One more hurdle...

Paul and I are just now recovered from our major presentations... it took over a week, but I have finally caught up on sleep and recovered from having a cold. Paul is also recovering from his cold, but since he waited a week to go to the doc he's got a cough that is rather stubborn to resolve. My body is telling me in it's own, painful way that I am working too hard and on my feet too much. Besides going to the chiropractor for my neck, I also have some foot pain from standing and walking for 12-14 hours a day. Fortunately, our insurance covers orthotics, which I will be getting in a couple weeks. I feel like I've aged about 10 years since the beginning of this residency.

Last Thursday we had the pleasure of having Paul's cousin, Courtney here to visit! She was very efficient and saw everything she wanted to, even though we had to be in a workshop all day on Friday. She was a perfect houseguest and it was so nice to be able to spend some time with her! Here are some pics from her visit:

I like this pic from the M and M store...


This is where we work!


We took the free Staten island ferry so we could go by the statue of liberty.


Paul and Courtney went climbing at the rock gym! another climber in the making...

She has many other pics of fabulous sights in NYC, but I don't want to steal her thunder. I'm looking forward to the list of guests we have coming out over the next few months! Paul's brother in early may, Paul's mom in late may, and Greg in early June! It's going to be great to finally see some sights around the city... we don't get out much.

So our workshop on Friday was a little... well, sobering. We discussed the paper that we have to write, which is our last hurdle of our residency program. The defining feature of this paper is that it has to be 'publishable quality', with the idea that some of us will pursue publication (in peer reviewed journals, it's a pretty big deal). Well, it turns out that this will be a lot of work. A LOT of work. And i don't think they were exaggerating. It has to be well researched, well written, and basically as perfect as possible. Our first draft is due April 13th, and the final paper is due May 15th. That's really not that much time... ug. Paul is writing up a case report on Autism and I'm writing a case report (same one I did for my minor presentation and my poster) on developmental delay and eye movements. I just hope that we can make a contribution to the literature when it's all said and done, get some credit for all our hard work.

Sorry, that all sounded really boring. Here's something more fun: Paul and I will have our 3 year anniversary on April 1st! We're going to walk across the brooklyn bridge, go out to dinner, and maybe see a jazz show. Spend some time in the city together.

Also good news: I graduated a patient on Saturday that was immensely thrilled with their success in VT... a teenage girl who was so uncomfortable she couldn't read for more than 3o min. She is so smart, has a 4.2 in high school and Yale already wants her. Now she can read for hours and her vision is more clear and stable!! She was so happy, and so was I but sad to see her go. It was a happy ending, though...

Well, enough rambling for one night. Now I'm all caught up and can check one more thing off my to-do list. Yah!!!