Chiro-practically speaking

Professional VS NonProfessional

On greater than one occasion, Challene has approached me with a headache, neckache, shoulder pain, or whatever in hopes of receiving a cure from my skilled hands. Of course, I oblige. Apparently, we had a little spy a few times because Ethan now asks for his neck and back to be worked on. "Fix my back," he'd say while diving on the ground. He'd hold still as I would adjust his back and neck.

Needless to say, I need to get me a table. Well, on greater than one occasion Ethan would be so greatful for my magic hands that he would want to return the favor. "Ethan fix Daddy's back. Lay down Daddy." He'd say excitedly. Of course, I'd oblige.

Not bad form on this one.
I think all his training must have gone out the window for this move. Honestly, I don't know what he was trying to accomplish here.
He was just finishing an 'Atomic Elbow Drop' in this photo. I quickly explained that patients don't appreciate that move as a therapeutic adjustment.

He learned from the best!




Mommy got a taste of it too!

Well, I'm two weeks into my next quarter and I'm loving it. Let me 'splain. It seems that 8th and 9th quarters are the most demanding of the entire program. As such, the school has created the split program where a student may opt to 'split' 8 and 9 into three different quarters. This I have chosen to do. I have but a mere 23 credit hours this quarter. Ahhhh, it's like a walk in the park. I never thought I'd be happy about 23 hours. But when you go from 38 to 23, it makes a big difference. At any rate, I now have Friday off completely and I get a half day off on Thursdays.

I have 5 patients. One of which is actually off this quarter, but if he needs to come in, I'm his intern. Two of my patients are upper quartermen which is good because they can tell me all their mistakes and give me pointers. I hope to take advantage of that.

As is custom, I suppose I'll give you a breakdown of my classes for this quarter:

• Physical Therapy II - Whereas last time we studied modalities (i.e.: electrical therapy, hot/cold, Ultrasound, Diathermy, etc.) this quarter we're focusing more on the rehabilitation aspect of physical therapy. For example, we're studying Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF) which is an incredibly affective way to rehab torn muscle groups (rotator cuff for example). We did it in lab for our shoulders for about 30 minutes and I was hurting the next day. It really isolates the specific groups you need. Which..... is good.


• NeuroMusculoSkeletal III - The last in the NMS series. We finished the lower extremity last quarter, so we started the upper extremity this quarter. For the laboratory final we had to put together our own exam flows for the knee and ankle. "What does that mean, Will?" When a patient comes in, or if an injury occurs during a sporting event or something this is the exam that should be done. It screens for fractures and includes a complete exam of the entire area. Well, everybody (including me) was freaking out about putting these together. There were several "flows" floating around campus that people were using, but I put my own flow together that made sense to me and I kicked butt on the final. I mean, I nailed it! I ended up performing the knee regional exam for my instructor which was probably the harder one due to the incredible number of orthopedic tests included. I missed one point -- which was just a brain-fart on my part. My partner got the ankle exam and barely passed.


• Soft Tissue II - Part one was several quarters ago and focused on massage and stretching. This time, it is geared towards rehab like PTII. We're learning inovative ways to perform spinal traction without having to buy a $500,000 machine. Actually, all it involves is a long belt. Pretty cool.


• Clinic Phase II - A continuation of the clinic experience. We spent most of last quarter memorizing a general physical exam flow. This quarter is getting more specific. Last week we did an Eye Ear Nose and Throat exam. They hire people to act as patients for us, so it's kind of cool that way. My patient was complaining of a headache and vision changes. Well, after examining her, I discovered that she has Glaucoma (not really, but was pretending to be). It was kind of fun. Not so fun in this class are a couple of the other specific exams I have to perform. Let me explain. WSCC trains us to be "Port-of-entry" physicians. What does that mean? Just like an M.D. family doctor, I'm trained to diagnose pretty much anything. The only difference is my choice of treatment. As it is, the school is required to teach me according to the scope of practice for chiropractors in Oregon. Oregon has the biggest scope of practice in the nation for chiropractors. As a result, part of the program includes performing a certain number of Prostate Exams, Gynecological Exams, and Male/Female Genitourinary Exams. Those will be happening this quarter. They hire people to be patients for these too. Soooo.... that's nice.


• Cardiorespiratory - Ummm, studying diseases/conditions of the cardiorespiratory system. Beyond pathology we look into history, presenting signs/symptoms, diagnosis treatment, and prognosis. It's a great class, but the instructor is so dog-on boring! Honestly, the only way I can stay awake is to do a Sudoku or a crossword during class. Otherwise, I'd be sleeping.


• Cast Lab II - Last quarter we did the lower extremity, can you guess what we're doing this quarter? Upper extremity, that's right. Beyond plaster casts, we also do slings, taping, splinting, compression wraps, etc., etc. We actually only meet like four times throughout the quarter.

