Five years ago today

Five years ago today (today being a Monday and the first day of clinical rotations for the medical school) I met Bill. My rotation schedule got totally messed up and I was supposed to be in Darrington Washington for my first rotation and at the VA for my last rotation a year later. The PA in Washington couldn't take me until later the next spring so everything got rearranged. So on that first day, fresh with a new belly button ring that I got pierced to signify the end of my first year I headed from my friend Elizabeth's apartment to the VA at 8 am Monday morning. I had my new white coat on, pockets filled with books. I was nervous. The Internal Medicine rotation at the VA was known for making student's cry. Dave Asprey, the head of the PA program, told me before I started that they wouldn't have sent me there if they didn't think I could make it. At least I wasn't alone. Another classmate of mine, Mark, was also on that rotation. We somehow check in and find ourselves in the right room. So there Mark and I are standing in our clean white coats with stuffed pockets in the corner of the staffing room. Everything looks foreign and scary to us. Then this guy with a pony tail walked in. He took one look at the two of us. He took one look at the bulletin board which had the patients for the day listed on it. He turned and took another look at us. "How trained are you two?" he asked. Being the bold one, I spoke "I mean we can take a history and do a physical if that is what you mean". I don't remember what he said after that. I do remember that no residents showed up that day as it was their first day and they were at some orientation/retreat. I do remember it was only Mark and I seeing all those patients the first day. I do remember being really busy but it was really fun. I didn't cry at all. I remember that pony tailed doctor being nice and smart and hyper. I remember on the walk home calling my mom and telling her all about my day and the nice pony tailed doctor who I worked with named Dr Iverson. And that, my unborn children (no, Mom, I am not pregnant), is how I met your dad.

The Forgotten Race

This morning Bill and I went to Victor Iowa for the Victor 5K Fun Run to support the local playground equipment. Victor is about 45 miles from Iowa. So we drag our sorry selves out of bed and drive there to make this 8 am race. All starts fine. Quickly into the race I realize Victor is not flat. The course was really hilly. I kept just putting one foot in front of the other and slowly started passing people. When I made what had to be one of the final turns toward the end, I was all alone. No one in front of me and no one close behind me. (this is one of my biggest running fears. either being last or all alone and getting lost) I kept thinking I should be seeing the turn to get back to the track where the start/finish is. I kept running and running and then I was out of town to run in. I literally ran out of Victor. This has to be wrong, I thought, so I turned around, had to ask a guy at the gas station "Do you know where the end of the race is?" "Oh you're far from that", he said. Actually, not the helpful advice I was hoping for. I had to double back, cut across the train tracks, through a gravel lot and made it back to the track finally. The lady in charge apparently knew I was lost because the two girls who were a bit behind me noticed that I missed the turn and they were looking out for me. She felt really bad. I was pissed at the stupid course and myself. I was on pace to run my fastest 5 K ever. Bill was up on the course waiting for me. He was starting to get worried when women with strollers who were walking were coming in before me. He had visions of me being in tears out on the course having quit because the hills were just that bad. He had visions of me blowing out my knee and being unable to make it back. He was shocked when he saw me coming up the course from the finish. He finished 4th in what was his worst time ever for a 5 K. He was pissed at himself for running so slow. So here is what the car ride was like on the way home.

Bill: I can't believe I ran a 21:38.
Katie: I can't believe I got lost.
Bill: But at least you were running fast, I can't believe I ran a 21:38.
Katie: Yeah but I GOT LOST.
Bill: Fair enough.

Then we would be silent for a while and repeat the conversation again. We have decided to call it the forgotten race and not speak of it again.

p.s. we clocked my 'detour' in the car after the run and I added on another 1/2 mile. according to my final time and the distance of 3.6 miles I would have blown away my PR. I ran sub 9 minute miles. oh well there is always next week. at least I had something funny to blog about today

