Feculent

Wednesday marked my last day at the nursing home. I went out in burning glory too. I was scheduled to work on west, which is the coveted unit, but when I arrived at six a.m. my coworker cheerfully informed me that I'd been bumped on the schedule to the north unit, because she needed hours but couldn't work on north because "it drives [her] crazy." I responded that north drives everyone crazy and walked away. North was nuts, but not anymore nuts than normal. I had section 3, which was 10 people and two showers, but I was magically able to get everything done, and at a fairly high level of quality (just getting stuff done quickly doesn't mean you're doing a good job).

I don't think I've really written that much about the nursing home, which is probably a good thing as far as HIPAA goes, but it really has been an influential job in my life. It has opened my eyes to the unpleasant crevices of healthcare (no pun intended) and made me have a lot more respect for the infantry of aides and nurses that keep so many sick people alive. I learned a lot about compassion and kindness and back-breaking work (rolling a 400 pound person on their side really can break your back, especially if you're tall like me). I definitely will miss some of the residents there, like Marilyn from south, whose Elvis Presley and "Give Said the Little Stream" serenades will always make me chuckle, or the time she stuck a cup of blue jello down her pants. "Can I have a banana? Banana pudding? Dr. Pepper?" I'll miss Ellis, who passed away a while ago. He sung to me in the shower and cracked dirty sailor jokes. I'll miss my more recent friend Bernice, a loving grandmother with an addiction to Rush Limbaugh.

I won't miss the poop. Or the showers. I won't miss the frantic running around, the chaotic stress of answering call lights while trying to remember the growing mental list of tasks and requests. Did I mention I won't miss the poop? Being a nursing aide is hands down the most feculent job I can imagine. I look forward to only changing my baby's diapers from now on.

Nematodes

A lot of crazy crap happened this last week, and I'm just now getting a second to write about it.

Early Monday morning (like 5:45 a.m.) I took off to Park City for the Society of Invertebrate Pathology annual conference. Last year it was in England, next year it's in Turkey. Lucky me, I got the year it was in Utah. Actually, that's probably the main reason I got to go.

We arrived at the Canyons Grand Summit resort in time for breakfast, a wonderful buffet. The week would be filled with such buffets. I was a basketcase because my presentation wasn't done and I had to present my research at 3:30.

My research. Last September I started working in Dr. Byron Adam's lab. The Nematode Evolution Lab. We study worms. It sounds really lame put that way, but it turns out nematodes are one of the most important and abundant lifeforms on the planet. Back in October I started on an RNAi resistance project. We ordered a bunch of mutant C. elegans strains that are deficient in the RNAi pathway, and therefore immune to the effects of RNA interference. I've been culturing these strains since then and trying to determine how fit the mutants are compared to the wildtype. I've been able to show that there seems to be a fitness cost to the mutants, more or less. This is good because it will keep the mutant alleles very rare in the natural populations . . . ya da ya da ya da. What a snooze, right? This might all be over your heads, but it was pretty elementary at this research conference. I sat through countless lectures of bigwig professors, doctoral students and postdocs with super impressive powerpoints and years of extensive research (and hundreds of incomprehensible bar graphs). When it finally came time to give my presentation I felt like I was giving a science fair project.

I was the only undergrad to present that day, and one of two total undergrads at the conference. So even if my research wasn't earth-shattering, it was still a feather in my cap. I can now put "presented original research at an international conference" on my resume. So that's pretty cool.

Tuesday was a bunch of lectures and a 5k in the afternoon. Byron was in charge of the 5k so we got the privilege of setting up the trail and directing traffic so people didn't get lost on the mountain. After a brief barbecue Ashton picked me up and we headed to Bountiful to participate in Seth's setting apart as a missionary. That was neat.