Looks like that's about it. I have actual scheduled time I have to be in the clinic. If I don't have patients that day, and am not asked to be the Intern-on-call, I do paperwork. There is a gargantuan amount of paperwork to do. You may be surprised.

Well, you made it to the end of this entry, here's a couple more pictures for your reward.

Ethan explaining his drawing of Nemo. He's never been able to recreate the drawing since.

My cute little Joshy. His whole mouth is white with approaching teeth. He's been pretty miserable lately.

Quinn and LauraLee came up for a visit during break. We plan on an entire entry dedicated to that trip, but here's a teaser. They took this of us at Multnomah Falls.

My bike during a nice ride up Larch Mountain recently. Nice way to end it I think.

Lazy Days of Summer

During some of the warmer holidays that I have off of school we like to go down to the "river-side" and enjoy the cool water, natural atmosphere, and the many, many Mexicanos. It's a lot of fun. We pack a picnic, get the beach umbrella out and hang out. This is what we did for Memorial Day.

Ethan all ready to go with sunglasses and all

Joshua sported more of a Gilligan motif.

Wait! Looks like Challene is wearing shorts and a jacket? What in the...? Well, that's what we get around here. She's always cold when we're always hot. The only time we really agree is when she's 8 months pregnant. Still, that is not motivation enough for another kid right now.

Ethan doesn't really get many sweets, so this was a real treat for him. Look how small of bites he is taking in attempt to savor every morsel.

This is our favorite part of the day, going to the riverside and throwing rocks into the water. The water was F-R-E... freezing! So we didn't wade in at all this year.

This is Joshua's protest for getting into the high-chair. He goes as stiff as a board and refuses to bend. So, we just let him stand until he gets tired and slumps into the chair. Note: we do not leave him alone in the chair, we watch and stand closely to ensure no falling of any kind occurs.

After dinner.

This was Joshy's eight month mark (he's going on ten now -- we're a little behind)
Joshy now has 4 teeth in. Two bottom central incisors, one top central incisor, and one top (left) lateral incisor. The rest are poised and ready to come in at any moment. The poor kid has been pretty miserable at times.

I guess you couldn't tell that from these pictures. He's a smiling boy. His whole face lights up when he smiles. As you can see.

I think Joshua may skip crawling all together. Perhaps he doesn't understand how critical crawling is for developing the curvature of your spine. Or perhaps he sees Ethan walking and wants to be like him. At any rate, he is climbing on things and furniture cruising with the best of them.
Poor kid gets worn out. Look how long he's gotten! He's in the 90th percentile for everything except head circumference (75%). I think Ethan knows Joshy's gonna be big and is picking on him as much as he can right now!

Yea, he's sawing logs! Gosh, he's getting big too. Hard to believe.

One last one of Joshy. He was a very big surprise when he decided to come to us, but I'm so glad he did. He's been such a joy to us. It is unbelievable how different he and Ethan are!

*Sigh* The Zoo

The Zoo

So every week I go to a "Mom and Me" group that our ward has. This week happened to be "Two-Buck-Tuesday at the Zoo. I got a ride with my friend Melissa and another one of our friends Amy caravaned behined us. When we got close to the Zoo there were signs telling us that the parking lot was full and that there was another parking lot with a shuttle. So Melissa and I talked and we were like, "well we came this far we might as well still go." So after another couple mile drive we arrived at a distant parking lot. At this point we got each of our two kids, our double strollers, our diaper bags, camara bags, and our packed lunches all together and we continued to walk a short but steep distance to stand in a line for a shuttle. Now this really was not a shuttle it was a regular old yellow school bus. Amy, Melissa and I are like, "how on earth are we going to get our stuff on that," but we watched as strollers were loaded into the back of the bus with help from the drivers. So we thought we can do this. That bus filled up so we ended up waiting 30 minute or so for another bus to come. With some struggles but some nice help from the driver and strangers we all made it! But do not think this is were all the frustrations end there is more. It all went wrong on the way back. We found the spot where the buses were picking people up to take them back to the distant parking lot. We struggled as all three of us unloaded our two kids, three bags, folded up our strollers (with our youngest child and bags in our arms) and drug our strollers up to the door of the bus. Nobody I mean absoulutely NOBODY would help. Not the cranky bus driver lady, not the twenty people behind us in line waiting. Poor sweet Melissa heaved our heavy strollers onto the bus asking as nicely as she could for the people in the first couple of rows to move back so that she did not have to carry the stroller any further. All the while they just stared at her and would not MOVE! So with each stroller she put on she would ask again to move and they would just stare at her. The the bus driver had the audacity to say to her, "How many times are you going to make these people move?" I could not believe it when she told me what had happened later. So we finally got loaded then continued to watch others as they heaved their strollers onto the bus past the people who would not move. Once everybody was on and we got back to the distant parking lot we waited for everybody to get off then poor Melissa again hauled our strollers off while we watched her kids (I am not sure why she did it but we were very thankful for her help). It was such a long tireing day of hauling stollers, bags and kids around I had a huge headache afterwards. We all decided that we're definitely never ever going on "Two-Buck-Tuesday" again!

