Monday Gosling Meme

Show Nurses Some Love!

Today kicks off National Nurses' Week so if you know a nurse give them some love.  They are the eyes and ears of a floor and are constantly caring for your loved ones when you cannot be by their side!

Monument to Monument

Adventure #2 of the weekend: the Monument to Monument Ride!

This morning Meghan was going to drive in to meet me and Alex for the almost century ride from Baltimore to DC and then back to Baltimore.  A few minutes away from my house Meghan realized she forgot her helmet at home and needed to head back and get one for the ride.  We all decided to meet up about 35 miles into the ride because that is where I was going to meet up with my B&B mentee. 

At 0820 a group of about 60 riders headed off.  Alex and I were ready for the adventure and surprisingly awake (9 hours of sleep will do that to a person).  

The group powered through lights down to the bottom of the hill and at mile 1.7 we were stopped by a train to only be stopped again by the same train a few miles later.  Ride out of NOLA anyone?

The first bit was fairly flat, but around mile 10 the hills started to pick up and you know me and hills (we do not get along particularly well).  Between no training for the ride and still missing a pint of blood some were harder than others; I caught up on those downhills.  Thankfully there was a 7-11 stop at mile 20 and after some blue and a cliff bar I was good to go. 

Twenty miles later we met up with Casey who is going to be on the ME2SB trip this summer.  Girlfriend has already raised over $5100, but feel free to throw some cash monies her way - Affordable Housing is a GREAT cause people (and tax deductible)!  The Met Branch was smooth sailing.  One of the best parts about riding or driving into DC is when you crest the hill and see the Capitol or Washington Monument in the distance.  You know you have arrived.  If you follow the yellow line it points tot he Capitol (easy to miss in the photo if you are not looking for it).

The Monument is still under construction which put a damper on the photos, but it did not stop us from taking some anyway.  Also a dance video was taken, but no one would join me so it was lone dancer, party of one. 

This was taken by another rider, but I loved it so much I am posting it here.   

From there we headed off to lunch and waited to hear from Meghan.  Apparently she was kicking butt and not only had she found a helmet, she drove back to Baltimore to the start of the cue sheet and caught up with sweep.  GET IT GIRL!!  We met up at Union Station, snapped a picture to prove we were there and headed back to Baltimore. 

We kept getting split up due to different styles of riding.  I prefer to be towards the front because that means I can see what is going on and if a biker goes down I only have to worry about getting around one or two other people instead of eight or ten.  Meghan is a bit more conservative and takes the turns a little slower so she hung out in the back.

We found each other at the 7-11 and headed off with four other gentlemen.  With everyone taking a turn pulling, we ended up making GREAT time.  One of the leaders turned around about 10 miles from our end destination and asked if this was the longest ride we had ever done.  The two of us just laughed and admitted that we had spend the summer cycling and neither of us had put in major miles since our wheel dip in the Pacific Ocean.  Needless to say we got some street cred for that!

After some photos at the Baltimore Monument Meghan and I parted ways.  All in all the day was a success ... 107 miles round trip, 6 liters of water, 1 new B&B friend and a afternoon with two good friends.  Meghan and I did decide our next trip would be more relaxed as the last two reunions centered around a half marathon and then this century ride.  

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

AKA go get yourself some margaritas!

Kinetic Sculpture Race

Today a whole slew of "out of towners" came into Baltimore for the Kinetic Sculpture Race.  Every year teams put together crazy bike floats which traverse 13.1 miles around Baltimore conquering hills, water, obstacles and mud.  Meghan and I hopped on the bus to head over to Fed Hill for the kick off where we would be meeting up with Liana, Mer and Alex. 

The sculptures were AMAZING and ranged from super simple to over the top 

And they're off ...

The judges looked very official and had a golf cart at their beck and call.

All the bikers are allowed a support staff and of course dressed to match their bike.  One team had an Alice in Wonderland theme with the float is the caterpillar (above) and some of their crew dressed as cards.  Who knew there was a three person bicycle?

We started to walk around the Inner Harbor to try and catch up with some of the floats as they hit the water, but were a bit slower than the bikers so we enjoyed the lovely weather.  #nofilter

Meghan and I got a quick picture to induce some FOMO in the other SUS'ians

After lunch we headed over to Patterson Park where we caught some of the final floats going through the obstacle course.  The whole time Alex was thinking of the contraption he wants to build for next year.  Meghan and I called dibs on costumes and coming up with the theme; Alex, Captain Jack and my sister will be in charge of engineering.  We all will be studying the winners from this year because this crew might be crazy enough to put an entry together for next year. 

This is your brain on drugs

Anyone remember those commercials us 90s kids would see during TGIF and/or One Saturday Morning?  This is your brain ... this is your brain on drugs.  (I would also like to say that I am EXTREMELY proud of myself for figuring out how to imbed this video into my blog)

While it seems dramatic, this is pretty much how my brain feels right now.  After three taxing weeks I am ready to take some mental health time and fill it with bikes, friends and maybe a little reading and prep for finals.  Two weeks until we wrap up level 2 classes!!

Having a Patient on Isolation

Apologies if the .gif is making you a little nauseous, but you will understand in a second.

This semester I am working on an infectious disease unit which means that many of our patients are on some kind of transmission based precaution(s).  Now you may be asking yourself, "Emily what is that and why would someone be on it?"  Good question dear reader.

Transmission based precautions can be broken down into four categories:

• Standard: hand washing, gloves when giving injections/touching bodily fluids, eye protection if some bodily fluid might splash on you
• Contact ( Clostridium difficile, MRSA): standard precaution + gown and gloves when you enter the room
• Droplet (influenza, N. meningitidis, pertussis a.k.a. whooping cough, and rhinovirus): contact precaution + mask
• Airborne (chickenpox, measles, and tuberculosis): droplet precaution + possible respirator

Unfortunately, there is a rise of super bugs in hospitals which means a patient can pick something up while receiving treatment for an entirely different chief complaint (this is especially true on an infectious disease unit where people's immune systems are already compromised).  As a result, health care providers follow strict protocol to try and minimize the spread of germs.  If you have a person on contact precaution that means putting on a new yellow gown every time you enter their room (hence the above picture).  It is a wasteful process, but does help cut down on infections.