Being Productive

As of right now there are many reasons why I love my Peds rotation...not the least of which being the amount of knitting that I've gotten done in the past week. I finished a sock, made a couple tribbles, and started on my Pimlico shrug. Seriously.

That is the first of my Dorky socks...I love them. As for the shrug...well I opted to go for a different pattern for the body of the shrug...mostly because I found the written pattern to be way too much effort for how simple it looked. So I give you my first repeat on the shrug:
Just a simple Diamond Eyelet pattern from Super Stitches Knitting...but I'm loving it to death so far. I was basically looking for something that was interesting to look at, wouldn't look silly upside-down or on it's side, and wasn't too complicated to knit...So far this meets all those criteria.

Other things that I love about my Peds rotation:

• The kids...seriously...I love little kids, and somehow I'm finding the sick kids unbearably cute...although this probably has something to do with the fact that when I'm done I get to give them back to Mom and leave the room
• My intern wears a bow-tie...need I say more?
• I'm generally kept pretty busy during the day without being overwhelmed (little secret...compared to surgery I feel like I'm not doing anything all day)
• Any time I'm asked to look something up I can generally find an answer in under 10 minutes...no more searching for hours for statistics that don't exist on incredibly rare diagnoses!!
• I got home at 2PM today...nice change from the 5AM to 7:30PM life I was living before. And it's not like I didn't do anything today. I pre-rounded, went to a conference, did walking rounds with the attending where I presented my two patients, wrote a progress note on one of my patients (we weren't sure he was definitely going home today) and wrote the discharge note on the patient I knew was definitely going home, went to another conference, and then wrote a discharge summary on the other patient in case he did actually go home later today...I like that I can be efficient and get my work done and not have to find something to make me look busy.

Things I don't love so much about Peds:

• There is no OR...I miss the OR horribly. At this point I'm thinking Pediatric surgery as a career...hopefully I'm smart enough to get into one of the 30 spots in...6+ years.
• I have a lot of weekend call (I was on call all day yesterday and I'll be on call again on Friday).
• I got home at 2PM today...there was nothing else for me to do...the gunner in me is distressed by this.

I hope that all of you are enjoying your knitting as much as I am. And for those of you who enjoy the cooler weather I'm happy for you. I'm not so happy that the house I'm living in is currently approx 60F. I just checked the thermostat...I am not lying...that is the current temp INSIDE my house. One of the other girls supposedly asked for the heat to get turned on...but I'm not too optimistic (UPDATE: I have heat!! The only problem is that one of my floormates either doesn't understand ow thermostats work or wants us all to die in a fire...I felt like my room was getting way too hot, when I looked at the thermostat in the signficantly cooler hallway it was set to the max of 90-something and the current temp was 72...I turned it down. I mean...I don't want to die in a fire...I think that's reasonable). Ah well...that's what sweaters and afghans are for...right? Happy knitting everyone!!

PS - I don't want to sound whiny about the temp...I know that there are many people who can't afford to heat their homes and they survive in much lower temperatures throughout the winter. And that doesn't even cover the homeless people throughout the country who sleep outside in the dead of winter. I know that I am relatively privileged...but that doesn't make me any less cold...and I have a mild form of Raynaud's so I don't have a very good tolerance for cold.

PPS - One of my readers mentioned in the comments on my last post that she lived in these houses once and she had a hard time getting the heat turned on when it was below freezing. This is why I am not optimistic about the heat coming on when it's *only* dropping down into the low 40s overnight. However, it is my understanding that living conditions in these houses have improved significantly over the past year...we have internet and stoves now!! We also supposedly have cable for the TV in the living room downstairs...but I haven't watched any TV yet to confirm that for myself.