What A Week!

What a week... A lot has happened since I last took the time to blog about something other than the contest. Last Thursday and Friday, my classmates and I were forced to sit through a prosthetics and orthotics short course. The course is actually for medical and surgical residents, and it is their only exposure to information regarding P&O. Our teachers have told us repeatedly that doctors usually have no clue what a patient needs when it comes to prosthetics or orthotics. They invariably write a vague or nonsensical prescription, and when the patietn brings to us, we have to call the Dr. to talk about the patient's issues, and usually end up teling the Dr. what to write on a new perscriotion. I have realized why this happens.... when those doctors were residents, they were sent to one of these short courses. When there, they started the first day listening to all the lectures, but took off after the first cofee break. I want you to know that I am not exaggerating this story. The first morning started with roughly 130+ people (residents, and our P&O class). by the end of that day, there were only 55 people (that includes all 13 of us). The second day started with 50-60 people, but by that evening there were only 19 people (and guess how many of them were P&O students). Honestly... I hope I don't even need one of their opinions on one of my patients.
Monday, we had the chance to go to Frisco to see my cousin Shandi and her family. It was a blast. They have such cute kids, and they are all so nice. We had home-made pizza (fantastic) and carved pumpkins. It was a great evening.
The next day we had to take Himaya to the hospital, and we found out that she has an ear infection... though she is much better now. My foot has felt tight, and hurt to dorsiflex since Saturday, but it all came to a head last night. It really started to hurt. When I woke up this morning, it was excruciating. it hurt to lift my leg off of the bed, because I could feel gravity pushing my foot down. I had to go to see a doctor (at student health). I found out that I have gout! My dad has gout, and I can remember seeing him in a lot of pain. I used to think that sometimes, he might be playing it up...milking it for all it is worth. I now completely sympathize with him. I would say it hurt FAR more than ameobic dissnetary in the Philippines (and thats saying something). I have taken some Indocin now, and I feel like it is getting better.
On to the journal-jar question. "Tell about your favorite Halloween? What did you wear? Where did you go?". Emily already told about the halloween we met, so I will talk about another. I think 3 years ago, when we were still living in Rock Springs, we got matching LONG black wigs; Emily got a bright mumu with hybiscus flowers, and I had a blue hawiian shirt. We both wore grass skirts, and I carried a ukelele. Emily stuffed a pillow in her front, and another in her butt area so we looked like a pair of fat hawiians. As according to tradition, we went to see a movie dressed up. It was a blast. We really know how to have a good time.
Thanks to you all for stoping by to read this...and thanks to all who voted for Himaya. The round ends tonight, but we won't find out if she advances until Sunday at about 11pm. Keep your fingers crossed, and be ready to vote for her next week! Thanks, and have a great day.

Branch

Round 3!!!

Holy Crud, I am so excited! Himaya made it to the top 25 kids. We are trying no to get too drawn in (in case it doesn't work out for her), but we have faith she could go all the way. It seems as though this contest has taken my blog hostage... cause it is all I have blogged about in 3 weeks or so. I will be so happy when it is all over. Please stop by to vote for her each day. If you have more than one email address, you can delete your browsing history and cookies between votes. *Note: I am not advocating anyone create multiple email addresses for this purpose... just if you already have more than one, lets use it to our advantage. Thanks a ton for stopping by, and for the support. I will have cute pictures tomorrow for you all (we are carving pumpkins). Thanks and have a great week!

Branch

Click here to vote for Himaya

ROUND 2!!!

I want to start by thanking everyone for voting for Himaya. She has made it through to the second round. I decided to set up a secondary blog to promote her picture. It can be found at www.himayahunsaker.blogspot.com You can continue to access the voting page from here by clicking HERE. She still has a few rounds to go, but if we all take a few minutes each day to cast a vote for every email address we have, we should be able to keep her numbers up. I wish we knew how many votes she currently has... after rereading the rules, I believe the winner will be the baby with the most TOTAL votes (not the most votes in the last round).
On another note, Himaya has had a rough night last night, and tonight is worse. She is teething, and is not very happy. She is super tired, but she keeps waking up. It has been 2-3 months since her colic went away, and this seems worse. I will be glad when these 2 teeth pop through. Anyhow... thanks again, and have a fantastic day!

Branch

I will be sad if you don't vote for me...

