A curly-headed blur zoomed past me as I carried the dog’s full bowl of water to his tray. Zoe, don’t run with a pen, please. It’s dangerous.

“It’s not a pen, and anyway I was skipping with it. It’s my pencils.”

ALRIGHT WELL WHATEVER YOU’RE RUNNING WITH STOP IT AND WALK – you don’t wanna put an eye out.

Yeah I said that.

This comes on the heels of her very first stitches Saturday night. She was refusing to eat dinner with us during a half hour of being an utter pill for an unknown reason, most likely that she was tired after a long day of doing

Hold on. I just had to save this draft and return to it because there was a crash in the kitchen. It seems someone had climbed up and gotten plates to set the table for tomorrow morning’s breakfast (SUPER SWEET right?) and long story short we have one fewer plates.

Where was I? Oh yes, the stitches. So in a fit she shoved off our lofted dining table in her lofted pink chair, which fell back in slow motion. I said, “Awesome,” as she fell, because I was thinking that surely THIS would teach her, not injure her, but scare her into thinking at least twice before her next display of stubborn hostility, when she landed, quite gracefully, upright and without any limbs under any part of the chair. Whew, I thought, but in just as slow a motion, unfortunately as an aftershock of the landing she bumped her chin on the padded part of the chair and began crying in pain. Joel picked her up and brought her to me, in his infinite wisdom warning me to hold back the I TOLD YOU SOs until we determined she was okay, when I saw blood gushing from her chin. After we stopped the bleeding I got a better look and could see muscle fibers and adipose tissue coming through, so off to get stitches we went. To me, lacerations are the worst – I mean, to look at or even feel the chair, you’d never think it would break skin.

The urgent care place was awesome. We were in and out, they numbed her well, the treatment team was really nice, and although a white sheet papoose/taco was necessary,

Wait so I’m not making this up. She just came in, wide-eyed, and said, “Mom, you better not step on all the towels because I spilled a WHOLE BUNCH of water.”

Right now you might be thinking many things, such as why isn’t your four-year-old in bed? And why are you continuing effectively to ignore her, and where is your husband? Exactly. Now they are playing something called fishkitball and I’m going to wrap this up.

So the three stitches come out in a week. A week during which she can’t be in the pool. During the last week of her swimming lessons. But we’re so fortunate that these are the worst of our concerns regarding her health.

In other news, third year has begun, and I’m really excited. More on that later, surely. Today during orientation attention was paid to our responsibilities and cautions regarding any online presence we may have. I like to think I’m aware of these issues and walk a fine line both personally and professionally, trying to balance privacy with creativity and honesty. It was a good reminder never to betray the trust of the people for whom I’ll be caring medically and with whom I work, and I also thought about Zoe. I hope she doesn’t mind and maybe even will think it’s cool to have grown up online. I know we’re taking some risks and that not everyone would do it this way. She knows I write about her and post pictures of her; if anything I just want to share the joy she brings to our world, even when she’s breaking skin and plates.

I’ve been thinking a lot about babies in general, new Moms, and our own little Zoe and how it seems like yesterday she was just joining us, yet she’s always been a part of me. Then I think about what babies go through to get here. It’s freaking amazing. I’m really glad I had Zoe before medical school because I worried PLENTY without all that extra information.

So that’s on my mind, plus I’m learning about cancer chemotherapeutic agents at the moment, so I’m taking a trip down memory lane to my first real consideration of my reproductive potential. I also feel the need to say that I am not – repeat: am NOT – considering producing another child at this time. Nor do I, or would I ever, steal children.

I had this conversation with my oncologist over the phone while standing in the hallway of the place where we had just moved my Granddad so he could receive the proper care after heart surgery and rehab. (I guess this part sticks in my mind because I have thought many times how odd it was to take that call about my newish problem during a visit to someone in a very different stage of illness.)

Among a series of much less personal questions one must ask when planning a surgery (do you have any drug allergies, have you had other surgeries), he asked, “In the event that we get in there [during surgery] and find the other ovary significantly affected, do you want us to be as conservative as possible to preserve fertility? Or should we take it out?”
I was quiet, just for a moment. I hadn’t thought about that. “Well, I’m not going to have a lot of kids if I’m dead. So yeah. Take it, if you must.”

