WADDDD UPPPPPP!!! its been a while, almost tooo long; but lo and behold, here I am again!...; its always a bit difficult to start a new blog post, but a recent visit to another fellow blogger's site tipped me off to ask the perfect, opening question: "what has become clear since we last met?"...i have few thoughts on how to answer this; so here goes....

1). the weather! finally..; for the majority of the recent past, the Inner Harbor has been shrouded in this dense cloudy fog cover, bringing massive amounts of freezing rain and snow to the existent, nearly flooded harbor.  Good news - perfect sleeping weather; Bad news - our helicopters don't fly in fog, meaning time to ROCK the AMBULANCE...bring it on Hopkins; lets do it!

2). my head! i can, with a measure of poised confidence, report that I am largely symptom free of whatever sick bug has been flying around...well, me.  GAG! It is nice to be able to have my baseline vocal tonation back, so I can talk on the phone without sounding like my Aunt Mildred (for those of you who don't know, I actually had an Aunt Mil....ahhhh, almost gotcha).  After consuming several thousand grams of diphenhydramine and joyfully pounding back a few hot whiskey slings...a Luella favorite, I have finally landed, sniffle free, on the Island of Relief; not only to my extreme happiness but also to the peaceful satisfaction of my co-laborers.

3). my understanding of Arterial Line wave-forms! OK, they a say a picture is worth thousand words, so here it is.  If you look at the two pictures below, the one on the top is a normal arterial line waveform (correlating to the patient's ECG), the one on the bottom is a picture a patient's waveform I recently cared for...it had me completely stumped; however I was swiftly reminded that the art of medicine is not in knowing all the answers, but more importantly, knowing how to find the right answer...phewwww!  Just recently, like as in last night, my fellow team mates and I had a calculated epiphany, enabling us to finally put this perplexing puzzle to rest...i've never slept sooo soundly! lol :)

NORMAL

NOT AS..NORMAL

4). the love for my family (especially my crazy nephews and nieces)...as the collage below represents, these little goobers never fail to create new and exciting ways to humiliate (and put a giant smile on the face of) their uncle!!..love you guys more and more!!! 

can you tell whats real and whats not???  : )

5). my homesickness for CT..! I miss my hometown, especially during this season...love the snow, crisp frigid nights, clear skies; oh and most of all - people that can actually drive in the snow... and don't spazz when there's 1/8" of flakes on the road; good grief...come on, Baltimore you may have a champion team in the superbowl this year (oh snap), but this says nothing about your ability to navigate the snow dusted asphalt...!!

home, sweet home!

6). the fact that our family is growing...literally, in both number and girth (for at least the next 9 months or sooo)!! After several weeks of mysterious nausea, vomiting and general malaise (worse in the morning...duhhhh), my sister DEB has finally revealed her diagnosis...she has a parasite, which has been growing for about six weeks now!! For those of you who still haven't caught on...she is pregnant. This marks a pretty significant day in the history of mankind - the creation of a being who is subject and open to equal selection of both the Hoffman and Lipton gene pools...sure wish the little one all my very best...!! 

But for real, on a more serious note, I am super psyched and can hardly wait for its appearing; my sister on the other hand may beg to differ - for the recent past, she has been in bed, bored out of her mind, nauseated, dry heaving and craving all the goodness that the food world can offer, but can't keep it down to save her life...ring the joyous bells of parenting; the only consolation I could provide, was...well its probably not the last time you'll be sick over your kid, followed by OUCH...she just hit me over the head with a frying pan...!!

can hardly to wait to meet you !! get growing... :)

Until the very next time...