No, Virginia...

Nikole and I were confronted with a dilemma this evening at the dinner table. Nate, having apparently heard something from someone at school, asked us whether we (Nikole and I) are the Tooth Fairy. I glanced at Nikole. She nodded at me. And we explained that yes, in fact, we are the Tooth Fairy.

"So there is no Tooth Fairy?" Haley inquired.

Yes, I explained. (Meaning--"Yes, there is no Tooth Fairy)

"Do you KEEP the teeth?"

No, Nikole stated. Anticipating Haley's next question about what we actually do with the teath, I explained that we feed them to the Tooth Monster that lives outside Nate's bedroom window.

Haley, ever the logical thinker, next inquired whether we also are the Easter Bunny. (Yes, dear, we are.) At this point, making a bold declaration of his faith as if to try to prevent further unwelcome revelations that were rapidly disintigrating the foundation of his reality, Nate proclaimed, "Well, there is one thing that I know for sure is true..."

("Please don't..." I thought.)

"...it's that Santa Claus IS REAL!"

I caught Nikole's attention across the table and raised my left eyebrow, asking for her permission. She again nodded to me.

"Nate," I started. "You and I need to have a talk..."

"Dad! I want a DOG, too!" Haley interrupted, not having been listening very closely to the conversation.

I walked Nate into the back room, recognizing that he was on the cusp of a Bruce Willis-at-the-end-of-The Sixth Sense reality-shattering discovery.

I asked him what it would mean to him if Mom and Dad really were Santa Claus. "I don't know..." he mumbled, his eyes already red and watering.

"Well..." I paused briefly, took a deep breath, and then forged ahead. "We are."

I could only imagine what was going through Nate's mind at that point. And it went something like this:

"I really, really want a Nintendo DS. I told Mom and Dad that I want one for Christmas, but they informed me that they won't be paying $130 so that I can play video games anywhere, at any time of day. And while I was bummed that they weren't going to buy me one, I figured that if I ask Santa for one, he is sure to come through for me. And now THIS? Lame."

Next, I brought Haley in and gave her the same news. She took it less hard than Nate. She just kept asking me, "But where do you get all that money for the presents?" Great question, Haley.

I reassured them both that Christmas will continue to be fun and that "Santa" will still visit the Taggart home each year, but that he would appreciate it if those requesting gifts will remember that he is really trying to save money for various home improvement projects.

We went back to the dinner table, the trauma of the initial shock having diffused. I leaned over to Nate and asked him whether he found any new significance in the words of a song often invoked at our house when the kids are getting unruly:

"He sees you when you're sleeping,
He knows when you're awake,
He knows if you've been bad or good,
So be good for goodness sake!"

Minnesota State Fair

"Minnesota State Fair, Here We Come!" Andy called this out as we approached the ticket booth to buy our fair tickets. The kids were so excited to go to the fair, it was like Christmas morning, they woke up early and were jumping around anxious to go. Nathan and I were excited to go as well, but for different reasons, we were excited to see Nathan's Aunt Marilyn and her husband Jerry. We had a lot of fun: riding rides, playing games, eating great food, and seeing some fun sights!




Andy got a hold of the camera and started taking pictures. He took about 10 pictures before we realized he had the camera. Here's a sampling of what he took.

One of our favorite booths was the "Lego Experience" the kids had fun building things and seeing what had been built. Here's Haley's creation.


I love this picture of Michael! When he's really concentrating on something, he puckers his lips and drools.

Downtown Mayo

So it's time to play a little catch-up. I don't know why I feel this need to record past events before I can move on to record the events happening now, so you'll have to be patient with me.

Speaking of patient....One day in August I had an early physical therapy appointment and then two hours later Michael had his well-child check up, so we decided to hang out downtown and walk around while we waited in between appointments.

There's a really old, historical building named the Plummer Building, which Mayo still uses for offices and other things. It's cool because inside there is a replica of the building made entirely out of Legos! Nate loves to see it when we can. I included a close up of the cool Legos, it even has gargoyles!

