Frankenpen

Friday, October 15, 2010

So I'm now nine weeks into medical school. It's been crazy times, filled with...well, studying. Seriously, I'd love to share some hilarious anecdote with you, but it would be something like, "Oh, and THEN I realized that phosphatidylcholine can be made via TWO DIFFERENT REACTIONS depending on the tissue of synthesis! OHHH!"

And now you are all bored.

So, instead of witty tales of sphingolipids, I'll share with you something about my method of study. I'm sort of a tactile learner, I guess, because I can remember something really well after I write it down. As such, my study regimen has come to center around hand-copying the notes I take on my computer in class. Then for each test, I rewrite a condensed study guide of the major points from each lecture.

This is no mean feat, friends. I have killed three pens so far. They were good and faithful companions for about a week, after which they pretty much kicked it. My pen habit was going to get expensive, I could tell, because I had grown accustomed to a well-shaped gel pen.

Upon killing off number three, I reached into my drawer and realized that the only economically viable option remaining was use of--I am loathe to say it--a BiC pen.

Now, nothing against BiC.

Well,

No, pretty much everything against BiC. The price is the only attractive feature on these things. They're little sticks that dig into your hand and do not make for comfy writing, especially when you're going for the marathon like I often do.

I tried using a BiC, but after just two minutes of writing I could feel my fingers aching from where its hard plastic pressed into my flesh. This, I thought, will simply not do. But what would? I can't justify buying expensive gel pens just because they feel nice in my hand!

Then the wheels started turning.

I had a pen carcass with no soul, no essence, but a perfectly viable body.

I had a BiC with a usable cartridge, but no beauty that man should it desire.

I felt a mad scientist laugh well up within me as I realized that I, Doctor Frankenstein, could raise my beloved pen from the dead by forced transfer of a foreign lifeforce!

BEHOLD WHAT SCIENCE HATH WROUGHT!

Frankenpen allows me to use BiC cartridges to my heart's (and wallet's) content, but sheathed in the surgically altered shell of my beloved gel pen.

What could possibly go wrong?

The labours of men of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind.
-Frankenstein, Mary Shelley, Chapter 3, pg. 34

Family Update!

As of yesterday, Ellie is one month old.  She weighed 11 lbs 1 oz, so she's growing like a weed and is a bit of a chunker.  The time has both gone by quickly and slowly.  It definitely feels like she's always been here, although I'm still learning how to juggle two kids rather than just one.  In some ways it's not much more work.  Like cloth diapers.  It's very little extra work to cloth diaper two kids rather than just one.  However, taking them both to the store by myself is definitely a juggling act.  I've been  very lucky so far on that front, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time.  So, just figuring things out.

Ellie is a very good baby so far.  She has had a fantastic sleeping schedule since she was born.  In the hospital, I decided I would keep her in my room the last night until she got cranky, and then I'd send her to the nursery.  However, she slept until 5 a.m. and then ate and went right back to sleep.  She has pretty much kept this schedule.  She likes to go to sleep at around 10 or 11 at night, and then sleep until 5 or 6, and then go back to sleep until 8:30 or so.  It is really a huge blessing to me, because sleep is something I don't cope well without.  Besides sleeping, Ellie LOVES to be held.  She's more of a cuddle bug than Lydia was and will snuggle and fall asleep on your chest.  It's nice.

Ellie does get bad gas though.  It's sad.  You can tell she has it when she cries really hard out of nowhere and then stops some and cries again.  We tried a number of different things, but recently we discovered a baby formula that works with her and significantly reduced her gas pains.  Now, rather than crying for a few hours at night, she lays there happily trying to smile at us.  It's a much better situation for all involved.

Lydia has reacted much better to being a big sister than I thought she would.  When I was in the hospital, she was weirded out by everything, but didn't get angry with me.  She didn't want anything to do with the baby, though, and that's mostly how things have stayed.  She calls Ellie "Baby Ella" and is not bothered by her presence at all anymore.  Sometimes she even likes to talk about her.  She says "Soft Baby Ella" and pets her head or "Baby Ella Bopful" (Baby Ellie's bottle) when I'm feeding her.  The funniest, though, is sometimes she blames Ellie for her misfortunes, like when she trips and starts crying, she'll say Ellie's name all accusingly, like it's Ellie's fault.  Hopefully she'll get over that.

In other Lydia news, Lydia has discovered a deep love of Winnie the Pooh.  Grandma Severson got her the original Disney movie on DVD, and Lydia asks to watch it almost every day.  She's learned all the characters' names and is generally delighted when the movie gets to parts she knows.  Also, her love of books has only gotten stronger, and she spends almost her entire day looking at them or asking me to read them to her.  Lately, she's started telling herself about what she remembers happening on the page.  It's fun to see her developing.

