She Believes A Man Can Fly.

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One of my favorite films of all time is Superman.  There are very few soundtracks that can still give me goosebumps – Superman is one of them.  Christopher Reeve will always be Superman to me.  35 years later, the film still holds up.

I never really thought about what it would be like to watch it with my children.   I just figured that one day, they’d see it.  Well, that day came.  Last night, my daughter watched the first hour of the movie with her father.  I wasn’t home at the time, which makes me a bit sad because I missed seeing the look on her face when she heard the theme music and the main titles flashing by on the big screen.  I missed her hiding under the blanket when Krypton exploded.  I heard all about it from my husband, but it just wasn’t the same.

So, today the three of us watched the rest of the movie while her little brother napped.   I got to see the expression on her face when Clark runs down the street, rips open his shirt and we see the Superman costume underneath.  I got to see my daughter’s face light up when she saw him rescue Lois Lane as she fell from the helicopter; I got to see her squirm with embarrassment and delight as Superman took Lois flying over Metropolis and they fall in love.

It was one of the most profound moments of my life as her mother.  I know it sounds absurd – she’s just watching  a movie – but this was (and still is), my all-time favorite film and to get to share that experience of seeing her watch it for the very first time was just … well, it was wonderful.  She was absolutely riveted.  Despite the fact that she didn’t stop asking questions throughout the entire movie, she wouldn’t take her eyes off the screen.

She’s hooked.

The Dreaded Block …

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Hmm .. it’s pretty obvious I have hit writers block.  I am not posting nearly as much as I’d like and I have been trying to figure out why.

Life is busy, this is a given.  The practice has it’s up and downs – some weeks are incredibly busy, other weeks are, well, dead.  A handful of patients on a day when I can see up to 25 easily.  Today seems to be that kind of day, so the reason I am trying to write.  There hasn’t been a lot of “interesting” cases lately, so that may also explain the lack of writing.  Certainly in my personal life there is lots going on, what with this new life growing inside of me, but who wants to read post after post about the ups and downs of pregnancy?

I also noticed lately that my reading of books has drastically taken a nosedive.  I blame the iPhone.  Seriously – why must I browse Pinterest before bed?  Why do I have to see what’s on my Twitter feed before bed?  I should be reading a book dammit!!!!!  And I mean a real book, with pages and stuff.  Not some e-book, which, by the way, I will never, ever purchase.  Having the iPhone is addictive enough.  I do a fair bit of web surfin’, a few message boards in particular but even that is getting tedious and oh, so boring.

Gah!

So, once again, no real point to this post – perhaps my readers can enlighten me on any fabulous new reads out there?  I am desperate to read a good book.  Any genre will do.  Help me, please!

Half way!

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I haven’t posted a lot about this pregnancy, but as I have come to the half-way mark (20 weeks), I felt the need to.

Wow, 20 weeks.  This child is coming!  I can’t believe how fast the time is going.  Just yesterday, it seems, I discovered I was pregnant and the panic set in.  Now, this little one is just four and a half months away from making his/her entrance.

I hope he/she is ready!

Older brother and sister are forces to be reckoned with.  This little one is going to have to adapt, and adapt quickly!  Husband jokes that this one is going to be a lot like Maggie Simpson.  Keeps her mouth shut, but knows everything!

Last week we had our anatomy ultrasound and thankfully, together with the genetic screening, little one appears healthy.  Gender was even revealed to the technician (but not to us!).   Husband doesn’t want to know.  I would have found out had he said he did too.  As this is the LAST baby I am going to have (yes, I do mean LAST!!), I figured why mess with the status quo?  We didn’t find out for the last two pregnancies, so we won’t for this one.  (But, I did ask the tech to write the gender on a piece of paper and seal it in an envelope.)  I haven’t opened the envelope.  I suppose I wanted the option of finding out if I changed my mind.  I still haven’t decided if I’m going to.  I really did enjoy the surprise at delivery and I’m not sure I want to give that up, again, as this is the LAST pregnancy I intend on having.