Grandma Cook

My two grandmothers are/were amazing. As different as night and day yet loving, attentive and spoiling like all grandmothers should be. My Grandma Cook died over 5 years ago. She was about 5 feet tall, full of energy and love. Nothing every bothered her and when you asked how things were she would say 'fine fine sugar'. She has a dog named Chico and she had about 5 'Chico's' that I remember. One dog would die and she would get another one, name it Chico but not tell anyone the other dog died because she didn't want to make us sad or bother anyone. One time my uncle noticed that in her closet she had hung her clothes on a hanger on another hanger so they were low enough for her to reach as her osteoporosis made her shorter by the day. My uncle asked why she didn't just say something and she said it was 'fine fine sugar'. That day my uncle went out, got another closet bar and put it in. She was so thrilled, you think she got a new car. She raised 7 kids in that little house with a husband who worked mutliple jobs to help them live the American Dream in Detroit in the 40s and 50s. She was a widow for the last almost 30 years of life. She was one tough cookie. She put a dollar bill in everyone's christmas card even my grown dad. She always gave us a pair of socks for 'little christmas' (epiphany jan 6). Everytime we went to visit she would cook up a feast and always send us home in the van with a bag of food. Fried chicken, ham with pickle sandwiches, orange juice in an apple sauce jar with wax paper under the lid and one cracker jack box per kid. I love crackerjack because of my grandma. I put a box in her coffin at her funeral. I haven't had cracker jack out of a single box in years. You know the boxes with the prizes in it. They were on sale at Walmart this weekend so I bought a triple pack for 97 cents. I took it to work yesterday for a snack. As I opened the box and the scent of caramel coated popcorn and peanuts hit my nose I was flooded with all these fond memories of my sweet Grandma Cook. Miss you.

I am trying not to swear or I hate house projects- ADDENDUM BELOW

I am so irritated right now that blogging seems like a good idea to get it all out. I am going to try not to swear. I spent all afternoon cleaning two years of crap from our spare room. Actually I just threw all Bill's crap into a big box; he will never go through it so it seems more clever to have a big box of it rather than it spewn all over the floor. I also bought a few wall shelves and a bulletin board to display Bill's running trophies and medals. It was my secret project. I started with a positive attitude, got the drill, hammer, screws with anchors, diet coke and I was all set. After the first drill attempt I realize my 108 year old walls suck and they are made of pure rock or something. Apparently it is plaster according to my handy dad who could have completed this job in like 10 minutes but lives 1000 miles away. Remind me again why I chose to go to college so far away. It is all Tom Brokaw's fault- long story.

Ok first I call my husband because it seems like the right thing to do before running to daddy but he is busy at work and it is supposed to be a secret project so I really don't give him the details. I call my dad, try to explain to him what was happening and trying not to sound like a girl about to cry. I am be overtired today. My dad said 'go to Ace Hardware. some guy there can help you get what you need. sorry, beautiful, I am not there'. That just makes me more sad. So I go off to Ace, find a helpful guy like my dad said and got these fancy screws+anchors all in one for concrete or whatever kind of crap walls we have in our horrible guest room with nasty blue paint. Apparently many people come to Ace with similar emotional issues because there is a whole case of candy on the way out and I do a very non weight watcher thing and eat because I'm sad, lonely and tired. But it tasted good! My spirits are semi lifted. I return home ready to go. I get those new screws in place. Their heads are too big for holes in the back of the shelf. Shit. Seriously. So I improvise and finally get these two little shelves up. The level says they are not level which must be lying because I checked it like 10 times. Screw it. They are staying put. The rest of our house is on a tilt so maybe it is our 108 year old house which is not level. Now it is time to put up the bulletin board. I measure the distance between the holes on the back of the board, I measure their height from the top. I use a pencil to mark the wall and feeling pretty good about getting this done before Bill gets home. I drill the first hole, put in my fancy all in one screw. Then I go to the next hole. I start to drill, about 1 in circle of paint and plaster come flying at time. What the heck did I hit. I pull the drill out and it literally looks like I'm drilling into rock. I improvised a bit, remind myself that I can do this, I am Joe Cook's daughter after all. I get that screw in finally and then attempt to put up the bulletin board. It won't go. I am off by like a nano inch. Shit. Seriously. I have made this nasty looking huge hole in the way, all the paint is gone and I can't possible make a hole just a nano inch next to it. I try and try and try to get it to go, hammer the screw a bit to the L and up. Nothing works. I hate this house and its well put together 108 year old walls. Bill comes home. "What are you doing?"he asks. "Get down from there." (I am standing on the desk). I explain what I have been through and that I can't get this to go. He assures me he can fix it and get it work. Then I say a really bitchy mean wife comment, "In what like 3 years?". That comment comes from deep down issues about some unfinished projects we have around this house, too numerous and not fair to Bill to recollect in this blog but apparently I am bothered by them. The comment comes more from feeling helpless, hot in my non air conditioned 108 year old house that I currently hate and tired. I need to go apologize but before I do, let's summarize....

108 year old house 2 Katie 0
-- the first two brackets for the new curtains are in the wall uneven with a screw stuck the last time I tried to do something handy around the house
-- the dang bulletin board will not go and there is nasty bare plaster showing in our ugly yet clean extra room with nasty blue paint

Dad, hurry and come visit. Your to-do list is getting longer.

