I'm taking a break from the Poland trip posts because it's nice to record some of the daily happenings that might be interesting someday.
The big controversy at work lately is the bone marrow biopsies. Steve Freestone has gone to a lot of effort to train our pathology assistants in the procedure and we had premission from the previous chief medical officer (CMO) to allow them to do the biopsies under our supervision. The volume of biopsies that we are doing has increased and we don't have time to do them all. Besides, we are the only pathologist in the entire IHC system who do them. All the other hospitals have physician assistants or nurses doing them. The new CMO decided that our pathology assistants aren't credentialed at the hospital and thus can't do the procedure. Willes naturally exploded over that and is threatening all sorts of things, which is what he does when he doesn't get his way. I can see their point and if we change the bylaws we can get what we want but it may take up to a year. Meanwhile we will have to keep doing the biopsies to keep the hospital happy because they don't want to hire anyone else to do it and we are in the middle of negotiating a contract and don't want to rock the boat.
My exercise lately has been all about training for another Grand Canyon rim-to-rim-to-rim run. This time I'm hoping to actually run a little more and get a better time. I'm doing it with med-school friend Tim Yazzie, who does family practice in Ogden now. I ran into him randomly on the trail during last summer's King's Peak hike, and I've followed him on Facebook. My neighbor Mark Finlayson, who routinely does 20 mile trail runs a couple times a week also might join us. I have been running/hiking up Rock Canyon to the campground once or twice a week with a longer hike on the weekends. Last week I climbed Spanish Fork Peak but I was on the wrong trail and ended up bushwhacking to the top of a peak and then traversing rugged rideges until I found a way to the real trail. Another time I went up to Cascade Saddle and then Shingle Mill peak. Yesterday I took it easy and did the 8-mile Battle Creek to Grove Creek loop. I saw 6 wild turkeys near the spring.
I can hear Brita playing the piano in her room. She's working on Bohemian Rhapsody just for fun. I told her to get her band to play it because the keyboard part is so cool. She's impressing me with her ambition. She's in high-school now and taking a math class with all the smart kids a year older than her. She is also in AP geography. With a little encouragement she is going to be on the tennis team. When I was her age I was scared to try out for any sport because I knew I wasn't any good at it. What I know now that I didn't understand then was that doesn't matter. I hope Brita really gets that. She likes the idea of adding sports to her resume, even if she isn't crazy about sports.
Last year was frustrating with Leah because she was so disorganized with her homework and fell behind. This year she seems to be staying on top of it so far. She is taking honors science and English and her math teacher is the good one, so it's nice to see her feeling confident and motivated. She wanted to be in classes with her friends and so far it seems to be helping her.
Year two of Spanish immersion is underway for Meg. I wonder how much she understands. She doesn't like it when I speak Spanish to her, and she still complains about our reading time. She's back in piano lessons because that was the condition for her to play Minecraft and the practicing with Rachelle is still an ordeal that turn into an hours long power struggle. We might have made a breakthrough though by suggesting that she do it on her own. She likes it better, but we will see how effective it is. Friday morning she got up early, got ready, practiced and did all her homework including reading before breakfast. That was the day Rachelle was gone taking her parents to meet Doug in St. George, so I got lucky.
I took Brita and her friend Jane Harvey to the high-school football game. It's intersting to me because three boys that I had in scouts are starters on the team. I don't know if Brita and Jane watched the game but they seemed to enjoy the social experience and Brita walked by the Mountain View crowd several times hoping to see this guy that's in her band who attends school there. I sat by Mike Easton and the Finlaysons, so I was social too. Provo is much better this year and won easily. The true test will be against Timpview next week.
The big event for the week was my Grandma Szymanski's 90th birthday party. We were late because Brita and Leah's bands were playing the "Taste of Utah Valley" festival in Provo and the party was in Ogden. We made it in time to join the performance of the chicken dance with all of Lon's posterity. Ben was there with 6 of his kids. I enjoyed talking to Esther but didn't know any of the others, and I hadn't seen Ben for at least 30 years. They performed the worst rendition of Billy Joel's "Longest Time" that I have ever heard. Everyone was singing their own harmony in a different key. Paul played something on the concertina, which is a miracle because of how he was paralyzed and nearly died a year ago. Kerry Bird looked well and I was happy to see him because he nearly died of stomach cancer earlier this year. I talked the most to Nathan Moore about his trip to Vietnam and Cambodia because I want him to take me there someday.
I made it back in time to ride my bike down to the stadium for the BYU football game. That game against Boise State was worth the entire cost of the season tickets as they won on a last minute bomb in the end-zone for the second straight week. It's great to be there in person for those types of games.
No comments:
Post a Comment