Michael's favorite part of the whole day was watching the water fountain.

I wish I knew the story behind it, but during the Spring, all these geese statues started appearing everywhere downtown. Each one is decorated differently. It's some "Geese Campaign" I guess. Anyway, the kids loved them! We took pictures of three: one outside the Plummer Building, one outside the Library, and one outside The Post Bulletin's offices (our local newspaper).

Shoulder Reds & Blues (meaning nerves)

Shoulder update: So my physical therapist, Laura, looked at my x-ray and relayed that she thought I did not have as much arthritis in my AC joint as had been relayed from my doctor. Not that she was undermining my good doctor, but that the term "arthritis" can be used as a general term to describe any type of inflammation. We used the ionto "Action Patch" to reduce and calm the inflammation in my AC joint.

Looks cool huh? The part of the patch that says the "Empi" has a pad underneath. I load the patch up with steroids (yeah, I'm on steroids - see my bulk?) stick the pad part of the patch directly over my AC joint and pull the little tab sticking out (like on the back of electronic toys). The patch then electronically shoots the steriod from the pad into my AC joint. I did two rounds of this treatment (8 patches) last winter and it helped my shoulder a lot. I only had to do 3 patches this round to calm down my AC joint.

After calming my AC joint down, we could explore and see what else may be causing my pain. To explain my pain: I had pain in my shoulder blade, running down my entire arm (centering in my joints - elbow & wrist), pain under my arm into my rib cage and armpit, pain in my right breast (too much info, I know), pain into my breast bone, my collar bone, and then finally running up my neck and even into my ear some days. I didn't ever have all of that pain at one time, thankfully, it would rotate to those areas. Laura thought that the AC joint was only a contributing factor and not the source of the pain. She started poking around; pushing and pulling (as fun as it sounds) and discovered that it is the nerve network that runs from my C5 vertebra which totally explained all of my pain areas because the nerves run everywhere I was hurting. I asked Laura what would cause this nerve pain and she said looking down a lot, lifting kids, anything of that sort. Laura got all excited because she had been trained in a treatment for this type of problem. For our last four sessions she's done a deep tissue "massage". Massage is a nice word for what she does - it is pretty painful and she has to remind me that the rooms are not private because of all my moaning! She massages my muscles and surrounding tissues pretty hard to communicate to the nerves. By the fourth treatment, Laura said I had loosened up quite a bit and that she could get to more areas than she could before. I have also had a decrease in pain, which has been wonderful! I don't wake up every morning stiff and sore. With the loss of pain, I've gotten excited while exercising and have tried to exercise my arms, but the pain returns pretty quickly, so I'm not ready for that yet! BUMMER!

I had almost forgotten how life without pain felt. It's been time consuming and I've had to find friends who will watch my kids all of the time, but it's been SO worth it! It's also an added expense but Nathan has been totally supportive despite that. Well, I'll keep you updated. I pray for the day that I will be totally free of pain.

Shoulder blues

As a lot of you know, I've been having shoulder pain since last fall. I had an x-ray of my shoulder this past Wednesday and now my shoulder pain has a name: Acromioclavicular Arthritis or AC Arthritis. Your AC is the joint where your scapula (shoulder blade) and clavicle (collarbone) meet. The joint is covered with cartilage and when this wears thin it causes arthritis. Treatment? Physical therapy and anti-inflammatory drugs (Ibuprofen). If these conservative measures do not work within a given time frame then surgery is an option. During sugery they cut off a bit of the collarbone and let scar tissue fill in the joint where cartilage used to be. The results are great for those who have had this surgery, but I'm still hoping that it doesn't come to that.

I had been going to physical therapy before but for various reasons, which take too long to go into, I had not been back since November. Those therapy sessions where kind of exploratory to try and find out why I was having this pain, but now that I've had the x-rays done, we can have more of a focus during therapy sessions.