ADDENDUM: I had a long equally hilarious addendum written but blogger lost it. Curses. But it will suffice to say. I apologized. Bill was unfazed yet again at my ability to catastroph-ize (my friend Kim's made up word make catastrophe into a verb or used as catastrophizer the noun). He thanked me for thinking of how to highlight his awards and is thrilled the uncleaned room is now clean again after 2 years. He reminded me that it is a good life lesson to not attempt anything in the extra room between the months of May and Sept due to heat. He did remind me that I promised never to say I hated this house because if I truly hate this house then we need to move and I would be in charge of every detail of moving including finding the house, financing the house, packing our stuff including one zillion star wars figures which are all in a particular order, moving the stuff, unpacking the stuff and getting the new house all arranged. He has promised not to lift a finger in moving if we move because of my hatred of our house. I do wonder when we will get that bulletin board up. We have a long standing bet on the pile of rocks in our driveway that we bought last year for landscaping. He has a grand plan for landscaping, however he has not moved one single rock and they still sit on the driveway since we bought them in Spring 2007. The bet is that I think the rock will still be there when my dad retires. Bill says my dad will never retire. Keep reading to see who wins.

Update on Goals for 2008

So on my Goals for 2008 list on my blog I have 'do vacation collages'. Well I am happy to say that I can check that off my list. So instead of scrapbooking all my pictures, I keep them in plain ol' photo albums and then I make these vacation collages with doubles that hang on the wall of our staircase. That way we can see them everyday and remember our times together. It is amazing to see how much the kids have grown. I started this tradition when Bill and I were dating and he drove me out to my rotation north of Seattle Washington. I made him a big collage of our journey title "there and back again" (to quote bilbo) and it is really fun to look at those pictures when he used to have his ponytail. I was inspired this week to get them done so I spent 1 hour at Walmart on Thursday making tons of prints and then used my time this weekend to crop, corner and arrange. I did it without our best scrapbooking shop open because it was a victim of the 5oo year flood. Now I am caught up with our annual summer vacation less than 1 month away.

My camera is in the shop so these pictures are from my phone and aren't half bad. Here is small portions of my collages... our March 2007 trip to Florida and Disney with my folks. I always put a 'funny' picture of my dad in every collage. Can you find my dad below?

Our summer 2007 trip was to be camp doctors at YL's Castaway Club in Minnesota
Bill and I vacationed solo in 2008 to Puerto Rico... it was glorious!

So that's how it feels...EDITED VERSION

OK SO I AM EDITING MY POST FROM LAST NIGHT. I WAS BEING A BABY ABOUT LOSING. We lost our softball game tonight; THAT'S OK IT IS ONLY CHURCH SOFTBALL AND IT IS MEANT TO BE FUN. It wasn't interdivision play just a regular game in our bracket. They have a great pitcher AND A REALLY SMART LINEUP. I don't like to lose BUT WHO DOES, ALL THE TEAMS WE ALREADY BEAT SURE DIDN'T WANT TO LOSE EITHER. I am all demoralized- SERIOUSLY, KATIE, GET SOMETHING REAL TO WORRY ABOUT. I swore once (hopefully not too loud because it is church league after all) after I missed a pop fly and wrenched my back- STILL TRUE. I almost tossed my hat in the dirt after I stopped a ground ball but didn't get it to first on time- STILL TRUE. I had a full count and swung at this stupid pitch in the dirt way after it dropped because I wasn't thinking- STILL TRUE. I did stop another fast ground ball and made an out at second- STILL TRUE. I did walk twice and scored one run- STILL TRUE. In the last inning with two outs I was up and had a full count. I was tired of being sucky and I took a whack at the ball and hit a ground ball up the 3rd base line. I got to first safely and a runner came in. So I guess it wasn't all bad- BETTER ATTITUDE. Even though we lost 15-5- THAT'S OK IT IS CHURCH LEAGUE SOFTBALL AND IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN.

There sure are a lot of cops out...

So I was done getting my biannual haircut when out in the parking lot I heard the sound of a loud helicopter. Looking up I saw a large army helicopter with an American flag on it going overhead. That must be the president, I thought as I knew he was going to be touring the area today. I know this because the secret service were all over the ER a few days back scoping out the place. We were supposed to leave our trauma room open all day just in case he came in. (aside- I couldn't help but wonder if that hospital in Dallas had been told the same thing the few days before JFK Jr was shot and then no one ever expected to roll through that door what rolled through that door on that November day) Anyway, oh that's neat, I thought as the helicopter went overhead. I just saw the president's helicopter. I left the hair place turned onto a just opened road and starting seeing a lot of cops. Weird, I thought but maybe they are here because the road just opened. I went to get lunch, wound my way around town, passed like 5 more cope cars and picked up Bill at the VA. He had to run to his office so I parked myself at a meter facing Newton Rd right across from the med school. There was this 25 year old kid in a vest which says security on it standing at the exit and I did have to pass a 'do not enter, road closed' sign to get into that lot but I thought it was a mistake. Why the heck is the parking lot closed? So I am sitting and waiting. One sheriff car passes and that security kid waves. He continues to stare at me as I sit and wait for Bill.

