jenniferhawke.com

[Originally written on December 7th, 2009.]

“What’s Answer?” Brandon called from the front room as I unloaded the groceries.

He likes to review the receipt when I shop by myself. “44 items!” he’ll exclaim in mock indignation.

“Um, it’s a pregnancy test…” I replied busying myself with the bags so I didn’t have to look him in the eye, “I’m a little late and a little nervous.”

My period was due on Friday, December 5th. Today was Sunday.

Naturally, being well-read in the adverse affects of my caffeine addiction, I cut out coffee from the first day I thought I might be maybe a little bit pregnant. Caffeine restricts blood flow. Placentas and growing babies need blood to grow properly. Some studies say up to 300mg per day is okay, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I always thought I would be that sickeningly perfect pregnant woman that didn’t break any of the “rules” and was all glowy and barefooty.

So. No coffee for 4 days. Period 4 days late. Let me tell you, the symptoms of early pregnancy and caffeine withdrawal are nearly identical: mild headache, fatigue, irritability, and increased appetite. Monday morning, still no period, but I couldn’t tell if I was exhausted at 8am simply because I hadn’t had coffee since Thursday!

Turns out I needed caffeine. The first test I peed on Sunday morning was negative. One pink line. My period came on Tuesday. Only 5 days late, but enough to get the “what if?” wheels turning in my mind…

Are we actually trying to Get Pregnant? Well, no. Not officially. We just stopped trying to stay Not Pregnant. No charting or ovulation tracking or ordering magical baby dust online. If it happened, it happened. And I was okay with that.

Which, of course, meant I had to beat back the obsessive-compulsive type-A super-planning control-freak part of my brain with a very big stick.

I may seem to be a control freak about a lot of things, but generally I like to think I’m pretty laid back and go with the flow. My wedding planning definitely was like that. Everyone else did a great job of caring about the little details that didn’t bother me one way or another. Other than the bows, of course.

But something about figuring out how to juggle due dates in a year that will include cross-country travel for residency interviews and the inherent schedule in a woman’s monthly cycle was just too irresistible. Charts! Dates! Little tests to pee on! Heaven for those who love to mark things on calendars!

Fast forward a month later and I’m late again. I’m also enjoying my second cup of morning coffee because, well, why go through caffeine withdrawal for a false alarm twice in two months?? I think I’ve scrapped the glowy and barefooty plans too. The only thing glowy about me right now is the giant new pimple on my chin. I’d joke about heading out to buy a bottle of hard alcohol but someone somewhere would take me seriously and then I’d have to explain I was joking and, well, explaining just takes the fun out of the joke.

So here I am typing about not trying to stay Not Pregnant and over a week late. The biggest thing I’m afraid of? (This is where your brain flashes up a PowerPoint presentation of all the scary things that come with pregnancy and it’s about 425 slides long because there are a LOT). No, none of those. The biggest thing I’m afraid of at this early point is the can of whoopass unsolicited advice bound to be sparked from this post.

ARE YOU CRAZY? Are you going to drop out of school? You’re still young — why not wait?? What’s the rush? How are you going to PAY FOR IT? What will you say in residency interviews in the fall? How will you handle your surgery rotation? Are you really going to keep drinking coffee?

I think you get the picture. Feel free to ask as many questions as you like. We’ve probably already thought about them and I will be more than happy to include a post with our house-of-cards plans.

But in the end, I really just want you to be happy for us. And I want to figure out how to have an online shower so you all can come!

We are so screwed. : )

Here is a list of things my father-in-law did while he was down here on “holiday”:

- modified headboard brackets
- attached headboard to bed frame
- flushed water heater of sediment
- lined back door with weather-stripping
- lined front door with weather-stripping
- lined front door with foam
- replaced front door deadbolt
- removed broken front window pane
- installed and glazed new 24×26″ pane
- pulled out a 14×30x1″ air filter that was 14×30x5″ with dust
- replaced air filter

And my mother-in-law? She was busy this holiday too!

- complimented our home (one of the best things a daughter-in-law can hear)
- took me shoe shopping
- showed us how to spend our pennies at the casino
- spoiled the dogs with love and hugs
- let 80lb Suh sit in her lap
- picked out some yarn so I can crochet her a new “muffler”
- encouraged us to visit the Oklahoma City Memorial
- bought grande lattes at Starbucks for us

Thanks, Mom & Dad! Brandon took this photo of us at the Capitol Building. We had all 5 floors to ourselves on a f-f-freezing January 2nd. It was like a private tour.

Mom and Dad B flew home. Christmas decorations are coming down. 2010 is officially underway.

I wasn’t planning on doing one of those year-in-review reflection summary posts. But here it is.