Wednesday morning we went out to eat at Mimi's cafe for breakfast before shipping off Seth. That place is good! Even though he was in his suit and tie and all packed up, it still didn't hit me that he was really leaving until he stood at the door of our house and we both started tearing up. I just wanted to keep giving him hugs, to talk a little bit more about his novel, to go for another run on the river together. Two years is a long time. I've managed to get married and have a kid in two years. The next two years will be really exciting for us, I'm sure, as we head off to medical school. But for the most part it's business as usual, only now there's a void that Seth left behind. At least he gets the benefit a completely different life for the next two years. That definitely makes it exciting. I'll be chronicling his mission on a blog for him: eldersethjenkins.blogspot.com

I felt guilty leaving the research conference early, since Byron had paid so much money for me to be up there, so I left early Thursday morning to head back up. I got there just as breakfast was ending, and my fellow labsters were surprised to see me there. They informed me that they weren't going to the morning lectures because they were boring and about fungi. Instead they were going to take the morning off and go mountain biking. This made me feel even more guilty, since I had left Ashton with Samuel, who had been pretty colicky lately, with the intention of getting more out of the conference. Byron rented me a really nice Trek mountain bike and we got gondola passes and spent the morning on the mountain. This was my first time mountain biking, and it was pretty intense on some of the trails, but after a couple hours I got the hang of it and was cruising down the mountain pretty confidently. It's definitely something I would like to do again.

Seth

Yesterday Seth gave his farewell address before he takes off to New Zealand. It was really bizarre to see my little brother talking from the pulpit like some experienced evangelist. I pictured him when he was a lot shorter, and cuter, and blonder, and we went fishing for my birthday. I thought about my awkward early pre-teen years when he and I would spend hours setting up armies of action figures or lego fortresses, only to never start a battle. I remembered sharing a room and laying in bed at night listening to scripture stories on tape, because he insisted we do it, but secretly I wanted it too. That's how we became such accomplished scriptorians. I saw us playing basketball on the driveway, when I could still drive past him and make a decent layup. I remember before my mission getting him started on the guitar, and playing beautiful Shins duets for my grandparents. I came home from my mission to a punk kid who was better on the guitar and better at basketball and a raving success with the ladies. He didn't need his big brother to show him what was cool anymore (although I can still teach him a thing or two about quality music), and he had become his own man. I wonder if he realizes how much more manliness he's going to acquire over the next two years. And how much hair he's going to lose.

Moving

I'm not sure what to title this photo. I thought "Summer Reading List" would be funny. I wish. "Bibliophile?" How about "Moving Day?"

Today Lauren and Jesse came down to swap spaces. They are being very gracious and letting us take the upstairs, so we can have a separate bedroom for Samuel. We personally think they're insane, but we're not about to talk them out of it! We'll have triple the space and a lot more windows, so we're pretty stoked.

A lot of other things of note happened this last week. Ashton got her gall bladder out. Yuck. She went under the knife early Tuesday morning, and she was out of the clinic three hours later, walking around and ready to take on the world, or at least the growing mess our house has become since Samuel joined us. Everyone kept telling her to sit down and take it easy, but she can't stand a dirty house. The Percocet definitely helped, but she went off that the next day, no problem. The doctor sent home some sweet pictures of her gall bladder, before and after the cholecystectomy. They cut it open to see how many stones were inside. It was pretty packed! Ashton thought it was beautiful enough to hang on the fridge.

On Thursday I floated the Provo River with the boy I mentor. It was pretty hysterical. Pretty much every great activity I come up with blows up in my face, but I barely scraped by on this one. Right off the bat we hit trouble when we got to a point where the river narrows between some concrete slabs. The increased velocity of the river sucked us right into some low hanging branches (and these weren't twigs, mind you) and although I tried to push off them with an oar, the impact flipped our raft over. I frantically grabbed for Marc before the river washed him downstream and held on to his flailing body by his wrist. I finally got him to stop panicking and stand up (the water was only about 3 feet). He continued screaming and sobbing with tears and snot pouring down his face, while I righted the raft and tried to calm him down. I finally got him to climb back in the raft and we continued down the river. We hit some pretty fun little rapids, and ticked off just about every fisherman we passed. Marc kept calling out to them, "Isn't the water too cold?" "I wish I had caught all those fish!" "We don't want to run into you!" He has the social graces of a walnut. I had my cell phone on me in a ziplock bag so I could call Ashton when I was done. Unfortunately some moisture still managed to leak inside, and my phone stopped working. Curses.