CLICK HERE TO VOTE FOR ME

All righty! I first want to thank everyone for giving their opinion regarding the picture we should post for the radio contest. If you are reading this, and have no idea what I am talking about, scroll down to my post from 10/5/08. The picture that got the most votes was "monkey face", and it is now up for voting. We need your help! We want to send Himaya through to the next round. The voting starts at 12:01 am Tuesday and ends at 11:59 pm Friday. You are allowed "one vote per valid email address per computer per day". I will post the link at the end of this email, after you click on the link here is how you vote for Himaya. At the top of the pictures, there is a link labled "Next Poll>>" click on it, and scroll down about a quarter of the way (in the "H's" duh). Click on the dot next to her name and scroll all the way to the bottom. Then enter your email address and click on "Vote". Then you have to go to your email to confirm your vote...unfortunately, you have to go back to your email every time you vote. I know there are a lot of cute babies on there, but don't be distracted....focus on the task at hand. After voting for Himaya, then feel free to peruse the other photos...haha!
Himaya has changed SO much these last couple of weeks. About the day after she could flip from her back to her front, she started pushing herself forward. Within a few days she was lifting her belly off the ground and falling forward to move around. By now she has pretty much mastered crawling. When it is time for her to go to sleep and she doesn't want to, she started crawling around in her crib, and crying as she looked through the bars at us. We had throw a blanket over our bar stools and block her view so she would go to sleep. After 2 days of that, she decided to just stand up in her crib so she could see us over the top of the barrier. This bewildered us, and prompted us to lower the mattress level in her crib so she wouldn't try climbing out the top. I am constantly awestruck as I get to see her learn and figure things out. She is growing up and changing every day. She hit the 6 month mark on the 9th, so we recorded her height on the newly-sanded "Hunsaker Height Board". We will take it with us, and when we buy a house, it will be permanantly placed.
School is going well... I am fitting my patient with my first above-knee prosthesis in the morning. I hope everything is right, though I am sure something went wrong. I had the un-luckiest day of my life on the day I made the socket for his prosthesis. I managed to mess up twice trying to pull the plastic test socket, which I cracked trying to remove the plaster; I lost my school ID and annual public transportation pass, and I split the zipper on my backback just before getting on my bike to head home from school. I should have stayed in bed that day. It all turned out ok in the end though (except for the ID and bus pass). The biking is still going well. I have managed to lose almost 15 lbs now (though I don't think it really shows yet). I feel better than I have in a long time, and so do my knees. Too bad I started this just before it gets too cold for bike riding. I know I live in Texas... but it will get down to 20-25 degrees (not optimal bike-riding weather). I will keep it up somehow. Anyhow. I think I have rambled on long enough. Thanks for reading and thanks for voting. Tell everyone you know to vote for Himaya! Here is the link:
CLICK HERE TO VOTE FOR HIMAYA!!!

Emily's Question

I was about to go to bed, then I remember that Emily threatened trouble if I didn't answer her journal-jar question. The Q of the week is to name a book I love, and tell why. It is really hard to narrow it down to just one, but I will give it a shot. My favorite fiction novel is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I remember reading it for the first time in middle school for an English class. I really liked it. A few years ago, Emily gave me a hardbound copy on my birthday and I reread it. Actually... this makes me want to read it again. I recommend it to anyone.

Most KISSable baby contest...We need imput!

There is a contest in the Dallas/Fort Worth area each year put on by KISS FM (yep... a radio station). The point is to have the most kissable baby. We just realized that the deadline is today, and we need to get the picture in. The problem is that we can't decide which picture to use. They are basing the decision on the following criteria:
• Camera friendly nature of the subject
• Originality
• Personality
• Photo quality
We want everyone who wanders across this blog to give their vote (even if the deadline is past). If you want to see more info on the contest; or if you live in DFW and want to enter your baby, go to http://www.1061kissfm.com/cc-common/globalcontestfinder.html?contest=33202
Thanks for stopping by and thanks for your opinion."Monkey Face""Washed Out""Pacified""Watchin' the Clouds""Tongue Out""Attitude"


*****I apologize for the lame names I gave the pictures*****

Traditions

All right... My wife has asked that I participate in answering her journal jar questions, and I feel it would to my benefit to oblige. Her question this week is regarding childhood and current family traditions.
Growing up we had a few cool traditions. Every Christmas eve, we would dress up in our new pajamas (we got them every year), we would put on Santa hats and we would take treats to and sing carols to the 24 hour places in our hometown... we felt bad for the people who had to work Christmas eve. In addition to gifts, Santa would hide a pickle somewhere in the Christmas tree and an special treat was left for whomever found it. Since I turned 16 or so, every 4th of July my 2 brothers and I have had a tradition. We would buy steaks and fireworks. We would get extension cords and bring the TV and VCR outside by the porch swing. We would then proceed to grill steaks, watch the movie Independence Day and light fireworks.

Current traditions include decorating stockings every year for each other. We also go to a movie (in a theater) wearing a costume on Halloween. Emily put a few pictures of this on her blog if you want to go check that out.