Tyler is doing extraordinarily well in medical school.  He already finished up his first two classes and received A's in both.  Right now he's taking two anatomy classes, and already got A's on the first tests for them.  He's really enjoying the material, and it's keeping him very busy.  He studies every day for several hours, on top of the time he spends in class.  It's stressful for him, but he is enjoying it overall.

As for me, I'm recovering quite nicely from my c-section.  I feel like I'm doing much better than last time.  Already I think my energy level is about back to what it was before, and minus a little understandable soreness, I'm managing the house and both the girls without too much trouble.  It's much trickier juggling two kids, but I love it.  I find it incredibly fulfilling to stay home with them and see them grow and develop.

We are very blessed in our lives.  We have a house that is going to make the next few years very comfortable, Tyler's doing well in school and it looks like we made the right choice, deciding to have him become a doctor, and our girls are both healthy and happy.  We are in a position where I can stay home with them, and somehow still manage to make our finances work out all right.  Overall, Tyler and I feel like we're getting more than our fair share of blessings, but you won't hear us complain about it!

Now, here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure.  They are in order from oldest to newest:

Still in the hospital.  This is one of my favorites from then.

The only time Lydia would come near me or Ellie.  She was very nervous about that baby, but a book enticed her.

Lydia reading her favorite book, Madeline, near Ellie.  She kept taking breaks and touching Ellie's head and saying, "Soft Baby Ellie, soft."

The last week or so, Ellie has been trying to smile.  It's hard to catch them on camera, though, and this was the best shot I could get.

I thought she looked a lot like Tyler in this one.

Baby Ellie

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Eleanor Faith Severson was born at 12:58 pm today. She measures 21 inches long and weighs 8 pounds, 14 ounces. Mother and baby are doing just fine, so I don't really have much to report. Here's some photos!

Scheduled Baby-Havin' Time

Monday, September 13, 2010

 **Note: Sorry for the influx of RSS articles.  We temporarily un-privatized our blog and the result has been about 30 posts or so in people's readers.  Sorry about that.**

Meagan went to the hospital today for a standard non-stress test, just to make sure the baby is doing all right. The baby passed all the tests with no problems, but upon taking an ultrasound, the doctor found that Meagan's placenta had started to calcify and her amniotic level (which is supposed to be over 10) is at 3.

That's no good.

The baby's strong reactions to the tests indicate there's no harm to her yet, but the doctor says that if we wait much longer, things aren't going to be good. As such, we've scheduled a c-section for tomorrow, September 14, at 12:00.

We're a bit bummed as Meagan has been trying really hard to avoid another c-section, but there simply isn't a choice on this one. If conditions get any worse, the baby will be getting less oxygen and nutrients and damages will occur. A natural birth simply wasn't in the cards. Still, there's a sense of relief that comes with this. No more waiting! We know when it's all going down.

Also, several people have asked if I'll be doing a blog detailing this baby's birth. The answer now, I guess, is probably not. With any luck, there won't be much of a story to relate. We're going to the hospital tomorrow at ten for a pretty routine procedure. The last thing we want is a story. As such, I guess you can just check back tomorrow afternoon for pictures.

Thanks to the family and friends who have been supportive up to this point. We appreciate your continued prayers. I'll post any news as it comes, but we'll mostly just look forward to showing off our new baby tomorrow afternoon.

Still Waiting...

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Well, my due date was two days ago and still no baby.  I thought for sure she'd come early, but I guess I was wrong.  The doctor told me at my last appointment that he thinks I'll go at least a week late, which was oddly comforting.  Now I'm not worrying about every contraction and wondering if "this is it".  I'm just assuming it's not "it" unless I have some powerful evidence to the contrary.

In the meantime, I've just been hanging around the house doing a whole lot of nothing. Mostly I've just been trying to keep up with the cleaning and laundry so that I'm not behind when this baby decides to make an appearance.  The laundry in particular became tricky this weekend because one our our hoses decided to spring a leak and cause the water to leak through our ceiling.  (Our washer and dryer are in the attic, which is weird, but whatever.)

Lydia and I have read together a lot this week.  Her favorite books at the moment are Olivia, Madeline, and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.  She loves to "read" them to herself, and loves to have them read to her as well.  Her other favorite activities include playing with her hotwheel cars, playing with her dinosaurs, and playing with her magnetic letters.  She also loves to watch Leap Frog Letter Factory, Winnie the Pooh, and Little Einsteins.  I only let her watch one show a day, but that doesn't stop her from asking over and over again.