My first reaction was that I was too old to have arthritis, I was stereotyping, I know. But as I read online and did some research, this type of arthritis is common in weight lifters. How does that explain my situation? I told Nathan that it is common in weight lifters and he said "So you have it because you've been weight lifting Michael for 2 years." I'm not sure that it's all been Michael, but he is one heavy kid and he LOVES to be carried and held all of the time. He's so sweet though and maybe the pain is worth it after all!

Easter Sunday in Russia

For me personally, one of the highlights of my trip to Russia was attending church on Easter Sunday. Because it was such a special experience--and because my previous post was getting pretty long--I thought this story deserves its own post.

A little background is important to understanding why it was such a neat experience...

When I was a missionary in Moscow 13 years ago, we worked really hard to build the Church in Russia--to introduce people to the Gospel and help strengthen those who had joined the Church. Our goal in Russia was the same as it is for missionaries throughout the world--to foster personal faith and righteousness and to develop priesthood leadership. This is often a difficult task in areas where the church is new and members are few. When I arrived in Moscow in 1994, the church had been in Russia only 3 or 4 years. Moscow had maybe 1000 Church members total, most of whom did not attend church. Throughout my 2 years there, we met for our Sunday meetings in rented facilities--elementary schools, auditoriums, recreation centers, etc. We would typically have less than 20 members at church on a given Sunday. One branch I served in had 20 members total, and many weeks we had more missionaries (four) than members in attendance.

My mission also coincided with a period of difficult economic times in the former Soviet Union. The currency was unstable. People were unemployed and homeless. The comment was made to me several times that during Soviet times people had plenty of money but nothing to buy, and now they had plenty to buy (comparatively) but no money with which to buy anything. And when people are struggling with money, they tend to be less interested in God and religion. At least that was my experience in Russia. The growth of the Church at that time was pretty stagnant. And while I absolutely loved my experience in Russia and cherish the friendships I made, I will admit that I have questioned whether our Church would ever grow in Russia.

So, back to my Sunday in Tomsk...

Prior to leaving the States, I looked up the address of the Tomsk branch on the Church website. "No. 10 Prospekt Mira". I figured I'd find it when I got there. I didn't know what time church would start, but I figured 9 am was a good guess. That Sunday was Easter Sunday in Russia (Easter in the US was the week before). Prior to leaving that morning, I checked with the receptionist at the hotel who pointed me in the right direction. I caught a bus heading north and got off at No. 1 Prospekt Mira at about 8:45. I spent the next several minutes walking up and down the street looking for No. 10. It was not as easy as it would seem, since I wasn't sure exactly what type of building I was looking for. It could be a school or a library or some other building that would otherwise normally be closed on a Sunday. I asked some passers-by where No. 10 is, but no one knew. By then it was about 9:20, and, discouraged, I headed across the street to the bus stop where I would catch a bus to take me back to the hotel. I had just missed one bus and it would be several minutes before another would come. I figured that rather than stand around waiting, I'd walk down the street to the next stop in line. As I walked I admired the simple architecture of a building about a block down the road...

As I got closer to the building, I noticed a sign beside the entrance that I recognized almost immediately...

A real building! I was dumbfounded as I went inside. It was as if I were back home going to church. It was clean. There pictures of missionaries from Tomsk in a nice display and announcements for Institute classes and family home evening activities posted on the bulletin board. There was even a list of home teaching assignments posted on a bulletin board. (The idea of home teaching was pie-in-the-sky when I was in Moscow). Best of all, Sacrament Meeting didn't start until 10:00. So I was actually 35 minutes early.

I had to be back to the hotel by 12:30, but was able to stay through Sacrament Meeting and Sunday School. It was an incredible experience and a stark contrast to my recollections of attending church in Russia. The men all wore suits (I was actually under-dressed, with only shirt and tie--no jacket). The branch leadership were all Russian. The talks were well prepared and on topic. Nobody interrupted the speakers. And there were several families--moms, dads, kids.

