A New Member of Our Family

Today is an exciting day in the Wheeler home. We have welcomed a new member into our family and we have affectionately named him Clifford. He is a big red couch. Yes, we have finally made the plunge and bought a new large red couch. It was a very hard decision ( as you already know). To give you the whole story we saw Clifford one Saturday when we were couch shopping. It was the third weekend in a row that we had gone shopping and had not found anything worth buying. Clifford was one of the last couches we saw at the first store and it took us a few day to decide he was the one. Our chief complaint was he was red and we were worried it would not go well in our apartment. But we took a chance and decided to be bold. We had to wait about a week but today Clifford was delivered to our home. Now all we need to do is decide on some curtains...

Sweating Bullets (In a Patient Centered Sort of Way)

PCM (patient centered medicine) is a buzz word in medical schools these days. The basic theory of PCM is to make the medical experience as pleasant as possible for the patient by approaching health issues in a way the patient feels most comfortable. The idea allegedly improves patient compliance and satisfaction, leading to improved medical outcomes in general. The concept has medical school curriculum writers drooling in anticipation of the neat programs they can implement to ensure their students are oozing with patient centered-ness by the time they graduate.

Today I participated in one such course as I conducted my first ever "patient centered" medical history interview. Although this wasn't the real deal (I was interviewing a standardized patient in a mock examination room), I was still a bit nervous. A very real instructor was critiquing my attempt at playing doctor, so I wanted to put on a good show. I tried to focus on being especially patient centered as I began gathering the basic background information, and threw in some nice rapport-building comments for good luck. I sweat my way through the touchier subjects, but once I finished I thought I had done well enough. And I had, for the most part.

My instructor (and the standardized patient) kindly informed me that telling a patient they are the same age as my mother doesn't fit under the umbrella of "patient centered", even if I was just trying to build rapport. First, it probably makes them feel old. Second, they will probably freak out and think, "this kid isn't old enough to prescribe medications." So I've learned my lesson. Patient centered medicine is still a nebulous art that will take some practice to perfect. And I can only tell patients they are the same age as my mother if they are over 94.

Learning to Blog

Today is a very exciting day for me, I am blogging for the first time, ever. This is crazy, I know. "The first time?" you think. "Is that possible?". But it is true. I am a little behind the times but I am working on catching up. Sometimes I even feel like blogging is a prerequisite to being married. So here it goes.

Blogging is an amazing invention. I am surprised how more and more technology comes out to keep us even closer connected. Especially because we live far away from many of the people we love, it is great to have another way to keep in contact with others. As this is my first blog, I thought I would give a little intro into the things that effect my life the most, those things I will be blogging about. For example, Justin, food, work, friends, family, the weather, travels and crazy occurrences. I will try to keep you up to date on our latest adventures. Until next time.

Couch Shopping

Brianna and I have been looking for a new couch for 5 months. Maybe some of you can relate to this. I had no idea when the furniture shopping started that it would be akin to choosing a college major, career, or spouse. I have been informed by my significant other that the entire future of our home decorating hinges on this single choice, which has added quite a bit of weight to the decision. As a result, we have become weekend warriors of the home furnishing stores. Everything from outlets to high-end malls have been visited, with dismal success. Until this last weekend. We finally found a couch that we both liked. This may not sound like a blog-worthy event, but trust me... it is. Unfortunately, we found several valid reasons to not buy the couch, and went home empty handed once again. However, the simple fact that we actually found a couch we both liked has given me hope. Someday soon, in the not-too-distant future, there will be a weekend devoid of couch shopping. Which, Brianna happily points out, should free up some time to look for a bed frame.

How We Spent Our Christmas Vacation

The Christmas break was a welcome respite from school and work for Brianna and I. We left the land of clouds and snow behind for 10 days to spend some quality time with Brianna's family in sunny Arizona and Mexico. Brianna's little sister returned from serving a mission in Scotland the same day we flew in. It was a lot of fun (and kind of awkward) to get to finally meet one another.

"Hi. I'm Justin. I married your sister." (handshake)

We spent the next few days eating loads of good food, hearing mission stories, riding bikes in the sunshine, schooling Brianna's little brother in ping pong, getting schooled by my father-in-law in ping pong, and all the usual Christmas fun. Christmas day was memorable as we all took turns opening presents and eating unhealthy but oh-so-tasty food.

The day after Christmas, we piled into the trusty Suburban and crossed the border to spend some time building homes in Punto Punasco, Mexico for poor LDS members. We had some great adventures, including getting pulled over by a Mexican police officer for "speeding" ($20 covered the infraction, but for some reason he never gave us an actual ticket...). The tacos in Puerto Punasco were splendid, and building the houses was a lot of fun (and a lot of work). One day was really windy and pretty chilly, but the other days were beautiful. We got to practice our spanish a bit, and really enjoyed spending time with Brianna's younger siblings. We decided they are much easier to talk to when they are outside of cell phone coverage.

We spent the last few days in Phoenix enjoying our break and spending time with family. All too soon we were packing our bags and saying our good-byes. It was refreshing to be surrounded by loved ones. Now we just can't wait for next year...