About two weeks earlier, a family doctor I barely knew stared at my growing belly and said, “Oh yeah. You’re pregnant. About five months.” I knew I wasn’t. (But I don’t blame her. I did look pregnant sometimes. However, on the night before my surgery, my belly was flat, the tumor inside completely undetectable.) She took some blood to confirm and scheduled an ultrasound for the following Monday. (The Friday before that ultrasound is when I got scared and had back pain enough to visit the emergency room instead of waiting for the ultrasound, which would have been the thing to do, had I been more patient or less scared.)

I thought I didn’t want kids for a good portion of my young-adult life. Surely, I figured, if I were to change my mind, I’d adopt, since there are so many children who need a home. The longer Joel and I dated, the more I thought I did want kids, specifically with him. Cut to being a newlywed with a giant belly; we were not ready to be parents, but had more than come around to the idea. To hear that the blood test was negative was not a surprise. Nor was it welcome, given the alternative.
Instead of “boy or girl?”, apparently the big surprise after my surgery was whether or not I still had an ovary. (One of my favorite google image results for immature teratoma is a girl in the hospital pretending to hold her tumor in a baby blanket – hilarious. Because the ovary holds thousands of little potential babies.)

So we know the rest: half of Zoe was in the healthy one, and she’s perfection (not a monster – the word teratoma is from classical Greek for “monstrous tumor” – which most Moms fear at some point during their pregnancy; perhaps my fear was greater than some). I’m of the mind that when a baby makes it through all the harrowing obstacles inherent to the process and arrives outside the womb, in whatever condition, he or she is a fighter with much cause and purpose to be here. This may be hard to argue in the peaceful silence and stillness of the sleeping, adorable lump who seems to do little else.

Thursday night we had Zoe’s friend over while her parents went to a concert. I decided pizza was a safe bet for the evening, given that I still needed to study a little bit. We determined that Zoe’s friend and Zoe preferred cheese pizza. They began eating a red bell pepper appetizer while playing a computer game, and continued playing during pizza. This was the other little girl’s second dinner, and she’s thin as are many six-year-old girls, and I figured she wouldn’t eat much. I was wrong. Each time she requested another slice, Zoe exclaimed, “Me, too!” Glasses of milk were poured. About the third slice, Zoe had slowed, and eventually her friend ran out of steam on her fifth. (For reference, they’re small pizzas, but all four adults in the house stopped after 2 or 3 slices.) Zoe had a half glass of orange juice. The two played a little more, and after awhile we got into pajamas and read a story in the princess tent. It was a good night, and when the other parents returned, goodbyes were said. I noticed Zoe’s face was red, but I thought it might have been the running around. All in all, it was an uneventful night.

Until about 15 minutes later. We were in bed, playing Plants vs. Zombies per usual, and an uneasy tense feeling came over me. The girl was going to vomit. Within 10 seconds, she coughed and covered my top half in chunks of pizza and red bell pepper. We made it to the bathroom, where she finished the job on my bottom half with two more enormous, projectile vomits from 3 feet away. She was largely unfazed. We bathed, redressed, tossed a blanket on the bed, and got situated again.

Joel had come to bed at this point. He was expressing his concern, consoling her in a way, and gave her a kiss or a head tousle, which disgruntled her enough to say she didn’t like him. I told her he loves her and is good to her, that it’s not nice to say such things and at least to give him a chance.

“But I don’t love him.”
Oh, Zoe. You do somewhere in there.

As if to counterpoint, she coughed again and covered him and his pillow. Again to the bathroom, and again two more vomits; the first was epic, and she stood there in her tiny Hello Kitty briefs staring, almost in awe, followed by a small tribute vomit. Another bath (with Dad this time), and another scavenger hunt for something to put on the bed. A tarp was considered. Fortunately she must have gotten it out of her system, because, after a discussion of the physiology of emesis, we slept soundly . At least until my alarm blared at 5. (I am officially too old for such short nights.)

Nana did so much laundry that night. When I left for school, she was passed out on the couch and blankets were drying. (Thank you.) Zoe milked the previous night’s “illness” for a day at home but had no further vomit. I really thought kids were better than adults at stopping when they’re full. In retrospect that was a LOT of salt for a tiny body, and I should have been more aware. Live and learn.