2009
January – Brandon and I rang in the New Year in Saskatoon. It was blizzarding. His first visit to meet my family and experience Canadian winter.

February – Booked tickets for parents to come to Nevis.

March – MED 5 has a garage sale as we all prepare to leave the island.

April – Finish Basic Sciences. Say good-bye to Nevis. Initiated refund process with Travelocity. Whisked away on a surprise trip to Venice. Engaged!

May – Bought wedding dress at first stored I tried. Nightmare getting it fitted. Mornings at YMCA with mom. Days at Moose Jaw library with Step 1 material. Fought with Travelocity for refund.

June – Brandon surprises me by driving to Moose Jaw. More studying. Robin and Aruna visit the farm on their way to Ontario.

July – Finally receive refund from Travelocity. Step 1 is done! I passed!

August – Married! Rotations start in Oklahoma City. Deliver a couple of babies.

September – Husker season starts. Ob/Gyn is replaced by Family Medicine. Suh joins our little family.

October – Family Medicine (and H1N1 flu season) ends. Enjoy Internal Medicine.

November – Brandon cooks his first turkey for American Thanksgiving. The Roughriders make it to the Grey Cup.

December – Mom and Dad B come to visit! Brandon takes Step 1!

I can hardly predict how this year is going to top the awesomeness of last year… but here’s a sneak peek at what’s to come.

2010
January – Finish Internal Medicine rotation. Start Pediatrics. Apply for and arrange fall elective rotations.

February – Head to Vancouver for a few Olympic hockey games. Joyce takes Step 1!

March – Psychiatry rotation.

April – Take Step 2. Start 3-month Surgery rotation.

May – Maddy turns 7!

July – Roughriders are back in Mosaic Stadium.

August – 1st anniversary!

September – Husker season starts again!

December – Brandon finishes his MBA!

Today’s photo is of the Survivor Tree at the Oklahoma City Memorial for the Murrah Federal Building bombing. I absolutely adore this tree. I don’t know what it is. Maybe the old grainy black-and-white photos of it sitting in someone’s backyard decades ago. Or the way new growth sprouted the spring after the bombing when everyone needed to believe life would go on.

I am thankful we are more than just “surviving” this time in our life. We are soaring and celebrating. Life is awesome.

Today’s photo is of the reflecting pool at the Oklahoma City National Memorial site dedicated to the victims of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

As I think back on 2009, I realize I can’t get away without writing a summary post of all the awesome and amazing things I’m so very thankful for.

Coming up. But in the meantime, it is a great time in my life to be living in the present and looking toward the future.

1) Use up all current beauty products before buying new ones.

2) Ask for crazy things (like snow) more often. You never know when you’ll get your wish.

3) Eat more veggies.

4) Get outside with Maddy more so she can drop 10lbs.

In all the holiday hubbub I missed out on writing about being married for “4 months and 4 weeks” so that’ll be coming up soon.

And by “soon”, I mean sometime after more holiday-ness as Brandon’s parents are in town. Yay!

See you next year!

1 month and 1 week
2 months and 2 weeks
3 months and 3 weeks

“So, how is married life treating you?” Mom-in-law asked while we were shopping for shoes.

“I’m really happy,” I responded with a genuine ear-to-ear grin. “We have our little things*, but overall I know how lucky I am and I’m really happy where we’re at. Brandon works so hard at communication and evolving our relationship. It’s inspiring and a little intimidating, but I know we’re making forward progress.”

Our med school paths are no longer identical. Brandon spends the day at home and is excited to go out (for dinner, to a movie, whatever) in the evenings. I spend the day at the hospital and am excited to stay home (watch football, crochet, whatever) in the evenings. Really? That’s our biggest conflict this month?

Not bad, huh?

We are walking the same path. Side-by-side. We have the same goals and dreams for our family and our futures. We draw strength and encouragement from each other.

————
*sometimes we have no flippin’ idea what the other person is saying.

His last few weeks went from bad to surprisingly good.

He drank himself into end-stage liver failure and his lungs and kidneys didn’t enjoy the ride. Intubated and sedated in the ICU, we watched Mr. Icterus’ blood urea nitrogen and creatinine (indicators of his kidney function) creep up every day. Similar to golf, a higher score is bad. We were medically treading water: not making any progress and slowly getting swept away with the current. We needed to know how long and how hard to paddle.

Between our team and social services, we managed to find a local family member. His brother said he hadn’t seen him in almost 10 years. There’s just something about drinking that seems to do that to families. Whatever the reason for the estrangement, there were another dozen siblings across the country. His brother said he called them all to let them know what was happening. No one returned his message. He finally came in to decide that he thought his brother would probably want to be comfort care only at this point.