Several people noticed me as an unfamiliar face and came up to introduce themselves. One young man, Sasha, was from Moscow and his wife had served a mission there (or maybe it was the other way around). They had been sealed in the temple and were starting a little family. That's the second generation of the Russian Church right there! As someone who for the past 13 years has wondered whether the Church would ever really take root in Russia, I admit that I got a little emotional as I realized, happily, that I was very wrong.

If I look like I'm in a hurry, it's because I'm Russian

Yeah, so that's a pretty lame title, I know. Even more lame is the fact that it's been almost two and a half months since my trip to the Motherland, and I haven't posted any pictures or anything. So, here goes!

Since medical school (or maybe longer?) I've known that I wanted to return to Russia as a doctor and use my training and my language skills to give back to the people there. I expected that I would complete my medical training and find a way to go back once I was in practice. Coincidentally, though, the chair of pediatric cardiology at Mayo, Frank Cetta, has been going to Russia each year with a group called Heart to Heart (http://www.heart-2-heart.org/). For the past 20 years, this group has been travelling to different regions in Russia and training nurses, pediatric cardiologists and pediatric cardiac surgeons to care for children with congenital heart defects. For the past 2 years or so I've been pestering Dr. Cetta to bring me along on his next trip. Given the nature of the trips, though, taking along a trainee like me usually isn't feasible. But this year a family emergency prevented one of the team members from making the trip, and about 3 weeks before they were scheduled to go, Dr. Cetta informed me that they had a spot available. I was thrilled and quickly took to applying for a new passport, since mine had expired a year before.

Fortunately, I got the passport and a Russian visa just in time.

We left for Russia on April 14. Dr. Cetta and I were scheduled to fly from Rochester to Chicago to Moscow. The rest of our team was coming from different parts of the country (Chicago, Milwaukee, Sacramento, Atlanta, Philadelphia). Two team members--Maryanne from Milwaukee and Lynn from Chicago would be on the same flight to Moscow.

The trip out had a bit of an "Amazing Race" feel to it right from the start, as our Rochester to Chicago flight was cancelled. So we booked it out of town in a taxi, trying to catch the Minneapolis to Chicago flight that was leaving in about 2 hours (its a 1:15 drive from Rochester to Minneapolis). We caught the flight with literally 2 minutes to spare, but had no guarantee that our luggage would make it on the plane. This was concerning, since our Chicago to Moscow flight was the last of the day. If our luggage missed that flight, it would inevitably miss the Moscow to Tomsk flight the following day. And, then, who knows if we would see it again?

In Chicago we were quoted an 80% chance of our luggage making it on our Moscow flight, which was not as reassuring as it might sound.

The Chicago to Moscow flight was an 11 hour affair overnight. The plane was not full, so I had a whole row to myself at first. I didn't lay claim to it quickly enough (by stretching out and taking a nap), so the end seat on the row became a popular spot for people looking for a little room. I must have woken up 2 or 3 times to find a different person sitting there each time.

We flew into the Domodedovo airport south of Moscow. It is either a new or newly renovated airport, since it was not like anything I had seen in Russia when I was there 13 years before. Definitely euro-chic--high end shops and fancy restaurants and stuff. There was even a Sbarro Pizza (albeit quite russified), which we took advantage of on our return trip. More important to me though, was the good news that our luggage had made the connection in Chicago.

We were met in Moscow by our Tomsk Heart to Heart liason, Irma. We had an 11-hour layover and at our request, Irma had arranged for a car to take us into town. We dropped our luggage off at a secure holding facility at the airport and headed out.

The air in Moscow smelled like cigarette smoke, exhaust fumes and dirt, bringing back fond memories of my time there. It took us about 45 minutes to get to downtown, which seemed a lot bigger and much more modern than I remember it. I had forgotten how incredibly huge Moscow is (10 million people). We had tickets to the Armory in the Kremlin where a tour guide led us through a brief history of the Russian czars, their thrones and clothing. After that we headed toward Red Square to see St. Basil's Cathetral and Lenin's mosoleum, but it was closed to the public due to a military rehearsal for the big upcoming May 9th celebration (Victory in Europe Day--the biggest holiday in Russia). Here are a couple pictures taken from outside Red Square:

The walls of the Kremlin...



