful about it.  She left so James and I could decide, and we both felt like this was what was going to happen, and that was okay.  It was kind of emotional, though.  I felt robbed of my chance to do that thing that women are supposed to do, and regardless of the "at least the baby's okay" aspect, it was still hard on me. I wanted to give birth. I had made conscious decisions to try and avoid this situation. My body wasn't adequate to do what women are supposed to do. It's still hard to think about it, and even though I now know it saved both of our lives, I still wish.

James, ready to go into the OR with me

Things happened quickly after that.  I think it's because so often cesareans are emergencies, but man, those nurses were speedy about things and it made it seem like an emergency. Quick: clean, change, move, catheter, hat, pillow, gurney! One blessed thing was that they stopped the pitocin.  Joy of joys!  I could function while contracting again! The contractions still happened but they didn't own me anymore. Around this time I started shaking uncontrollably (apparently that's common), and then I was in the OR. They gave me a pillow to hold while the wonderful, wonderful anesthesiologist lady gave me a spinal block, but a nurse let me hold her instead. I remember that when I walked to the operating table while they set up, I was more terrified than I'd ever been. I really never thought I would die, but the room frightened me, the speed with which they got me in there frightened me, my shaking and contractions frightened me. The lack of an alternative frightened me most of all. I had no choice - the baby was going to come one way or another, and there was no "another" in my case; this was how it was coming.  But eventually the spinal block made pain and fear dissipate.  Ah, glorious.

The operating table was very narrow, and I felt that with one baby kick I'd topple off, belly first. They strapped my arms down, which was also scary, but with my shaking I was kind of glad.  Finally, finally they let a scrub-sporting James come in and hold my hand.

Having a cesarean is a bizarre experience: you can't see anything, and you feel no pain, but you can feel things happening, like stretching and tugging.  It takes about 45 minutes, but the baby was born in about 4 minutes. He was born at 10:41 pm. The baby's the easy part!  I will never forget watching James's face as he peered over the curtain to watch the baby come. ("I can see your uterus!")  The doctor pulled the baby out such that the baby was facing James, so when the doctor said, "It's a..." it was James who said, "It's a little boy!"  The mystery of gender was revealed!  I'm glad I waited to know. It was something to look forward to during labor - an incentive, if you will. James's face was glued to that little guy, and I got to watch James watch them take the baby over to clean it or whatever they do. He kept me updated: "He's big! He's got a little bit of hair!" And then, in what was probably the single most riveting moment of my life, something started crying. This person who wasn't alive was suddenly alive and in the room with us.  This person from my belly was outside it. And he was mine. He came from me.  He was real. I mean, someone was crying in that room, and it wasn't me.  All of this was real, after all.

They let me look at him for about a microsecond, enough to let me touch his cheek, and whisked him away.  (I know it's a sterile room, small hospital, rules, operations, etc., etc., but I also felt that another thing I lost by having a c-section was that moment you hear about where moms get to bond right after birth. They took him away, and I never felt that overwhelming bond mothers talk about. I still worry that I haven't bonded with him in the way I should, had he come vaginally.)

About 4 days old

James went away with the baby, and they stitched me up.  The doctor doing the surgery talked to me about my pelvis as he did so.  The baby's head was big (the baby was 9 lb, 8.8 oz, and he was 21" long) and my pelvis was smaller than expected, and, as the doctor said of my pelvis, "there was no way he was ever coming out that way." His head never even entered my pelvis, never engaged with the cervix: that's why I never dilated. Unless I have a premature baby, I will never have a baby small enough to come out through my pelvis without a c-section. So that door is well and truly closed.  I am very glad that both of us lived, though.  Hurrah for the discovery and relative safety of cesarean sections!

About a week old, with mommy

I'm recovering well, I think. I turned a big corner from "ow" to "wow!" around two weeks after his birth. It was wonderful to have my mom in town to help, since I unexpectedly needed much more help than I'd anticipated, especially with James still taking finals at the time.

I don't really think Henry looks like either of us - but I don't usually view the world that way.  He just looks like Henry to me.  And he's cute! He's not one of those babies that you see and think, "Wow, he's a mini-whoever!" He's just him.

We're not solid on nicknames.  We call him Henry, mostly. Second most common is Hal (James likes that Henry B. Eyring's friends call him Hal, which is part of why we named him Henry to begin with). Occasionally he's Hank. But always he's my baby boy!

