Venting? Grieving? Maybe sometimes they go hand in hand

My last surviving grand parent died fairly suddenly around 4:30am on 11/4/09.

I loved my grandma. Unfortunately I hadn't seen her in a couple years. She was living with my aunt in Colorado and I just hadn't had/made the time to go see her. I really regret that now.

She died from complications of a fall. All of my information is second and third hand as it has filtered down from my parents. Apparently she fell down a flight of stairs and fractured her C1 and C2 vertebrae on Tuesday, and the doctors basically said it was only a matter of time until she died.

I learned today that she was ready to die and had talked about it for a few months since she had her first TIA (mini stroke) in August. My dad said that things could not have worked out better for grandma because she wasn't in pain any more, and didn't have to live with her great fear of burdening anyone, or not being able to paint. She loved to paint and was really quite good at it. I was hoping she would paint me a special beach scene before she died so I would always have a personal piece of her art. Sadly I'm not going to get that chance.

Her death I can accept, her peace and happiness as she assuredly looks down on me and my family from heaven, I can celebrate, but the way her time ended here on Earth won't easily pass for me.

As my mom told me, I have the blessing of more medical knowledge than most people. I've grown up around the medical field and it is my chosen profession. Because of this, things that some people probably have no idea about, I think of as second nature and almost take for granted. Knowing the things I know and now hearing more specific aspects of my grandma's care, I can't help but think that this could have been avoided.

I can't help but think that if my grandma was living somewhere different than where she was, she could have lived a longer life. Painted more. Maybe even seen a few more great grand kids. Unfortunately I don't think she was getting the care she needed to make that happen.

I don't necessarily like the fact that I have resentment right now for my aunt and her husband and for the doctors my grandma was seeing, but I think that they did a poor job managing my grandma's health.

It is never an OK option for a doctor to say they have done all they can unless they are facing an incurable/terminal disease, or damage that is unrecoverable. This was not my grandma's case. Where were her doctors when my grandma's blood pressure was too high? Where were her doctors when she started having TIAs? Why weren't they looking into potential causes? I'm just a physical therapy student and I was able to come up with several causes that I don't think were ruled out!!! I think they saw an 88 year old woman and just decided FOR her that not too much needed to be done. That she had a good run, but it was time to call it quits. Bullshit!! That is not their decision to make!!

Which brings me to my aunt. Why wasn't she getting more involved? Why would you just accept it when you are told there is nothing else to do? Granted, she doesn't have any medical background, but we're talking about your mom and my grandma! Why wouldn't you fight for more options? See other doctors? Do something?!?!?

A may be a little off base with my thoughts here, and I know these feelings will eventually subside as I continue to process and accept this still very fresh wound, but right now, anger and resentment are a part of my grief. I don't like it, but it's just one more part of this I have to reluctantly accept.

If you are reading this, just know that there is almost always something more that can be done and if it's worth it, you need to fight for it!

I love you grandma. I'll miss you.

Seattle - Not that rainy...who knew?

Well my first trip to the Seattle area has been fun! Other than having to work all week and get up early at the clinic, I've gotten to do some pretty good stuff.
First weekend in town I got to watch my Rangers lose to the Mariners, yeahhhh....
I also went on my first sober camping trip and made s'mores for the first time. They are delicious!! I went with one of my classmates who is also in the area and 2 of her friends. Good times.
We explored a cave, and played beer pong. On the way home we cruised by Mt Rainier. It was cool, and I was shocked to be able to walk around in shorts and a T-shirt and there still be snow on the ground!!! That was ridiculous!!
I got to see the Blue Angels perform, they are absolutely amazing!! The things they do in those planes are awesome!
I went on a whale watching tour and got to see several killer whales in the middle of the water. They are really beautiful. Who knew? Also rode my first ferry to get to the island where we started our tour.
I also went on a little death tour. I visited the graves of Bruce and Brandon Lee, the Kurt Cobain Memorial park bench, and the Jimi Hendrix memorial. They were all pretty cool given the inhabitants and circumstances :)
Pictures of all this and more will be up soon. I've still got a few more days to capture some memories :)

Now, I couldn't really come to Seattle without talking about the weather now could I? So today is the first time it has rained since I've been here (almost 6 wks) and most days were actually really sunny and warm! As a matter of fact I was in town when Seattle hit the highest temp in it's entire history!! I believe it topped out at 103 degrees!! Sad and surprising thing to me was that only about 10-15% of the people here have air conditioning!! Coming from OK and TX that is a completely foreign concept to me. Luckily Erica and Jim (my friend I'm staying with) have AC so it wasn't bad here. Other people were miserable. Sleeping in basements or outside or with ice bags in their pillows!! I don't know how many times I heard people asking each other if they had AC and it never ceased to surprise me. I'm just not used to hearing that question!!

I've enjoyed my time here so far, but I'm ready to get back to LA and sleep in my place and be around all my things and spend some time on the beach before school starts. Just get back to a little more of my regular routine and work out schedule :)
I am excited that when I get home on Friday that Cher and 2 of my good friends from Dallas (Lee and Liz) will be in town and I'll get to hang out with all of them for a few days. Should be a fun time as long as Lee doesn't kill me!!!

School starts in 2 weeks so it's time to have some fun and stop this early morning bull shit I've had to deal with for the past 5+ wks!!!

