Paging Dr. Adcock

I am happy to say that I have decided on what I want to be when I grow up.

Drum Roll Please.........

I'm going to be a Child Psychiatrist.

Ever since I wanted to go into medicine, I knew that I wanted to do something with kids. I just love the little ones. Well then I really enjoyed my psych lectures and started thinking why not combine the two. I did an elective rotation for a month in Child Psychiatry and loved it! Now you're probably thinking but how can you handle that.

That's the thing. These kids need someone to advocate for them. During my month I saw a wide range of illnesses. I saw a lot of ADHD. I also saw a lot of PTSD from kids who were abused or sexually violated. We had a 16 year old who was addicted to cocaine, in trouble with the law who 2 days prior to his appointment revealed to the rehab center he was at that he was sexually violated by his uncle when we was 7. He had been keeping this a secret for 9 years! I look forward to helping these kids.

Another love of mine is the autism spectrum disorders. I don't know why but those kids just get to my heart. Well I found out about a non-profit organization here in Kansas City, Joshua Center. They see autism, aspergers, tourette syndrome, and ocd. They have a therapist for the kids as well as social skills classes to help these children learn every day things such as phone etiquette, how to have conversations in public, how to react to every day situations, etc. Well I met with the director yesterday, and I'm very excited to start volunteering with this organization. They have a summer camp that I'm going to try and be a counselor for as long as my school schedule permits. I will also attend some social skills classes. Super excited!

It's such a relief to finally know what I want to be when I grow up! Now if only I knew where residency will be.....

Going Short!

So I made a bold decision this weekend. I chopped my hair off!!! I haven't had it this short since my first two years of college. I am loving this short hair!

I have had two patients this month ask, so what are you 19 or 20? Really!?! I'm hoping the short hair might make me look a little older. We'll see.

What do you think?

What's Cookin' in the Kitchen?

Sorry I've been MIA lately. The last rotation was crazy and this one is just as intense, but I do have something exciting to share after a meeting tomorrow. Look for a post tomorrow.

As for meal planning. I've been doing the meal planning bit for awhile now, and we love it! I was able to cut down our weekly grocery bill 33%. I still wanted to find a way to cut down the bill even more without the time requirements of coupons. I don't have the time or patience to clip through coupons and keep them organized until that item goes on sale and then to remember that I have that coupon. haha That's just not me.

A friend introduced me to E-Mealz. It's an online site that posts meal plans along with the grocery list for that week. The meals are created around whatever is on sale at the grocery store you pick. This website does cost $1.25 a week to subscribe. You pay 3 months at a time, and then if you don't want to renew you don't. It has helped me save another 20% on our weekly grocery bill. That means our grocery bill is down 50% from when we started. WOOHOO! I also have gotten some really good recipes from it as well. Check out the website!

What's Cookin' in the Kitchen?

Sunday: Orange Chicken and Vegetable Stir Fry

Monday: Shredded Pork Soft Tacos and Black Beans

Tuesday: Blackened Tilapia

Wednesday: Left Overs

Thursday: Greek Chicken and Red Potatoes

Friday: Date Night

Saturday: Shrimp Tacos

One Year Already

WOW! It's hard to believe it has already been a year since Eric and I said "I do!" This year has been an amazing year and has made us both so excited to see what God has in store for us in the future. (No babies anytime soon, but we are both excited for that journey whenever it is time.)

Our first anniversary was a very eventful one. Eric is not much to plan, and I always have things planned out. It's something that we help balance each other out with. We decided to book a hotel downtown Kansas City for one evening. I asked for Eric to plan the remainder of the evening. Well I didn't think he had anything planned, so I was kind of bummed.

We started out with breakfast at a local favorite Saturday morning. I had said something to Eric about possibly going to the Baseball Museum prior to checking into the hotel. Eric said he didn't think that was possible, and we needed to do an early dinner. Wow he had actually planned something! He said it wasn't anything special just something fun and we needed to be there at 5:00 pm.

After breakfast and running errands, Eric took a nap while I showered and got ready. I was listening to KLove while getting ready, and they advertised their Winter Jam concert which was going to be here in KC today. When Eric woke up, I told him hey KLove is going to be here tomorrow, maybe we can go to the concert. He said no they're here tonight. I said no they said the 20th, and he said today's the 20th. I had to break it to him that no today was actually the 19th and tomorrow is our real anniversary. His face dropped and he said that's what I had planned for tonight. I was going to take you to the concert. He was so bummed that the one time he planned something, it fell through. Yep, my husband forgot our first anniversary. HAHA just kidding. He remembered the date Feb. 20th, he just got yesterday's date wrong. He thought since we booked the hotel for Saturday night, then Saturday was the 20th.

We figured no big deal, we'll still enjoy our anniversary celebration. Well we checked in at the hotel, and headed to the plaza around 7 to walk around and go to our favorite spot, Barnes and Noble. We walked around there for awhile checking out various books. Then we decided to go down to PF Changs for dinner. Little did we know, it was a 2 hour wait! Nothing was turning out how we had planned or expected. Eric felt horrible how the night was turning out. I was a little disappointed, but no big deal. We ended up just going back to the hotel and eating in the cafe they had. We eventually just laughed about the evening.

