Feeling sick in Vancouver
First, sorry, I've been MIA for a while. I was on my nice posting schedule and I got hit with the flu back in April when I was attending our national pediatric ophthalmology conference in Vancouver. It seems as if every time I attend a conference, I get sick - 2 years ago, I had to be ambulanced out of the conference because of what turned out to be kidney stones. That was a little embarrassing.Anyway, I don't usually get sick and I'm pretty sure I had mono. It was supposed to be a nice time to hang out with my friends from Boston Children's Hospital, enjoy Vancouver and spend some child-free time with my husband. Instead, I was in bed with high fevers and a box of tissue. And, though everyone keep telling us how lucky we were because it was so warm in Vancouver, let me tell, 50's and 60's does NOT feel warm to a girl who is used to Hawaii sun. Being a physician, of course, I couldn't actually go get the mono test, but just relied on my skills of self-diagnosis.
However, the conference was great. I really think it's important that physicians in Hawaii attend the national conferences. Jeff and I try to make it a point to do one or two a year. We're so isolated out here in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, that I truly think it's worthwhile to make the trip to the mainland to stay cutting edge in terms of research and surgery. And, to be honest, I don't learn the most from the conferences themselves, but I actually learn the most when I'm with a group of senior peds ophthalmologist and I can get their take one of my difficult cases. I'm not ashamed to ask someone's advice who has more experience than I do!
We had a dinner of all the fellowship alumni from Boston Children's, which was terrific. Two former alumni are Chairmen of Peds Ophtho Departments one at Childrens Hospital Philadelphia, and the other at D.C. Children's, so I was really surrounded by the best and brightest in my field.
The other neat thing was meeting former fellows who graduated after me. At least 3 of them immediately recognized me and said "you're the one with the blocked tear duct blog and video". That was kind of cool - though I wish in retrospect that I had taken more effort with filming it. I am literally holding my iPhone in one hand as I perform the Crigler massage on my squirmy 4 month old son with the other!Though I spent most of my time in bed at the hotel, recuperating, I did force myself to get out of bed to go biking around Stanley Park with Jeff and then I coughed for like 6 hours straight (it was worth it though). Vancouver is beautiful, I'm hoping the next time I visit, I'll be in good health!
So, mono set me back about a month. And, then I've literally been scrambling for the past 4 months to catch up. But, I'm back now, and should resume my regularly scheduled posts. I'm really aiming for once a week now so keep checking back!