The last couple of days I’ve been a little irritable, mostly thinking about how hard the next six months will be. But now it’s more excitement as I nerdily read the topics we’ll cover this semester. Plus – GET THIS – it’s my last semester of traditional classroom learning. Glee. In July I’ll start doing what I came here to do. THAT’s exciting.

Now until then, I will be working diligently. Fervently. Choose your adverb. For I am in hot pursuit of a STEP 1* score to balance my mediocre grades (in addition, of course, to maintaining and improving said mediocre grades). So. It will be med student business as usual (meaning I belong to my studies and Zoe, attempting to maintain sanity with acceptable down time and leisure activities) until May. In May I begin living in a cave with test prep materials and sustenance until I have taken my test (a TBA date in early to mid June). Please understand if I appear to have dropped off the face of the Earth or decline participation in significant events during this time. I mean no disrespect. All the love in the world to my family and friends who are supporting me through this journey.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy start to 2011!

*For anyone unfamiliar with the STEP 1, here’s some basic information. It’s… kind of a big deal to me.

They’re called bangs. I’ve had bangs before. And I’ve grown them out. Just when they’re starting to become part of my regular hair, I go and do something stupid like cut them again. It was to encourage me to fix my hair, and also to cover the stubborn forehead wrinkle that has become permanent, despite my best efforts. The onset of post-haircut remorse was record-setting this time. I keep trying for these cuts that look good in theory, and then put on my head, it’s just… not edgy. It probably says more about my face than anything else.

I’m always in hair limbo. In sixth grade I had hair most of the way down my back. Probably not a good look for me, in hindsight. And I was getting headaches, both from the weight of it and also because of the maintenance. So I cut it. To my shoulders. Nothing too drastic really. But the feedback was almost entirely negative. “WHAT’D YOU DO?!” Whatever – I think it looked fine, and I liked the change, but I’ve always been a little hesitant to cut my hair, especially after committing to growing it longer. I love long hair. I think it makes one look more… natural? Easy going? Free-spirited? In the right way, of course. There are exceptions. Maybe those things don’t describe or suit me…

Am I impatient, or do I really prefer it shorter? Post chemo, I had fun with the various stages as it grew, and I think my favorites have been bobs or shorter. I feel like longer hair drags me down. And it ends up in a pony tail most days, because let’s face it, I barely have time to put on clothes, and I value sleep more than looking nice. (I’ll make time for makeup though, or take it with me, because we don’t need running and screaming people in the streets.)

Basically I look about the same or worse, but my hair FEELS better. It was getting krusty on the ends. Plus I needed to catch up with my stylist. The bangs will grow out, and maybe I will have learned my lesson and keep them that way.

Couple this little indiscretion with my recent 10+ pound weight gain, and I’m looking pretty great these days. Most of my 20s were spent fearing what would happen when, inevitably, my metabolism slowed. It was either a self-fulfilling prophecy, or perhaps an unfortunate coincidence, that my 30th birthday was associated with a month-long illness, hindering my workouts, and a more sedentary studying schedule. And of course I love sweets. So 30 for Blake is not hot. But I’ve started back with Jillian and am pining away for the days of less stringent adherence to a healthy diet (I’m not “on a diet” because those do not work and make me depressed), which means I’m trying.

In the meantime, there are barrettes and large clothes.

*If you’ve never enjoyed Arrested Development, for whatever reason, I’m sorry. Because it’s hysterical. Here‘s a compilation video; I apologize for the ad.

What I sat down to say, despite my other, more reflective topics in the queue to write about, is something I realized in the last five minutes: I’m doing okay. In talking to the other student-parents, I’m convinced that despite my extreme guilt at times, I’m spending some quality time with Zoe, and seemingly MORE time than my “peers” are with their kids. Not that I’m competing with them at all – that’s not the point.