“Comfort care” is an actual medical term. It’s a specific phrase we need to hear from family when their loved one has no medical chance of getting better. “Better” is not a medical term. It’s very subjective and one family’s “better” is not the same as another. At any rate, being “comfort care” means all medical therapeutics aimed at compensating for a particular organ’s failure are removed. Ventilators that breathe for people who can’t on their own are removed. Tube food supplementing a diet for people that can’t eat is stopped. Daily pokes and prods with needles for blood tests are stopped. The patient is often moved to palliative care or hospice. Pain medications are always readily available.

So, Mr. Icterus was moved from the ICU. He ended up in a room at the end of a long hallway with a bag of fluids and oxygen mask. He was still under contact precautions due to the MRSA we had grown from his sputum weeks and weeks ago. I donned my little plastic gown and went to visit him.

I was shocked at what I saw. No longer sedated to ease the discomfort of the breathing tube down his throat and to prevent him from pulling out all the lines snaking from his body, Mr. Icterus turned his bright blue eyes to me as I entered the room. I smiled and asked if he recognized me. It was the first time he had been conscious in 10 or 12 days. He nodded his head “yes”. I asked if he was in any pain. He shook his head “no”. I asked if he wanted us to call anyone. He looked around the room and shook his head “no”.

There was a signed card and small teddy bear by his bedside. I tucked the bear under his arm, adjusted his blankets and pillow, and perched on the arm of the chair by his bed. We visited for a little while. Well, I talked and he may or may not have listened. I told him that Christmas was just around the corner. I let him know what the weather was doing outside and what it was planning to do. I rambled for a few minutes while he looked around the room. He seemed to notice things in corners that I wasn’t seeing. When his eyes finally blinked and stayed closed, I carefully pulled my blue plastic gown off while telling him not to go anywhere because I’d be back later to check on him.

This went on for a few days. We followed the “comfort care only” guidelines. We were no longer drawing blood to do our daily CBCs and BMPs. He wasn’t getting any medical care other than his oxygen and he frequently pulled the uncomfortable mask off.

Two days before Christmas, I arrived for my morning visit. He furrowed his brow when I came in and seemed to try to speak. He started nodding his head and shrugging his shoulders even before I asked any questions. I asked him a few yes-or-no questions and got a variety of responses. Unsure of what he wanted, I tried to make him comfortable and rambled my usual morning chatter. Every day I asked if he was in pain, if he wanted his pillow adjusted, whether he wanted his feet covered with the blanket (for some reason they were always sticking out) and if I should call anyone to be there with him. Every day his answers were the same: no, yes, yes, no. That day I bid farewell and jokingly told him I’d try to sneak some Reese Peanut Butter Cups in if he’d get better. When he was first admitted, he used to sneak out of the hospital to smoke and eat Peanut Butter Cups when he was NPO (ordered to have nothing by mouth).

After our midday break for lunch, the intern told us Mr. Icterus died. A couple of hours later, I was on his floor rounding on another patient with the attending when they brought up the gurney with the dark purple bag for delivery to the morgue. A note in his chart mentioned that we were again trying to contact the brother that wanted nothing to do with him in order to get directions for what to do with the body.

Mrs. LOL died “afterhours” on a Friday night. One of her daughters stopped me in the hospital cafeteria last week to say “hello”. It was nice to see her so I could pass along my condolences. She smiled and touched my arm and told me their family genuinely appreciated everything we did. I appreciated the closure and found it went a long way to quiet the regrets I had for not staying longer with Mrs. LOL on the day she passed.

Mr. Icterus died in the middle of the day while I was still in the hospital. Even though I didn’t visit his room after he passed, I found it oddly comforting to know that I was there.

We have another alcohol-abusing admission this weekend. Before Mr. Icterus, they all looked the same to me. Now they all look like him.

I just read Fish’s post about making a Christmas list to help out her loved ones. Brandon was similarly stumped this year since his brain cells are being spent on more important things like studying for the USMLE Step 1.

I haven’t made a list in a looong time. I thought about getting out a piece of paper and a pencil to write “Dear Santa,” but ended up going the old-fashioned email route in the end. I haven’t bought anything for myself or gone shopping in such a long time that it was actually a lot of fun. Imagining, day-dreaming, wishing, hoping. I didn’t make a list based on winning the current $122 million lotto jackpot. But I did find it easy enough to pick out a few things that I would buy for myself if I had a source of income and a plug in the ever-leaking tuition drain.

So, what things did I put on my list? Oh, a few warm woolly sweaters, a luxurious bathrobe and slippers, some stuff that smells good for girls, Italian charms for the bracelet I got for my birthday, a family favourite tile game, a game for the Wii, and the Washington Manual of Medical Therapeutics.

