The LKs all grown up

I use the term "grown up" here loosely. My younger brother and I were the 'little kids' (LK's) of the family as we were the younger 2 of the 4. The title itself has never been fully appropriate. While 2 years older than I, I have always been the same size or taller. Yes, always. Even when I was born. But seriously, my parents had more money by the time we hit our growth spurts, so the LK's are actually taller than the BK's. To the point...

My little brother came to visit us 2 weekends ago! It also happened to be the kick off of Omaha Beer Week, which was amazing. He managed to fly out during the Snow-magedden of Denver. He arrived before Snow-magedden (Omaha version) even arrived. We hit up Cali Taco, where they forced us to get a pitcher of beer. Forced. We then met Matt and his work peeps in Benson and managed to hit up both Krug Park and Jake's. Oh the glorious beer we got to drink. Oh wait, we then headed to Dundee. And ate at Amsterdam Falafel. Wow. The entire night was amazing to say the least.

Saturday involved brunch and later, beer. In the afternoon we headed to Johnny's Steak House for a little classy happy hour. They have a great happy hour in my opinion. Pictures of mojito's??? We refrained. We then headed over to Brix - an awesome wine and beer store that happened to be a stop on the Beer Week party bus tour. It turns out we aren't very patient. We had a beer there, lingered, and then got antsy. In truth, we really only wanted to go to the last stop on the tour any way - The Lauter Tun.

This place has quickly become one of our new favorites. While very typical of Omaha - strip mall - the inside is nothing like you would expect. The bar top itself juts out into the middle of the moderately sized venue; a dozen 2-4 person high tops surround the bar seating. They have an amazing selection of 22 beers on tap that scroll through on flat screen TVs. I hear that they even have them on iPads for less busy times. They have even more in bottles. There cocktail list is just as extensive. Our favorite - hands down - is the Rootbeer Candy: rootbeer schnapps, vodka, and jagger. It doesn't sound good, but it is AMAZING. The wait staff and bar tenders have been incredibly attentive during all 3 of our visits and make the place worth returning...every week :D While not the cheapest place to drink, the drinks are great and completely worth it.

After a couple hours there, we had to take him to The Phoenix ('our' bar) and for greasy Mexican. Sunday involved the Super Bowl and too much food. mmmmmmm...food.

Life in the Time of Cardiology

I dove head first into cardiology last week. This is my 2nd of 2 months. My first month wasn't too bad, and this month hasn't been the worst...yet. What I enjoy about cardiology is that we always seem to have a concrete goal in mind. UniMed doesn't always feel that way. And it isn't that in cardiology we ignore every other part of the body that isn't the heart or blood vessels. In fact, we often get patients who have had heart problems prior but admitted for something else...such as pancreatitis. What I dislike about cardiology: the overall speed. Heart patients tend to be more complicated, so we have to often take a little more time on each one. These two things - having a goal yet moving slowly - make for a very focused mind during this rotation.

My attending right now has a mesmerizing mustache. I don't know what it is, but sometimes I find myself staring at it. Weird. I know. He, however, is one of the most calming presence I have ever experienced. Not all zen and meditation type calming. It's different. His tone of voice, the volume of his voice, and his body language just ooze CALM when he is talking to patients, families, and even us lowly interns. We had a code on a patient the other day; he was a few days post-op from coronary bypass surgery and doing well. He suddenly went into ventricular tachycardia (bottom part of the heart is beating super super fast), which is sort of what happens just before someone goes into ventricular fibrillation (something that requires shocks to get out of usually). My attending (maybe powered by the mustache) managed to keep everyone calm and kept some over-anxious resident or nurse from shocking this poor patient. He ended up coming out of the bad rhythm on his own. I hope one day to be as calm in such a stressful situation as this man is.

Bobbo was here this past weekend! I will update more on that next blog post, but for now I will just review our brunch spot.