Friday was Fisher's wedding. I got to go up to the sealing, which was performed by Vaughn J. Featherstone. He's a friend of Drew's grandmother, apparently. The sealing was lovely, and afterward I headed across the street to visit my dad at work. I picked a good day, Bagel Friday. We had a nice chat over Dr. Pepper and then I headed back to the temple to see if they were done with photos. I got there just as they were taking the last group shot, and they yelled at me to hop up the stairs. Following the photos was a wonderful luncheon at the Lion House. I sat at the "friends" table, which had seats for six people. Three of them were friends of the bride, a bunch of giggly airhead barbie dolls, and one of them had her husband with her. The other seat was occupied by Mike Polkington, an old friend of Drew's. He's a super nice guy, very fun to talk to, but he acts like a five year old most of the time. Drew's other friends Kelly, Branson and Branson's girlfriend J-Shawn showed up later, and to the dismay of the plastics, we insisted that they sit at our table. The Lion House staff wasn't thrilled, but they relented under Mike's authoritative demands. Our nine person table became a little rowdy, and we missed most of the program, including an epic poem read by Drew's brother about the Andee/Drew saga. Ashton came up later that night with Samuel for the reception, which was in a very nice backyard. There were peacocks caged up near the wedding line, and peacock feathers everywhere.

And Saturday we moved. We're still moving. It might take a while.

Anniversary

I think it's amazing how life can so dull and ordinary, with nothing exceptional happening for months, and then out of nowhere a million crazy things happen on one day. How do they converge like that? Friday was my one year anniversary, but that's definitely not the only thing of note that happened that day.

The morning started with me being really sneaky and leaving some beautiful flowers and a child's craft table (which Ashton has been talking about for months) at the kitchen table before leaving at 6:30 for work. Naturally that went over well.

After work we took Samuel to the doctor (or mohel, if you're Jewish) to snip off his Gentileness. He handled it like a champ. He didn't even start crying until after the surgery when the nurse unwrapped him. He really doesn't like being naked. The doctor was really great and answered all of our questions really well. On a whim I asked him about Samuel's jaundice, since his last reading had been a little high, but not over the line of danger. He recommended we check his blood again, and we were a little dismayed to find that his bilirubin had actually gone up, instead of down. They immediately sent over a bilibed for him to sleep on. Apparently the blue light modifies the bilirubin in a way that's easier for him to metabolize it. He had to sleep on it for three straight days, and he was not fond of it. It was pretty lousy.

Friday night my mom watched Samuel so Ashton and I could go do some errands and "celebrate" our anniversary. We just went to Target to buy more diapers and stopped at Sonic for some Oreo Shakes. We didn't want to be away too long; strange how becoming a parent does that to you.

Around 11:00 p.m. Ashton had a super painful gallbladder attack, and we didn't hesitate to get to the ER. She'd seen a specialist on Wednesday and he'd indicated that she should get it out as soon as possible, because an ultrasound showed that her bile duct was distended. At the ER we had to wait a bit in the waiting room, which is why I hate the ER anyway. We finally got back to a room and had to wait even longer for the doctor. As we sat in the room we could hear all the techs and nurses outside our door laughing and chatting like they were at some social event. I peeked outside through a crack in the door and saw a stumpy figure with its back to me in teal scrubs participating in the revelry. I hope that's not our doctor, I thought to myself. It was.

He finally came in and very candidly assessed the situation. As soon as Ashton told him she'd have pizza, he immediately pinned that as the culprit and in an almost condescending way chided us for being so careless. He didn't seem concerned about the gallstones themselves. His one mission was to "stop the pain cycle." All he wanted to do was flush some narcotics through her and send her home. We weren't there to stop the pain, however. We wanted to make sure this wasn't a more-dangerous-than-normal attack. Besides, we'd waited to see a doctor so long, the pain was already subsided. He ordered some bloodwork to make sure the hepatic and pancreatic ducts weren't plugged by a stone in the common bile duct, and sent a nurse in to administer the pain killers. When the nurse came in, Ashton told her she didn't want the pain killers, because then she'd have to wait a day to nurse Samuel. The nurse wasn't convinced, apparently, because she hooked her IV up anyway and started a saline drip. We waited for over an hour to have the doctor come back in, tell us the test results were fine, and try to get her to take the narcotics. She still didn't want to, and she insisted she wanted to go home. The doctor acted like we were crazy, but finally consented to her discharge. We went home more than a little irritated.

