Three down, five to go!

For some reason, Mark felt the need to bring us to one of his facilities on his day off and show us how depressing it is to be old and sick.

8/1/08

Today Mark finished the last of his papers, and he's officially done with his Internal Medicine rotation!! It was a tough one. On a typical night, he'd come home and be so burnt out. "My brain hurts," he'd tell me all the time. Also, "Don't ever let me go into internal medicine, even if I'm offered a job." He was working in 4 different facilities, covering around 200 patients, so it was really hard for him to get to know anyone or feel comfortable in what he was doing. His preceptor had the theory that he'd learn more if she made him do everything completely on his own (that's not how it's supposed to work), so in the end, he just ended up being her work horse. The worst part was that he had to do 5-6 hours of paperwork a day. Yeesh!

Anyways, he survived and actually learned quite a bit, so that's good. He passed his big exam on Wednesday and is now looking forward to having his one week of summer vacation. Then we have to pack him up and move him down to Silver City, 230 miles southwest of here, where he'll be doing his OB/GYN rotation. He has heard great things about it, so he's excited. He'll be helping with surgeries as well as working in a clinic and helping deliver babies. He'll be good at all that.

The problem is that the school still doesn't have a place for him to live yet! The poor PA student who just came from there was holed up with some crazy old lady who had no AC, bugs, and no TV or internet. The girl complained so much that they're finding a new place for Mark. They only have a week, so I hope everything works out. Madelyn and I will be staying in ABQ. The thought of trying to transfer her and have her be happy in a tiny, strange apartment is not appealing. So PLEASE help me not to go insane and call or email me or something. Mark will be gone at least 5 weeks but will hopefully come home a couple of times to visit.

In other news, my mom is here to visit this week. Her plane was re-routed and I ended up having to pick her up at the airport at 2am Sunday night. (Yawn!) We have been running all over town shopping. Madelyn is so happy to have someone fresh to boss around. Here are some pics of when she was playing dress up with "Grandma Carolyn" and "Grandma Nora" (my mom's mom who lives near here).

Here, mom is apparently practicing her haughty queen look for the next time she's in a play. I think this picture is hilarious.

Madelyn and her beloved Great-grandma Nora. She hadn't seen her in a while and gave her the happiest, most excited welcome I have ever seen. I think it made

G-ma feel good.

Also this week: my niece Heather had a huge health scare from overdosing on Tylenol and her liver almost failed. We thought for sure she would need a liver transplant. But luckily, everyone's faith and prayers have pulled her through and she has improved enough to go home. She should be healthy and recovered in a few weeks, which really is a miracle.

On top of everything, my dad, sister Meg and my G-ma Murset were in an earthquake in LA on Tuesday! It was around 5.4 on the Richter scale, but no one was hurt and there was no damage. We were all in the gigantic 6.7 quake in 1994. (This one on Tuesday only had 1% of the energy of that '94 quake.) My family was also visiting there a few years back when another minor quake hit. . .Sheesh. Don't vacation in LA with the Murset's, in other words. Plus we had our own earthquake in Hurricane a long time ago. At least G-ma has had help cleaning up after everything has crashed off shelves those three times.

So wow, what a busy week. Here's Madelyn, enjoying whatever bits of summer we have left. Actually, it will probably be good and hot for another couple of months, so we're not about to put our swimsuits away.

Happy August!