The northwest end of Red Square. In the foreground is the State Historical Museum. In the background is the Kremlin...



This is looking from northwest to southeast. In the foreground on the right is the State Historical Museum again with St. Basil's Cathedral in the distance...



This is a picture of the Temple of Christ the Savior. It was originally destroyed by Stalin to make room for a huge public swimming pool. When I returned from Moscow in 1996, it was being reconstructed...



Next we visited a little cafe in one of the side streets of downtown, where I had some very expensive Fanta and Russian blini (pancakes). We took the subway to the Pushkin railway station where we caught and express train back to the airport.

Our flight left at about 10 pm and flew 4 hours to Tomsk, arriving at 6 am local time. Mid-flight we were served a meal of meat and pasta and some nasty spinach something-or-other. Definitely not my idea of a good midnight snack.

In Tomsk, we were met by a large cohort of the Tomsk medical team, who delivered us to our hotel, Hotel Oktyabrskaya ("October"). The hotel was surprisingly upscale, and by the next day I had even discovered that they had high-speed internet! In Toms, Russia! That was just amazing to me. My experience with international communication in Russia consisted of snail mail that would take 2 weeks to get to the US from Moscow. How on earth did they go from that to getting high-speed internet in the middle of Siberia? In any event, here's a picture of my hotel room:



This is most of our group in the restaurant off of the hotel lobby. They fed us some pretty darn good Russian food throughout our stay in Tomsk. Clockwise starting with me (this is mostly so I can remind myself of everyone's names in a year or two): Me, Talia (phlebotomist), Laura (anesthesiologist), Lynn (nurse), Dr. Cetta (cardiologist--I'm still not at a point where I can call him Frank, since he's my boss), Brenda (ICU nurse), Janet (intensivist), Gale (OR nurse), Maryanne (coordinator/administrator), Gary (surgeon).



There was a new restaurant not far from our hotel, called Southern Fried Chicken ("SFC"). We figured we'd check it out, and we were pleasantly surprised! The chicken was pretty good, although the portions were small. Most of the patrons looked like they were about 15 years old, so we felt a bit out of place. I assumed my role as Orderer of the Food. A few days later some of the ladies in our group ventured back to SFC by themselves. I got a call from them asking if I could speak with the cashier. 20 minutes after ordering they still only had about 1/3 of their food. The cashier, it turns out didn't think there was a problem and wondered what this group of foreigners was upset about. We all got a good laugh out of that.



Tomsk is a very nice city, but I realize that I am biased towards cold, dreary Russian towns. Here is a picture of me at the top of the main hill in town. Our hotel is to the right of the church in the background, about halfway between the church and the right border of the photo. A close up of the church and the hotel follows.





This is a picture I took from one of the upper floor balconies in our hotel. We had visited the Russian orthodox church in the distance (shown close-up in the subsequent picture).



This church was beautiful. We happened to visit right during a series of Easter ceremonies, which we were able to observe. This church had a large bell in it's courtyard, which was made in Voronezh, a city I had lived in 14 years ago as a misisonary.



Tomsk is called the "derevyany" or "wooden" city. It got this nickname because many of the older buildings are all or partially wooden. This makes for some really unique Siberian architecture as shown in the following two pictures. The first building is now the Tomsk Fine Arts Center.





This, again is the church by our hotel. I must have taken about 30 pictures of it, trying to get it in the right light. It had a pink-peach color, which looked incredible at night, unfortunately, my night shots turned out a bit grainy, so this picture at dusk will have to do.



Every major city in Russia has a Lenin Square. Such is the case for Tomsk (below). A statue of Lenin himself is pointing the urban proletariat in the direction of progress, community, and Southern Fried Chicken.