I know this is my second negative post about physicians. Don't worry, I still want to be one. I'm just learning what kind I DON'T want to be.

Samuel

He's here! Samuel Martin Jenkins has finally come! And on pioneer day, nonetheless.





Where did I leave off? Ashton and I were chilling in the delivery room. Well, I was chilling, and she was enduring waves of contractions. Around 5:30 a.m. she got an epidural, and at 8:00 a.m. she was fully dilated. The doctor had her start pushing at 8:30. That's where the labor really became laborious. The nurse had me hold Ashton's right leg and count off the breaths, 1 to 10, three times every contraction. Deep breaths, lots of pushing. I was a good doula and Ashton got lots of stylie points for superb face contortions and occasional grunting sighs.

Progress was slow, but finally, around 10:20, we got a good look at Samuel's crown, or at least the small tip of his conical head. The doctor came in and got down to business, and by 10:30 Samuel had emerged completely from the womb, and what a charming devil he was!

The nurses cleaned him up and gave me a good photo op. I'm not a crying man (I think Ukraine replaced my tear ducts with scar tissue), but my eyes were wet and my lip was quivering. I watched this amazing little infant, the pinnacle of God's creations, and felt an overwhelming sensation of love and joy and hope. I watched his vulnerable, innocent body squirm on the bassinet while the nurse suctioned out fluids, and was struck by his unadulterated purity. This baby is pure intelligence, and he came straight down the cosmic pipeline.

Family and friends flooded the room, anxious to see the sparkling new addition to our family. Everyone commented on his beautiful blonde hair, his long fingers, and the little cleft in his chin. He has perfectly shaped lips that Meg Ryan would kill for, and I think he has a strong resemblance to my brother Seth when he was a baby. He definitely has the Thompson nose. And although I may be biased, he is not an ugly baby. Even with the slightly swollen head and the old-man-bitter-beer face, he is not hard to look at. He takes after his mother, I guess.

I am thoroughly exhausted. I can only imagine how Ashton feels. I think a good way to end the day will be to read Samuel his first story: Where the Wild Things Are.

Waiting

Yesterday around one o'clock Ashton had her first contraction. She described it as having the urge to use the restroom; a lot of pressure down there. I was up on campus in the lab, and then from 4 to 6:30 I was in the bowels of the JFSB in a humanities class.

When I ascended from the dungeon, I got a phonecall from Ashton saying she was at her sister's. I drove over there to pick her up and we stayed for burritos. It was then that she informed me that she'd been having contractions about every half hour. A little frightening. We went home around eight o'clock and I bummed around, waiting.

At about 8:30 she started timing her contractions. They were about five to ten minutes apart, and lasted around twenty seconds. They weren't painful or anything, but there was definite spasming. Allie dropped by and we talked with her till eleven. The contractions seemed to be getting longer and a little more frequent. I was pretty wasted from a long day, so I decided to hit the sack.

She woke me up around one o'clock, saying they were still getting stronger. I was pretty out of it, but nervous excitement started to set in. I lay on the bed for another hour, while Ashton started packing her essential belongings. At two o'clock she told me she was ready to head to the hospital, and I swung my legs over the side of the bed. Fifteen minutes later we were in a room at Utah Valley Regional.

Our nurse, Heather, informs us that everything looks great. Ashton is dilated to a 4.5, and the baby's heart rate is good. She's 99 percent sure they won't be sending us home, but we have to wait an hour to see if Ashton keep dilating. So now we're in the strangely homey hospital room, waiting.

Oh wait, an exciting turn of events. Heather is back, and she stays we're staying. She's going to put in Ashton's IV. I guess Dr. Thorpe (a doctor who wears a gold chain) is already here doing a C-section, and he says she's staying. So that's a relief. She probably wouldn't want to gown up again. I'll keep you posted.

Ponds

This last weekend we saw a lot of pond action. On Friday we went back to Burraston Ponds. We didn't get enough on the 3rd. This time our crew was a little smaller, but no less amusing: Greg, Ethan, Meg, Dan Baird and Ashton. I was also more prepared; I brought my inflatable raft that I bought last fall to replace mine and Ashton's old one. It was the Sea Wench II's maiden voyage, and she's definitely sea worthy.