Tyler's been really busy with school.  He has a test on Friday, and in anticipation of this baby being born, he studied all day every day over his three day weekend, just in case.  He did really really well on his first test, and we're hoping for a repeat.  He's working really hard and I'm very proud of him.

And that's about our lives.  We continue on in pretty much the same fashion.  Tyler studies, I'm waiting to have a baby, and Lydia reads aloud to herself.  Hopefully, this new baby will shake things up a bit here.

The Legend of La Cucaracha

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

To set the stage, we recently moved to Little Rock. I'm sure we'll say more about that later (I'm actually not sure at all. YOU WILL GET WHAT WE GIVE YOU AND LIKE IT), but just know that we've rented a nice little house.

We had been here for two days. The first day was "Moving Day," in the which I, with the help of two guys from church, moved all of our earthly possessions into our house. The second was "Soreness Day," in which I was sore in pretty much every muscle I have. It was also the first day of unpacking, a long and arduous process that is only doable because you know that eventually you will run out of boxes to unpack. Hell will be an eternal house full of eternal boxes that you must unpack, clean, organize, arrange, and make homey. Then you move on to the next room...FOREVER.

We were retiring for the night. Meagan went to get a pre-slumber drink. Suddenly I hear her call me to look at something. I join her in the dark kitchen, wondering what I'm supposed to be seeing. She tries to point something out, but I don't see anything. Then something moves. Quickly. She turns the light on, but it's already escaped to the dark underworld from whence it came.

"That," she said, "was a gigantic cockroach."

"...Neat!" said I, uncertain as to what else we should do at that point.

The answer? Wait for another visitation.

The next night I went out to the kitchen, in which I had fortuitously left a light on. And there he sat, perched atop our kitchen sink in all his glory.

His shiny-carapaced six-legged, holy-crap-that-is-a-big-cockroach glory.

You might be shouting "SMASH HIM!" at your computer right now. It's probably what I should have done. But something in me needed to preserve this moment. A mason jar was fetched. I comically tried to shoo the roach into it. Cartoon hilarity ensued.

Finally, I managed to trap the roach under my jar. He ran about its circumference for a moment, but then realized that he had no options left. He paused and looked at me.

At least I think he did. I didn't see his tiny little eyes or anything. Let's say he looked at me. It makes the moment more profound.

For some reason, I wanted him to live. Maybe it was the fact that I felt bad about chopping off one of his majestic antennae in the trapping process. The reason I told myself was that I needed to demonstrate the problem to my landlord, and that this would be an indisputable method of illustration.

Whatever the reason, I decided to turn the jar over and put a top on it. But it had to be something that would let him breathe. Roaches breathe, right? Probably!

I grabbed a piece of paper and secured it over the top of the jar. I watched as the roach tried to skitter up the sides, failing each time. He would right himself, scratch at the side, and then fall again. Surely, I thought, there's no way out. I punched a few air holes in the paper and went to bed.

The next morning, Meagan and I woke up. We went about our morning routine in a usual way, until I asked, "Say, did you see the jar on the counter?"

"Yeah," she replied, "I was meaning to ask you what was up with that."

"Is that not a gigantic roach?!" I enthused.

"...There....was no roach in that jar."

My blood ran chill.

"Oh no." I muttered. "He ESCAPED! AND HE'S MAD!"

I went to the kitchen to find that somehow, the cockroach had managed to not only reach the top of the jar, but to chew a hole through the paper I had affixed.

A big, cockroach-wide hole.

Truly these creatures will outlive us all.

Now for the odd part: Ever since the Day of the Empty Jar, we haven't seen this cockroach. My wife wanted to name him James, but I find the name a bit banal for such a survivor. Whatever he's done, he has managed to avoid my wrath. I like to think that he chewed through the paper and before escaping looked in the direction of my bedroom and said something to the effect of, "Nice try," but then, realizing that I would not be so kind next time, retreated, figuring that there were other kitchens out there, a whole frontier that was utterly unaware of his presence. These greener pastures, he thought, would be his home.

In reality, he probably found his way into my bag of flour and I'll someday find him and all his relatives. Who knows? The cockroach is a wily beast, full of surprise and mystery.

