A Fabulous Fourth Weekend

Our three-day 4^th of July weekend was absolutely amazing!  As soon as I got off work at 5 PM, Landon and I headed to meet everyone at Marcyk’s for tasty burgers on the sidewalk.  After burgers and sharing some scrumptious bottles of wine, we headed to an art exhibition at the Santa Fe Art Walk.  Hannah and Andrew’s friend, Whit, was featured in the exhibition and had so many incredible pieces around the gallery.  The gallery, Icelantic, was a great, modern space with great atmosphere, live music, free beer, cotton candy, “adult snow cones” and a moonwalk.  It was great to meet Whit and talk with him about his work, and I loved getting to know Hannah and Andrew’s friends better.  We ended the night at the Blake Street Vault, so far one of my favorite establishments in Denver.  Built in 1863, it was one of Denver’s first brick buildings and one of the first saloons to grace the streets of early Denver about 5 years after gold was discovered in Cherry Creek.  It has underground tunnels, a gold-lined vault and a secret elevator…and is even rumored to have a ghost. They offer tours of the downstairs and I definitely plan on taking one this year!

Blake Street Vault circa 1860's

 Saturday Landon and I rode our bikes to the Cherry Creek Arts Festival where we met up with Arthur, our buddy and Stevie’s dad.  We walked around and looked at some beautiful and unique art (my favorite was an artist who represented South African townships with beautiful murals of paint, hammered tin and other rough materials).  We lunched on Greek food while listening to live music, and headed back to our house in the late afternoon to get ready for the evening BBQ at our casa.  As we biked back through the charming neighborhoods of Denver, I was laughing to myself because I felt like I was on the set of a quintessential American movie.  It was like driving through Pleasantville with American flags blowing gently in the wind on white porches, children playing in the front yard, hard-working fathers mowing the lawn, even a group of fire-fighters standing and chatting outside the station.  Just needed a country music soundtrack to complete the effect, but as funny as I found it, I thought it equally peaceful and it made me very happy.  That afternoon I made quite a lovely canopy of red, white and blue streamers on the back porch and cooked up a few side dishes and Landon grilled the meat.  Everyone contributed potluck and we had quite a delicious feast while listening to music, talking and laughing until it was way past sunset.  Even though three of our four tikki torches went up the flame, the rest of the BBQ was fantastic and lasted until about 2 AM.

Cherry Creek Arts Festival

Lesson learned: don't use tikki torches you find in the garage of your rental house

 We relaxed most of Sunday, then biked several miles to The Highlands for dinner at Lola that evening.  Lola is a great Mexican restaurant situation in the beautiful Highlands, a Denver neighborhood appropriately described for its elevated location above downtown which gives great views of the skyline.  Our favorite part of Lola was the “make-at-your-table”guacamole!  We biked around The Highlands for awhile after dinner, then hopped on the Cherry Creek Trail by the Platte River to head to Civic Center Park to meet our friends to listen to the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and watch the fireworks.  Unfortunately our plans were thwarted by a thorn-Landon’s bike tire blew out which ended up with him biking home to get the car, me walking to the park by myself to wait for him…then ending up watching the fireworks by myself because he couldn’t find a place to park with all the people downtown!  I was sad that he missed out on listening to the incredible symphony perform while dazzling fireworks exploded overhead.  I enjoyed it all so much and sang along to the beautiful songs that remind me of how thankful I am to live in our beautiful country.  For the “expatriate” that I often claim to be with all my traveling, I am truly grateful and humbled to be an American and for the sacrifices made for the benefit of our country and its people.  There is such a sense of unity on 4^th of July, and as I stood shoulder-to-shoulder with thousands of people craning their necks toward the sparkling sky, I felt it deeply.  Luckily I found Landon on the side of 14^th street as I began to walk back (my phone wasn’t working due to all the network traffic).  He’d found a group of our friends and was chatting with them and luckily he spotted me!

Delicious guac at Lola

Colorado Symphony Orchestra playing in Civic Center Park

Fireworks at Civic Center Park

Monday morning we awoke with excitement because we were going white-water rafting in Idaho Springs!  Tori, Jessica and Arthur came over and we had a breakfast of blueberry muffins, freshly-ground coffee and scrambled eggs then headed out on 70-West to Idaho Springs to raft Clear Creek.  We were thrilled when our guide, an Argentinian named Ivan, told us that the day was one of the best in the past 10 years to raft the creek!  The water was incredibly high and swiftly flowing, and though he was relaxed and good-natured, he continually emphasized all of the safety tips and the need for us to paddle, paddle, paddle!  He was a skillful guide as we made our way down the progressively more difficult water, at times screaming commands at the top of his lungs and at times gleefully demanding “paddle high fives”.  Landon and Tori were up front and kept getting smashed by walls of water that rose up in front of us.  The rapids were huge and constant, and we almost lost Arthur out of the boat at one point!  Thankfully we all survived the raging creek and the freezing water, and made it back from Idaho Springs safely.  We ended the adventurous day at Anjum’s 11^th floor apartment, eating delicious grilled food and watching the skyline ignite with dozens of different fireworks shows.

Clear Creek!