OSCE

Since starting med school, I've been asked many questions about the process of school and about what I do every day. Now that I have some sweet, sweet freedom for the next couple months, I thought that now would be the time to answer those burning questions that y'all have in an ongoing series of blogs. This one is about something that I get to go through periodically as part of my training: OSCEs.

OSCE (pronounced ah-skee) stands for objective structured clinical examination. They usually last 15 minutes with 10 minutes afterward to record what happened while we were in there. My school has a corridor that has 10 examination rooms that are set up just like you would find in a doctor's office. I am all alone in the room with my patient, but there is a camera and a microphone in there too so that I can be graded.

They are essentially fake encounters that I have with a real patient that happens to be acting out their problem. I get all dressed up in my snazzy white coat, wrap my stethoscope around my shoulders, and then act like I know what I'm talking about to my "patient". Before going into one of these, you have no clue what the actor (called a "standardized patient" or SP) is going to be complaining of. Naturally there is a fair amount of anxiety before doing one of these. The unknown is unnerving. The patient could complain of anything! Luckily for me, the cases haven't been too complex. The preceptors do try to make it funny sometimes. For instance, I got to treat one Whoopie Goldberg, a middle-aged white woman followed by a Jack Sparrow, a sober older gentleman. It was quite the afternoon.

So in the future, if you have any questions about the process of med school or whatever, let us know and we'll do our best to answer them. Until next time!

Final Presentation Treasures (a teacher's perspective)

I love teaching.  One of my favorite parts of teaching 7th grade last year was recording some of the crazy things they'd say or do and sending the lists to my immediate family.  I would laugh so hard at those funny little students and their approaches to science...ah, the good old days! I may even share some of those from last year on the blog sometime.

A sad thing about teaching at this community college is that there are fewer of those occasions full of fantastic quotes and experiences (or if they're there, they mostly make me sad about this place and these poor kids) but this last week we had some true gems.  I had my Intro to Biology and Human Ecology classes do final presentations for the last day of class, and so here we go.

Introduction to Biology - the assignment was to do a 3-5 minute group presentation on an organ system of the body.  Basic info about it, 3 fun or interesting facts about it, what things can go wrong with it, etc.

-The group that did the digestive system starts listing their fun facts.  Then... "And fun fact number three is that once my horse had a stomach tumor!! And it weighed 8 pounds!  Hey, does that count as two fun facts?"

-The lymphatic system group consistently referred to lymph nodes as "lymph noids" the entire time.  Noids.  As in the Noid from Domino's Pizza back in the day.

-"The average human body contains enough bones to make a complete skeleton."

-The skeletal system presenter proudly points to the scapula (shoulder blade) of a skeleton and says, "THESE, you guys, THESE are the clavicles!"  (False.  The clavicle is the collarbone.)

-"Hey, do you think pirates suffer from arrrrrrrrthritis?"

Human Ecology - this was a bigger group project where they were trying to convince the class to agree with them on a hot-button issue relating to humans and ecology.  They were not allowed to lie to do this, there was a paper and research involved, etc. etc.  They further had to fill out a form that evaluated their performance as a group where they got to comment if they felt that any member of their group didn't do their share of work.  Quotes below come from either their presentations, papers, or self-evaluations.

-A girl puts up a poster for her presentation which says this (and only this): "PETA.  Sexist hypocrites or animal rights organization?" (Ah, I love my job where this happens.)

-PETA girl proceeds to give each class member a paper on which an ad for PETA has been printed. (Be advised that many of PETA's posters are rather sketchy.  Some are more than rather sketchy.  Now we all have one of our very own.)  "Sorry, guys, if I don't have enough for you.  I got kicked out of the library for printing this stuff so I didn't get them all."  And then, lucky us, we got to keep our sketchy PETA ads as a memento!  (Spoiler: they appear to be sexist hypocrites after all.)

-Preserving the Bengal Tiger presentation: "When at the Knoxville zoo, I seen Bengal tigers starve.  I seen 'em starve from no food and starve from no water."  (At the zoo? Maybe they didn't happen to have any food left when you passed their enclosure...?  Or maybe the zoo is actively killing them. I hear their pelts are valuable.)