Let me say that I love Dads. I love my Dad, Zoe’s Dad, his Dad, and most of the men I know who are Dads are good people. Just to let everyone know I’m no manhater before I say the rest. I’ve said before that it’s easier for the Dads. Dads don’t have the same expectations. They’re typically not the stay-at-home gender (though there’s nothing wrong with that), and everyone understands when they work or spend less time with the kids. Because they’re working. Even in a double income household (whether equal earning or not), more of the kid/home/cooking/shopping responsibilities fall to the woman. The why of this phenomenon is a topic for another time (and I have my opinions). So it’s no surprise to me when I talk to the other students with children that the response from Dads is different than from the Moms. Today I heard, “My kids don’t really bother me that much. I mean, probably because they’re used to me not being around. So when I am there, they just expect me to be working, so it’s pretty easy to get my work done.” Not judging, but WOW. Totally different than my life. From another Mom (of THREE, one of them a newborn; excuse me while I hyperventilate) during exams, “I’m pretty sure the baby’s going through that whole reactive attachment disorder we learned about in behavioral.” She was kidding. On the square. And that’s why I wanted to cry.

My first first year, there were four Moms to my knowledge, and plenty more Dads. Last year there were two of us repeating, plus a new one (the aforementioned Mom of three). In the current first-year class, there is one Mom of two – Zoe’s age and an infant – and maybe a few Dads (I haven’t confirmed that). It’s strange, because from the very first day of school, I saw her and knew she was a Mom. I finally stopped her in the hall a few weeks ago to do the secret handshake and offer support. She needs it.

My school appears to be changing their selection criteria (also another topic for a non-public venue) to those that probably would have excluded me. (Perhaps wisely. I don’t make the scores. But let’s judge ten years into practice, shall we?) Maybe that’s why we’re seeing fewer Moms. Is it a bad idea for women in medicine to have kids? Should we revert to the all-male, paternalistic profession? People make it work – but is the sacrifice too great, on either side? Would I make better grades if I weren’t a Mom? Would I be a better Mom if I weren’t pursuing medicine? Don’t worry – no matter the answer to these questions, or perhaps because of my own answers, I’m staying. If I were going to quit by now, Lord knows I would have. When I get the urge to quit these days, I just pull out the old master promissory note, and that’s a nice therapeutic slap in the face. So the answer is mu.

During the exam crunch time studying, I don’t see Zoe as much, but at the end of the day I know we’re okay. Plus it gives her some extra Daddy-Daughter bonding time. Maybe it’s a personality/viewpoint difference – maybe others have different expectations for themselves as mothers or have maturity I don’t have, and they’re able to focus and study even when they don’t see their kids. Again, not judging. Just a difference. But it’s not what I want for myself and for Zoe. Despite the rigorous demands of these didactic years, my time is mostly my own. I still have to cover the mountains of material somehow, but it’s up to me when I do it. Third year: my ass belongs to the hospital. I’ll be gone for 36 hours at a time during some rotations. So I’m soaking up my time with her while I can, and I’ll find other ways next year.

This may sound like a broken record: I have some a ton of work to do to improve my grades and be more efficient with my study time. It may require crack. But I have a feeling that even when I’m applying for residency and presenting my meager scores, I’ll have few regrets about how I spent my time.

This is my last week of my family medicine preceptorship (reflections to come), after which time I will be focusing on vacation preparation!!! We are all very excited.

Part of this preparation began with the end of spring semester. I believe I mentioned that my friend-study-workout-partner, Krystal, and I ferociously began Jillian Michaels’s 30 Day Shred. It is not a joke. With vacations and a few missed days in between, we decided to go some extra time and thus we technically are well past 30 days.

So despite a few misgivings, I took some “before” pictures. It was humbling. At the end of level 1, I took some progress pictures. I had made progress. Things were tighter, smaller, more proportional. I felt good. I felt strong. (Zoe was getting easier to carry longer distances – turns out, after her recent week-long stomach virus, she has lost 4 pounds…) I was on track to have wowza results in ample time to be fit as ever for our upcoming cruise and the big 3-0.

I honestly can say that I do not know what happened after that. When I really think about it, the only reasonable answer is lack of quality sleep to help my body recover. Whatever it is – I am more giant than when I began. Muscle weighs more than fat, retains water as it’s breaking and building, yadayadayada… This is little consolation to the girl in the mirror. Brain knows if I get the fat off, I have a good base of muscle, so that’s what I have to do, but damn if it isn’t super disappointing to work so hard and weigh more and not fit into clothes. I am stronger, so I can focus on that.

