Summer Garden

It's the middle of July -- what I consider to be halfway through summer -- and my garden is thriving in spite of lots of hot weather and foraging deer. I wish the deep purple wave petunias in the foreground of the photo were perennials because of their rich color, but alas they are annuals and will need to be planted each year.

Gil and I are in Las Vegas this weekend as Gil attends the annual SCCT (Society for Cardiac Computed Tomography) where he is a Board Member, Fellow and Faculty presenter this week. It is REALLY hot here -- 112 degrees when we arrived yesterday at the airport. We'll be back home from this trip on Sunday.

Prior to this trip, I was in Kentucky for my high school's 40th reunion and I had a wonderful time catching up with everyone there. I stayed with my mom while I was there and those are always good visits for us.

While I was in Kentucky, Gil drove himself to Chicago for a national guidelines meeting on echocardiography for three days. Although we both enjoy traveling, and have only recently been allowed by the doctors to make these trips due to Gil's as yet immature immune system status, we'll be glad to get back to spending the remainder of summer in Michigan which is always so perfect this time of year.

Gil started back to work full-time the end of June with his only restriction that he not have patient contact at this time until his immune system is ready for that. He's happy to be pouring his full efforts back into research and contributing to radiation dose reduction in cardiac CT -- a metric that has been in the news a lot these days.

Marika is halfway through her Kaplan MCAT Review Course in Santa Barbara and will be coming back to Michigan to spend her last month of summer with us arriving July 31st.

Adam and Evan are getting the hang of their first clinical rotations and feeling sleep deprived, and stressed to be their best during the long and arduous days that dealing with sick patients requires. Everyone in medicine goes through those days of incredible tiredness and feelings of inadequacy -- after all, they're learning how to be doctors and that's complicated-- and it's going to take a while to fall into step. Laura tells me she is doing everything she can to help Adam and Evan get through these first trying weeks by offering her support, and healthy cooking and understanding.

Although we think of Haley every day and how much we miss her in our family, we have been looking around for another border collie puppy to bring home and we have found one! She will be eight weeks old the end of July. Marika and I will travel up to Traverse City here in Michigan to pick her up when Marika gets home for the summer in a few weeks.

The puppy is adorable and I'll be posting a blog entry with her picture when we bring her home on August 1st.

Gil got himself the iPad and the iPhone 4. He "bequeathed" his Kindle to me and I'm enjoying reading my books on it. (Do you remember when he was in hospital last year and we got him the new Kindle which he was so delighted to have?!) I'm reading The Black Swan now about uncertainty and liking its message.

This next Haiku is for Vanessa, a friend of Adam's and Evan's, who selflessly offered to pick Evan up from the LA airport when he flew home a couple of weeks ago.

Haiku:

Vanessa's taxi

Riding home in luxury

A traveler's friend.