-Bengal Tiger paper (which was 8 pages long instead of 3) had a compelling concluding paragraph: "In conclusion, our opinion is very useful because it shows that the information that we presented on Bengal Tigers is that they should have a really good home and not have to lose it also should have plenty of food and water and everything else that should be provided for them."

-A self and group evaluation: "I was really stuttering, sorry."

-One of the Bengal tiger self and group evaluation: "I feel like we did really well because you always try to come to a tiger's rescue at all times no matter what the situation is."

-The anti-vax group presentation did not contain a single fact about vaccinations.  I'm not even sure if it was anti-vaccination or just anti-having-required-vaccinations.  Either way, nothing they said was true.  (I'm hanging my head in science teacher shame.)  However, they had an amazingly compelling presentation, which is, I suppose, one of the advantages to avoiding actual research.

-The final sentences in the euthanasia paper: "Doctors do not create lives therefore it should be illegal for them to take lives! The Bible says 'thou shalt not kill' so lets' be LIFE SAVERS not life takers!"  (They did pass out Life Savers to the class for their presentation.)

Don't students just make you smile sometimes?

The day a doctor told us to go to the ER when we didn't actually have to

Last Friday James was dizzy.  He sometimes just gets dizzy and it goes away, but this was worse than usual.  I was gone to Knoxville that day, and when I got back it was after normal business hours. James asked me to look at his eyes when he lay on his side, and they were kind of scary: he was trying to look straight at my face, but his eyes kept moving side to side, like he was reading.  His eyes also dilated very, very quickly until I almost couldn't see his iris anymore.  I decided that this wasn't a permanent trait I wanted in a husband, so we looked up the closest urgent care we could find since nobody would be open again until Monday.

We drove about 45 minutes to the Morristown urgent care clinic, where the nurse saw us, got James's info, and went to talk to the doctor.  She came back and said, "The doctor says he knows what it is and you need to go to the ER right away to get a CT scan."  We were confused that the doctor wouldn't see us, but thought that maybe he was trying to save us money by not charging us for a visit, so with that ominous set of directions we headed to the Morristown ER.  They stuck James on a monitor and we sat there for typical ER waiting times until the doctor came.

By the time the doctor arrived at 9 pm, James hadn't eaten for 8 hours, and I was feeling uncomfortably peckish myself. They told him upon arrival to not eat anything in case he needed any procedures done.  (Did I mention it was supposed to be our fancy go-out-to-dinner-to-have-possibly-our-last-date-before-baby night?  Seriously, though, this was much more memorable than that would've been!)  But the doctor made up for all that.  She was excellent.  She knew James was a med student, so when she came in she asked him what he thought it was.  He told her he thought it was benign positional vertigo, but with the eye thing he wasn't so sure anymore.  He was right!  She talked to him about how to tell the difference between this diagnosis and other similar ones, reassured us about the eye thing, and had some fun tests where they checked his cranial nerves.  She gave him some interesting pointers on how to make absolutely sure it wasn't a stroke when he had older patients with these symptoms.  She was fantastic.  She told us that we didn't have to come to the ER, and to watch out for that particular urgent care clinic because they had a history of sending panicked patients to the ER for no reason.  What a bummer of a reputation, huh?

We also learned that this vertigo was likely due to spring allergies which led to conditions affecting balance (like stuffed sinuses and excess earwax production in the presence of pollen) and we learned that this chunk of Tennessee is the worst in the country in terms of spring allergies because of all the different types pollen and the way the mountains funnel it together in the air right before Kentucky begins.  Who knew?  Now we do!  And I've never had someone tell me that my husband needs to go to the ER right away. Those are powerful words, folks!  Let's avoid saying that too often; it's not a good feeling.  The good feeling was knowing he was fine, and that he will be good at diagnosing this in himself and patients in the future!

Chattanooga Choo Choo!

Last week was James's spring break, but not mine.  Since I don't work on Fridays, though, we took the opportunity to have one last hoorah trip together before the baby.  We only live about 3 hours from Chattanooga, and the city has a cool-sounding name, so that's where we went.

