May 6, 2009 7:07pm

Almost home.

Almost home for good.

Home.

I thought I was home for good a year ago when I left Buckhannon, WV and came back to NJ.

Unfortunately, I had to come back to WV for 8 more weeks.

Just 9 more days to go.

Roger and Socrates seem to be doing well at home. Socs has begun escaping from the kitchen. I should give some back story on this:

Go back a year ago to when we first got the Socs Man. He was an adorable 6 month old puppy living in a foster home with his two doggie sisters, doggie mama, a few other foster dogs, and the humans. He was very well kept and very well loved. He slept in a cage and was very comfortable with his cage. In fact, after getting bored with Roger and I he went back into his cage to take a nap while we were there.
The only thing going on there that was a problem was that he was allowed on the furniture- specifically the couch. I happen to think a dog can live a very happy and full life never being on my couch, but that's just me.

So Socrates gets to his new home with us. We have no problems crating him. His crate is always clean in the morning, and he sleeps through the night happily.

Fast forward a few months. Socrates starts crying at night. All night. All friggin night long. I also start coming home to Socrates greeting me at the door. Houdini has managed to escape from the cage. What he did was work the bottom lock with his nose and tongue, and then push the metal door open enough to slide out.

We thought we could trick him by turning the cage around and putting it against the wall. Trapped!

Not so much. It took him less than one day to figure out that if he ran inside the cage against the side of it, he could push the cage away from the wall using the momentum he built up (I don't think he actually knew the physics of this, but there was clearly a plan of some sort).

Then we decided to double latch the cage using the type of clips that are on leashes.

Perfect! He can't get out.

Only one problem. Now, I didn't actually see it all happen, but I saw the aftermath. He must have been having some sort of panic attack. I came home one day to find a cage pan filled with thick drool and a wall and floor streaked with blood. He still managed to escape and greet me at the door, but he scratched up his face in the process of bending the metal door open. He got the cage away from the wall, and the blood streaks were on the wall and on the floor, as well as drops through the house.

Okay. This is a problem. The poor thing was absolutely going ballistic. I had no idea why. So, Roger and I had to make some decisions.

The interesting thing is that despite the Soc Man's total meltdown while in the cage, he seemed to do nothing once he got out. Well, I won't say "nothing". What it seems he began doing is going into the front room of the house and sleeping on the couch. Nothing chewed. Nothing eaten. No walls torn down. Just sleeping on the couch.

A call to the dog trainer shed some light on the nighttime problem. She suggested just putting the cage in our bedroom and letting him sleep there.

This suggestion was amazing. We put it in our room, along with a fluffy bath mat on the floor of it (so we wouldn't hear his nails on the pan during the night). Every night since then we take him upstairs and he goes into his "room" almost without even being told. He sleeps in it all night and we don't hear so much as a whimper out of him. Amazing how something he was so anxious about could be his comfortable sleeping place as soon as we changed the environment.

But the daytime part was still a problem. We bought a pet gate and barricaded him into the kitchen. This seemed to work well. The gate was hardly even bolted up and he happly stayed in the kitchen while we were out. He had his blanket, his food, his water, and life was good.

Until 3 months ago. Now, he is escaping again. Not only is he escaping, but he is managing to escape when there are multiple obstacles (chairs) holding the gate up. He pushes it enough and out he goes. He always greets us at the door. The dog walker is trying his best to come up with new ideas to keep the dog in the kitchen, but nothing is working.

However, he still just sleeps on the couch. The same couch. Oddly enough, it is a couch that looks exactly like the couch he was on at his foster home. I don't know if there is any connection.

So now we have to decide what to do. We are protecting our couch with a blanket so that the hair and drool is not on our couch. He doesn't *do* anything else, though. He doesn't destroy anything. He doesn't make a mess anywhere.

I don't know why he keeps escaping. And my fear is that he's going to try to find a way to escape from the house next. My sister's dog chewed through a wall once in an attempt to get out. I don't want to come home to find a hole in the wall. Roger will find Socrates much less cute if our couch has no stuffing when he gets home.

We don't know what to do. It doesn't matter if we're gone for 10 minutes or 8 hours, Socrates still does this. We have a dog walker who comes twice each day, and Socrates always greets him at the door.