This morning, there are more presents under the tree than I think either of us expected. They are all wrapped in Amazon boxes and padded mailers and I think there’s one in a Wal-Mart bag. I was worried about Brandon’s making it on time and it arrived 2 days early! Hooray for the US Postal Service! I know he’s going to try to talk me into opening a few tonight. But I plan to stand firm(!) and wait for tomorrow morning. Or at least 12:01 AM.

You may be wondering what was on Brandon’s list. It was a short one. The only thing he really, really, really wants more than anything in the whole wide world is to pass his exam on December 30th. I wish more than anything that I could wrap that up with a big red bow. Or re-used Wal-Mart bag.

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! After reaping the rewards of fighting holiday mall parking lots, may you enjoy the blessings that come with giving a few small, thoughtful gifts to friends and family.

And if you chose to abstain from the commercialism of this celebrated holiday, may you enjoy piles of good food and bad Christmas movies on TV!

Right now, Janice and Jameson (my younger sister and brother) are headed home from the airport in Saskatchewan.

Brandon and his parents booked them a super secret surprise trip down here to visit me for Christmas!

Their flight was canceled due to a snowstorm.

Dang!

————
photo: from November 2006 in Prince George, British Columbia.

Brandon is in Omaha for a wedding. I didn’t get to go what with it starting at 630pm on a Friday and being a 6+ hour drive from here and me rounding on patients in the hospital while Brandon was trying not to fall asleep behind the wheel.

It was weird to come home last night to an empty house. Being freshly married and still in that awesome head-over-heels spend-every-moment-together phase, Brandon and i enjoy doing pretty much everything together. Have I mentioned he’s my only friend down here?? So, sitting around last night deciding what to do and what to have for dinner and when to go to bed was sort of new. I almost felt like I was back in my Vancouver bachelor apartment days. If it wasn’t for the giant Great Dane trying to curl up in my lap every time I sat down, Maddy and I might have wondered if the last 2.5 years were just a dream…

In the end, my evening wasn’t very eventful. Due to a Christmas purchase on Amazon, I qualified for a free 12-month photo calendar from Shutterfly. I splurged $6.50 on shipping so 2010 can be filled with pictures of Maddy and Suh from 2009. I also spent 3 hours on a cross-stitch project trying to fill the last empty wedding present photo frame. Maddy glared at me most of the evening because I took up her half of our rather small couch. “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” was on TV. I kinda hate TV for anything other than sports and movies. Why are the commercials SO MUCH LOUDER than the program??

At 830pm I realized I hadn’t had any dinner yet. Brandon is great for reminding me when it’s a meal time and that I should eat. Even in his absence, he made sure I was well taken care of last night with some yummy leftovers in the fridge. I now know how those husbands feel when their wives leave those cute notes saying “Dinner is in the oven/fridge/etc for you, dear. Love you!” It’s one of the most awesomest feelings in the world.

By 9pm my eyes were criss-crossing. I put down my needle and curled up in bed. I am about halfway through “Drink, Play, F@#k” and it’s been a big ball of entertaining giggles so far. The first 12 chapters take place in Ireland: Disneyland for anyone looking to entertain a 3-month drinking binge. Alcoholism is a serious disease, but crap that book made me laugh. All of the good Irish stereotypes reminded me of Emmet at MUA.

By the time the author made it to the casino in Vegas, I was ready to turn out the lights. Brandon called around 10pm to say goodnight. He sounded exhausted, but I know his friends were really glad to have him there. The dogs took up 2/3rds of the bed and I drifted off to dreamland sort of laying diagonally with my knees pulled up. No matter how much room the dogs take, the bed always feels empty without Brandon there.

This morning, I slept in until 7am. Now that is something I haven’t done in a very long time. The last two hours weren’t really sleeping. Mostly just snuggling under the heavy warm duvet while the cold room air nipped my nose. There aren’t very many things more perfect in life than a warm bed in a cool room.

An hour later, I’ve made coffee and spent some time on the internet. Now I’m ready to vacuum, dust and clean the bathroom. Later, I plan to listen to an audiobook while adding a few feet of crochet to my stripey scarf.

Cleaning the bathroom reminds me of a brief conversation this social media husband-and-wife had a couple of weeks ago:

“Thanks for cleaning the toilet,” Brandon called. While in the middle of using it.

“Oh, you noticed?” I asked in return. I thought I cleaned it often enough that there shouldn’t be much of a difference between Before and After.

“Nah. But I read it on Twitter.”

Just got off the phone with Brandon. He is on the road! On his way home! I wonder if he’ll notice the toilet before or after he reads this…