We figured it was a bad idea to go to Chattanooga and not do anything train-related, so we opted for the incline railway up Lookout Mountain.  The wait to get on said train was about 45 minutes, but when there were two extra seats in an earlier car and James said we'd be willing to help them out, the other passengers took one look at us and let us go ahead.  Ah, the perks of pregnancy.  This railway was pretty cool.  When you got in, the angles of the seats and the superfluous "steps" of the walkway between the seats were a bit off, but it wasn't remarkable.  However, by the time you get to the top, the angles were perfectly upright and the steps formed a staircase to climb out.

You see, this car went from being flat on the ground to resting at a 72.7% grade/incline.  That's pretty steep.  This is the steepest passenger railway in the world!  One mile at an incline steadily increasing until the end when it's almost straight up.  The car had windows on the roof, and if you look in the picture, you can see that the only way to see straight out to the city in front of you is to look through the roof.  There are two cars on the railway that pass in the middle and work on a pulley system.  It's a pretty cool setup.

The railway did warn us that the altitude change might take us by surprise, and we quite enjoyed the idea of altitude sickness at the mountain's height of 2100 feet.  It is a tall mountain in the middle of an otherwise flat area, so the difference in height is fairly impressive, but not all that dangerous to people familiar with other mountains.  At the top of the picture here, you can see here the last bit of track (in black) by the station at the top. See? I told you it was steep!

There was once a Civil War battle atop this mountain, and one of the big problems the soldiers on top faced was trying to shoot cannons at the oncoming troops; when they'd aim the cannon, the cannon ball would roll out because the angle was too steep.  Thus began the American Bowling Association.

We also went to the Tennessee Aquarium.  (Let's be honest: this aquarium is the real reason we chose to go to Chattanooga.)  It was fantastic!  The aquarium is so big that when you get a ticket, you get into two separate buildings - one for freshwater fish (River Journey) and one for the ocean (Ocean Journey).  We started with the River Journey (the bigger of the two).  This was incredible!  You start at the top and circle your way down the whole building.  They had all sorts of fishes as well as frogs, turtles, alligators, crocodiles, birds, etc.  (The top part gets natural light and warmth, so the birds just flit around pooping on people.)  We got to pet big old sturgeons, watch a squabbling trio of brother otters, and there were some incredible tanks deeper in with ENORMOUS arapaima.  My favorite were the paddlefish with their long snouts and their sometimes-opened-and-gaping mouths patrolling the waters.  

James's favorite was the electric eel.  (This was James's first time to an official aquarium, by the way!)  Many places, the TN Aquarium included, hooked up the electric eel tank to some LED lights and a speaker that showed when the eel was giving off any electricity.  We happened to arrive around feeding time, so it was neat to watch Mr. Eel search for and eat his pray and listen to the speakers crackling. At one point in the feeding, one of the other small fish in the tank brushed against the eel's back and spooked him.  The lights and speakers went CRAZY and then....there was a dead fish floating above Mr. Eel.  Dead fish.  Zap.  The end.

In fact, we were so impressed by the freshwater aquariums that the ocean was kind of a letdown.  We got to pet sting rays, and they had a butterfly garden room, and they had some truly fantastic jellyfish exhibits, but their main tank that extended in little pockets around the building wasn't as fun as the big tanks in River Journey.  Yes, they did have sharks and penguins and corals, and they were lovely.  But the electric eel was hard to top!  Both buildings were by far the best aquariums I've been to, and it was very fun.

We also went to Coolridge Park, which connects to Walnut Bridge which is, we were informed, the longest pedestrian bridge in the US.  It's been a day of big deal visits!

We drove home through an enormous and windy rainstorm (it turns out we drove through a Tornado Warning...oh, wow, that season's started again, has it?) but we're back and set for the next while.  When we hear the train go by our house, we'll just smile and remember.

That time we got snowed in for two weeks

Once upon a time it was February and it snowed the first real snow of our winter.  ("Real snow" meaning over 1/4" of snow that lasted longer than 12 hours on the ground.)

This snow occurred off and on for about two weeks.  We never had more than about 6" on the ground at any one time, but it would melt during the days and leave a thick layer of ice underneath.  The corner of the world where we live doesn't have much in the way of plows, sand trucks, or salt trucks to deal with the snow.  It happens so infrequently, they say, that they can't justify buying those.  When I asked a local about it, she said that they usually miss at least a week of school a year all combined.  To me that seems to justify it, but perhaps not.  I've never lived anywhere so completely incapacitated by snow!

