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!
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Sunday, July 12, 2009
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:
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.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
I found treasure!!
Yesterday while changing Michael's diaper I found 14 cents! First I found 2 nickels right on top of his diaper by the tapes and then lifting up his shirt, found 3 pennies stuck to his tummy. When I took the pennies off, you could see the markings left on his tummy. After changing him, I found an additional penny on the floor, so it must have fallen out during the changing. Michael has been really enjoying putting money in Nate's piggy bank and then taking the money back out. He also likes to stick things down his shirt, so that's probably how the money got onto his person.
Later that night, Nathan was going to change Michael's diaper again and heard jingling. Haley was in the room and asked Michael if he had more money in his diaper and Michael said, "OH!" and put his hands in his pockets producing yet more change. He's the money man!
Later that night, Nathan was going to change Michael's diaper again and heard jingling. Haley was in the room and asked Michael if he had more money in his diaper and Michael said, "OH!" and put his hands in his pockets producing yet more change. He's the money man!
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Happy Birthday Baby!
Michael turned the "Terrific Two" on Sunday, May 3rd - but we celebrated his birthday on May 4th. I know nasty trick right? He didn't know the difference. We had our friends the Paulsens and Henstroms over for a BBQ and birthday cake.
Here's Michael with his favorite little friend, Matthew Paulsen. Michael calls him "Baby." They can really get each other laughing! It's so much fun to watch!
When we started signing "Happy Birthday" to Michael, I don't think he got we what we were doing. He almost looked mad that we were signing to him and he had a birthday cake with burning candles on it.
Here's Michael with his favorite little friend, Matthew Paulsen. Michael calls him "Baby." They can really get each other laughing! It's so much fun to watch!When we started signing "Happy Birthday" to Michael, I don't think he got we what we were doing. He almost looked mad that we were signing to him and he had a birthday cake with burning candles on it.But when it came time to blow out the candles, he knew exactly what to do and he even clapped for himself after he blew out both candles!
Or...forget the spoon all together and just eat it with your hands! Yummy ice cream!
Michael got a lot of great gifts, but his favorite was an "old school" cash register from Fisher Price. He played with it for a long time before we could get him in bed. You can't see it in the picture, but his chin and shirt were covered with drool! He drools when he is really concentrating and/or enjoying something that he's doing or playing with.
Michael's way of eating ice cream: first pick up the ice cream with your hand and then put it on the spoon, and eat.
Or...forget the spoon all together and just eat it with your hands! Yummy ice cream!Michael got a lot of great gifts, but his favorite was an "old school" cash register from Fisher Price. He played with it for a long time before we could get him in bed. You can't see it in the picture, but his chin and shirt were covered with drool! He drools when he is really concentrating and/or enjoying something that he's doing or playing with.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Shprekenshe Michael?
My sweet baby Michael is turning two tomorrow! He has been saying words for awhile but lately he's been adding the "sh" sound to a lot of words that he had said normally in the past. Here's some of his new "words":
shoo-shoo = Thomas the Tank Engine
shoushide = Outside
shu = juice
There's more words, but they are escaping me right now. I love baby talk! In fact I encourage it even when I know that you're not supposed to. One of my favorites is when Andy used to call Pirates "arrghers"! It took Nathan and I awhile before we realized what he was talking about. They were "arrghers" because they said "aargh" all the time. So I adopted that name for Pirates and when he grew out of it, he'd say, "Mommy, they're Pirates!" I was so sad! A few more of Michael's words:
There's more words, but they are escaping me right now. I love baby talk! In fact I encourage it even when I know that you're not supposed to. One of my favorites is when Andy used to call Pirates "arrghers"! It took Nathan and I awhile before we realized what he was talking about. They were "arrghers" because they said "aargh" all the time. So I adopted that name for Pirates and when he grew out of it, he'd say, "Mommy, they're Pirates!" I was so sad! A few more of Michael's words:go-go = Dora the Explorer, Go Diego, Go, and yogurt
Nay = Nate
Hay = Haley
Ay = Andy
ju = juice
chee = cheese
ba-ba = socks and bye-bye
doggie = every animal but a duck
qack-qack = duck
Memo = Nemo
hishy = fish (sometimes it's shishy)
youd = loud
doggie go? = first two word sentence
I love this age where they do some of the cutest things and the world is all new to them, so everything is exciting! Happy Birthday my Baby Boy!!
Sunday, April 26, 2009
"New Pow Ruske?"
My sweetheart has returned from Russia!!! Nathan had been in Russia for almost 2 weeks and he got back late last night. He went with an organization called "Heart to Heart" and was training pediatric cardiologists in the city of Tomsk which is in Siberia. Nathan's Russian really came in handy and the group was very grateful that he was there. I'm sure that he'll share some experiences and pictures on the blog soon. I'm just grateful that he's home! The kids were excited this morning to wake up and see Daddy here! We sure missed him! WELCOME HOME! WE LOVE YOU!
The title to this entry is a little joke between Nathan and I. On the movie, "The Hunt for Red October" Sean Connery, the main character, says this quote which is supposed to mean, "So you speak Russian?" but he totally murdered the Russian language! So anyway, just in case you were wondering....
The title to this entry is a little joke between Nathan and I. On the movie, "The Hunt for Red October" Sean Connery, the main character, says this quote which is supposed to mean, "So you speak Russian?" but he totally murdered the Russian language! So anyway, just in case you were wondering....
"I'm a cat Mommy! MEOW!"
I have been blessed with very creative children, but my Haley, she takes the cake! She is constantly brightening my day with her creative ventures and "projects". One school morning during a crazy and frustrating week, Haley greets me with "I'm a cat Mommy! MEOW!" and shows me her "claws". For a few days before her cat venture she had discovered that she could put her barrettes on her fingers to create longer "fingernails".
The morning of the cat, she had discovered that she could also put the barrettes on her toes and make longer "toe nails".
She brightened my morning and I just had to document her "cat" pose! MEOW!!!
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