What’s funny to me is that – it turns out – this fat ass gets more attention. Today on my walks to and from the bus stops, I got 50% more honks than the thinner me used to. It’s such a shame to me that I’m on foot and they’re in fast vehicles – if only I could run fast enough to catch one of those superfly winners who can both honk AND whistle. I’ve put a lot of thought into scenarios in which I’m able to reach them, and for which one I would leave my husband and beautiful child. In the end, it doesn’t matter: either way, I’ll get a creative guy who is so overcome by attraction to the blur of girl-shaped mass sweating her way down the street that he must make this grand romantic gesture befitting a true lady. And that’s exactly what I want. Exactly.

Come a little closer. I’ve just disembarked the luxurious Metro bus, where I acquired a wide array of water-borne microbes due to my and every other passenger’s swack*. In fact, I’ve spent the past 60+ days sweating constantly – indoors, outdoors, no place is cool enough. Hot, right? Do you still want to honk? By all means.

I’ll tell anyone how much I love Houston. I really do. And it would be a great place to stay for residency in terms of the medicine I could see. But they say to pick a place based on location first – do you want to live there? I’m strongly considering limiting my search to more temperate, or even cooler, climates. That’s probably the summer sweats talking. On that note, I think I’ll go grab Zoe for our daily swim now.

*sweaty back. Thank you, Rachel Brady, for the rights to use this concept; its flexibility ensures a whole vocabulary worth of combinations, using any noun for which “sweaty” could be an adjective. Try it – you’ll see.

When I was practicing for my comprehensive physical exam for class, she was my willing patient many, many times, so she picked up a few things. (I’m fairly confident she could do the full exam, and she clearly has down the blood pressure, deep tendon reflexes, heart, lung and belly sounds, eyes and ears, and Babinski testing.) Here’s how it goes when we pretend for a focused exam and she’s the doctor:

Z: [knock, knock, knock]
B: Come in!
Z: Hellooooo! How are you today? What’s going on?
B: (I explain an injury or complaint.)
Z: Oh! Okay. Let me wash my hands right away and take a look. [She washes her hands thoroughly and reaches out to shake my hand.] I’m Doctor Zoe. Okay. Now. Okay. Let me see. Mmmhmm. Okay. You’ll need a shot. And a sticker. And here’s your lollipop.

So for posterity, her stats are as follows:

Height: 35 7/8 inches (25th percentile); “The doctor says I’m growing very well and very tall.”
Weight: 32 pounds (50th percentile); (How long until I can’t post her weight?)
And according to her school report, she’s excelling by standards for someone almost a year older than she is. Not to brag or anything. Maybe a little bit.

The sweet little bug thanked me several times over the next two days for going to the doctor with her. No shots were sustained, only because I didn’t have a copy of her shot record with me (still need to go get that… Mama oops, but it just has to be done sometime in the next year), much to her relief, though that appears to be her panacea, especially when coupled with a sticker.

But not today. No. Today they were 1. out of non-dairy creamer, and – what’s worse – 2. completely unapologetic about it. In addition, 3. their potato tacos, which most days are worthy of high praise, were not hot. And by hot I mean temperature, which is all the more important now that I’m more aware of what bugs may lurk in less-than-hot food. Thus they have been sacked. This was just the thing I needed to get myself out of bed earlier to make my own breakfast. Maybe now I’ll get to the bus on time.

First, a little background.

Overall Block I exams went alright but, as usual, less well than I had hoped. The quickness and the breadth of material, especially for immunology, got the better of me, and while I held it together fairly well (i.e., I only called my sister in tears once and threatened to quit via no more than four texts), by Friday I was sure that after turning in my micro test I would walk over one building and check myself in, either at Hermann for exhaustion/septic strep (I lost my voice during the week) or at the Harris County psych ward. Not to be dramatic or anything.

Friday night I ended up doing my post exams routine of cleaning and attempting to prepare ourselves for a nice weekend at home without staring at a couch full of laundry or a pile of dishes or lying around on dog-hair-carpet. Because that’s how we roll most days. (I’ve learned to let it go, superficially, until I have time to deal with it, but deep down it’s still on my hamster wheel of concerns.)