Wheatfields

We ventured out in my trusty 4 wheel drive, manual subaru during our first real snowstorm. My amazing driving and slip sliding got Matt, Bo, and I to Wheatfields safely on a Saturday morning. Typically this place is popping at the seams at brunch time. While the One Pacific Place location is open for dinner, they are best known for their breakfast. You enter and immediately want to eat everything in sight. While slightly chaotic, the bakery part of Wheatfields is located right when you walk in. OMG. Everything is so tempting - pies, breads (sweet and savory), pastries, and cakes (their wedding cake is to die for, but $$$$). We were seated right away thanks to the snowstorm. The dining room is sort of half hazardly thrown together with a mix of booths and tables. The menu. Was. Over. Whelming. No seriously. It is about 8 pages full of breakfast stuff and dinner/lunch stuff PLUS the specials menu. Needless to say, we took a while too decide. Matt, in his odd way, got nachos and a reuben. The reuben looked like it had too much 'kraut to me, so I didn't even take a bite. Bo got a scramble...which came with a cinnamon roll. I could eat just the latter and be completely happy. I got a strata with sausage and cheese with hollandaise. While flavorful, I felt it was slightly dry. The portion size was plentiful, however, and it came with...a half waffle. I actually sort of find the slightly odd sides charming. Who doesn't want half a waffle? Unfortunately, the waffle was slightly dry as well. Then again, waffles aren't my favorite breakfast carb. They had everything you would ever want on this menu - scrambles, omelettes, stratas, quiches, and your standard carbs and eggs and meats. Plus a good 2 dozen lunch sandwiches and more dinner entrees. I will say that this isn't IHOP or Denny's where you can find several items under $6. The prices are all closer to $10, but I do feel that you get what you pay for here. And then they force you to walk back out by all the baked goods :( If only I were still playing basketball

Service: great! But I think it helped that the place was really quiet due to snow

Cleanliness: could be improved upon

Ambiance: this isn't their selling point. You can tell they just keep adding areas of seating because they are so popular. I wasn't going here for the ambiance though

Menu: OMG. Overwhelming. Something for everyone

Taste: While my dish was dry, overall the taste was great. The strata blended everything that is/should be breakfast (cheese...meat...eggs) into a uniform, airy dish.

Overall: 4 (see side column for what this means). I enjoyed it, but we don't often go out for breakfast. Prices were reasonable for the amount of food on the plate, but I don't see ourselves working this into our plans on a monthly basis.

7 down, 5 to go!

I find that I often want to use the title "Survived." Thatis either scary or complete overuse and simplification of the word. I will go with the latter.

 

UniMed is over! Whoop! On my last day we actually only had 2 patients. Yep. 2. So I can't really complain that much. My 1st month way back in July was pure hell. This one was great. My first month of cardio was great, which means this one will likely be  awful. If you couldn't pick up on the hint, I started cardio today! I was super lucky and got assigned to the team with 4 residents again, which makes the workload just a tad bit better. I have said it before, and I will say it again, I am pretty sure people don't trust me to take care of patients. Our patient list right now? 5. For the whole team. I hope to keep this fluffy white cloud going!

 

In medicine, you have 3 identities of people: fluffy white clouds, black clouds, and all the rest (I will call them grey clouds). If you are a fluffy white cloud, things go well for you. Calls are benign. Your days aren't hectic and over the top crazy. If you are a black cloud, your day in the hospital is usually a sh*t storm. Crashing patients. PICCs that need removal, shortness of breathe that doesn't improve - with anything - because it is a massive pulmonary embolus. Critical lab calls. And 5 admits in 2 hours. Grey are obviously somewhere in between. Some people flip back and forth between the two. Some. Just. Stay. Black. Clouds. I am very lucky to not be one of them. Yes, I have had my moments, but on the whole, I tend towards a light grey.

 

Dewey's Burgers and Brew:

 

This building seems to be a rotating door of restaurants. My parents can recall them all. I cannot. For a time it was a seafood place, then maybe a salad place. Really? A salad place? Well, now it is Dewey's Burgers & Brew. My parents and I met my aunt, 2 uncles, and a cousin here before the Zag game when I was up in Spokane. Walking it, it has nice high ceilings, family seating to the right and "bar" seating to the left. While no real fault of theirs, you are greeted by the bar, which isn't always the warmest of feelings. In truth, there wasn't much distinction between the family and bar seating. Plenty of tables on both sides. No real high tops (which sometimes people imagine as 'bar' seating). Their names suggests that they would have a plethora of tap choices. In actuality, they had 8. One being my lover, Widmeier Hefe. Yep. The menu had a range of sandwiches as well as burgers (their specialty) as well as Italian entrees (evenings only) as the place is owned by a family who also owns an Italian place in town. I got the mushroom swiss burger with soup as my side. The soup was standard. Nothing to write home about. The burger was pretty tasty. The meat was tender and juicy but not to the point of runny down your arm and ruining your shirt for the night. Every bite was flavorful, and I found I could actually taste the swiss. So often the swiss is either of low quality or the seasoning salt is too powerful. This was great. In terms of portion size, it was neither too big nor too little. I was full by the end but not regretful. My mom got the chicken philly, which was also very flavorful. My dad got the stromboli - not like the pizza type you are thinking. It is more of the grinder variety. Ground meat, red sauce, cheese, onions(?), hoagie. While not my sandwich of choice, it was still quite good. Everything was a lot more flavorful than I expected out of this location. I am a fan of Red Robin (no judging, I like the fries and the clucks), but I would choose this over Red Robin any day. Everything overall just felt individually made and that the kitchen truly paid attention while putting our meals together.

