Interesting...

Dear Laura,

Dr. Couz, a blog-friend who became a real-life-friend through a surprising encounter*, has tagged me to do an "interesting things about me" meme. The idea is to list 5 interesting things about yourself. Hmmm....

1. Some of the residencies that I seriously considered before deciding that rural family medicine was my true passion: pediatrics, internal medicine (with a view towards rheumatology), and orthopedic surgery. Yes, really.

2. One of the best trips I've ever taken was a cross-country road trip with my cousin (and soon-to-be matron-of-honour) and two other friends. We drove west and ended up on the Queen Charlotte Islands. It was phenomenal.

3. One of my biggest pet peeves is "unnecessary" quotation marks. Is it a "sale" or just a sale?!

4. I don't know if this is really an interesting thing about me, per se, but I do have some interesting relatives: my distant cousins are fairly famous Canadian musicians (Leahy), and my uncle is is a street luger in the X-games on ESPN.

5. When I was in grade six, I was afraid to go to school dances because I didn't know how to dance. Now, it's one of my favourite forms of physical activity - I've taken lessons in both ballroom dancing and Irish dancing and I'd love to do more.

Laura, I don't know how much of this is a surprise to you - but I realized that there aren't many interesting things about me that you don't know. Couz, I hope this was interesting!

I'm supposed to tag some more people do this....

1. Laura, it's your turn!
2. Tammy, one of my favourite artists, whose blog always makes me laugh.
3. Kristen, who I'm not sure has found this blog yet. Kristen, if you're here, speak up! :)

Hope you're enjoying the weekend,
Nikki

*I walked onto the ward on the first day of a new rotation this year and met one of my very friendly residents. As we chatted, she mentioned that she had recently returned from her honeymoon, and I thought in the back of my mind, "hmmm...someone I know just got back from a honeymoon....who was it?" A little while later, she pulled me aside and said, "do you knit?" When I replied in the affirmative, she said, "I KNOW YOU!" Turns out it was the author of a blog that I had been reading for quite a while!

The Grand Tour

Dear Laura,

Well, my time in the north has almost come to an end. My flight leaves tomorrow at 2 p.m. I'm a little sad to be leaving - it always seems that as soon as I start really settling in to an elective, it ends and I have to move on.

My preceptor wasn't working today, so I took the opportunity to wander all over town. I met my preceptor for lunch at this wonderful little cafe, where they have sandwiches on the most delicious homemade bread ever. Then I went to a little craft store that I've be eyeing almost since I got here. Turns out they have drop in quilting classes every Wednesday night - wish I'd know that three weeks ago! I did buy some fantastic handmade moccasins there, though! They had a pretty impressive selection of yarn, but sadly no dishcloth yarn, which was what I was looking for. This is a friendly small town though, so the lady who was working there directed me to the hardware store down the street - where they had an impressive craft department, including some beautiful fabric and lots of yarn! Not somewhere I would have thought to look for yarn!

I bought some yarn and walked on to the hospital, where I took a few photos and dropped off some "thank you" cards. Then I wandered home to warm up!

Oh yeah - it's been a beautiful week here, between minus 10 and minus 15 every day with lots of sun. Unfortunately, today, the day when I decided to go wandering, the temperature plummeted. I was bundled up on my walk, so I was warm enough - but my cheeks were freezing in the wind! Turns out the windchill was MINUS 28 today! No wonder I was cold! (And can you believe that I was actually out for a stroll in this weather? This is not the Nikki you know! I'm all tough and stuff now!)

I have lots of pictures for you today. Some of them are from a walk that I took on Wednesday, when it was sunny and only minus 15!

Here's the little Lutheran church around the corner. I think it's really sweet. There are a remarkable number of churches in this town, given that the population is (I think) less than 10000 people. There's a Jehovah's Witness temple right next door to this church.

This is just one of the residential streets a few blocks over. I'm hoping this photo shows all the

snow here! They've been clearing out snowbanks along the shoulders of the roads for the past few days, because they're so high that there's no visibility at the corners. For some reason, all this snow removal has been happening in the middle of the night - so I keep being woke by the "beep, beep" of some vehicle backing up at 2 a.m.!