I was excited to retrieve Zoe, who was in excellent spirits after school. The evening was pleasant and uneventful, and we went to bed late, in my hopes of sleeping late.

Saturday, 7 AM: Zoe is awake, for good, and she wants to “watch a few shows”. I oblige and return to sleep; when she gets cranky, Joel sweeps her away so I can rest. I am grateful. A few minutes of light sleep later, I tire of hearing her protests and requests for me, and I stomp out grumpily, and we begin our day of nothing. Glorious nothing. We played play-doh, watched shows, napped, and generally enjoyed each other’s company. At 6 PM we ventured out on some errands: Goodwill donating, recycling, and groceries. Across from the recycling center was a Chick-Fil-A, and Zoe excitedly requested dinner there. It was delicious, and she loved playing on the playground with a rambunctious young chap called Ian, or Phillip, or Bill. NOT Kevin, NOT Steven, which he thought Zoe was saying, which she wasn’t. Target was a blast, and we saved 10% with coupons = bonus.

Sometime around 3 AM we were awakened by a Zoe in mild distress. I’m not sure how we knew, because she wasn’t making much noise. Joel figured out that she was lying on her back and pointing to her mouth, which was piled high with vomit. The poor baby. We cleaned her up, stripped the bed, decided she needed a full bath, did that, and got her all ready for bed again. Laundry was begun, and into clean sheets we went. Less than half an hour later, we repeated the whole thing, with the variation that the vomit landed almost entirely on my person, and the two of us took a shower. Putting our last set of sheets on the bed, we decided to put a few extra blankets below Zoe and to keep a pan by the bed.

She learned quickly, warning us when she would vomit in time to place the pan, keeping us updated with, “Here it comes… I have more… I’m almost done…” I was aching for her and so proud of her at the same time. And so it went throughout the night and next day. The laundry never ceased. Despite her illness, she remained in good spirits while awake, though mostly she slept. Family required status reports, particularly my squeamish-only-when-it-comes-to-vomit sister, whose fascination/repulsion necessitates description of the quantity and quality. This provided much comic relief to me, as did Zoe’s comments. After a Dora popsicle: “Hey! Pink throw up!” Apropos of nothing: “Mom? Throwing up is not fun.”

Sunday night went a little better, with evidence that whatever-it-was was moving down the GI tract. I’ll spare you the details except to say that the laundry.continued.all.night. The last incident for which I was present occurred at 5:30 AM before my alarm went off at 6 AM. Joel kept her at home on Monday, which I am so grateful he can do. I trudged off to school, embittered that my post-exam “relaxation” and “preparation for block 2″ weekend was neither of those things, and I began yet another block completely exhausted. A bright spot in the day: Joel texted me with a Zoe quote that I will hover for you in order to protect her privacy somewhat. Hilarious.

Amidst the chaos, there were many moments like that, actually. She’s amazing. And we’ve learned some things, mostly that we should get a plastic sheet.

Now it’s Wednesday, and perhaps for the best, I have forgotten most of the things that inspired my irritation and grumbling and today’s post’s title. I do recall that I broke yet another backpack. And that I missed my morning bus by 30 seconds, thus missing my first class which turned out to be quite important, setting me behind before I even started. Dispersed throughout the day were various and sundry instigators, coming full circle with missing my evening bus, only after running for it like a total moron with my two bags of 70+ pounds of crap, arriving at the bus door only to remain unseen by the driver and amuse the other waiting bus patrons with my misfortune. And THEN I studied while waiting for the next one, putting away my materials when I expected it to arrive, only to wait an additional half hour because for some reason, it never came.

I know these things seem small. But in aggregate… wasting my time and feeling behind already and suffering a severe sleep and mental stamina deficit… It was a little much.

Plus I’m really over my commute.

Long story short, I’m quite difficult to live with. And I’m sorry about the preposition there. I know I have several balls in the air, none of which I’m prepared to let drop, though they have been pruned in the past year. I have to work on grace, and on the schedule and routine. One might say I am hell bent on implementing some consistency, ideally for the whole family, and at least for myself. I did order a new backpack, so instead of hauling around my pigpen in multiple bags like a hobo, I can run for the bus in a streamlined fashion.