 

See side column for how I rank things

Service: great, they didn't rush us and actually took time to talk to us (not in that fake way either)

Cleanliness: average

Ambiance: average, building is fine but you can tell it has served many purposes

Menu: decent selection but wasn't blown away by appetizer choices

Taste: as I said, above average

Overall: If I lived in Spokane, I would give it a 4. My parents have already put it in their "5" category, but it doesn't quite make it there for me

 

3 foods

No, I am not reviewing 3 different restaurants. I am talking about something much more serious: the 3 foods you would eat for the rest of your life. As I stated previously, there are 2 questions that tell you a lot about a person - what one animal would you be and this one. It is sort of like the "desert island game" from The Office. Say you were stuck on a desert island. You had anything you wanted to drink (no milkshakes or protein shakes but milk, soda, water...maybe some booze) but could only pick 3 things to eat for the rest of your life. 'Things' here isn't limited to one item. More like little meals. Not 'lobster AND steak AND chicken fingers.' More like ritz crackers and tuna or burger and fries. I mean items that sort of go hand in hand already. I know, I put a lot of rules on this thing, but it is my game. So tough. My 3 foods, in no particular order, are:

-Gang Garee Gai from Linnie's Thai Cuisine in Spokane. I. LOVE. THIS. CURRY. It is hands down my favorite for ever and ever. Why do I love it so much? A) It is yellow curry. You don't see these as often in my opinion. B) The chicken is so incredibly tender to the N-th degree. C) It is so simple yet so tasty. Chicken. Potatoes. Yum. I haven't been able to find this anywhere else actually. I can find similar dishes, but they almost always have onions in them. yeah, I love onions, but it just isn't the same. I can eat this stuff morning, noon, and night. With or without rice. One-star spicy. Four (out of five) star spicy. Just give it to me

-Stacy's pita chips and hummus. Yep. Again, simple. Salty and delicious. I am gonna need something to snack on on the island when I am getting my tan on. Plus, if I end of having drop in guests, it is so easy just to pull this stuff out :D

-Chocolate chip pancakes (no syrup) and peanut butter milkshakes from Arny's in Spokane (which no longer exists). No place does them like Arny's did them. It was part old flat top grill, part recipe, part love. Nothing could beat those pancakes. I make chocolate chip pancakes often; they will never compare to these. And the peanut butter milkshake? Perfectly thick but still drinkable through a straw. Just enough peanut butter. Just enough ice cream. Sadly, none of you will ever get to experience these. I would give...um...$100 for Arny's to open again and make me these things. Regardless, this is a game, and I can still request these. Breakfast - the most important meal of the day on the desert island.

Thoughts? Comments? Your own "3 foods"? Ask this at your next get together. I am sure you will get plenty of fun answers...that you can openly judge

