Some photos from my recent excursions here in the Southwest (from top to bottom)
1. Panorama shot of the Blue Mesa in Petrified Forest National Park. It's part of hte painted desert...just a few miles away it looks the same but in reds and oranges.
2. Mummy Cave at Canyon de Chelly in Arizona.
3. The Navajo Rug room at Hubbel's Trading Post.
4. My journaling rock
5. Window Rock, capital of the Navajo Nation.
6. Last but not least, I saw my very first American football game, and Gallup High School vs the Cibola Cougars. :)





¶ 21:32

The Navajo certainly make interesting patients. A 50+ year old man comes in, rodeo belt bucle, suede cowboy hat, craggy brown face complaining of a sore knee. So, as I think through my differential i ask him about trauma to the knee, when it started, etc. I end up with a story about how he went down to mexico and got a pony for "his woman" and how it ran away yesterday so he spent the day climbing the nearby mountain in search of the horse. "Ever since then my knee's been bothering me, and I can't even herd my billy goats" I just looked at him and asked, "billy goats?". and he says, "yeah, they're real rowdy this time of the year. It's mating season and they're real territorial". And the list goes on. I have patients whose kids got bitten by the family goose, rodeo riders with arthritis, old ladies with sore backs from pinon picking. Noone knows what their meds are, how could they with all these strange names like ranitidine and metformin and lisinopril on the bottles. Compared to many patients I've encountered, they're suprisingly very compliant. Only problem is when they run out of meds they dont come in right away. I ask them where they live and they give me very thorough answers, Nazchitti village, 2 miles east of X past the school and west of the whatever store. :) In general all their answers are very thorough, when they choose to answer that is. Some simply won't deal with me b/c i'm not their doctor or b/c i'm a female. I come into the room and say that i'm a medical student working with doctor Buffaloe and would like to ask them some questions and do an exam. For the most part they are okay with me, but I always know when I'm getting rejected b/c I'll always get a suspicious look in return and the question "What kind of questions?" followed by silence no matter what my answer to their question is. The kids are fun, the babies like me. Hehe, I was reminded of my time in Finland where all the kids seem to be either frightened or puzzled by me. Not here. :) Guess my face is somewhat familiar, at least compared to the white bearded white man who is my preceptor. they come up to me with smiles and proceed to pull my hair out of my ponytail and climb into my lap, all the while drooling over my nice white coat. Bah, what's it good for anyways. So all in all, I'm loving it here. I enjoy these patients and the staff I work with and am forever entertained by their stories of goats, sheep, horses, rodeos, and their unique perspective on the western medicine I deliver. This weekend I go to the capital of the Navajo Nation, Window Rock at Fort Defiance. ¶ 22:09

Day 1 at the Tohatchi clinic. Exciting times :) my first patient was a 16 year old boy with an ingrown toenail. hehe my preceptor was so excited at my first procedure. So i prepped the poor boy's toe, injected it full of lidocaine, used scissors to cut the toenail in half, grabbed and lifted the nail up with a clamp and YANKED it out! lol, i took off the medial half of this poor boy's big toe and boy did it smell! stinky toe. I told him so, and as you might expect, he thought it was funny that his toe stunk and that wanted to keep the nail i had yanked out as a souveneir. Boys....what can i say.
My second patient was a woman with medial epicondylitis and neurofibromatosis. she had this big ol' fibroma on her scalp that was bugging her, so I got to get more lidocaine, numb it up and use scissors to cut bluntly dissect it. it was like cutting a wart off someone's head. then we cauterized the site and sent her home. whoohoo. the rest of the day was much the same, lots of toes, lots of diabetes, and a gal with positional vertigo that we did an eppley manuever on. next week i get to go to a traditional navajo blessing ceremony for puberty. :D ¶ 22:07

Gallup, NM. This a view from McGaffey's Point in a forest area beside a retired army base. It's across the ways from Red Rock State Park with I-40 and Historic 66 dividing the two areas. Such a pretty place :)






the second photo was taken in red rock state park and it's called Church rock (looks more like a hand if you ask me...) Meghan (my host family's daughter) and I hiked up there yesterday. At the base of Church rock and Pyramid rock beside it are grounds for the rodeos that come through. Yee-haw!

I'm basically settled in here in Gallup. Got my bearings around the town, drove down historic 66 a bit to see the trading posts and little cafes. Tried some navajo fry bread yesterday and tomorrow I head out to Tohatchi Clinic with my preceptor. It's about 50 miles north of here on the Navajo Nation. ¶ 19:06

Hello from the open road. Spent the last weekend driving through states and visiting old friends. DC and I had dinner with Momo and Yemi in Indiana then spent 2 days with miss Yuuka over in Illinois. The last 4 days I've been wandering around between boulder and denver, colorado. Boulder's an interesting city...noveau hippie with liberal pretentions(?) hehe, well there's organic food on every corner, no fast food to be found, every other store has herbal supplements or imports from india or tibet, an actual functioning bus system, bike paths, and even SIDEWALKS that are utilized! hehe, all in all it's a fun place with plenty of used bookstores and coffee shops to keep me entertained. Here are some pictures from our trip thus far...



Yuka- she never changes :)








this sums up kansas....there was nothing on the drive through kansas except open road and lots of reference to dorothy, her shoes, and her dog Toto. I've never seen such an empty state, even off the freeway you had to drive 8-9 miles to get to the advertized gasoline or food stops.






The ONION!! right by University of Colorado, boulder









Waiting for the Bus in Boulder

Last but not least...DC and her caffeine addiction ;) ¶ 16:57

1. What is your occupation? student
2. What are you listening to right now? Pimsleur's Eastern Arabic
3. What was your favorite vacation spot? ummm...tough call. Hedo Point, Okinawa
4. What was the last thing you ate? a cookie
5. Do you wish on stars? when i see them :)
6. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Yellow
7. How is the weather right now? high 60's
8. Last person you spoke to on the phone? my mommy
9. How many different sizes of jeans are in your closet? 2
10. How old are you today? 24
11. Favorite drink? Coffee
12. Favorite sport to watch? soccer
13. Have you ever dyed your hair? yes
14. Do you wear contacts? yes
15. Pets? hehe a LONG sordid history of them
16. Favorite month? June
17. Favorite food? steamed flounder with black bean sauce
18. What was the last movie you watched? Constant Gardener
19. Favorite day of the year? december 24
20. What do you do to vent anger? hit something or talk to someone
21. What was your favorite toy as a child? my books (i know, what a geek, aye?)
22. Fall or Spring? sPRING
23. Hugs or kisses? both
24. Cherry or Blueberry? Blueberries
25. Do you want your friends to email (blog) you back? sure, why not
26. Who is most likely to respond? one of them at least..
27. Who is least likely to respond? not sure
28. Living arrangements? A house with 3 roommates
29. When was the last time you cried? hmm...last year?
30. What is on the floor of your closet? storage box
31. Who is the friend you have had the longest? Ari
32. What did you do last night? So sad...got back from the hospital. took a nap. ate with my roommates. watched some tv. tried to study. stressed over lack of knowledge of arabic verbs. went to bed.
33. Favorite smell? Brewing coffee
34. What (who) inspires you? world trekkers who try to save humanity
35. What are you afraid of? roots
36. Favorite car? audi tt
37. Favorite dog breed? corgis
38. Number of keys on your key ring? 5
39. How many years at your current job? um...job??
40. Favorite day of the week? friday
41. How many states have you lived in? 3
42. How many cities have you lived in? 9 ¶ 22:59