the underwear drawer

three things

First thing: I added a link to an FAQ page to the sidebar. Included in this FAQ section is a little timeline of the last five years, with links to old entries. If you're new to The Underwear Drawer (or have been here for a long time but would like to take a spin in the way-back machine) it might be fun to check out. I know it was fun for me to sort through. It also made me realize that a lot of stuff happened over the last five years. Well, duh, right?



* * *


Second thing: I am now ACLS certified! I can save grown-up lives now! Only I am kind of illegally certified, because I haven't actually officially recertified in BLS yet, and technically I needed to be BLS recertified before I should have been allowed to take ACLS. I already took the written part of the BLS exam, but I couldn't get an appointment to get my BLS skillz observed until tomorrow. ACLS is a two-day course, and yesterday, when I was stammeringly trying to explain to them about my situation, I kind of lied. I said my BLS card got lost and was being replaced--which is not a TOTAL lie, but kind of a half-lie. But I HAD TO DO IT, man, otherwise they would not have let me take ACLS and then I wouldn't have been able to start my residency on time and my life would have been RUINED. Anyway, shouldn't BLS proficiency be implicit in the fact that I passed ACLS? Building on the same knowledge base and all that? Anyway, I got into this whole thing with the instructors yesterday where they told me that even if I passed ACLS, they wouldn't be able to give me any documentation of certification until I got my new BLS card in the mail and faxed it to their main office, which translated to "blah blah blah RED TAPE blah blah." However, today, there was a new lady there dealing with the paperwork, and after I took my exam, I just stood there very quietly while she corrected it, hoping that she wouldn't see the front page, where the guy from yesterday wrote "NO CARD" in the space where he was supposed to fill in my BLS certification expiration date. And lo, she did not see that I had "NO CARD" and lo, she gave me my ACLS certification card, and everything is great now. I still have to go in and get that BLS stuff taken care of, but WHATEVER, that will take twenty minutes, and then I'll be done with all this nonsense for another two years.

Also, maybe now, having undergone ACLS training, I'll have a 10% less chance of killing my adult patients. Oh, but I underestimate myself. Maybe a 15% less chance. How reassuring.



* * *


I think we may have purchased too many diapers. But it's kind of not our fault. See, it started when we found this deal on Amazon for Pampers in bulk. We got so excited about the low price and the free delivery that we ordered a bunch. But not in some hog-wild way, there was a method to the madness. Basically, I did a calculation based on the average number of soiled diapers we could expect from a newborn cross-referenced with average weight gain based on a series of growth charts out of Harriet Lane (trust me, it was all very scientific), and ordered approximately enough diapers for the first month and a half. The diapers that we ordered fit babies from 8 pounds up to 15 pounds, and my rationale was that if Cal weighs more than 15 pounds at 6 weeks, he's clearly a MONSTER FREAK CHILD and should be sold to carneys on Coney Island immediately. So we were good on diapers.

Then Joe's mom e-mailed us a week ago asking us what brand of diapers we were planning on using. I informed her that we had decided on Pampers (this is based on no type of research whatsoever, by the way--it's just the kind that we use in the hospital) but that she should under no circumstances help us buy any diapers, at least not in the small size, because we were already tanked up. Somehow, though, Joe's mom interpreted "don't buy any more diapers" to "PLEASE BUY MORE DIAPERS WE NEED DIAPERS" and sent us something like a metric ton of the exact same diapers in the exact same size. Well, there were two smaller packs of diapers in the smaller size (I wasn't aware there was a smaller size, but I guess it makes sense--the max weight on those is 10 pounds) but the rest of them are for the 8-15 pound range. So now we've committed the cardinal sin of new parents, in that we have stocked up on something that the kid is probably going to outgrow before we can use them all up. But you see how it's kind of not our fault. Quick, multiple choice. What are we going to do about all those diapers?

a.) Keep Cal on a strict low-fat diet, therefore preventing him from growing too fast until we use up each and every one of the small diapers.

b.) Wait for Cal to outgrow the diapers, then sell the surplus on eBay.

c.) Start putting the dog in diapers.

Does it say something about me that I find choices B and C equally tempting?

Currently reading: This interview with J.K. Rowling. Is it too nerdy to admit that I'm all lathered up about the new book? I even pre-ordered it for "release day delivery" from Amazon. Don't laugh.