Always Choose The Window Seat

After aforementioned drama, fell sound asleep on the way to El Salvador. Woke up to the sunrise and full moon....

....then thoroughly enjoyed this Costa Rican view...

....and Oregonesque greenery....

Flying into Quito is the best, however. Views of the expansive city, big banking left hand turn, huge plateau with part of the city seemingly just dropping into space, huge Volcan Pichincha towering, airport right in the middle of town. Pilot takes some sweeping turns, working his way into the city and just plops down. As in most places other than the US, the passengers erupt in applause for this and every other landing. Of them all, the Quito arrival is the most worthy of the cheers, chip

The Photo

The adventure begins before the wheels of the plane leave the ground. After running through the mental list of critical items, I had felt pretty good when Audrey dropped me off at the airport. Despite a weighty duffel bag that was threatening to cost me extra money and a horrendous traffic jam that had me glancing at the car clock every 30 seconds, I made it with an hour to take off and I had the essentials: Wallet, wristwatch, sunglasses, passport, scrubs and tennies.

The sinking feeling came quickly when I swiped the passport under the scanner and it read. “Name Does Not Match Passenger.” Count this as the first time I was disappointed to see my wife’s face. With her smile staring back at me from the passport photo, I knew I was screwed.

Not wasting anytime, I called the owner of this document to see if she wanted it back. And to get her estimate on how quickly she could drive without killing anybody. With the clock ticking, she acted calm under pressure, found her way home, sped through the yellows, looked on the internet for the shortcut to avoid the hour long traffic jam we hit the first time, grabbed the right passport and pointed it for the airport once again. With the plane leaving at 5:30, and the handoff occurring at 5:23, I thought it almost futile to sprint with my shoes untied, laptop in armpit, leaving a trail of funny looks.

The gate people saw me running and I yelled my last name to them and they replied “Run!” which I was already doing. She scanned my ticket quickly then yelled “Run!” at me again as I took off down the ramp. I flopped into seat A18 out of breath, a few new gray hairs sprouting out of my dome. I put my wristwatch on, glance at the scruffy mug on my passport and smile, thinking of the better looking photo in the wrong passport I had been holding 5 minutes ago. Once again, I couldn’t do it without her. Ecuador here I come!

I also brought the wrong camera cord, so you will have to live with wordy updates until I can figure that out...Until then, here is a generic foto de Guayaquil taken from a place I've never been, looking at a place I've heard about.

No Such Thing As Accidents

A lack of posting has not been for lack of stories, rather lack of energy. I ran into a fellow student who is doing a pediatric urology rotation and we were comparing schedules and hours. When we determined that 80+ hours a week is a bit redunkulous, he encouraged me by saying "but at least you'll always have cool stories...and I just fixed another undescended testicle."

It is true, that the trauma service keeps your inbox full of over the top scenarios that simply cannot be fabricated. Toilet scrubber impalements, hand gun accidents while holding small child, stab wounds, boats and planes crashing, brakes going out on the way to the wedding, the list goes on. While perusing Typhon, the lovely program we use to document all of our patient encounters, I came across an amazing list of actual codes used to describe various incidents. Some of the following are codes that I would not be surprised to use in the last few weeks of this rotation.

E804.3 FALL IN ON OR FROM RAILWAY TRAIN INJURING PEDAL CYCLIST
E018.0 ACTIVITIES INVOLVING PIANO PLAYING
E847 ACCIDENTS INVOLVING CABLE CARS NOT RUNNING ON RAILS
E909.8 OTHER CATACLYSMIC EARTH SURFACE MOVEMENTS AND ERUPTIONS E876.9 UNSPECIFIED MISADVENTURE DURING MEDICAL CARE
E885.1 ACCIDENTAL FALL FROM ROLLER SKATES

	E920.3	ACCIDENTS CAUSED BY KNIVES SWORDS AND DAGGERS
E965.7		ASSAULT BY LETTER BOMB
E985.7		INJURY BY PAINTBALL GUN UNDETERMINED WHETHER ACCIDENTAL OR PURPOSELY INFLICTED
E995.4		INJURY DUE TO WAR OPERATIONS BY UNINTENTIONAL DROWNING DUE TO INABILITY TO SURFACE OR OBTAIN AIR
E928.0		PROLONGED STAY IN WEIGHTLESS ENVIRONMENT

Sorry, formatting is the first skill to go........

	As my preceptor likes to say, "You can't cure Stupid."