The rafting crew: Landon, Jessica, Sara, Tori and Arthur

The lady interns (minus Amanda and Laura)

I couldn’t have asked for a more relaxing, fun and enjoyable 4^th of July weekend.  Sharing it with Landon and new friends was so wonderful, and at the end of it all the word I felt most was “thankful”.  

Downtown Denver

Buena Vista

Last weekend I took a trip to Buena Vista with Tori, Andrea and Mike.  Tori's family has a cabin out there, and she was nice enough to invite us up for a weekend!  The drive was spectacular, and I could hardly keep my eyes on the road as we wound past rivers, canyons and towering mountain peaks.  We'd climb up one mountain grade to reach the top and be awarded with sweeping views of the valleys blending into more mountains in the distance.  It hardly seemed like we were just miles out of Denver.

The road to Tori's cabin

 The girls and I arrived before Mike and had lunch at a brewery in the town.  We then made our way to Tori's cabin stopping to take pictures at almost every turn.  The cabin was spacious but quaint, and after dropping off our things we went on a hike along the river.  I loved the way the sunshine shone through the tops of the aspen trees, turning their leaves into shining green and gold coins.  After hiking near the cabin, we drove to the natural hot springs and then up to the historic town of St. Elmo.  St. Elmo is considered one of the most well-preserved ghost towns in Colorado.  It was founded in 1880, when nearly 2,000 people settled in the town to mine gold and silver.  The mining industry started to decline in the early 1920s, and in 1922 the train discontinued service.  Henceforth the town slowly became less and less occupied.  It was a bit eerie to walk through it, seeing such incredibly preserved buildings and homes, like the people just left at a moment's notice. 

The best part of St. Elmo's, though, was some furry friends that we made across from the town's general store.  We bought several bags of sunflower seeds and feed them for quite some time because we couldn't get enough of their fat cheeks as they gorged themselves from our hands.

That evening we had dinner at a great Mexican restaurant then drank wine back at Tori's cabin while playing the board game "Operation" (yes, extremely cliche and dorky for a group of doctors, but it's just the best game ever).  The next morning we got up early, headed into town for coffee, then made our way to River Runners for an afternoon of white-water rafting on the Arkansas.  The river was flowing at 3,600 cubic feet per second, very fast due to all the run-off from the melting snow in the mountains.  We had a great time with our rafting guide Jonathan as he guided us through some churning, foaming, swifly-flowing rapids.  My favorite was called Zoom Floom, a pretty decent set of rapids with some major vertical drops.  I wish I could have had a video camera trained on our faces to catch our expressions as we blasted through the rapids.  I absolutely love white-water rafting and I can't wait to take Landon for the first time!  The water was freezing, and I was thankful for the wet-suits we wore, especially since they were incredibly stylish.

 

 

 

My first week as a doctor(a) at Salud Clinic

I started working for the first time as a REAL doctor last week at Salud Clinic in Commerce City.  Salud Clinic is a community clinic that provides many health services to the uninsured and underinsured.  I learned about Salud Clinic during my interview at PSL last January, and I knew that if I was accepted to the program, I very much wanted to do my ambulatory month there.  I was thrilled to be assigned there, and showed up on my first day very nervous but very excited.

I was incredibly surprised when I arrived.  I had naively expected the clinic to be run-down since it cares for patients with little to no insurance.  It's actually a beautiful new building with incredible facilities!  It's clean and gleaming from the exam rooms to the front desk, and everyone that works there is so friendly.  I spent my first few days with Dr. Melendez, a Mexican-born family medicine physician who has practiced in Colorado for several years.  After greeting me with a warm smile and a handshake, she said "Well, I'm going to throw you to the wolves...go see your first patient."  And I was off.  I spent the first two days of internship seeing patients on my own with Dr. Melendez reinforcing my assessments and treatment plans.  Almost every patient is only Spanish-speaking, so I have enjoyed the additional challenge of not only seeing patient on my own but conducting the history and physical in Spanish.  It's great practice for Miami!

The next week I was with my assigned attending, Dr. Layne Bracy, because he had been out on vacation my first two days.  He is a very kind, young family medicine physician quite new out of residency.  He is smart, fun to work with and loves the outdoors as much as I do.  He made it a point to take me to the rooftop of the clinic my second day to show me the view of the mountains to the west.  He has a pretty similar teaching style as Dr. Melendez, and was very encouraging of me being autonomous in seeing and working up my own patients.  His patients obviously love him very dearly, and I've enjoyed watching their interactions.  The nursing and medical assistant staff at the clinic have become my new best buds: a group of twenty-something sassy Latinas who are tons of fun and love to joke around with me. 

I've definitely seen some interesting cases this week:
-Hypo-pituitarism
-Severe cutaneous abscess
-Pneumonia
-A woman convinced of being pregnant despite two negative urine pregnancy tests
-A young girl with a huge area of fluctuance on her scalp...denied trauma but had a very odd dynamic with her father who was in the room

There have definitely been the run-of-the mill hypertension and diabetes cases as well, and I've gotten to do a few procedures (suture removal, aspirating a cyst, etc.)

I'm very much enjoying the relaxed atmosphere of the clinic and the wonderful people I am privileged to work with.  I will be working there until July 22nd, after which I begin internal medicine wards at Presbyterian St. Luke's Hospital.