new dr appointment

Chris had his appointment with his new primary care doc at Littleton Pediatrics. He is now 14 lb 6 oz and 26 inches long. She agrees that the rash on his cheeks looks like eczema, and thinks the rash on his back may be due to the cream of wheat. Chris is supposed to avoid wheat again until 9 months. Dr. Bublitz was nice and I'm sure she will be just fine as Chris' doctor, however I'm going to miss Dr. Cain. I feel like he took a personal interest in me and was a great advocate for Chris by coordinating care. But Stapleton was just too far away (41 miles each way!)

playing

rash

Yesterday Chris got a rash all over his back and under his arms. I showed it to a friend who is a dermatologist, and she thinks it looks like eczema. We are going to try gentle soaps and moisturizing lotion. I sure hope it's not a food allergy- I fed him cream of wheat for the first time yesterday. It would suck to be allergic to wheat.

daddy daycare

baby photos

Ok, so Chris looks more like me. But he also looks a little bit like Doug too!

7 months

another thing i love about babies. . .

. . . is how large their heads are in proportion to the rest of their bodies. Chris can't reach the top of his head!

playdate

more feeding fun

night shift at the va

Saturday night I reentered the working world. I had my first moonlighting shift at the VA. I remembered things pretty well, considering I haven't been taking care of patients regularly for 10 months. It helps that I am familiar with the VA system from residency. I hit the ground running at 7pm. There was a steady stream of business until 1am. Then, it slowed down and I only saw 3 more patients in the early hours of the morning. I admitted one patient to the hospital, and took care of the rest and sent them home. Shift work in the ER is perfect for me this year. I can work as few shifts as I like. When I'm there, I'm there, but when I'm off I have no clinical responsibilities. I enjoyed interacting with the patients and thinking about medical problems.

Working in the ER is somewhat different than what I was used to from residency. As an Internal Medicine doc, you take care of patients in clinic or in the hospital. During residency, I did have one half day of clinic per week, and certain months were outpatient only months. However, most of our training is based in the hospital with inpatients. We get new hospital admissions either from the ER or a clinic where the patient was seen. By the time that I received an admission as a resident, the patient had already been seen and evaluated, and somebody had some idea of what was wrong with them. They usually came with some kind of provisional diagnosis, such as GI bleed, or chest pain, and a set of labs and possibly imaging. Now, working in the ER, I'm starting from scratch. I'm the first doctor to see the patient. All I have are their vital signs and whatever the triage nurse took down as their chief complaint. It's kind of fun to start from scratch, going with my history and physical exam and a brief chart review to decide what labs and studies to order to try to figure out what is going on.

Happiness Is....

... a new 46" HDTV.

Recently we purchased a new surround sound system and blue ray player in preparation for our entrance into the 21st century. We got an amazing deal from a friend who had an extra one that came with their new TV but didn't need it. Of course no new system would be complete without also replacing the old TV that I bought in college....the search began.

After much searching, asking questions and reading reviews we decided that "go big or go home" was a fitting mantra to use for this occasion. We decided to splurge a little.


Today was the arrival of the newest member of the Browning Family... a Samsung 46" LED LCD HDTV.






We got it from Amazon at a great price and now have a very sweet home theater setup. These new Samsung TVs are about 1.5 inches thick and look very cool. The video performance is amazing and unlike most LCD TVs the LED backlight technology can provide pure black colors and high contrast ratios. The other cool thing about this LCD TV is that there's almost no image degradation from extreme off-angle viewing.

The TV will live in the alcove above the fireplace like the old one.

As a necessary test I proceeded to watch select scenes from various DVDs on the new system. It wasn't Blue Ray quality of course but the player can up-convert standard DVDs to a higher image resolution. Everything looks fantastic and I'm very pleased.

Next step HD Cable?

sweet potatoes

I made mashed sweet potato today, and it was a big hit! I kept the texture a little thicker than my previous purees, and Chris did fine with swallowing it. After he finished his portion, I gave the spoon to him to play with, and he brought it to his mouth. It looked like he was trying to feed himself!

small but healthy

After visiting with Angie and Johnathan (who can now sit unsupported- big boy!), Chris had a followup appointment with Dr. Bunik at Children's. He weighed 13 lb 14 oz today. I was hoping for more weight gain, since he was 13 lb 11 oz two weeks ago. However, he is now tracking on a growth curve- the 1st percentile. Dr. Bunik and Lorry, the lactation nurse, think he's doing great. Dr. B told me again not to worry so much about him. He is a small, active, healthy baby. We don't need to see them any more.

back to work

My return to work is approaching! My first shift at the VA ER is this Saturday night, 7pm to 7 am. I will be the ER attending! This will also be my first time working unsupervised. (Don't tell the vets that.) However, I am qualified- licensed and board eligible. Hopefully I still remember how to take care of sick people. I have located my stethoscope and put my pocket medicine book back into my white coat pocket. I bought a second set of pump parts so I can pump twice at work without having to wash them. Doug is all set on daddy duty. I'm ready to go!

joe

the halfway point

At the end of last month, Chris turned six months. Half a year old! And I am at the halfway point of my year off. Six months from now, July 9, I will be one week into the career/ home juggle as a heme/onc fellow. Chris will be in daycare, and I don't know who will cook dinner. The time has gone by both slowly and quickly. Every day is the same. . . but just a little bit different. At his last weigh in, Chris had doubled his birth weight. I don't notice the changes day to day, but he sure is growing! He should start doing more fun tricks developmentally during the second half of the year. I know it's going to fly by. I'm making an effort to try to enjoy each day.

chicken face

side

Chris' new thing is playing while lying on his side. He managed to get himself turned over while playing today.

fun toy

baby food

I made my second batch of baby food today- pureed acorn squash. First I baked it, then scooped it out and pureed it with the stick blender. I love our stick blender! It's perfect for making little batches of purees. I fed some to Chris, and he ate most of it. He did push some of it out of his mouth. I think he likes the apple better. Single ingredient purees are easy to make! I'm glad I have the time to do this.

kary and brian

Today our friends from Michigan visited. Come again soon guys!

polar bear

happy new year!

Hello 2010!

likes apples

I made apple puree today using the steamer and stick blender. Chris liked it and nibbled on the tip of the spoon. Next up: pears, squash, and chicken, but I need to wait a few days before introducing a new food to make sure he doesn't have an allergy to anything.