This is my house. It's the end unit of a triplex that I think the regional health authority owns. It's a two-bedroom unit but there have been three of us here - the other medical student is using the rec room in the basement as her room. It's quite a comfortable little spot, and the sun just pours in that front window during the day.

Last but not least on our tour, the hospital. It was once a mission hospital, run by nuns - hence the big cross on top. There's a Catholic cathedral across the street. It's a great little hospital, with one ward for medical/surgical/pediatric patients, another ward for maternity patients, and a third ward for psych patients. There's also an emergency department, and next door there's a personal care home (i.e. nursing home). It's pretty functional for a small-town, relatively remote hospital!

And I'm sure you're wondering if I'm ever going to return to craft-related content on this blog. I have been doing some knitting while I've been here - obviously no sewing, since Mrs. Stitchy isn't exactly travel-friendly! I've made a dishcloth already, and I've been working on a pair of socks that I'm working on for my Dad to wear to the wedding. I finished sock #1 before Christmas and I'mr eally trying to get the second one done for his birthday in February. It was only about 1/2" long when I got here, and I'm almost to the heel now - so I'm making progress. Finally, I started a new knitting project today - can you guess what it is??

Well, that's it - you're probably still waiting for all the pictures to load! Hope you're doing well!

Love,

Nikki

Are you really you?

Dear Nikki,

I just got back from a Guide meeting where we had someone from the local school board to talk about internet safety. He started out by making a couple of interesting points about the word safety: 1 - kids turn off when they hear it, because they hear so much about it, and 2 - it means different things to different people, and so context is critical. Then he spent the next hour or so freaking me out about the internet. He made another very interesting point though - basically that if you gossip about someone online or express an inner feeling, be it by email or in a chat or a text message or anything, you don't know who is reading it on the other end. The person you're gossiping about could be in the room at the receiving end and this could have negative consequences for you!

Anyhow, other than that things aren't too exciting around here. Ice fishing "On the river Saskatchewan"* sounds awesome, even if you didn't catch anything! I am curious to hear more about the northern medicine stuff; feel free to rant. Do you spend all your time in one spot or are you travelling round a bit experiencing different things?

The bib turned out much better on the smaller needles. In fact, I enjoyed knitting a boring rectangle with no shaping so much that I started work on the baby genius burp cloth from the same book. I'm not sure what I think about it yet...

It's a bit bright, eh? I am, however, liking it more the more I knit. I'm not really sure if it's wide enough to be a burp cloth. It's about 8" wide unstretched. What do you think?

Anyhow, I have an early class tomorrow, so I'd better go get some sleep. I'll post again soon and I look forward to hearing your wedding ideas!

Love,
Laura

* Of course I can!

p.s. I don't know what's going on with the photos... I'm having a hard time with them. I'll try to fix them later!

On the river Saskatchewan...*

Dear Laura,

On a lighter note from yesterday...I had a very "northern" experience today.

Ice fishing on the Saskatchewan River! My preceptor (who is like 5 years older than me and very fun) and her boyfriend took me ice fishing with them. It was actually pretty mild here today, only minus 10 or so, and it was a beautiful sunny day. We had originally planned to go snowshoeing, but my preceptor was on call, so we had to be within relatively easy reach of town in case of an emergency. Hence, ice fishing!

We didn't catch anything, but it was fun nonetheless. I wish I had taken a picture of the ice auger - you would have enjoyed that! Anyways, we drilled holes in the ice (okay, I watched that part) and put minnows on our fishing rods and plunked ourselves down in lawnchairs to wait.

And wait.

In the end, we didn't catch a thing, but it was really fun! I even got to ride on the snow machine. (Easily amused city kid, eh?) ;)

I'm sure you'll be shocked to hear....that I got a sunburn. In northern Manitoba. In January. Go me!

Love,

Nikki

*Can you name that tune?

Challenges of northern medicine

Dear Laura,

Helloooo from the north! Your baby blanket is adorable - love that fabric! How did baby bib attempt #2 turn out?

