Small goals....

Did a couple of surgeries this morning. Nothing major although we took this HUGE lipoma out of this chick's abdomen. It was cool, she was only sedated, so she would start squirming when we were getting deeper into her abdomen.....I am used to people being paralyzed and intubated.....that was different. Nothing more local didn't remedy though.

After morning surgery, spent an hour and a half in the gym....that felt great! I have missed the gym so much, and man am I out of shape! It feels nice to have that good kind of hurt back.

Decided that I would spend some time in the ER tonight. Right after I got there a blizzard started....no joke, can't see in front of you, white-out conditions. I though for sure that we were going to get some car wrecks in......the roads are completely black ice now.

Today was broken finger day in the ER. 3 of them. I got to practice splinting, so that is good. One cool thing is that I was dreading seeing the "depression" in room 1, but it turned out great. We were really slow so I actually spent almost an hour talking to this guy and his wife. He just started dialysis a few weeks ago and is really anxious and depressed....which is common. We talked about what he is doing about it and about positive strategies that he can take to start living his life and being an active participant in it rather than feeling like all of these things are happening to him.We talked about making little changes one at a time. I think that a lot of providers get so caught up that everyone needs to completely change their diet and exercise x number of times a week, etc....that they don't realize that all of that is too overwhelming for a patient. I say pick one thing, like...."Do you drink soda?" The answer is yes, so I say, why don't we start with cutting out the soda and substituting it for water (preferably) or unsweetened tea. Let's do that for 2 weeks and when that is a habit, we will move onto something else. That way, it is manageable. There aren't a ton of things to keep track of. It is one thing - no soda. Then when they do that, it gives them a small sense of accomplishment. It makes a goal that they have actually attained, and then the other goals may seem attainable too. Make sense?

Decided to go home now as it looks like we might have a hot appy brewing for surgery in the morning and I don't want to miss out on that!

Hopefully people will stay off of the roads tonight. I nearly killed myself in the 100 yards going home.