Being familiar with snow driving, James and I tried to get out, but the ice locked our cars in, and the local roads were just as icy.  We were stuck.  Once we could chisel our way out of the driveway, if we got to busier roads we were fine and could get groceries.  People in less sun-exposed areas had to drive ATVs and tow sleds to get groceries.  Many people had their power go out or water freeze and couldn't get help since the power company couldn't get to them to fix it.  Luckily, we're on the same power grid as both the power company and the county jail, so any power outages we've ever had have been very quickly resolved! 

Towards the end of the two weeks, we had a nice 50 degree day of rain.  From the snow-covered view before, this is us heading out the next morning after a night of rain (James is discovering where our sidewalk is again):

This is about three hours later with more rain:

I wish I'd taken a picture of the rivers to follow this up, because then the floods also closed some areas and events.  Rivers are still high, but manageable now.  We were just fine on our little hill!  A girl we know went into labor around the time of the Great Rain, and was extremely relieved that roads thawed enough to let her get to the hospital and thus avoid an unplanned candlelit home birth with an inexperienced midwife of a spouse.

All together, James and I both missed about two weeks of school.  (The local public schools missed three weeks!)  James still had lectures to watch at home (they posted last year's lectures so the students wouldn't get too behind), and I'm now rushing to make up lost time in the classroom.  James especially had some cabin fever being stuck inside for so long; I just took lots of naps.  We made snow angels and snowballs once there was enough snow for it (it wasn't really wet enough snow for the snowballs to hold together, so the snowman didn't happen), but once the snow freezes and there's ice below, it's not quite the same to go play in it.  We did try, though!  And had a great deal of fun throwing shards of ice at each other as we scraped off the cars.

The weather is finally back to acceptable spring temperatures, and the heavy rain does let up from time to time so we can have a day of squishy sunshine. 

This Post is About Babies (well, just the one)

This doesn't have much to do with our DO school journey, but it's a story of our family while in med school.  I'm very hesitant about posting this; you may not be interested (you can skip it), but I know that I've scoured the internet for real-person stories for months, and I wish I'd had some true stories and perspectives to relate to along the way.  Maybe someone will find this and it will help them.  I hope so.

Once upon a time we decided to try to have kids.  James was a little more excited about it than I was, but since we knew that it usually takes a woman a few months to ovulate again after stopping birth control, we figured I'd have a while to get used to wanting a baby before it was real.  So off the pill I came.  Against all of my personal expectations, we got pregnant immediately.  We were in Knoxville celebrating James's birthday early and I suddenly felt like I had slammed into a wall of exhaustion, so we headed home.  I joked that it was probably because I was pregnant.  The pill messes with your menstrual cycle when you come off of it, so I didn't know if I'd missed a period yet or not.

I happened to have a cheap little pregnancy test on hand (who knows why), so the next morning I checked.  Next to the control line was a little faint something on the "pregnant" line.  I spent the day googling pregnancy tests, since when you're unemployed and have no car, what else is there to do in these situations?  It turns out that any "something" line is a line, and a line equals HCG which equals pregnant.  It did not happen from my residual birth control pill hormones.  Still unsure, I bought another (better) test, and waited a couple of days to take it again.  This time both lines showed up very, very fast.

"JAMES!!" James, who was studying and didn't know what I was doing, came cautiously to the bathroom. "What is THIS, James!? You said it'd take a couple of months..."  And he snapped this picture.  Smile!  (Oh, and happy birthday, James!)

I have to be honest here and say that the pregnancy itself really has been very mild.  I don't throw up anyway, and some queasiness didn't change that.  Being tired isn't really that bad; I wasn't bedridden or anything.  I didn't show until 20 weeks; around the time I started to feel it.  I've never experienced heartburn before in my life (that I know of; reading the symptoms makes me pretty sure about that) and I still haven't with this.  Crying at random things is actually funny (at least for James).  Back pain isn't awesome, but luckily my husband's semester in his OPP manipulations lab is learning how to treat back pain.  Most of the time I forgot about it.  People must hate me.  I thought we might struggle with infertility, or with poor health.  I am so blessed to not have had those complications that so many others have to fight.  It was so mild that I kept wanting proof - what if I made it up?  What if it stopped being there? What if it was an elaborate hoax with a crazy uterus and fake ultrasounds?

