Omara updates

She's sweet, she's calm, she sleeps all night--so far, I've finally gotten my 'easy' baby! Omara is 2 months old and already over 10 pounds. Her newest trick is a toothless grin to show off her dimples. It's always such a milestone when they start to smile, since it's the first evidence of her acknowledging me as anything other than a food-source!

I started back at the clinic this week, and was a bit nervous about leaving her. It's gone so well, though. She's taking a bottle like a pro for that one feeding, and she and Ms Agnes are getting along great. I've had moments of wishing I hadn't asked God for a chance to work in a clinic again--like when my first patient reported loosing his "voice and legs" suddenly. After I convinced him the laryngitis and legs probably weren't connected, I had to work for 15 minutes trying to figure out what he meant by the fact that his knee joints were numb (he had quad weakness, making his knees give out when walking!). Or when I had so confidently diagnosed a teenager as having a simple virus causing his "1 day of fever and sinus-type headache", when his mother came into the room and said, "So, what's causing the auditory hallucinations and bright flashing lights that he sees? And why has it been going again and coming back now for 15 days?" Oh, what I wouldn't do for a simple cold! But when it's all said and done, I am happy to be there, happy to be challenged, happy to have been blessed by such a full life with no ending to bizarre stories. Oh, did I mention a poisonous snake crawled up into the x-ray machine while my patient was getting a chest x-ray? Took down the x-ray for the rest of the day, so I just treated him for pneumonia empirically. See what I mean???