And then it happened really fast.... two cop cars, two black SUVs one with the president's little hood flags on it, one truck with army guys with big guns in it, two more cop cars, another truck with troops in it, the Johnson County Ambulance, three or four 15 passenger vans labeled press 1, press 2, extra, another few SUVs and one last cop car. I just had front row seats to the presidential motorcade. Political opinion aside, that guy travels in ridiculous style and security. That is why there are so many cops out on the roads. GW had landed to survey the damage. Bill missed it all, finally came out and I said, I just saw the presidential motorcade go past. He said, You probably were thrilled seeing how you voted for him twice.

I guess I will never live that down.

Happy Father's Day!

Bill and the kids ran a race yesterday which was his Father's Day present. He wanted to go with them and have them run. Nile got 2nd in his age group for the one mile. Bill and Gabby both got 2nd in their age groups for the 5K. The kids gripped a bit about getting up early but Bill had a fabulous time with his kids. Saturday mornings like that will become fewer as the kids just get bigger and busier. I was at work so I had to miss it but that was probably best. It is good for Bill to spend time alone the kids and for them to feel as if they have all of his attention.

Here is the same funny lady doing a song for Father's. See my mother's day post if you are not familiar with her work.

safe and dry and on the same side of the river

Ok every blog so far about the 500 year flood has been sarcastic. I keep getting calls from concerned friends about it so here is a serious update. We live high up from the flood waters. I have learned from my running that our street is appropriately named Summit St because you have to run up hill in any direction to get to it. I got across the river just fine tonight on the way home from work, even stopped to take a few pictures on my camera phone. We have the kids with us this weekend and they are safe. Their mom's house is higher up than ours and is safe. We get a little water in our basement when it rains but we will have no trouble from this flood. My bean bag frog which I have had since I was 5 hates water because he thinks it will make his beans blow up and he will explode, he is safe on the second floor of our house. We cancelled our main service for church tomorrow and are going "first century Acts" and having home churches staged on both sides of the river and in Coralville so people can be together to pray and worship. Many people are worn out from sandbagging for hours just to see the water rise and their hard work be for naught. The damage will be severe and there will be clean up for months. Many local farmers will have lost all their crops and their livelihood. Many people have lost their homes and all their possessions. We are fine and have power, water, stocked pantry, 10 gallons of emergency bottled water, a full fridge of food and each other. So in all my sarcasm about chinook helicopters and cancelled softball games and random non emergencies coming to the ER during such a disaster, we are incredibly blessed and lucky and have not forgotten to be thankful. Thanks for all your prayers and concerned. The Iversons are safe and dry and all on the same side of the river.

Here are some pictures from my phone. For all those who know town, this was taken from the walking bridge over Riverside as I was about cross the Burlington St bridge. The water is about 20 ft over the bank. The Old Capital is the background. This is the water rushing and hitting the bottom of the Burlington St bridge north side which is the side that is soon to close I am sure.

A chinook? Are you kidding me?

Tomorrow at UIHC a chinook helicopter will be bringing in nurses who cannot get here due to the flooding. It rents for $4000/hr according to the National Guard spokesman who was at the disaster meeting this morning that one of our ER physicians attended. We all decided it would be cheaper to pay overtime to the people who are already here, give us free spicy fries (my favorite cafeteria food) and put us up in the dorms (the latter of which they are doing) rather than go with the chinook option. Apparently it is landing at the IC airport but the roads from the airport are flooded and I wonder if they are also renting a duck boat to bring the folks in from there. I am sure there will be new cameras there hoping to see someone fabulous jump out and it will be at least 3 ER nurses with lunch boxes. It is big news around this place and I still cannot believe this is the best option for our tax payer money.

500 year flood

So we are having a 500 year flood which actually means every year there is a 1 in 500 chance of having a flood like this, I think. I do not think it means that we won't flood like this for another 500 years. No matter the actual meaning behind the terminology, the water is impressive and it is very dramatic around the ER. Our department head is out of town. The second in command is out of town as well. The doctor in charge is staying here because the bridges are about to close separating him from the ER and when another doctor who lives on this side of the river told him to go home and that he would cover, the response was "This is my natural disaster". Very dramatic indeed. I worked yesterday when they closed most of the major highways. I biked to work today because they are going to close the last bridge across the river separating me from home. I think they are only going to close it to vehicle traffic not pedestrian traffic. I think I did weight watchers right? I am not as heavy as a car. My bike is light weight, I can get across no problem. One of the bridges which has been closed for two days still had people walking across it this morning so I think getting home will be no problem. My last resort is to walk across the really high railroad bridge to get home because the trains have stopped. I think it is too high and I would be really scared but I like to imagine the flood would get that bad that I would have to make that dramatic decision. Then I could talk about it for years. "...during the 500 year flood I have to walk Stand-by-Me style across that railroad bridge after a grueling 12 hour shift in the ER". That is a great story.

I will probably spend most of the day today surfing the internet and trying to look busy because as more roads get closed the only way here is by helicopter. But somehow they still come; the non emergent emergencies. I saw a guy with an ingrown toenail. I wanted to say, "don't you know there is a 500 year flood happening outside?" They are staging ambulances on both sides of the river and soon when the last bridge closes no emergencies from the east side of town will be able to make it to our ER. They will have to go to the private hospital on the east side of town and they are working to make that private hospital's parking lot a helipad to fly people across the river if needed.

Our river is not expected for crest until Tuesday; they are rushing to try to save much of the campus. For some reason (humidity and tornados may be the reasons) our main University library has all its special collection in the basement. 500,000 volumes to move by hand passed up person to person in the stairwells.

The pictures of the flood are impressive. Check out http://www.presscitizen.com/.

saved by the 500 year flood

Interdivision 'fun and fellowship' games cancelled tonight due to the 500 year flood we are currently experiencing. Cannot say that I am too sad!

interdivision play

This may be news to many of you but Bill and I are on our church softball team. We are undefeated this season, 7-0. Here is some background information on the Vineyard Softball Team. This is our third season. Our first season we won one game and lost the rest by an average of 20 runs. We got into a verbal 'altercation' with another church necessitating our pastors calling their pastors on Saturday to smooth it over. It was a rough season. We regrouped for season two, started to have practices to learn actually how to play certain positions and had a great season. We won way more than we lost and came in second place in our division. The Christian Softball league is divided into two divisions... the top half and the bottom half by record from the previous year. Traditionally the top two in the bottom half move up and the bottom two in the top half move down but something happened this year with # of teams and instead of moving up we stayed in the lower division which is actually more fun because they are way too serious in that top half. So it is mid season this week; call it interleague play. They say it is in the name of fellowship and fun. So tonight we have to play the top team in the top division for 'fellowship and fun' night aka we will most likely get hammered, demoralized and eaten alive by mosquitos in the name of fellowship and fun. I am not a big fan of interdivision night. Maybe we will hold our own and have a respectable game. Maybe, just maybe we will win. Maybe, probably this 500 year flood we are having will get us rained out. Then maybe, hopefully probably they will not reschedule our interdivision fellowship and fun game.

Home

We made it home at 6:30 am this morning. We had a fine day of travel but left Houston late by an hour because of storms in Minneapolis. We had the most turbulent flight ever and I was very impressed our pilot even landed our small commuter plane in that mess. The display on lightening from the plane was thrilling and scary at the same time. We had two cars in Minneapolis and our drivers felt awake enough to make a go for home. We left about 1:45. We had to detour around the major highway we take home due to flooding but made it in a respectable 5 hours. It poured rain the entire time; monsoon type rain where Bill could barely see the lines of the highway. But a Dr Pepper, some classic rock on the radio, sheer determination and a bag of ranch flavored cornnuts later we arrived safely home. He did such a great job driving.

Came home to a clean house, nice comfy bed and got some good sleep. Bill had to work this afternoon so I am sure a nap will be in our future when he gets home. Thanks for following our adventure to and from Mazatlan. Please continue to pray for the work being done down there and pray for my water logged beloved state of Iowa. This flooding is unreal. I will try to get pictures from the trip on the blog in the next few days!

Mazatlan Day 7

Well we did it! Another trip to Mazatlan in the books. I woke up not feeling well today, slept through breakfast but did make it out to clinic with no stops to use the restroom! I loaded up on two bananas and the first dose of traveler´s diarrhea antibiotic and I was ready to go. We were out at Villa Union today which is the place we went to church on Sunday. It was another good day but slower than usual. We saw about 58 patients. The weather was nice and cloudy and cool. God has really blessed Bill and I this trip. We were really concerned about being the only two providers and having terribly busy days with hot hot weather to drain us further. The days have been a nice pace and the weather has been cloudy. We have had only two really hot sunny days (one that I chose to run during). It has been nice to know that we can do it with two providers and I think God brought us the people who needed to see us. We only really felt overwhelmed once on Thursday at Madero. Today´s medical highlight was that I got to lance this boil from a kid´s face with no anesthestic. He took it like a champ but my already queasy stomach was not quite so ready for all that pus.

We bought a walmart plastic tote and decided to leave a lot of our supplies down here instead of lugging them back every time. They are being kept locked up in the office and should really help our luggage allowance for the upcoming trips. I did find out at continential.com that they will only charge for the extra bag any ticket bought after May 8th so hopefully we will not have to pay extra tomorrow.

One sad note, we had to say goodbye to Big Blackie today. Big Blackie is a huge heavy rolling suitcase who has been with me since at least 2000. It was a hand me down from my folks. We have seen the world together, me and Big Blackie. He still has a tag on him from the cruise I went on in 2001. And he has my official YL area director name tag from 2000. Big Blackie has three of his four corners covered in duct tape and he is really dirty but he still rolls like a champ and has made 7 trips to and from Mexico, 28 days of clinic in the colonias being dragged through the dust and dirt. Big Blackie has not has pulls for his zippers for about 5 years. He has these plastic tabs my dad put on him. Big Blackie´s main zipper broke this trip and only one zipper will close the bag and that one does not go all the way around. There is no way Big Blackie could make it home having to be opened by security. I am afraid he will not get closed again. And though you cannot put a price tag on a faithful companion like Big Blackie, I am not spending $25 (if we get charged) to bring him home almost empty because he is too big to fit in another suitcase and too fat and squat for any suitcase to fit in him. So Big Blackie was emptied for the last time today. I took off my favorited name tags. I rubbed some dirt off his handle and gave him a kiss. Sleep well, Big Blackie, in the place were used and abused and discarded suitcases go. We were great together. You will be missed and I love you almost as much as any other inantimate object that I have named. (I took some farewell pictures and will post them when I get back)

Wanted for our next trip: a slightly used big roller suitcase who could never replace Big Blackie but will be loved, used, rolled through the dirt, loaded to 49.5 lbs, tossed on and off airplanes and given a proper name. He will join Big Blue, Gigante (who is bigger than Big Blackie but newer to the fleet) and Duct (a smaller version of gigante who had duct tape to close a huge hole in him last trip but Bill did surgery with a giant needle and some twine I think and now he is free of duct tape but retains the title). How could I not mention our faithful duffle? Purple Cow. Bill hates purple cow because he does not pull that well, but he is giant and bright and hard to miss on the turnstyle at baggage claim.

Prayer requests:
safe air travel tomorrow and ease at customs coming home
safe driving home from Minneapolis with no major road closing due to flooding
for Iowa City as the floods just get worse.

Mazatlan Day 6

No access to a computer yesterday to get any blogging down. Yesterday was a full day of church and it was great. We first went to the English Service at the main Vineyard down here which was a good time to worship and hear a teaching in our language. We ate a quick breakfast and then sat in the back for the worship part of the Spanish Service. They have amazing worship. 7-8 girls up front who dance and play the tamborine and the band just rocks. The highlight is, as always, Jorge plays this worship song to the tune of La Bamba along with the sweet guitar rift. It needs to be heard to be believed. I always really love worshiping in Spanish because though I do not know all the words I feel really connected to God.

We had a few hours off during which I took a run in the hot mid day sun. This sounds ridiculous and trust me it was. I was so tired and hot when I got back. I forgot to wear sunscreen and thought I would run fast enough not to get burned :-) but that did not happen. I ran really slow actually, the slowest 3 miles in a long time but about 2 minutes into my run I realized survival was the goal.

At about 3:30 we left to go to one of the local colonia churches for their Sunday evening service. None of the local neighborhood churhces have service on Sunday morning because all the leaders are at the main church so they have them on Sunday night. We drove to Villa Union where we will do clinic tomorrow. A retired American couple who work down here most of the year picked us up and we were on our way. We stopped several times to pick up young teenagers who help with the kids program out there. Villa Union is actually a separate town outside the city and is about a 45 minute drive. Our friends, Kyle and Ellen who are full time church planters down here, run the Sunday night service and we met them out there not before having to go through a military check point looking for drugs. Bill and I had a moment of panic because all our meds were in the back of the van and I did not have our paperwork with us but we just got waved through. We helped clean up church and set up. This church has multiple pigeons living in it so you can imagine what the floor looks like. Angie and Jaime, our best Spanish speakers, took to the streets around the church with flyers inviting folks to the clinic on Tuesday. There were about 10 people at the service and probably 15 kids who had a lesson upstairs. We worshipped and then sat in a circle where Kyle gave a lesson about the healing about the leper. At the end we were standing in that circle and Kyle asked anyone who wanted prayer to take a step in. 4 of the Mexicans took a step forward and we had a good prayer time. Our team was very touched by the service and though it took some of our "free" time away, it was an experience we will not forget. We stopped and had not-bad-by-our-standards pizza on the way home. Then we all piled in the van, dropped each kid off at their house and finally made it back to our hotel at about 8:30.

Our group has gotten into playing Dominos here at night. The first night we played I beat Bill on the last play of the last hand. We are playing a game Jaime taught us called Chicken Train but I think it is similar to Mexican Train. Bill and I bought two cheap sets of dominos yesterday so all 6 of us can play. Last night Bill edged out Shonna by two points in another hotly contested match.

Today was our day off and all I really did was sleep. Woke up at 11:15, ate lunch, went back for a nap at 2 pm and just woke up at almost 5. Most of us are feeling a bit under the weather. Two of us are taking cipro for traveler´s diarrhea so we needed the good rest.

Prayer requests:
continued and renewed health for all of us especially jeremy and angie who are the most ill of our group currently
a good last day tomorrow in clinic
ease of ´closing up shop´ here which means an inventory of our meds, what to leave and what to take home in terms of our medical supplies
that we can consolidate our luggage to one bag a person for the way home to save money
iowa city is having extreme flooding and it looks to get only worse

thanks to everyone who has been faitful in prayer

Mazatlan Day 4

Today we were at Valles which is the most established local church. Every saturday morning every local church has a ´feeding center´ where the kids come for a hot meal, sunday school type lesson with songs. We helped out today serving food at the Valles feeding center until about 11:30 and then we set up the clinic. This is traditionally our slowest clinic and today we only saw 33 people which was kind of a dissapointment. We were really tired out so the pace felt good but I just wished we could have seen more people. We are all practicing and learning more spanish and making lots of funny mistakes in the process. Here are some of our favorites with the word we meant to say in ( ):

Your blood pressure is a lot cheaper (better) today
I am going to take your temperature in your eye (ear) do not worry, it will not hurt
Do not worry, no one likes you (it) --in reference to poking a finger for a blood sugar
This cream is for your baby´s red ass (rash)
I need to check the sugar in your sangria (instead of sangre which is blood in spanish)

Update from yesterday´s blog- that birthday party got cancelled and rescheduled due to that threat but there was no violence in Madero last night

Prayer requests:
good refreshment and relaxation for our day at church tomorrow (we will attend 3 services) and for our day off on monday
fun time with our team together during our free time

Mazatlan Day 3

I am still having trouble downloading pictures so I guess all those will have to wait until I get back. Today was another great day. We woke up to a pure gift from God- it was cloudy and rained a bit... priceless weather! We headed out to Madero. This is something I did not post about yesterday because I know my mom reads this and she would worry. Madero being the "tolerant" zone has its share of violence which seems to be getting worse. Apparently some man just got out of prison for murder and there is going to be a 15th birthday party (quinceria - spelling??) there tonight which is a huge deal in this culture at a house right next to the church. There has been an apparent rumor flowing loud enough for the pastor to hear that someone is going to be shot at that party as revenge. I do not know if someone was planning to shoot that guy or someone in his family. Dave, the pastor there who comes with us everyday, thought that there would not be any problem because we would leave earlier than the party would start but he wanted to make us aware. We talked about it as a team and realized God is in this with us and His will will be done. We had a good prayer time this morning praying not only for our safety but for the families and innocent people who live in this type of situation everyday. We get to leave it and go "back" to our lives and they do not. Bottom line is that nothing happened, not even one thing fishy or scary. We saw 87 patients today and it went really smoothly. Bill and I got testy with each other about "who was doing more work?" because we are the only two people seeing patients. We resolved and I think I have to bite the bullet and saw today the answer was him but I am still nonetheless exhausted.

We have one more day in clinic tomorrow before we have Sunday for church and Monday for our day off. Tomorrow will be a modified clinic day seeing patients only from about 1-4 as there will be a meal and service for the kids at Valles in the morning that we will help out with.

Prayer requests:
renewal of energy to give it one more day before we have some good rest
for our patience with each other and for our tongues not to be sharp and for grace with each other to be overflowing
for that party in Madero tonight that no one would get shot and that girl could celebrate her 15th birthday like a princess

Mazatlan Day 2

We had a great day at clinic. I am going to get kicked off the computer in about 2 minutes. I am trying to get pictures to load but I do not think I will have much luck. We saw about 60 patients and it was a nice flow that did not seem to busy. Jeremy and Shonna arrived safely and had not troubles at customs. Another big praise. We are very hot and tired and dirty but happy. Probably 1/2 of the patients we saw were repeats from the last few times and some people had been seen 3 times already which is really what we are striving to do is to have continunity of care.