Once upon a time, Anton Chekhov, Russia's most famous playwright, stayed in Tomsk. He was none too taken by the town and wrote a scathing report about his experience there. Among other criticisms, he said it was rainy, muddy, full of drunks and the women were ugly. In his "honor", the city created this monument, which is intended as a characature of Chekhov. His feet are big and he is so tall, representing the perspective of a drunk lying on the street looking up at him.



The locals say that it is good luck to rub his nose. And I'm not one to pass on perpetuating a good superstition...



The Tomsk team were very gracious hosts, early during our trip, our hosts took us out to "nature" (i.e. the countryside) for a little R&R. We had a wonderful kebab feast with plenty of toasts and words of appreciation. While I abstained from the vodka, I took part in the friendly revelry of the event.



After the feast, a number of people went to the banya--a unique Russian experience involving sweating in a scalding hot steam room while someone whips you with tree branches, then jumping into a frigid pool. You repeat this process until you feel clean, or you are so drunk that you can't stand up. Having had the banya experience before (non-alcoholic, of course), I stayed out with the other abstainers and played Russian billiards.



The bulk of our stay, of course, was spent at the Tomsk Cardiology Centre. Our days were filled with seeing numerous patients with various congenital heart defects, performing echocardiograms (heart ultrasound), heart catheterizations, operations and giving lectures.



This is the conference room where we met frequently throughout the day to discuss patients and give lectures. It was always well attended by nurses, cardiologists, surgeons, etc. They really had a hunger to learn more western medicine, and we really appreciated their enthusiasm.



I spent the bulk of my time in the cardiac catheterization lab. Seeing as how this is what I want to do career-wise, I really enjoyed it. I worked closely with Viktor, the Tomsk physician who does their catheterizations. We developed a very good rapport, despite our discrepant sizes.





This is a picture through the x-ray proof window. Dr. Raff (the US surgeon) and Dr. Cetta are discussing the pictures we are taking with Evgeny (in the white coat, hunched over Dr. Cetta). Again, you can see by the sheer number of people watching, how excited they were to have us there and how they wanted to learn as much as they could.



I like this picture, because it makes me look smarter than I really am. What I'm probably really saying is, "Wait, I thought left is THAT way!"



I was really impressed with the level of technology that they had in Tomsk. I understand that they had gotten some new equipment since Heart to Heart's last visit a year earlier.



My Russian speaking skills came back pretty well, but I still found myself making grammatical mistakes regularly. I was able to pick up a great deal of medical lingo, though. This came in handy, since I was the only medical person who was biligual. We had local university students who translated for us, and they were very good. One of my unofficial roles was to keep track of the interpretation and provide feedback and recommendations for improvement. I developed a healthy, symbiotic relationship with the interpreters--they taught me Russian words or phrases and I clarified English/American colloquiallisms and help explain medical terminology and concepts. I certainly learned a lot from that interaction. Here I am with two of the interpreters I probably worked with the most, Sergei and Irina:



At the end of our trip, we had a more formal farewell dinner with some fine dining, dancing, awards, and, yes, more toasts. It was a lot of fun. I tried caviar for the first time ever and took some hilarious video of some crazy Russian dancing (Or is it "crazy Russians dancing"? I'll let you decide):

This is a picture of me, Dr. Cetta (to my left), Viktor (to my right) and the rest of the cath lab crew. At first, I didn't recognize most of them without their hats and masks.



The evening's activities culminated in a mock awards ceremony. The Tomsk interpreters had thought up some clever awards for each of the members of the American team. I was in the running for the Best Russian Linguist against some pretty tough competition. Here's a video of the announcement of the winner and [SPOILER ALERT!] my acceptance speech:

This is the final picture of our big group at the end of the party, prior to our departure the next morning. I'm the one in the back that is a tiny bit taller than all the others:

It was really an incredible experience for me. I am very fortunate to have been able to go at this stage in my training. There is already some talk about next year's trip, and it sounds like I am being included in that discussion. My hope is that this will become a yearly opportunity for me throughout my career.