We brought a picnic basket with chips and homemade salsa and a bottle of Peach Italian Soda, which we drank from plastic champagne glasses. Nothing better than elitist snobs in hick central Mona!

We had a great time swinging out of the trees into the pond. Some kids were wearing inner tubes and doing backflips. They were also trying to swing from the platform and drop right through the tube. When I got up on the platform they held it out in the water for me to aim for, and I passed through on my first try. Pure luck or totally lurpy. Apparently I was the only one who made it through. I'm not sure if that's something I should necessarily be proud of, but I am anyway.

The kids left after a while and we had the swing to ourselves. That thing is a hoot. You get quite the rush swinging out over the water, dropping about 15 feet at the other end of the arc. We spent a while convincing Meg to jump off the platform, but she eventually made the plunge. (She did let go at the bottom of the swing, the point of greatest acceleration. She's still cool, though.)

Greg decided he was going to swim across the pond, and he asked me to follow him in the raft in case he started to drown. When we got to the other side we switched places and I swam back. It didn't look that far, but I was exhausted when we got to the other side. Another reminder of how out of shape I am.

On the way back from the ponds we got stuck in major traffic, but we had a lot of laughs and good music.

Saturday night we went out to Salem Pond with Quinn, Violet and a bunch of their crew. Ethan and Greg showed up as well, and we had a good time eating watermelon and chilling on the grass. That place is packed on the weekends! I was shocked how many people were out swimming in the mucky pond filth, but it's a pretty hotspot in Salem. I went out in the Sea Wench again, mostly making a fool of myself, but it was fun. This is what summer is all about.

Bat

Today I went in to the control room of library security to get some books for a paper I was writing. As I was copying down some information for the Works Cited page, the officer in control got a call from the fifth floor Humanities desk. Apparently there was a bat flying around the desk, terrorizing patrons. A freaking bat! I called dispatch while the control officer ran upstairs to see if he could get a positive sighting. Dispatch said they'd send over one of the head custodians. I ran upstairs after I got off the phone and found the security officer gloating triumphantly over a library stool. Apparently he saw it fly back into the stacks and he was able to trap it on the floor under the stool. Shortly after I got there, the custodian showed up with a glorified butterfly net. He was able to get the bat in the net, and I got a pretty good look at it. I was surprised how small it was. Now I'm convinced there's a bat cave under the library. Maybe the head librarian is really a crime fighting vigilante.

Apples

So Ashton's doctor decided maybe she doesn't have heartburn after all. Rather, he thinks she has gall stones. This is kind of a lame revelation 8 1/2 months into the pregnancy, but it goes well with the general theme of lameness we've been seeing with this OB group. Anyone reading this who wants to make a baby, DON'T GO TO THE PROVO OB/GYN CLINIC. Unless you like being treated like a pair of gym socks.

I guess she told him the list of meds she's been taking and expressed her frustration that nothing was working. A week before we found out that the Enablex they'd put her on, to combat the heartburn, is actually for pregnancy incontinence. That's a big oops. Good thing they didn't accidentally put her on some tetragenic drug. Think we have a malpractice lawsuit?

She explained to the doctor that sometimes the pain radiated all the way to her back and up her arm. He then asked her (with a little condescension in his voice), "Well you know what that is, don't you?"

Gee, doc, maybe I do. I guess I don't need your medical expertise. . . No you blockhead! I don't know what it is!

He answered his own question,"It's your gall bladder," as if to say, "C'mon you moron, everyone knows that's a symptom of gall stones." If I'd been there I'd have socked him in the jaw.

He very candidly told her there was nothing they could do until junior came out, and that she should avoid greasy foods.

Well we're not content to wait, so we're trying a little alternative remedy. Ashton's mom told us about this special flush you can do that supposedly will clean out the stones. You simply juice ten apples a day with one lemon, and there's something with olive oil too. So we went to Buy Low for the first time to see if we could get a half decent deal on apples. We bought seventy of them! Pink Ladies, Red Delicious, Granny Smith, Gala, Fuji and Braeburns. It was kind of strange going through the checkout line with that many apples, made more strange by our odd checker. He did know his varieties of apple, however.