Sydney's Birthday!!

This post is late.  It was Sydney's birthday a few weeks ago.  We had some fun.  She opened some presents.  I took pictures so those who sent the presents to her could enjoy her reaction as she opened them.  Enjoy!

 Our camer lens was dirty.  Didn't notice that till now.  Oops.

A blender!!!!!

As for medical school and more recent updates, I've now finished my psychiatry rotation and begun the last rotation of 3rd year for me.  Internal Medicine.  It's 3 months long.  I'm starting my first month on inpatient wards at the Veterans Hospital.  It's been pretty fun so far.  Long hours and 6 days a week.  :(  

Sydney also redecorated our room back in January.  She's such a interior design fashionista!

Before

After

I've made some serious progress on the bike that I'm building.  For those of you who aren't familiar.  It's a 1969 Honda CB350 that I started working on last summer.  It's been slow, but I'm finally making progress.  

I'll get some better pictures taken.  Psych was a great rotation to get a lot of work done.  :)

Spring

Yes. It's been a while since we've blogged. Why you may ask? Because it's SPRING! And the most wonderful spring Josh and I have ever had. It started months ago and has stayed around the 70's for most days. The blossoms and flowers are amazing. I don't think I've ever had a more colorful Easter. 

We've been spending as much time outdoors as we can, enjoying every minute of it. Fiz usually comes with us, and with the temperatures rising we decided it was time for a haircut! Apparently he likes the feel of the clippers because he held still for almost the entire job, WITHOUT the need for treat bribery.

Josh's disease has finally almost cleared up. He hasn't had any red dots for a while, but he's been left with some hard core leathery dry skin... and a yellow fake tooth. Oh wait, I'm getting a little ahead of myself. For those of you who haven't heard the story I'll tell it quickly. About a month ago one Saturday Josh, being the kind hearted and generous man that he is, offered to help our neighbor replace a part on his car and save him a couple hundred dollars. While underneath the car a piece he was working on suddenly swung down cracking him right in the mouth. Miraculously it only hit his top front tooth. No damage to his eyes, his nose, or his noggin. Just a tiny chip on the tooth right below, and a slightly bruised lip. Sadly the tooth that took the hit suffered greatly, as you can see from the below pictures. (Josh was too afraid to tell me what happened, and sent our neighbor in instead.) After working another 3 or 4 hours to finish putting the car back together we headed out to Short Pump to consult with a dental student from the branch to see what we should do about his tooth. We were lucky again in that Josh could wait until Monday to actually go see a dentist. When he did finally go in, the dentist gave him a temporary to hold him until we knew how much a permanent fix would cost us and decide where we wanted to go from there. Well, we just got the quote for the permanent one. $3,900... Looks like the temporary is going to be the new permanent one for now! You can just call him pirate Josh for the next little while.

Other than that Josh has been trying out a new hair style. It's called long. :)

I've been house sitting lots of puppies. (Try finding room to sleep in a bed with these two.)

And we've found a new favorite spot on the James to take Fiz and our occasional visitor Wanetta.

Fiz LOVES it and has discovered that water is awesome.

It's an awesome river to walk along, and check out all the awesome sights. 

But rock hopping is one of our favorite things and something that our dog excels at. We're pretty sure he was born to be a mountain dog. Now if the weather would just stay like this for the rest of the summer...

Monster Post!

The weather in Richmond this winter has been delightful.  A few weeks ago it was almost 70 all week long.  One of the days we went for a walk on the North Bank trail by the James River.  Fiz was loving it!  He is all about following the trail and loves running up ahead and then running back to us, over and over again.  

First shot of Sydney/Fizgig run-by.

Success!  It doesn't look much like it, but they were flying!

The best part about going on this little "hike" is that it is only a few minutes away and actually located right near downtown.  It's a fun trail on bikes too that I have to thank Nat for showing me.  Now I just have to talk Syd into getting a bike and then we can go together.  

Obligatory Dog photos.

Morning face.

Night-time Face

Walk in the park while Sydney is with a new client.

Syd and Fiz.  Both easily entertained.  :)

Glamor Shot!

He's in perfect position to get the food.  

Long post, but I also want to document my disease.  Yep...I have an unknown disease.  (Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook have no doubt, seen the pictures I continue to post).  Those of you who are uninterested in my personal health/pictures of my weird rash/etc., feel free to skip.  Otherwise, I'm going to describe my experience.  Getting some patient perspective, since this last week is the first time I've been to the doctor in 4-5 years.  These photos are in chronological order and for educational purposes.  I have obtained permission from the patient to post these.  :)

Day 2 of the rash.

Day 2

Day 3 - went to student health since the OB/GYN clerkship coordinator told me that I couldn't come in to the hospital until they checked me out.  

Right after seeing student health.  Diagnosis - Hand/Foot/Mouth disease (viral infection) - stay home until the rash goes away.  

Few days later.

Few days later - spreading to the back of my hands.

And wrists.

Day 7 - 2nd visit to Student health. Getting worse and spreading up my arms and legs. No feet pictures early on, since it wasn't very impressive...till later.  They looked pretty much like my hands. 

Day 9 - Student Health sent me to Derm.  They did a punch biopsy and got me naked and looked at everything.  Drew some labs.  Everything looked pretty normal except for mild eosinophilia (7.2%) and platelets at 140 which is just barely low.  Still waiting on biopsy results.  

Day 8 - sorry for the gross feet.  Feet are gross.  

Day 10

Day 10

Day 10

Day 10

And today is Day 11.  I've missed an entire week of my OB/GYN rotation.  It stinks because I'll have to make it up...sometime.  I just want to get back, so I don't miss any more time and have to do more makeup.  It just won't go away.  Strangest part...no other symptoms.  Nothing.  I feel completely fine.    The rash is mildy irritating, but not really itchy.  Just hurts if I use my hands too much.  

Anyway, there have been many diagnoses guessed.  I'm willing to hear them all.  

What I come home too....

My wife blogs about my pathetic candy-gram. Check out what I came home to on Valentine's Day.

V day

Once upon a time a girl named Sydney married the best guy ever. His name was Josh and he knew Sydney better than anyone else, and for valentine's day he made her favorite dinner, bought her a box of chocolates and created the best valentine ever. How'd she get so lucky?

Once upon a time

Once upon a time, I got Sydney an iPhone for Christmas with a cracked screen. Planned to fix it soon after Christmas, but then surgery happened. Today I finally got down to business, and completed the transformation. Easy as pie.