So, I have no idea who is growing inside me.  Some days I am thinking it’s a girl, other days I’m sure it’s a boy.  It really doesn’t matter.  I just can’t wait to meet him/her.

Laughter.

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Laughter – a part of human behavior regulated by the brain, helping humans clarify their intentions in social interaction and providing an emotional context to conversations. Laughter is used as a signal for being part of a group — it signals acceptance and positive interactions with others. Laughter is sometimes seen as contagious, and the laughter of one person can itself provoke laughter from others as a positive feedback.[4] This may account in part for the popularity of laugh tracks in situation comedy television shows.

The study of humor and laughter, and its psychological and physiological effects on the human body, is called gelotology. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laughter)

This weekend, my husband’s best friend and his wife were back in our province looking for a house.  They moved out West a few years ago and are now returning home.  My husband couldn’t be happier.  He has missed his friend so much.  So, we decided to leave the kids with their grandparents for the night and joined our friends at their hotel.

About 2 minutes into the reunion the boys were acting like the teenagers they were when they met.  Instantly, the jokes started and the four of us were in stitches from laughing so hard.  After a wonderful meal we went back in the hotel room.  Again, within minutes,  the laughing continued and at one point, I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe.

(Recall that I am pregnant, so my abdominal wall muscles are now all but non-existent, and laughing becomes more difficult when there is nothing to support your core.)

As I was falling asleep, the peacefulness that washed over me was sublime.  There was a time, honestly, when laughing like that with friends was difficult.  Sometimes friends just connect, and sometimes that connection fades.  My husband’s friend’s wife said last night that sometimes friends are like old clothes in your closet.  Sometimes you have to clear out the old clothes that don’t fit you anymore in order to make room for the new ones.

As I welcome this new little life growing inside of me next fall, I want him or her to know nothing but the sound of laughter in our home.  I’ve realized last night that won’t be a problem anymore.  The people in my life make me laugh every day; I am reminded everyday how lucky I am and how fortunate I am to have these people in my life.  Seeing my husband with his best friend again just reinforced it for me.

Laughter really is the best medicine and the foundation for healthy relationships.

I hope that anyone reading this laughs with their friends and partners today.

Why the World Needs Superman.

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I’m no Lois Lane.  I’m not even sure this post will be coherent.

It’s not even really about the events in Boston this week, though certainly that is on my mind.  I’m thinking about things in broader terms.

Our world needs more heroes, our kids need heroes.

Sometimes I wish I was one of them.

I read a great article this morning describing how and why the Boston hospitals were ready for the shocking turn of events during the Marathon.  Emergency responders didn’t blink; they did their job and they did it remarkably well.  I envy those emergency personnel.  It takes a very special breed of person to face such carnage, put it aside and save the life of another human being.  I would hope that any one of us could do that if faced with the same devastation, but I worry that I would just freeze. Stop. Panic.

This week, my husband bought our daughter a CD player.  I came home one evening and she was listening to the Superman soundtrack.  Upon hearing the swelling orchestral music of John Williams, I was transformed to a little girl with goosebumps, eyes wide open, jaw on the floor, watching Superman (Christopher Reeve) save the day.  She’s too young to see the movie, but I can’t wait to see her face as she watches Superman fly for the first time.  It is the greatest superhero movie of all time (in my opinion) and there are still times now, as an adult, that I wish he were real.

Naive?

You betcha!

I want my kids to stay innocent forever.    They don’t need to know that an 8-year-old boy died this week, or that some crazy person opened fire on a daycare killing 20 children last winter. Hell, I don’t even want to know that this shit happens anymore.

I want to know that there are superheroes in this world. They might be doctors, nurses, moms and dads.  I want to hear more about those people. They deserve the headlines and the accolades, not the cowards.