Well, here are some cute pictures of the kids from that day.

These were in the line for the first shuttle.

Definently the first bus ride. Happy, not frazzled and tired yet. That is Melissa holding Branson in the next row back from me.

Joshua napping

Gwen and Ethan

From Left: Gwen, Ethan, Liza and Jessica

From left: Me, Ethan, Jessica, Liza, Amy holding Gwen, and Lindsey holding Olivia (in her belly)

Ethan and his new girl friend Gwen

Gwen and Ethan again

Yep, Ethan has his finger in his nose again! I have tried and tried again to tell him to keep it out and right back it goes not even a second later.

SUPRISE!

Suprise!

So here I am very happy and suprised that my husband (the best in the whole wide world) had thrown me a suprise birthday party. A party with about 20 of my bestest friends here in Portland.

I had the best birthday anybody could have asked for. First off I got to sleep in, I had lunch with a very good friend at Red Robin. Then I came home from lunch to find a nicely cleaned house (that should have tipped me off right there about the party, but I just thought he was being sweet because it was my b-day). I also found my birthday present from Will; a bluetooth head-set. Just what I asked for. At this point I put the children down for a nap and then I myself joined them. Will got home at 5 and we went to Olive Garden for a lovely dinner. After that we went bowling where we had an enjoyable time. Will and I both tied with an even 120 and Ethan got something like 63. I was up for another game when Will complained that his stomach was upset and that the bowling alley bathrooms were not up to his standards and that we needed to go home. So to my disappointment we headed home. Whilest unloading the car Will kept trying to help me and I kept turning him down and wondering why on earth he would not go in the house. I soon found out when I asked him as I was walking past him opening the house door when everybody yelled "SUPRISE!". So it was a night full of great friends, great food, and naps what more could anybody really ask for?

Brad and Erin Hill

Becki Brallier and Penny Kunz

Jared, Lindsey Woolsey with daughter Liza Jane

My, getting-to-big-for-his-own-good, Joushua

Starting in back and moving clockwise: Gwen Marshall, Jessica Turner, and Wakely Kunz

I defenently have to thank Will he made my birthday very very special this year. It was nice. I love him so much!

Cute pic's

Well, here are some new pictures for all to see out in internt-land.

I was trying to get Ethan to look and smile at the camara but he was so inthrawled by his lightning Mcqueen PJ's (or as Ethan likes to call him "Kachow") that he would not look up. The ironic thing lately is if you try to put these PJ's on him he get so very upset. Very strange.

Thumbs up!

Oops wrong finger. We have showed him many times but he just gets mixed up. A couple times he has come up to me looking like he does in the picture with Will. I thought I was introuble like he was telling me "No! No!". I soon figured it out, though. (Will's aside: in reading Dan Brown's Angels and Demon's I've found out the origin's of the "Thumb's Up" sign. I must emphasize that our use of the thumb's up means nothing more than "golly gee, that's neato".)

We thought Joshua was hungry so we put him in the high chair got his food all prepared gave him a couple bites and then he was out like a light. (Will's aside: Rest assured that there is not any food in his cheeks, they're naturally that puffy!)

BAD IDEA!

Will and I trade baby sitting nights with some friends so we can have a date night. So every month we watch two different friends' kids on two different nights so that we can go out two times. However this particular night Will and I thought it would be a great idea to baby sit all the friends' kids on the same night..., you know, get two nights out of one. Well BAD IDEA. Wow it was a lot of work/drama. To many kids around the same age for just two adults. We had Liza getting muddy in the back yard when we tried to go outside. Then the same girl also spilt milk on the Sofa. Actually she was the one that I would say put us over the edge. She did not want to participate in anything we were trying to do. For example color, sing, and play games (ring-around-the-rosies etc.). Anyways I really am not sure we will try that again. (Will's aside: *shudder*)

Ethan is not big on cuddling but Will caught this cute picture of us.

I love this picture. I just recently started to give Joshua this cup so he could start to learn to use it. So I thought I would capture this new acomplishement and I got this great picture. He his such a fun good kid. (Will's aside: His look reminds me of a wild animal with a fresh kill; somewhat eager to show it off, but hesitant to let anyone get to close.)

That's it for now. Hope you enjoyed them. I'm already working on another post, so check back in a few days!

Mom and Me group

Challene, Ethan, and Joshua take part in a "Mom and Me" play group with some of the other ward mothers. Each week they go out with the kids and participate in some fun activity. Just recently, they went to the Rhodadendron Garden. Here are some pictures from the garden that Challene thought you, the viewer, would enjoy. Oregon can be very beautiful.

My three favorite things in this whole world (the kid in the pink coat halfway in the shot is not one of them). I'm so lucky to have such a wonderful family!

It was kind of an overcast day (what else is new), but it looks like a beautiful garden.