Summer Clinical

Otherwise known as "let's really point out how much I DON'T know!!"
This has been an interesting 6 weeks. My first 3 were in Everett WA at a PT and sports performance clinic. I learned a lot about functional exercises and got some interesting experiences with speed & agility camps, but it was overshadowed by the thick cloud of tension hanging over the clinic. It wasn't a great experience because of the way it was run. My clinical instructor (CI) actually left her job there and moved to Tennessee to get out from under the bad situation.
That left me being transferred to another clinic in Mukilteo WA which has been much better so far. My new CI is good, but I don't completely agree with his scheduling philosophy. I think he schedules too many patients at a time and occasionally they are left waiting before he can get to them. On the other hand though, it has allowed me to jump right in and continue working with patients and progressing their programs.
The clinic itself is a much better set up though. No tension and every one seems to actually like each other. My old CI was good, but wasn't really given the time needed to teach me. My new CI is very good and makes his own schedule so he can better handle having a student around, which as benefited me.
These 6 weeks have gone by fast, and I'm glad I finally feel like I'm learning some things and feel like I'm actually catching up to my classmates. It's been a good time, but it's also been a sobering reminder of how far I still have to go and how much I still have to learn!!
I finish up my stint here in WA on Friday, then back to LA to enjoy what's left of my summer before school starts on the 24th!

The parents are coming, the parents are coming!!!

So my parents just left yesterday. They came out for a week to see me and see the California coast. It was fun and I really appreciated not having to pay for stuff!!!

They got to play around on the beach and dad even got in the water some and floated around. It's pretty damn cold still so that was an impressive feat!!

We went to the Price Is Right on Tuesday. It was a lot of fun, but a VERY long day. We got there at 6:10am to get our tickets. We were #s 196-198!!! We went and ate breakfast, then came back for the waiting game. After all the groups and everyone was accounted for we made the cut and got in. We ended up being contestants 296-298 of 315!! We barely got in!

Unfortunately we didn't get picked to be actual contestants though :(

It was a fun experience none the less though.

After that we went to Hollywood to show Mom & Dad the walk of fame, Mann's Chinese Theater and the Kodak Theater (where they do the Oscars) and the Hollywood sign. I've got pics up on my picassa site if you want to see them. A long and fun day!

Then Thursday we drove to San Diego to go to the zoo! I loved it!!! We spent 7 hours there! I heart zoos a lot as you can tell.
We saw all kinds of cool stuff, including the Pandas. Unfortunately the Lions were off exhibit but we saw EVERYTHING else. Again, pics are up on site. Great fun, I highly recommend it :)

It was nice to have my parents around since I don't get to see them much any more. It was a little odd being around them for a full week. I don't think I've done that since college!! Luckily they are fun enough to make it bearable :) Now if I can just hold off becoming my father....

GLOOM!!

No one told me about this shit!!

I moved here for the beautiful weather (and school I guess) and I have to put up with June gloom!!

I guess every year from mid to late May and until mid to late June they have this heavy Marine layer that basically makes it cloudy every morning. Sometimes it burns off around 1 or 2pm but I managed to be here for the worst one they've had in years!! I swear the sun didn't come out for almost 3 weeks!!!

of course now it's gone and it's been beautiful, sunny and in the 70s, perfect!!!!

But still, that shit needs to stop and NOW! Screw you El Nino!!!

EARTHQUAKE!!!

So I survived my first TWO earthquakes!
The first one ended up being a 4.9 I believe. I was in the shower, shampoo in hair, soap on face when the shaking started. I live in an old building so I was more than a little concerned. It took about 5 seconds for me to realize what was going on and that no there was not a train going by shaking the house. It lasted about 12-15 seconds all of which I stood there in the shower with soap in my eyes, completely still trying to figure out if I needed to go running naked into the streets or lay down in the tub or go stand in a doorway, I didn't know what to do!!

Finally it stopped, but I stood there another 30 seconds or so before I decided it was safe to finish my shower and that my upstairs neighbor's tub wasn't going to fall on me!

About a week later a 2nd one hit. It was much shorter and weaker but counted none the less!

I guess that means I'm an offical Californian now! I think I like tornadoes better. You can at least kinda tell when they're coming and I know what to do when they do come!!!

Summer session

We only had 3 classes, but man it got tough!!!
1 class was a "busy work" type class. Our grade was based on our final project and paper. My group had to design and teach a 1 hour PE class for a local elementary school. We knocked it out of the park!! We played the pretzel game where you get all tangled up with your group then have to untangle yourselves without letting go of your hands, then we played a variation of paper rock scissors but ours was Trojans, Bruins, & Cowboys (yes I came up with the characters) and you had to act it out and then "capture" the losing characters from the other team. Next came capture the flag, it was fun. Those 4th graders are F'n fast!!!! Then we finished with a tricked up version of red light/green light with a bunch of other colors thrown in. It was fun, but I do NOT want to go into pediatrics :)
Biomechanics was a fun and interesting class, but geez we have to be really good at our craft! It is amazing that having a weak glutieus maximus (butt muscle) can cause knee, ankle, and foot pain! Just one little old weak muscle can mess up your whole leg!
Lastly was Modalities where we learned why we do the stuff we do (ice/heat packs, ultra sound, wound care, etc) The wound care stuff was pretty cool, but there was WAY too much info. It was confusing. The class as a whole was pretty cool but man the teacher wasn't too great at communicating so it made for some hairy moments on the tests! I also really enjoyed the lab where we played with the parrafin wax. I know this will surprise no one when I tell you that I made myself a wax glove of my hand and kept it all class long, slapping people with it, etc. Then I had to put it back in the wax bath :( That's right folks, I'm a man I'm 33!!!

I haven't seen my grades yet, but I think I passed all the summer classes. Keep your fingers crossed just in case!