The part about our journey that was hard was insurance and healthcare.  We moved to TN in July, and applied through the proper channels the day we arrived.  There were several mix-ups, and this led to delays and inquiries about delays, so I didn't get insurance until late November.  There were more mix-ups in December leading to our Great January Tennessee Insurance Fiasco, and we just finally got insurance again in early February.  Each delay or mix-up resulted in long daily phone calls on my part to get coverage.  Hormonal, ugly-cry type phone calls.  It's been a nightmare.

So there we were, about 7 weeks along, when there was some bleeding.  This is still in the "it's common to miscarry now" stage, so we didn't know what to do.  Do miscarriages need help?  Will I bleed to death?  We had no insurance.  The doctor's office said that it would cost about $800 out of pocket to do an OB visit, and we didn't have that money.  We're living on student loans, after all.  Eventually, the fear of the situation (for both my sake and baby's) drove us to see if the doctor could maybe just talk to us for under $200.  The doctor was fantastic.  He heard about our insurance situation and did a very, very quick  superficial ultrasound to make sure there was a living fetus and that I was a living mother, etc. etc., and that's all he could do, and he didn't charge us a cent.  But the office wouldn't let us come back until we had insurance, so the first time I had an actual real doctor visit was at 16 weeks.  Then more insurance trouble hit and I couldn't see a doctor again until 27 weeks.  (And now it's a different doctor because of - oh yes, insurance.)  I had no idea what the results were from all the tests and the big ultrasound they sent me for before at 16 weeks.  None. I felt it, so I assumed it was alive, and I hadn't died yet, so that's good.  But I have a family history of preeclampsia and my pulse has been crazy and what if I was on the back swing of kicking the bucket?

People can be nasty about things.  I tried calling all sorts of doctors, insurance representatives, and offices, and mostly I just got berated: "Why haven't you seen a doctor yet?  You really should have.  I can't believe you haven't tried to see a doctor yet.  Oh yes, our doctor won't see you."  That made me feel pretty awful.  People stopped believing my medical history, because if I was this irresponsible of a mother, surely I was lying about smoking/drinking/drugs.  Then there was the refreshing insurance operator man who suggested: "Just wait until you go into labor and then go to the emergency room.  They can't deny you healthcare then."  Oh, okay.  No prenatal care at all, then?  Never mind the bill for this ER visit.  Never mind that the last I heard, I had placenta previa which can be pretty darn severe if it is present at birth and and nobody knows about it.  Never mind that the emergency room he directed me to is at a hospital where they don't deliver babies, so they would have shipped me off to another one which defeats the purpose because of INSURANCE!  I felt so defeated and scared.  I was a horrible mother and both my baby and I would die because of something I couldn't fix or afford to go around.

Finally, finally, we just got insurance set up.  I got my card in the mail today.  Finally, I saw a doctor (actually, a midwife who works with a doctor.  Cool!).  Finally, someone else can look at my high pulse and tell us when to worry and how to deal with it.  No more internet forums with people telling me to just see a doctor.  Finally someone can tell me that the placenta previa is gone and that I don't have gestational diabetes.  Finally James knows his wife isn't on the brink of keeling over, and he knows that our current poverty hasn't killed our child.  Finally I can enjoy feeling it kick without also feeling anxiety. Finally I'm starting to believe it isn't a hoax and that it might not kill me after all.

Oh, and finally at 29 weeks there's an unmistakable half-globe stuck under my shirt.  And it's going to be okay!

Semester Two (so far)

James is now safely two tests into his second semester.  He's past that "I wonder if I can even do this" stage and into the "Well, I did it once.  I hope that's true again."

As we've lived here, James's school mascot has really grown on him.

Once James went to a basketball game with a group of med students to provide the fans with free blood pressure screening.  Presumably this cuts down on the number of fans getting too upset.  ("I'm sorry, sir, but if you don't calm down, we're going to have to check your blood pressure.")  At this game, James got his first glimpse of the school's mascot: Abraham Lincoln.  If you've never seen a giant plush Lincoln do the hokey pokey, then you're probably like me.  It's the best part of the game, though, says James.  There appears to be a speaker in the top of the mascot's hat, but James is hoping he can get it fitted for a mini t-shirt cannon so Abe can shoot stuff to his fans.