Poor Socs Man. I think he's lonely, but he's used to our schedule now. Getting another dog would require some breaking in time that we just don't have right now. My schedule is about to get wild when I start residency, and Roger's work/travel schedule doesn't allow for him to have a 9-5.

I think we're going to have to just accept that he has run of the house. That's fine if the worst he does is get on the couch, but I don't know what's next.

April 2, 2009 6:58pm

I always learn so much when I come to WV.

Here are some things I have learned while here....

1) If you don't take your socks off for 3 months, your socks will actually fuse to your feet and your skin will start to grow around the socks. You will also have such a horrific infection that you'll end up in the hospital.

2) Why get fitted for dentures when you can just buy a perfectly good pair at a flea market? Sure, you might look like a mule, but you can chew...kinda.

3) A conversation I was actually a part of:
Patient: Doctor, are you in good health? Because I don't want to have to find a new doctor.
Doctor to me (ignoring crazy lady):Please go get me some Ethyl Chloride.
Patient (freaking out): No! don't go get her! I know her from my church and she's nasty. I hate her. She'll tell everybody my business!

4) Paint thinner can be used to clean out wounds.

That's all for now, but it has been less than 2 weeks.

March 30, 2009 7:59pm

Despite my best efforts to finish up my rotations at home, I had to go back to WV for my Family Medicine rotation. I'm here for 8 weeks (one week down).

Since I gave up my apartment down here long ago, I am calling the Hampton Inn home for the moment. It isn't so bad, actually. Breakfast and hot coffee is made when I wake up. My room is cleaned every day, and I don't even have to make my own bed.

The down side is that I'm living in one room and I don't have a kitchen. Those of you who know me, know that I live to cook (yes, I meant to say "live" and not "love"). I have a tiny fridge and a microwave here. This allows me to make a sandwich, or heat up a frozen burrito, but it is nowhere near the kind of culinary adventuring that I am accustomed to.

I miss Roger and Socrates terribly. I miss my home.

This rotation isn't so bad. The hours are good, and the Dr I'm with is very nice and laid back. I'm seeing some interesting patients, and I learn a new little tid bit of information every day.

But that doesn't make up for being homesick.

On the bright side, I have some time to catch up on reading (both medical and non-medical) and watch endless hours of QVC and Food Network.

On that note, I think that through Food Network, my cookbooks and hours and hours of online research I have managed to give myself a rather extensive culinary education without ever actually setting foot in culinary school.

Ever start to wonder what it is that you really want to do with your life?

Did I make the right choice by going to medical school? These days, all I want to do is create things in the kitchen. I want to have a store where I sell these amazing creations, as well as beautiful jams, jellies, oils, salts and anything else I can get my hands on that tastes good.

Sigh.

March 4, 2009 1:29pm

So there really isn't even any point in updating on the holidays and everything since my last post.

Christmas= good
New Year's= good

That's about all there is to say about that.

Let's move up to present time.

Roger, my mom and I just got back from the CPAC conference in D.C. last week. It was covered on the news, but I have to say that the most atrocious coverage was on MSNBC. I don't expect them to give it a glowing report, but what they were doing was not only poor journalism, but offensive to those who attended.

Yep, they were basically making fun of the people who attended. Keith Olberman made it a point to include it in his Countdown, all the while noting how silly and insignificant it is (gotta love irony). If it is so absurd, and so silly, and so futile for the conservative movement to meet and discuss their failures and new directions, then why the hell is it worthy of a spot on his show?

I can't even say they took clips of the speeches out of context. To say that would be saying that they actually knew the context and selectively chose which parts to show. This was not the case. They weren't even actually there at the conference to cover it. They used video from c-span and news agencies who actually were present. They would show a clip of a speech and then give their commentary about it....when the entire theme/topic of the speech was exactly opposite what they were discussing.

I was absolutely livid watching that garbage from Keith and the likes of him on MSNBC who are so "open minded" unless you disagree with them, and then you're a moron.

That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed the conference. The speakers really inspired me to get more involved as I'm seeing our country fall apart into some pseudo-European nation.

This week, I am on vacation and relaxing at home. I'm sick (again), so I'm not getting much done besides watching Food Network and QVC.

As a result of my repeated illnesses, I will be having a tonsillectomy this June. Really....not....looking....forward....to that.

What I am looking forward to, however, is our trip to Europe! We're going to Brussels and France in June, just after my graduation.

Being that I am a bit tired, I will continue this another time.