Baby Stepping Toward Doctordom

I'm finished! Well, not exactly finished, since my life will henceforth be a never-ending series of standardized exams, but I have just finished taking the USMLE STEP 1 and boy am I glad it is over. These last couple of weeks have been fraught with anxiety, sleepless nights, and a never-ending review of such fun topics like: hairy cell leukoplakia, oligohydramnios, and hypoxanthine-guanine phosoribosyl transferase deficiency. YAY!

Now the waiting begins. I wont receive my score for about 3-4 weeks. So I am forced to marinate in doubt and wonder how I did. If you held a gun to my head I would say I believe I passed; in fact I felt pretty good about the whole ordeal. However experience with the types of questions on this particular exam has shown that, despite being very confident about an answer, you have in fact, gotten it horribly wrong. So we will wait and see with guarded optimism.

To those of you that haven't taken the test yet, I can report that the Kaplan Q-bank questions seemed markedly harder than the actual exam did. Having done just about 2000 questions pretty much guaranteed that no topic was a surprise. So practice (and review) as many questions as you can stand! I felt pretty confident about most of my answers and there was only 2 Whiskey Tango Foxtrot questions. I know that this will not come as a surprise to any of you: I finished the exam fairly quickly. I started at 9am and was done by 2:30. I admit that this is faster than average, but I felt like the questions were not exceptionally long. Although others have said the opposite. So, take it for what it's worth.

I took advantage of 3 breaks and a quick lunch. I did 2 blocks back to back with a 10 min break then another 2 blocks then took a quick lunch . 2 more blocks and, although I felt really good, I forced myself to take a 10 min break to walk around and stay focused. The last block actually seemed like my easiest block. (despite the lack of questions on Single Malt Scotches of the World).

I did force myself to reread some of the questions and caught a few errors where I missed a key word that changed the question,(Left vs. Right etc) so read carefully and you should do fine.

Good luck to everyone who is about to take it.

Rileigh Pictures

For those of you who have been asking for baby pictures...

St. Valentine's Day Massacre

Despite my promises to post regularly, I have once again neglected to post- for almost a month this time. Somehow my life has taken a turn for the surreal; each day morphs into the next without pomp or circumstance. Hours go by in a haze of baby toys, soiled diapers, and medical review books.* The clock winds down toward D-day, Tuesday 19-Feb-2008. This is the day I will take the USMLE Step 1 exam.

Do I feel prepared? In a word, NO. There is so much to remember. I am learning that I have subconsciously omitted a large chunk of my medical school education that I had previously filed in the "Interesting details that I will never need to remember" category. Oh the humanity! Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus and he expects you to be able to differentiate between a bacteria that is gram negative, non lactose fermenting, motile, and produces H2S gas* and a delicious piece of sashimi!

Oh the humanity!

I have become a seething ball of anxiety and cannot wait until Tuesday evening when, for better or worse, the albatross will be finally cast off.

Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock.

* I do manage to keep straight what to change, what to play with, and what to study!

* Salmonella in case you were wondering.

Testing, Testing, 1 2 3 4

Well, after over a week of no internet, I am now back online thanks to Comcast Cable company. I have been getting incredible speed on the internet. According to Speakeasy , I am downloading at over 17 Mbps with uploads just over 1.5Mbps! Holy Megabits Batman!

I honestly don't know how I lived in St. Maarten with the blazing page-a-minute internet that Caribserve provided. It's really is good to be back in the USA!

We have pretty much finished setting up our nest here in the new apartment where we will be for at least the next 13 weeks anyway. These are some pictures I took from moving day:



Diablo in his obligatory "lemme see if this cabinet is big enough" pose.







The girls' bedroom.





Our bedroom shows off the very chic rental furniture that comes with our apartment.

I took these next two pictures this evening. We are currently having a little snow; it is only supposed to amount to an inch or two, but it looks kinda pretty.

Mr. Mom Goes Deaf!

Once again, my posting frequency has suffered a major setback as we attempt to settle into life back home. Kathy started back to work this week at the hospital which we previously worked. She is working per-diem until her contract begins next week at Delaware County Memorial Hospital. This contract position is the one that comes with an apartment as part of her compensation package.

This puts yours truly in the oft unenviable role of Mr. Mom. I'll give you a second to wrap your head around that....OK. I have become a domestic engineer as it were and I must admit, I would rather be working a string of 12hr night shifts. Not because I mind taking care of Rileigh, on the contrary, she is a joy and relatively easy to care for. (although I am quite disappointed at her, hopefully transient, aversion to single malts; babies are such finicky eaters[drinkers] at this age.) It is just that I miss working and now that we are back here I feel the itch to get back in the ER and work- after my test I will hopefully get back to work for a little bit until clinicals start. Besides it feels weird being a kept man and I know this is hard for Kathy to leave Rileigh and go to work. We're making an omlette and many eggs must be broken!

Tomorrow we finally move form our hotel suite to a bona fide apartment. It is actually pretty nice (at least on the website) it will be a 2br 960 sq ft unit that has a washer and dryer in the apartment which makes Kathy a very happy woman. I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to moving into a more permanent abode and actually unpacking some stuff.

Studying for my test has also fallen way off with everything that is going on and I can not even schedule a definitive date until Kathy starts at her new job and gets her schedule.