Vacation

<p>&lt;p&gt;&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;I have been gloriously lazing around for the past 3 days and completely loving it. I am lucky to be home in Spokane celebrating my Christmas. Well, other than the snow I seemed to bring with me, there haven't really been any other signs of Christmas. Other than sleeping in and eating too much and watching movies and... It has been amazing. I will have reviews of food and movies when i am at my regulate computer and not just my tablet.&lt;/p&gt;<br>
&lt;p&gt;I have been trying to think of other things to post about other than find. The obvious response would be work since I do spend 65 hours a week there. I am hosting an interview dinner (for internal med resident candidates), Sonic have been reflecting on how to answer questions that may arise. Turns out many people have questions about what I actually "do" everyday. Unlike my siblings :-)...this is an easy question to answer. Below is the timeline of a typical day at Creighton for me&lt;/p&gt;<br>
&lt;p&gt;4:40am - alarms goes off. Stumble out of bed and into workout clothes. Make black tea and put it in my amazing thermos from Costco&lt;br&gt;<br>
5:00am - get to the gym right when it opens. See my "gym people." &lt;br&gt;<br>
6:15am - showered. Pretty. Awake. Drive to work drinking my tea&lt;br&gt;<br>
6:35am - get to work. Put my stuff in my locker. Put my pager on my belt (yes...I am a work and wear it on my belt). Forget something in my locker after having closed it. White coat on and heading upstairs&lt;br&gt;<br>
6:45-7:30am - check how many new patients my team got overnight. Divide them between myself and the other intern. Start working on my notes, collecting vitals and lab results from our online program&lt;br&gt;<br>
7:30-7:40am - get Checkout (overnight team tells us about issues during the night and then summarizes the new ones for us)&lt;br&gt;<br>
7:40-9:00am - "pre-round." Go see my patients. See how they are doing. Finish my notes with my plan for the patient at the end of the note. This plan isn't always extensive. Sometimes it is just a holding pattern for the day. Sometimes it is just "continue antibiotics." Order labs and test for the day and for tomorrow morning<br>
9:00-12:00 - Rounding with the whole team. Attending, supervisor, interns, med students, hangers-on. We go see all the patients on the team. Attending write their notes. We decide on the actual plan for the day. This part involves lots of standing. :-( I dislike standing<br>
12:00-1:30pm - noon conference and daily report. This is our didactics. I will tell you the truth...didactics have never been how I learn best. I learn through doing and reading.<br>
1:30-4:00pm - follow up on labs, imaging results, consults we placed in the morning. Run around discharging (hopefully) several patients, placing more consults, putting out fires about a patient who wants to eat or smoke or leave.<br>
4:00pm - meet with our attending again. We have been admitting patients (usually about 2) all day as well, so we go over the new ones and further discuss the old ones. Often we will go see something or do something that takes longer than I want it to.<br>
5:30 or 6:00pm - finally finish, update our list of patients with all the good info people need to know, and, finally checkout to short call team. They are there til 8pm and will checkout to the night team. We let short call know what needs to be followed overnight - tests, imaging, scary things that might happen with our sicker patients<br>
6:30pm - home, start/eat dinner. Laze about for a minute or 2. Matt usually likes to get out of the house, so we do coffee or go to the mall
8:30-9:30pm - watch tv, read, should study, play on the internet, think about food
9:30-10:00pm - pack my lunch, pack Matt's lunch, get my stuff ready for the morning so that it is easy to simply roll out in the early hours. And finally...go to bed!

And that is my typical day. Typing it out makes it seem not busy, but it is. In July I struggled to see 5 patients in the morning. 5 is much easier now. 7 is still tough. Back to the real world tomorrow :-(

</p>

10 days left

I have 10 working days of UniMed left. I am ecstatic. I worked both of these first two weekends and am ready for a day off, which will come Thursday! I get 2 days of vacation Thursday and Friday, and then I am not working the weekend! Yay! I will be heading back home to Spokane. I haven't been since September and am excited. 

I have greatly benefited from having a wonderful, supportive family whom I love immensely. This may seem to come out of the blue or be a "duh" statement, but it is surprising how much this has helped me take better care of my patients. When I don't feel like doing something because I am tired or feel it will take too much effort, I try to flip it around and say, "What if patient X were my grandma?" How angry would I be if her doctor didn't talk to the surgeon earlier in the day? Or thought that ordering the ultrasound could wait until tomorrow? I would be upset. So to me, I try to think that every patient is my grandma. I would use my parents or siblings in place instead, but the average age of my patients right now is 90...grandma just fits better.

Last night we had a free date night! And by free I mean we used gift cards we had. We had dinner at Fleming's and then saw Contraband at AMC. And in typical form, I ate a whole bag of sour patch kids. Sigh. Some things never change. The movie, according to Matt, was predictable. In my head though, I knew Matt was going to call it that. Ergo, Matt is predictable and the double negative makes the movie not predictable. I won't ruin the movie here, but I am just going to say, of course there is a plot twist! Every movie has a plot twist. Just because it happens, however, doesn't mean the movie is bad. I think Matt just wanted to pretend like he was smart. Don't tell him I said that :D

Fleming's: This was our first time here, and well, we did it spur of the moment without a reservation. That, however, was our only mistake. No table was going to be ready untl 8:15 (we got there at about 5:30), but the bar had open seating and full menu. And...happy hour! They had a decent selection of discount apps and drinks for $6. They even had Widmer Hefe (in the bottle) 2 for $6. I love this beer. LOVE. Always have, always will. This of course won them big points in my book. But they only had one left :( I drank it however. Matt got a martini, and we got the mushroom ravioli to split. The ravioli were only 3 in number but tasty. The sauce and fresh parm were a great touch. They also serve "bar burgers" at the bar only. Matt got the Fleming's Prime Burger (bacon and cheese) ---- for $6!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I got the Ahi Tuna burger. It has great flavor and texture and wasn't too big. Each burger came with onion rings that were big and meaty. The chipotle dipping sauce was great as well. My only complaint about my burger was that the bottom bun soaked through by the end of my meal. We got a side of chipotle mac & cheese. I love mac & cheese in a restaurant. Always sooooo good...because it is always so bad for you :) We left very happy and full with a vow to come back (even for food outside the bar). The bartenders were great - very attentive even though extremely busy. The general ambiance of the place is typical steak house - dark woods, good lighting, white tablecloths. They did have nice high ceilings, however, which I liked. In summary:

I will rate on this 0-6 scale:

0 – Never again

1 – If someone else (other that Matt) is paying

2 – If it is a big group and they decide on it

3 – Only on Matt’s request

4 – Oh yeah, I like this place; I will suggest this next month or so

5 – Put it in the rotation!

6 – GET ME THERE NOW!

Service: great. Some people at the bar were throwing attitude, which always surprises me for people in their late 60s.

Cleanliness: good. I didn't check out the bathroom though :)

Ambiance: as I said, perfect. Everyone looks good eating in good lighting

Menu: HH choice is decent, wine selection is HUGE, beer selection is limited, menu isn't fussy though. They seem to know what they do well and stick to it.

OVERALL: 4. I may say 3.5 simply because we can't afford to eat here unless on gift cards. If we had the money however, it would be a 4 for sure.

Brief

Keeping it brief tonight. I am making home made fig newtons, and those obviously take precedence over blogging. Duh. I actually have always loved fig newtons. I don't know what it is. Well, no, I actually do. It is the carbs. I love the carbs.

I worked 70 hours last week. Didn't even blink an eye. Matt may have, but I didn't.

Did I tell you I made home made cheese? Twice!?!?! I made queso fresco and mozzarella. Both were AMAZING. The mozzarella is so incredibly creamy and completely heavenly. I will do it again someday...when I am not working 70 hours a week.

Review time!

Blue Sushi: **Bias warning** We only ever go during happy hour. Just thought I should throw that out there. On to business. Blue has a few locations throughout Omaha. The owners also run Roja, but that is for another day. Matt and I don't go here enough. Now, is there better sushi out there? Probably. Am I the best judge of sushi? Likely not. But what I truly enjoy about Blue is their consistency. Every time our rolls are consistently delicious. They are well wrapped (which is more than I can say for other sushi happy hours we frequent), and the selection is great. Even their happy hour roll selection is great (which again, is more than I can say for others). If you are going, try the "blue balls," but get your mind out of the gutter first. They are delicious little tempura fried balls of flaky tuna. So good! I could seriously go and just get those. But their crunchy rolls are also very appealing. :D My husband loves the "Dirty Blue" martini. Again, get your mind out of the gutter. It is a basic martini with bleu cheese stuffed olives. That man loves blue cheese. Of their 3 locations in Omaha, we frequent the one...6 blocks from our house. The location down town always seems packed but only has HH on certain levels. I have never been to the one out west. If you are going for HH, expect good prices but not great service. It isn't bad service, just not stellar. Alright, in review: 

I will rate on this 0-6 scale

0 - never again

1 - if someone else (Matt doesn't count) is paying

2 - if it is a big group and they decide on it

3 - only on Matt's request

4 - Oh yeah, I like this place, I will suggest this next month or so

5 - put it in the rotation!

6 - GET ME THERE NOW

**AGAIN, happy hour only bias here**

Service: par, pretty typical for most places in West-O

Cleanliness: modern decor makes it at least seem super clean

Ambiance: you better like the color blue, but very mellow

Menu: great variety of HH menu, plenty of rolls and apps

OVERALL: 4. Simply because I can never make day time happy hour and can wait til 1030pm to eat