I laughed my head off at the YH's post about navigational difficulties in Waterloo. It's so familiar to me! Brad's dad recently moved here so I've been there quite a bit recently - and despite living there for four years, I still get lost on a regular basis!

I have recovered from my murderous cold for the most part. I still have a cough like an old man who's been smoking for fifty years, but otherwise I'm fine!

My experience up here continues to be...interesting. I think the most shocking part has been realizing just how much of a double-standard exists in our health care system. It's appalling how much we have to go through here to get something for a patient that would be thought of as a given back home. People travel for hours for a test that would be done in five minutes in the city. Very sick people have to make do without homecare, not because the funding isn't available but because there aren't enough nurses to do all the care. Critically ill patients wait on remote reserves because there is no doctor available to go with them in the helicopter to the city. It's terrifying, and it's sad.

All the people in the south who complain about waiting for hours in emergency rooms should try living on a remote reserve where there's only a nursing station - but no nurses to work at it. The nearest doctor is an hour away by air, and the nearest hospital is even further. There's just no way that people get adequate health care in such a setting.

I am developing an amazing amount of respect for the doctors who work in this environment. They work long hours with little or no backup, and their efforts are often hampered by a grossly under-staffed healthcare system. And yet, they do a great job for their patients.

I'll get off my soapbox now! I've been working hard but have been putting a lot of thought into wedding planning during my time off - we'll have to talk soon so I can run some ideas past you!

Love,
Nikki

Dear Nikki,

Have you read the YH's post about Waterloo yet? I totally cracked up when she mentionned King and Weber intersecting!

Not too much exciting has been going on with me. I've been dog sitting the past few days, which has been going pretty well. Tomorrow I don't have classes, so I get to stay home and work on typing up notes, which will delight the dogs as I will take a break mid-day to go for a walk, and they'll actually have someone around. I'm pretty sure they get bored when they're home alone. The other exciting news (actually, not good at all) is that my car is sick :( It's been in being repaired since Saturday; apparently the steering rack needs replacing. Which is not cheap, and comes with excellent timing to coincide with shipping my furniture out here from Ontario. Yay!

Craft-wise I haven't been doing much. I don't know what it is, but after working all day I'm totally exhausted when I get home. Especially if I've had a Guide meeting after work too! I cast on for the denim bib from Mason-Dixon Knitting (thank-you again for giving it to me!). I decided that even though the pattern called for 4 mm needles I would cast on with my 4.5 mm Addis. It's a bib; gauge totally shouldn't matter, right? Wrong. First of all, the needles are awesome, and even the denim cotton felt really nice to knit. However, the feel of the bib is wrong, it's too floppy and loose. So once I'm done posting this, it's coming off the needles and going to the frog pond. But, here's a picture of the bib in progress, along with one of the fun flanellette receiving blankets I plan to give to my co-worker (the bib is hopefully for her too).

I hope you keep feeling better!

Laura

p.s. Currently reading: Winter Holiday, by Arthur Ransome. The fourth book in one of my all-time favourite kids book series. I'm not even sure how many times I've read this one, but it's still great!

*sniffle*

Dear Laura,

Now whose turn is it to apologize for being slow to post? I'm sorry! You know how my immune system kicks ass and I never get sick? Oh right, that's not me, I forgot. Anyways, I've been sick for the past four days with the mother of all colds. I basically spent the weekend sleeping, migrating between couch and bed depending on the time of day. It was rotten. However, it would appear that I'm on the mend today, and I'm even going to work this afternoon! Hooray!

Despite all that, I'm still having lots of fun up here. I saw a ton of interesting stuff in the emergency department last week (including, apparently, someone who had the mother of all colds and shared it with me). The doctors and nurses are all fabulous and everyone is very welcoming.

The most impressive is one of the admin assistants from the hospital, who brought me homemade chicken soup, gingerale, lemon and honey and a variety of other "feel better soon" stuff this weekend when she heard I was sick. It was wonderful!

I wish I had interesting craft stuff to show you, but I'm working on a grey sock right now and it's not very interesting! What have you been doing?

Love,
Nikki

Currently reading: Still Sherlock Holmes. It's awfully thick!