It’s up to us to make that happen.  I just wish I knew how.

Sometimes I surprise myself.

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Back in medical school, I remember trying to listen to the heart of a newborn.  Damn thing was beating so fast, I kept thinking, “How the hell can anyone hear a heart murmur?”  A pediatrician told us it just takes practice.  One has to listen to hundreds of normal hearts in order to be able to recognize one when it’s NOT normal.

Riiight.

Well, that’s actually true for a lot of things in medicine.  Last year, I felt a very abnormal prostate.  It was so obvious to me at the time, that I wasn’t that surprised.  I just realized that it was NOT normal.   Two months ago, I did a routine breast exam on a woman and felt something very, very concerning, completely unbeknownst to the patient, sadly.

Then, yesterday, I saw a two-week old infant for a weight check.  I put the stethoscope on his chest and heard something.  “Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh….”  Hmm … I concentrated really hard, asked mom to stop talking (she was telling me all about his bowel movements) and listened again.  Was this his breath sounds I was hearing?  Definitely not – watching his chest rise and fall, this was clearly a cardiac sound.  Oh. My. G..   This wasn’t there a week ago!

I drilled mom with questions:

“Does he ever sweat with feeds?”

“Does he turn blue in the lips when feeding?”

“Does he breathe faster than you think is normal?”

She answered no to all the questions.  I watched him. He looked happy, content, breathing normally.  The child seemed perfectly fine.  Still, I was concerned enough that I referred him to our local pediatrician who confirmed the presence of the murmur, “It wasn’t really that loud,” she later told me.  Well, it was LOUD to me!!  lol!  In any event, the infant is in good hands and will be diagnosed soon (with, hopefully, nothing more serious than a small VSD that will close on its own).

Despite the pediatrician telling me it wasn’t all that loud, I still had to pat myself on the back.  I heard it.

There are times in my career (and personal life) that I wonder if I am doing the right thing, if I have done all I could have, if I should have done things differently.   I am far from perfect.  I am a flawed individual but I am deeply conscious of it.   I am very good at admitting my mistakes and “bad calls”, yet I rarely give myself due credit for a job well done.

Not anymore.

Confessions.

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So, I’ve had this secret for the past few months.  It’s been hard not to write about it, which is one of the reasons my blog has been quiet lately.  The more I wanted to spill my secret, the further I stayed away.

But it’s time now, I think.

Back in January, I got quite the surprise with a positive pregnancy test.

Yes, that’s right.

I’m pregnant again!!!

Eeek!!!!  Number 3 is on the way!!!  I was initially terrified and anxious and a doubting Thomas.  This wasn’t exactly planned, but I also knew deep down that I wasn’t quite done with two children.  I wanted one more pregnancy, one more child.   I would look at my son, the baby, and think that he should be a big brother.  So, if all goes well, come mid-September, he will be.

For the most part, my first trimester was very similar to my other two pregnancies – extreme fatigue and vague nausea.  Though, I have to admit, the vague nausea was much more pronounced this time.  For several weeks I have to say, I felt gross.  Nothing would settle my stomach except, perhaps, the concoctions of fruit juice, club soda and bitters my husband would make for me in the evenings.

The other thing that was new was this running thing I’d been doing.  You may recall that I was close to reaching my goal of running 10 km.  Sadly, that’s not going to happen anytime soon.  I tried a few runs during those first few weeks, but just couldn’t get past 2-3 km without shin splints, breathlessness and sheer exhaustion.  Clearly, my body was trying to tell me something.   There was pretty much zero exercise with the first two pregnancies – not exactly healthy, I know – but that’s just the way it was.  I walked a lot, yes, but that was the extent of my exercise.  My pregnant body liked sitting on the couch, cross-stitching.

So, there you have it. My confessions.

I’m pregnant again.

I’m not running.

And I’m spending the next 6 months, on my butt, on the couch, cross stitching…. with some walking here and there.

;)