The top tier of the wedding cake did not make it to KC with us last year. I decided to go to "3 Women and an Oven" in Overland Park to get a replica of our top tier for us to celebrate with. After dinner we ate our "top tier" and celebrated an amazing year together as husband and wife.

I'm so thankful to have a husband who is so supportive and understanding with the demands of medical school. He put up with me with the stress of national boards last spring, starting rotations in the fall, and the long hours associated with certain rotations including a week of working nights. I couldn't have asked for a better husband. Thank you Eric for all of your support and love you share with me. I love you so much and wouldn't change a thing.

GF! What's that?

Gluten Free!

So I've had some abdominal pain off and on since 2007 that started getting worse last year. Well OBGYN thought ovarian cysts, but ultrasounds were normal. So they put me on the pill thinking that stopping ovulation would stop the cysts/pain. Nope still pain. Then they said IBS gave me medicine which only dropped my heart rate, made me dizzy and light headed. Then she thought oh maybe endometriosis, so she put me on a pill that stops my cycle all together. Nope still pain. UGH!!!

I also have really bad knee pain in the morning, during the day and at night. I have a family history of rheumatoid arthritis on dad and mom's side. I went to my family doc back in August who checked for Rheumatoid Arthritis as well as some other things and xrays. Everything came back negative, so he gave me some anti-inflammatory pills. Nope still knee pain. Then I went and bought the super expensive not so cute support shoes to wear. Nope still knee pain.

Then 2 weeks ago I had bright red bloody poops. Yep pretty scary! I went back to my family doc and told him all about the abdominal pain discussed above. He did the infamous rectal exam checking for hemorrhoids. Nope nothing. Phew! So then he decided lets do a CT to check for masses or inflammation. Mainly checking for Crohn's. CT was normal, so now what.

I went back today and he suggested going to a GI doc and get a colonoscopy. UGH!!! We also discussed making dietary changes too. He is thinking possibly Gluten Intolerance. Hmmm....

So I'm going to tackle this gluten free life style. We'll see how things go. Thank goodness for Wildtree and the gluten free items they have to offer. I'm just overwhelmed right now, so if anyone has some great websites discussing food products with/without gluten or blogs with recipes please feel free to share.

I also ask that you please pray that dietary changes is all I need to do to take care of my abdominal pain as well as my joint pain. :)

Christmas Already?

Wow! I can't believe I haven't posted anything in an entire month. Sorry! Rotations are going great; I LOVE Child Psych. As in LOVE so much that I'm thinking it might be my career choice!

Anyways back to the reason for the post. Christmas is almost here. This is our first Christmas as "The Adcock Family." Today marks 10 months that we've been married. We love each other more today than on our wedding day. Time flies when you're having fun!

I just loved decorating our little apartment. My wonderful mother-in-law took us to buy new ornaments from Hobby Lobby, so our tree looks great!

(I'm currently on Eric's Mac computer and not having much luck uploading the pictures of our tree, so I'll post them from my computer in a bit.)

Surgery!

Sorry I have not blogged anything lately. Life has been pretty crazy right now. I am doing surgery this month for my clerkship. I was terrified of surgery. I knew I would hate surgery and thought I was going to be miserable all month long. It turns out I kind of like it except for the hours.

I am out in Richmond, MO which is about 65 miles from our house, so that adds on an extra 2 1/2 hours to my day with the drive time. I've been getting up at 5:00 am to be at the hospital for 7:30. We have three different hospitals that we work at, and the surgeon is the only general surgeon for all three hospitals. That means he is on call 24/7! We start at 7:30 am and finish around 6:30 pm which means I don't get home until close to 8. I feel like I've been neglecting Eric a bit this month, but he is so understanding which is great.

The surgeries I have seen include a ton of gallbadders, hernias, hemorrhoids, breast biopsies, lumpectomies, mastectomies, and a ton of skin lesions/cysts. From day one, the surgeon had me making 2 of the 4 gallbladder incisions. The first day he let me try to close up my one little incision in the time he closed his 3. Lets just say I wasn't close to finishing in the time he closed up all 3 haha. By the third surgery, I had it down. When we do the mastectomies for breast cancer we split the incision in half and race to see who finishes closing first. After a week and a half, he started to just walk out of the OR and leave me in there to close all by myself. In the clinic I have shaved off some skin lesions all by myself and even placed the stitches. :) The patients have even commented that I've done a great job!

I am very lucky to have received such a great preceptor. He is very patient with me and makes comments such as don't worry you have all month to learn. There is a possibility of surgery as a career choice, but I'm not sure if I could handle the hours. Also, I'm not sure if my body can handle standing for so long. My knees have been killing me when I get home and they get swollen as the day goes on. Hoping to get some good shoes for Christmas, so that might make a difference. I am enjoying things and still can't believe I'm so close to being a doctor.

Next month is my elective in Child Psychiatry.