Otherwise things are pretty good and I have been enjoying spending a great deal of time with the kids. John and I went to Atlantic City yesterday for a couple hours; kind of a guys night out. Actually we left about 3:30pm and were home by 9 but we had dinner and played a few slots. I returned home a few dollars lighter and with a conspicuous loss of hearing-as we drove down in his car and I was able to take in the full scope of our Christmas present to my son, which was a new set of speakers, amplifier, and dual 12" subwoofers. (As a side note I recommend the installation of this particular audio system in CF units around the country as the Pulmonary Therapy it delivers is quite effective!) Hopefully the ringing in my ears should disappear by spring.

Once we are all moved-in we are having a little get-together Saturday night which just happens to be your favorite blogger's birthday! So if you find yourself in the area drop on by!

I will update after the move with pictures!

Baby Stepping Toward an Apartment

Another day, another step closer to our new temporary apartment. Kathy spoke to her company today and they will be contacting us tomorrow and let us know where our new apartment will be. It looks like she will be starting work Wednesday and with any luck we will move into our new temporary home Monday. Until then it is a flurry of visiting friends and family while we stay at our comfortable but smallish hotel suite. Meagan and Kaitlyn are staying with us and I am constantly amazed at how much stuff women (especially 4 of them) need just to survive the day. I am adrift in a sea of purses, clothes and makeup and under constant attack by incoming text messages. Calgon take me away!

Meanwhile on the studying front, nothing happening- with all the holiday goings on and such. Hopefully things will calm down and we will settle into a routine after we move in. Rileigh has turned into a party animal night owl staying up late from all the stimulation with visiting people. She looks forward to a normal schedule and quieter surroundings.

Our cargo arrived (actually last week but I have been to busy to go get it) I picked it up today and it was all there, safe and mostly sound ( minor casualty to a sleeve of blank DVDs) All in all, not a bad way to get a couple of large boxes back to the states.

Thanks to Gerri DiCarlo for this picture she posted on her Facebook page.

It was taken a couple days before we left St. Maarten, while having dinner at Carlo's Bella Napoli restaurant at the Atlantis Casino.

Nomads , the Road to Doctor, and the Condemned

Since we've been back we have been living out of our car. Thank goodness it is an SUV or I suppose we would have to rent yet another storage unit. We are currently staying in an extended-stay corporate type furnished suite. The place is quite nice but we hope to be moving soon after Christmas. Kathy is in the final stages of securing a nursing job through a travel agency with one of the local hospitals. As part of the compensation package they will include an apartment. It will be great to have a semi-permanent base of operations and to finally unpack all of our suitcases.

I haven't been able to do as much studying as I would like but did get in a couple days of review. I have finally received my authorization to test so I can now call the testing center and make my appointment. I'm shooting for the end of January. I am about halfway through (the medical school portion at least) my journey towards doctordom and I can't believe how fast it is going. With any luck clinicals will breeze by just as fast and in 2 short years I will be .......Doctor Vince. Yikes! Of course, by then I am sure we will have a socialized medicine plan in place and I will make about as much money as the Dick Cheney School for Marksmanship and Business Ethics. (smiles at John Gilbert)

Here are a few pictures:

Rileigh and her big brother, John:


Last night Kathy and I went to our friend, Bill's wedding:



Brian and I welcoming Bill into married life, or as we like to call it, the Condemned Men's Club (just kidding dear)

Who Turned the Heat Off ?

After a relatively painless ordeal loading all of luggage and cats etc into 2 cars (thank you Jon Cook!) we checked in at Princess Juliana Airport and even had time for one last glass of wine before we took off. The flight went well and we touched down in the good old USA around 5pm local time.



BRRRR!

It was a balmy 31 degrees when I walked out of the airport and since I was sporting my "Island Casual" attire (shorts) it might as well have been 31 degrees below zero!

Here is Rileigh all bundled up just before we walked outside. I'm sure she was thoroughly confused having spent the day before lathered in sunscreen and dipping her toes in the warm ocean.



It is great being back home.

Our Last Island Day

On Friday we decided to enjoy our last full day on the island with a trip to Pinel island. I really regret not going there earlier during our time in St. Maarten. It is a really cool little excursion and I recommend it if you ever have the chance. Pinel is only a 5 minute ferry ride away from the Cul-de-sac area on the French side near Anse Marcel. The little island is quiet, has hiking trails, a couple of beach bars/restaurants, and calm and pretty beaches.

The ferry ride:



Pinel island:




Pretty beach:



Rileigh enjoying the day on a beach chair:



Rileigh's first dip in the Caribbean:

48 Hours...

In less than 48 hours we will be back home having bid farewell to the friendly island of St. Maarten. Packing is pretty much complete, I delivered 2 boxes to the cargo company this morning and all 112 lbs of our crap should be arriving in Philadelphia sometime next week. In addition to shipping 2 large boxes of stuff back, we will be paying even more money to US Air because we will be checking 2 additional suitcases. If you are keeping track we will be bringing the following on to the plane:

6 suitcases
2 cat carriers (filled with 2 happy cats)
1 baby stroller
1 baby car seat
1 diaper bag

We decided to hit the beach tomorrow, so today we went to Phillipsburg to walk along St. Maarten's version of a boardwalk. Several cruise ships were in town:



This is perhaps the best named bar in the world:
(you'll have to forgive them for using your instead of you're)



Rileigh enjoying the sun:



We stopped at a restaurant named The Green House for lunch, I got a burger, Kathy got a wrap and Rileigh had the fish-it looked good but was a bit tough: (click on the pictures to better see her meal)





Perhaps the weirdest experience was sitting at the restaurant, enjoying a warm Caribbean afternoon, taking in this view and listening to Christmas carols playing on the restaurant's speakers. Very surreal!



Someone loves the camera: