OMT

Sometime in November, I decided to just take the many suggestions I've gotten that I apply to osteopathic (D.O.-granting) medical schools as well as allopathic (M.D.-granting). I've been open to it, but I just found a connection to a D.O. to shadow (which osteopathic schools really want you to do when you're applying). In the last month or so, I have been shadowing a doctor who actually does osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT, the hands-on musculoskeletal manipulations that DOs learn which constitute the difference between them and MDs but that a lot of DOs don't do in practice) one morning a week to see what it's all about.

OMT is pretty cool. And a quick search of PubMed (a database of scientific studies) shows that it works better than placebo or physical therapy to treat some back pain, ankle injuries, and ear infections, actually (which I think is so weird!) among other ailments. With some patients, you actually see a difference in how they move immediately after treatment, which is awesome. It definitely seems like a great treatment option for musculoskeletal pain.

So today as part of my shadowing experience I decided to be the patient. I definitely have some occupation-related back and neck pain (sitting all day with a phone cradled against your shoulder while typing? It gets to you after a year or so) which makes me a good candidate for OMT. Plus, watching a doctor do it doesn't show as much as I would like, because so much of it seems to be small, slow, gentle movements rather than large or jerky movements that would make clear what's happening. To be honest, I sometimes wondered if anything was really happening. So I had my neck, back, and pelvis realigned this morning.

The doctor held my arms in weird positions while putting pressure on the muscles in my back that are always tight (this is called counterstrain, and if I remember right, the idea is that you stretch the tight muscles in the opposite direction). He cracked my T1 vertebra (the only cracking I've seen him do, actually - apparently unlike chiropractic, OMT doesn't involve a lot of that, but it sure felt good). He put pressure with his fingertips on points on my neck and my pectoral muscles. The med student doing a fellowship there had me squeeze my knees together and push them apart against resistance, put pressure on areas of my lower back, and had me move my legs around in a particular way. Very little of it hurt at all, it was not like a massage - they barely moved their hands, it was mostly slow, and it took about half an hour.

This afternoon and still somewhat now, I felt like I'd lifted weights for about two hours. I was SORE. And thirsty. But the good kind of sore - when I feel my shoulder muscles, they are much more relaxed than they have been. My upper back feels refreshingly loose and mobile. When I feel my spine from my shoulder blades up my neck, it actually feels and looks straighter.

Buying a camera

I am planning to buy a digital SLR camera sometime in the next few months and I need recommendations. I've read through some review sites and based on that, I'm thinking about a Canon Rebel XS or XSi or a Nikon D60, D3000, or D5000. I'm looking for something in the $500-$650 range for the camera and standard lens, and ideally for a telephoto lens also (I'm pushing my luck a bit there, but Amazon has a few packages like that).

I wish I knew a little more about the technicalities of digital photography. I'm doing some reading online, but it's difficult to keep all the terms straight. I've read that you're supposed to think about what you take pictures of, and for me that's mostly landscapes, macro photography of nature, and documenting events (portraits of people standing in front of something). However, I've been saying I'd upgrade to digital SLR on the occasion of either going on a major trip or having a baby, and we're planning a trip to Scandinavia this spring. Thus, I'm planning to use this camera to take pictures of interesting things I see while traveling, and later on when we have kids I'll use it to take pictures of them.

From what I've read, it seems like the cameras in the category I'm looking at (bottom of the price range for dSLRs, good for someone like me who is not a professional photographer and just wants better picture quality than a point-and-shoot can provide) are all about equal in terms of photo quality. So how do I figure out which one to buy?

A Blanket for Hope

I have been very crafty lately. And when I say crafts, I mean sewing. I took a quilting class this summer and have been excited about using my sewing machine for the last several months. A recent project was this:



















I made this blanket for an adorable 5-year-old girl named Mia. She is my coworker Michelle's daughter, and she was diagnosed with leukemia a few years ago. The orange ribbon for awareness is associated with childhood cancers, and Mia's family has adopted the orange ribbon as a sign of hope and support. Last year, they had a banquet and auction to support her cancer treatment. (They sold t-shirts with "Cure LeukeMIA!" on them - isn't that creative?) This year, Michelle was planning another event, so I told her I'd make a blanket to auction.

I used orange satin for the back and trim of the blanket, and picked a pink and orange heart patterned fleece for the front. "Princess" Mia is a very girly girl, and I thought pink hearts with orange satin made a sweet, spunky blanket to support Mia and her treatment.

As I was working on the blanket, I decided I'd tell Michelle that she could decide whether to auction the blanket or to just give it to Mia. After all, I made the blanket with Mia in mind, and it was a gift for her either way. When I took it to work, Michelle decided to give it to Mia. Apparently, Mia loves blankets and always has them with her.

Today, Michelle shared some great news on Facebook -- Mia's doctors say she has just one month of treatment left before she will be considered cancer-free! So I'm glad to be able to share about the blanket, and joyful beyond words for Mia, Michelle, and their family that Mia's road to recovery is almost over.

(I've made another blanket for another adorable little girl - Ross's new baby niece - but I won't post pictures until we meet her and give her the blanket at Thanksgiving.)

John Updike's Churchgoing

On the way home from running errands, NPR was airing a tribute to John Updike episode of A Prairie Home Companion, and this striking (at least to me) bit of prose is what I heard Garrison Keillor read:

from Churchgoing

There was a time when I wondered why more people did
not go to church. Taken purely as a human recreation, what
could be more delightful, more unexpected than to enter a
venerable and lavishly scaled building kept warm and clean
for us one or two hours a week and to sit and stand in unison
and sing and recite creeds and petitions that are like paths
worn smooth in the raw terrain of our hearts? To listen, or not
listen, as a poorly paid but resplendently robed man strives to
console us with scraps of ancient epistles and halting accounts,
hopelessly compromised by words, of those intimations of
divine joy that are like pain in that, their instant gone, the
mind cannot remember or believe them; to witness the
windows donated by departed patrons and the altar flowers
arranged by withdrawn hands and the whole considered
spectacle lustrous beneath its patina of inheritance; to pay, for
all this, no more than we are moved to give-surely in all
democracy there is nothing like it. Indeed, it is the most
available democratic experience. We vote less than once a
year. Only in church and at the polls are we actually given our
supposed value, the soul-unit of one, with its noumenal
arithmetic of equality: one equals one."

--from Churchgoing, from Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories, 1962, pp 249-250

(Text pulled from http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/2009/01/31/scripts/updike.shtml, where you can also find a link to the audio.)

Summertime

Seventeen school years is enough to train a 23-year-old person to expect something different by the time June rolls around, and this is the first summer in my memory that has not included a significant change of pace (read: a different job). It's weird. I have no better way to say that.

The spring went by so quickly. It had just been Christmas by the time it was Ross's birthday (April 8) and there was scarcely enough time between his birthday and mine (May 19) to get anything done. Now, though, we're halfway into July and it feels like May was forever ago. The summer is just dragging on. Fortunately, I love summer, especially in Colorado, where yesterday I went to Lilith Fair in 98-degree heat and enough sun to give even my resilient skin a sunburn, and it wasn't even a problem because there is NO humidity here. Colorado is the best. In Kansas it would be 104 and 95% humidity.

Anyway, June and July have been full of events -- camping, friends visiting, our anniversary, two weddings in Kansas, farmers market on Saturdays, quilting class on Wednesdays, recreational kickball on Mondays, Lilith Fair... and yet my longing for newness in everyday life has kept all these events and commitments from feeling like a whirlwind.

I should be grateful that this favorite season of mine is taking its time to pass, yet I have been uneasy since the beginning of May. That expectant student whom I am used to being is still in the stressful May-time when days and weeks never seem to end and yet are never long enough, waiting for finals to be over, for a break from classes and juggling work and extracurricular activities, waiting to escape to a 9-to-5 workday for three precious months. Only now that the 9-to-5 workday is the everyday normal, I want to escape from it.

One year

Today is Ross's and my first anniversary. It's been a wonderful year.

















I have heard that the first year of marriage is the hardest. If that's true, it bodes excellently for the rest of our marriage.

Tropical Dinner Party

Last weekend, my college roommate/sister-in-law Meredith stayed with us, so we had Ross's cousins over for dinner. I had been craving coconut shrimp for at least a month, so I knew I wanted to make that. From there, I decided that a tropical theme for the meal would be good. So here's what we had:

Coconut shrimp with dipping sauce (which was delicious, by the way)
Kebabs (pepper, onion, pineapple, and optional chicken)
Mixed greens salad with Annie's Organics Papaya and Poppyseed dressing
Basil rice
Colorful potatoes with peanut sauce

Unfortunately, I failed to take any pictures. I didn't even think about it until we were finished eating.