Prayer requests for tomorrow:
that we have another successful clinic at Madero with lots of repeat patients (Madero is the tolerant zone for drugs/prostitution etc in the city and can be a really dark place)
that we would feel well rested in the morning

Mazatlan Day 1

So we made it here safely. All of our luggage arrived and we all got green lights at customs. Thank you Jesus. We had a nice trip to St Paul last night, got a few hours of sleep and had a good timing at the airport this morning. We thought we were going to have to pay $100 for our extra 4 bags of luggage but somehow it turned up on the computer that we only owed $50 for the 4 of us so that was a huge blessing. No one even looked twice that Jamie´s passport said she was 78 years old. Our connection in Phoenix was really quick but Bill and I had enough time to get our favorite egg sandwiches.. you know you have flown a certain route too many times when you know where all your favorite food is along the way.

We are staying at a new different hotel which is much nicer than the one we usually stay at (which was plenty nice) so we feel spoiled. However, I feel out of sorts because at the old place I know how everything works from the safe in the room to where to get pool towels etc. I guess I am never too old to learn. :-). I am also uncaffienated, exhausted and hypoglycemic which isn´t helping me adapt well to new surroundings.

The internet place here is only open until 6 pm so my hopes to blog everyday may be in vain because I will miss the window of open internet. I´ll see if I can find another computer.

The highlight of the day was on our first take off. I forgot Jaime had never flown before and she had this amazing open mouth, wide open eye grin/laugh when we started going fast for takeoff and when we got off the ground. I should have snapped a picture because it was worth a million words.

Prayer requests -
our first full day tomorrow we´ll be having clinic at Urias, that it all goes smoothly with set up and flow of patients
that we can get all our meds sorted and labeled tonight and get some sleep too
for jeremy and shonna, the last of our team, who will be flying in on the exact same route we took today
for my attitude to not be too bossy, irritated because i´m hot and tired and to feel free to enjoy the time here and not be too stressed that it all has to be done the way i want

Hopefully i´ll be able to post tomorrow. this place has wireless internet but i can´t seem to get mine to work...dad, anyone- any suggestions?

thanks to my faithful friends for following along and being in this with me.

The Other Mazatlan

Here is a video I just found about the church we are partnering with and some scenes from what we'll be seeing this week. The narrator is Fred Collum, the man who with his wife and family started the ministry.

Mazatlan Day -1

I am going to try to keep my blog updated with pictures if possible on our trip to Mexico with pictures as well for all of my faithful :-)

Well we are leaving in 4.5 hours and I just finished packing the luggage. I still have to tackle our carryons. We had not one thing packed until about 11 am this morning. Bill left a good part of his 'to do' list to last night which made me crazy and overly irritated because he has known he had to do these things since we arrived home from Mexico in January. That irritation coupled with a terrible 12 hour shift at work which did for the first time bring me to tears made for a long day. I had to have a moment in the bathroom crying but recovered well and I don't think anyone was the wiser of my breakdown. Oh yeah and he bought the wrong test strips for our glucometer but turns out they don't make the strips for our glucometer anymore so at like midnight he ran to Walgreens to buy a new glucometer for the strips he bought the other day.

He did get all his stuff done, got a few hours of sleep and because we traded our small Honda for our pastors suburban we only have one car to drive today which is not a crisis except I had to drive him to work spoiling my sleep in plans. We had a biblical deluge of rain today so now we have standing water in the basement which I cannot deal with. I did my monthly weigh in at weight watchers so now I can eat all the cheese I want in Mexico and have until July to burn it off. But seeing as how the weather report from Mazaltan is "hot, humid, upper 90s, no chance of rain or a cloud for 4 months" I may just sweat it off.

In the midst of packing Gabby calls from her last day of junior high, 'could you pick me up please please please? I just cleaned out my locker and I can't walk home'. So off to Regina I head and it is unclear how big her locker actually is because she had a huge garbage bag of what I can only imagine is crap she has been looking for since August. She was grateful and it was good to see her however briefly before we left. Nile graduated from 6th grade yesterday, had no school today so he spent the night. We will miss his birthday which he thinks is just another reason why Dad loves Gabby more. ugh! Thanks to all the snow days pushing the last day of school a week later we were really boxed into these dates.

I was planning a long run this afternoon if I got my stuff done but realized I just packed my running shoes etc and I am not opening those suitcases again. So after my last few errands, I plan to put the clothes away that are on the bed and take a nice nap before I have to go retrieve Bill, pack the suburban, pick up the rest of the team and head up to Minneapolis.

Bill just called from work asking about our on the road dinner and now I'm finally getting excited.

Prayer requests for day -1:
safety of travel tonight and tomorrow, on time flights
jaime's passport has a typo and I pray no one notices
green lights at customs so we get all our medicine through
good bonding of our team in the first 24 hours
for me to calm down and realize it all got done and being a ball of stress the last 24 hours has not been productive and just made the ulcer I know I have worse

Thanks for praying! Next blog from hot and steamy Mazatlan.