Abe aside, this semester seems nicer than last semester: James isn't taking anatomy, so he has a lighter load in terms of lab hours.  His other classes are more detailed and require more memorization than before, but now he has a little more time in the afternoons to do studying and keep up with them.  My favorite thing about this semester so far is learning about all the diseases. The best part of my day is asking James what he learned that day, and hearing about what the Plague was/is: why it was and remains so deadly, where it still happens in the US (watch out, Southeasterners who like playing with wild prairie dogs and their fleas!), how you treat it, how you test for it, how it kills you, and how many species of it there are.  The day he learned about leprosy was fascinating.  I've always been interested by this, and it's fun to hear it but not have to recall it.  I'm living in the best of both worlds!  (Also stay away from ticks.  They carry nasty stuff and I can think of no circumstances wherein they would be a positive, life-promoting human lover.)

As for me, my semester teaching has been lovely so far.  I forgot how much I loved it.  I'm teaching Intro to Biology, Human Ecology, and also Anatomy/Physiology 1 with its lab.  Anatomy/Physiology was new; the teacher who was supposed to teach two sections of it got a long-term sickness, so a week into school the administration asked me to teach it.  I was unhappy about this at first, since it almost doubled my work-time and the number of credits I was teaching.  Part of the point of the semester was to have less time on my feet as I got bigger.  It's grown on me, though. Because it's just a community college, the lab does not involve cadavers, but rather has skeletons and plastic models in addition to computer animations.  I wasn't ready to be in charge of a cadaver lab with my super sniffer nose, and boy did I luck out!  Another great thing about the class is the caliber of student.  Many of my other students (but by no means all of them) are there to fulfill a requirement and are pretty half-hearted about life.  Intro to Biology is not an easy course, and when they hit a hard conceptual thing like photosynthesis or meiosis, I can see some of them retreating inside their heads rather than try.  Attendance is so-so.  Basic abilities, like subtracting 2.5 points from a quiz total of 10 (clearly they earned an 8.5, right?  Or maybe a 6.5?) or successfully typing the date on a paper (Feb 1rst? Right?) are a bit tough. We're figuring each other out, though, and I think we're starting to have more fun in those classes.  It helps that we're through the "what is an atom?" (most of them have never taken chemistry in their life; that's why they're enrolled in biology, dang it!) and the photosynthesis lessons and are into something easier to picture.  I still love teaching, and I enjoy the challenge of these courses and classes, and I'm loving it.

But in my anatomy class, almost every student is there because they want to be some sort of medical-professional in the future that will require not only the class but a good grade in the class.  They all show up on time!  They participate!  They color their little hearts out in their anatomy coloring book.  One of them even has a child who made her use sticky notes to censor the male parts of her coloring book.  It's great.

I think this semester holds great promise for the two of us.

Note: I was just informed, while writing this, that Jim Henson (he of the Muppets) died of Toxic Shock Syndrome.  Another fun fact from the James Med School Collection!

Back to the Daily Grind

You know what's hard? Having 3 weeks of complete freedom to do whatever you want and then have all of that freedom taken away from you because of school starting up again. Am I glad I'm in school to become a doctor? Of course! Do I still wish that there was more free time to spend with Sariah? Oh, most definitely! How many questions can I ask myself and then give the answer right after in this blog? Just these 3.

I hope that this doesn't sound like I'm only here to play the "woe is me; I'm a medical student" card. The concepts that we're learning are really cool. After many years of struggling to understand the difference between humoral and cell-mediated immunity, I can finally answer that question and sound like I know what I'm talking about. Amazing stuff! The only problem with learning really cool things is that there is a ton of little details that go along with it. Thankfully, this semester's schedule is lighter in that I have afternoons free of labs most of the time. We're taking the same number of credits (27.5), but the required in class time seems less. I can't even imagine how things would be if we had anatomy thrown into the mix again. It just gives me the heeby-jeebies thinking about it.

And back to my first point. It's hard coming back from vacation! I know what I signed up for though and all in all, I am extremely grateful to be here studying medicine. What would I be doing otherwise? Probably not breaking an implied promise I made at the start of this blog about only asking myself and answering only 3 questions. Anywho, it's back to the grindstone for me.

The Cashier Chronicles Conclude

I'm not sad about this.  The end of the Cashier Chronicles is the best part of my new year.  Why?  Because I quit my job as a cashier in order to teach biology at a community college!  Hooray!  I'm off to do something I love instead of something I must do, and while I may miss the store, teaching people about how you know if something's alive is much more thrilling.