Tales from the Intermission: Chapter the Fourth

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

In which the narrator catches you up on everything so this blog is in the present and can stop being broken into numbered chapters

The funny thing is that several of you are probably thinking that Meagan has been working all these past months at Lowe's. Well, here's the awful part: Shortly after I posted that blog about her interview series and everything (AND, may I add, after she had been given an established starting day), Lowe's decided not to hire Meagan. Everything involving them was a colossal waste of her time. We were a fair bit hacked off. But rather than fuss about it, we looked at our family needs and decided that this could be a blessing in disguise. Sure, we wouldn't make quite as much money, but there were other things Meagan could earn during the summer. Meagan laid out a rather intense curriculum for her few remaining independent study classes and decided to finish her degree before we move. We're proud to say that she will be taking her last three finals next week, finishing all classes she needed for her BA in political science. I'm incredibly proud of her for managing to finish up all of her classes (not to mention doing pretty well in them) while also taking care of Lydia at home. She's done amazing things.

As for me…well, I've been in the Wal-Mart temp program with a great group, but they weren't especially skilled at putting me to use. That is to say, I got a pretty good paycheck for surfing the internet. I was happy to work when it came around, but that wasn't as often as you would think. A few weeks into the position I actually scheduled a meeting with my manager to discuss the matter, and the best way my position was described was "like a service industry employee," who just stands around waiting, getting paid, until there is something for them to do. OK, then! It's given me plenty of time to work on some writing and some administration projects I needed to work on. I got paid to pursue hobbies! Unfortunately, you can only do that stuff for so long in a day, and so my time at my desk got pretty darned boring. I've been grateful for the job, but I'm not going to be very sad to move on.

Speaking of moving on, I don't think we ever actually talked about where we're going for med school. Short story: University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), College of Medicine, in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Long story: By the time medical school interviews wound up, I had been accepted to UAMS and Case Western Reserve in Cleveland and I had been wait-listed at Vanderbilt and Wake Forest (I had also been wait-listed at Saint Louis University, but a bad interview experience made us want to avoid that so long as there were other options). We started to examine CWR vs. UAMS (I was personally holding out some hope for Vanderbilt, but alas! They never called me up off the waiting list), and found that both would offer me a pretty great medical school experience and that most of the quality of my education would come down to not where I went, but what I did when I got there. My education is in my hands. As such, we decided to go to UAMS, which offered several distinct advantages, including:

1. It's not in Cleveland!
2. It's significantly closer to both Meagan's family and my own
3. Little Rock has safer housing closer to the school
4. UAMS costs about 1/3 as much as CWR
5. UAMS gave me scholarships; CWR did not

So basically, we found very little reason to pick the stingy, expensive, Cleveland-based school when we had UAMS as an option.

Since deciding to go to UAMS, I have been awarded a 1/4 tuition scholarship for my first year. That's nice. But the most exciting thing at this point is the new house. In our marriage, Meagan and I have lived in three different apartments and one parents' basement. We've never rented a house before, but with child number 2 on the way and a third being likely to show up at some point during school, we thought that getting a three-bedroom house would be our best option. We found one that we were OK with and started putting the paperwork through…until we found a BETTER one. We quickly pulled out of the first deal and signed a contract with the second.
This place is about what you'd expect for people in our position. It's not awesomely nice, but it's well-kept and homey. Three beds, 1.5 baths, a large backyard (in which yardwork is taken care of for us!), and, perhaps my favorite part, it's only two blocks away from campus. I can come home and see my kids during my lunch break! We don't have to use the car! That's pretty great news! That is why I am using so many exclamation points!

Oh, and the monthly rent is under the budget we set, so that is also good times.

But we haven't spent our whole time in Bentonville working and looking forward to leaving. We figured that while we were here, we may as well do some stuff.

Meagan has spent the last few months as a church Activity Days leader for the eight- and nine-year-old girls in the ward, and I was called as the assistant Venture Scout leader (ages 16-17). We have both had great experiences working with the youth of our ward. Along the way, I got to substitute teach the 16-year-old Sunday School and teach a lesson or two to the priests, which was a great part of the calling.

Meagan has been working on building our new baby, and she's entered the uncomfortable stage of the third trimester. We've been blessed to have an incident-free pregnancy. Dang, have we even mentioned that the new baby is a girl? She is. We are pretty sure of this, as the ultrasound tech said that our baby was the easiest gender identification she'd made all week. Apparently we produce exhibitionist fetuses.

Lydia has very much enjoyed the attentions paid by her aunts and grandparents. We think it's going to be a rough transition to suddenly having just Mom and Dad…and THEN having them taken away by the new baby. I sense psychological scarring in the near future!

We have one week left here, and then we're on our way to Little Rock. We're excited, of course, but we have a slight case of the very common pre-moving jitters. A new chapter in our lives! Who knows what it will hold? The best we can do, I suppose, is realize we're in it together, join hands, and boldly move forward. Bentonville, it's been great. We have enjoyed you. But we're out of here.