This video, for instance, makes me happy.  Biology and teaching biology makes me happy.  Much more than scanning groceries.  I should make this song my ringtone!

I shouldn't neglect the last few cashier memories, though.  They're a little more sad in some ways because these all happened between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and the holidays make sad situations more tragic somehow.

-A lady I recognized and saw at least weekly was outside picking through our cigarette butt ashtray thing, choosing the butts with the most left on them, and then started smoking those while her people were shopping inside.

-I asked one girl if she was excited for Christmas.  "We're having it late," she said.  "Because of paychecks and stuff.  Maybe sometime in January."  Her mom looked embarrassed, and I pointed out that this meant she was going to get presents after school started, and everyone would be jealous of her.  She seemed entranced by this idea.

-An 11-year-old(ish) girl had decided she likes me (I haven't been particularly nurturing to her, so I haven't the faintest idea why) so whenever her family comes in (twice a week or so) she'd scour the store until she found me and ask if she could help me.  Unfortunately, she's less competent than another kid who does this with me, so mostly she makes things worse.  Instead of putting bags in customer's carts, she'll line up all the bags on one arm and make the customer take them from her.  When her own mother finally comes through the line to leave, she won't help her mother but whips out a hoard of stuff she's stashed nearby and wants her mother to buy her.  I explained that when it's the week before Christmas, one's material interests are often better served by service to others rather than demands on an already stressed mother with a stretched budget, and things like hugs were a good place to start.  This was a poorly chosen example: the next time she came in, I was unaware of her presence until she came up behind me to give me a surprise guess-who's-suddenly-in-your-space-and-maybe-abducting-you hug.  She is not a small 11-year-old girl.  She chose to hug me around the widest point of my belly, which at that point was definitely showing, and had recently been painful for my stomach muscles (probably just muscles doing whatever they do when a baby pushes through them: that is, failing at their jobs), and there was some yelping and wheezing involved.  She couldn't understand why the hug wasn't working.

-I had two different men in the same week make inappropriate comments and body language with me that, had they been employees, could certainly have been followed up with some sort of harassment complaint.  As it was, it was over almost as soon as it started and there was no time to deal with it then.  I'd seen them both before, and this was at a time when my belly was straining the too-small tshirt the store issued me.  It's eerie to have big, sweaty, dirty men rake their eyes over you and then come up way too close to you, essentially trapping you in your little register area, and make jokes about you to your face, or jeer at you and ask you inappropriate questions.  One of them had his kids with him.  But then they were gone out of the store and it was over before I could do anything.  Fortunately, both encounters were brief.  I'm glad I left before I saw them again.

-The fellow who gave me the jewelry is trying to get me to name my child after him.  (He still does this if I happen to be shopping at that store when he's there.)  "Lonnie is good for boys and girls," he insists.  "It's the least you can do."

-On Christmas Eve, we closed a bit early, and I had the closing shift, which means I stay after we close to mop, clean bathrooms, put misplaced groceries away, etc.  Someone in the men's bathroom decided that that was the day to pee everywhere in their stall except for in the toilet.  People stink sometimes.

-A lady came in with some shabbily dressed people and got them $50 worth of groceries.  She let them go first, paid for them, and then when they left and she was paying for her own we talked.  They were homeless and asked her for some money or food, so she took them inside and got them some.

-Someone told me they appreciate my "Yankee Doodle accent."

-A Little Ceasars opened down the way from our store.  The store's in a little strip mall type thing, like most grocery stores are.  (You know, with a Rite Aid next door and maybe a salon or bank nearby.)  They were hiring and having open interviews.  I arrived at work at 9 am that day and there was a line of people outside the store that went clear to our store (about 75 yards) and some of the same people were still in line at noon.  It's a really hard place to get jobs, so when a store comes that has lots of jobs available all at once, everyone tries for it, hoping they'll be lucky with higher chances.  It's the kind of place where businesses get credits if their employees have certain hardships, and no discrimination laws are enforced, so there's a lot of discrimination against applicants that has nothing to do with ability.  My boss told me he'd probably not have hired me had he known I was pregnant when I applied (which is exactly why I didn't tell him).  It's just that kind of place.