So it’s been awhile since my last post.  My wife so graciously has posted a happy birthday message for me. :)  Yep I’m 29 now!  I got some interesting emails this week from old Everquest players who were surprised to see be in medicine now.  Yeah, I remember playing Everquest with my friends and talking about taking my MCAT and applying to medical school.  Now here I am, Dr. Richie Truxillo the 1st year Resident, seeing patients prescribing meds and pretty much playing doctor everyday.  My my it’s been a long road.

This first month has really been an introduction month.  Patient care during the mornings (and occasional evening) with didactic teaching sessions in the afternoons.  I start working at the Salem Veterans Hospital on the 28th on the Internal medicine service and then the ICU/CCU.  So I’m getting hammered with experience right out of the gate.   Still, I enjoy it so far even though the hours are going to be long.  My main concern is getting to see my wife everyday and spend time with her.  I’ve also gained some weight and trying to get it off is awful.  In fact as soon as I finish this post I’m hopping on the Bowflex and then doing 30 minutes of cardio either with Taebo, my bike or Wii Fit (havent decided yet hehe).

I’ve made a couple posts on Realdealmedicine.com but thus far haven’t reached my goal of a post a day.  I celebrated my birthday this past Sunday even though it was on Monday.  Patty is out of town this week in Myrtle Beach with her family/  On monday I pulled 12 hours and came home to my solo dinner of 2 angus burgers I cooked on my new grill.  The phone rang and I turned my back for 2 minutes.  My dogs stole my dinner off my plate and gobbled it up just in time for me to turn around.  30 seconds later they gave it back to me as they barfed it ALL up on my kitchen floor.  The smell was horrid, like the smell you get when you eat chinese food and afterwards take a laxative to clear it out.  :(   Anyway, my birthday dinner ended up being a bowl of frosted flakes ;)  Such is life though! ha!

I’ve also found I don’t consider the little things anymore when I am tired.  Like this morning, I got up and let the dogs out to pee.  I walked outside in my underwear and waved to my neighbors and said hello.  Didn’t think anything of it! hehe  I guess it was a little drafty.

Well I need to cut this short.  I’ve got some studying to do and my gut isn’t going to get any smaller by sitting here at the computer desk. ;)   Leave some love on the comment box!  And Patty, if you read this, I love you and miss you.  Crap!  I just forgot, I gotta take the trash out too!

Yes, that’s right folks!  Today is July 14th and it’s Richie’s Birthday today!!!  (this is the wife by the way).  And here is the question of the day…….

HOW OLD IS RICHIE TRUXILLO?

Post a comment and see if you can guess….some of you may already know.  I’d love to see how many of you reply, and how many of you know the answer!!!!

Make sure you tell him Happy Birthday!  He’s working so hard as a first year intern, but I know he loves it!

Have a GREAT week!

~patty

So graduation came and went, like a summer thunderstorm.  Some of my faimly came to watch me graduate and my best friend and his wife hooded me.  When I was up on stage, as soon as I was hooded, the wind blew really hard and knocked part of the stage down.  If anyone has video of that happening while I was up there, please send it to me!  I will pay to have the video shipped. :)  It’d be great Youtube video fodder!

I have sent out thank you cards to everyone who has given me a gift for the wedding and for graduation.  I’d like to take a moment and thank all of you publicly for your gifts as they have made moving to Roanoke and buying our first home possible.  :)  Thank you all so much!

It is June 26th, 2008 today.  I’ve been in orientation for what seems a week and a half now.   I have re-certified in Basic Life Support, Advanced Cardiac Life Support and Pediatric Advanced Life Support this week.  In addition, I’ve been to orientation for the Salem Veterans Hospital, the new EMR for Carilion (EPIC) and a short blurb on Carilion Clinic.  Tonight, we have the picnic where I can hang out with the new residents and meet their families.  It’s a pool party, looking forward to that

The Ebay stores are doing well.  I also am getting ready to crank up the seperate “Real Deal Medicine” project shortly, which will be blog posts based on what I learn during my rotations thru residency.  This is to serve a dual purpose:  1) To keep me honest on reading while solidifying knowledge by recording what I learn and 2) Provide somewhat of a knowledge base for med students and residents in layman’s terms.    There’s alot of information out there like emedicine and Harrison’s, but not really anything that breaks information down into layman’s terms.  You will find the project at realdealmedicine.com

All in all, things are going well.  I’ve got some other things coming down the pipe but looking forward to starting residency soon.   I am tired of being nervous about it and just want to sink my teeth into it and get this show on the road.

Yep, the dream *is* real!  Here’s the degree to prove it

>???????? I am, sitting in the WVSOM library computer lab, blogging about graduating from Medical School.  It sure has been a long road overall but ya know, I’d do it again.   This week (Grad Week) has been an exercise in futility with endless surveys and people asking for our feedback.  It’s funny because I am sure the same feedback is submitted every year but no one ever listens! haha.  Remember this, WVSOM operates on the all mighty dollar and they will only make changes for students if it benefits their bottom line in the longrun.   Therefore, I believe the end of year surveys are useless and just serves as a chance to milk some last few minutes from us.  Well, the financial aid hour was useful, just boring.  It’s funny that the same people who griped and complained about things the first two years came back and complained about the past 2 years. Which proves my point:  People never change.  It’s an amusing observation.
Anyway, I’ve been sleeping on the floor in my friend’s hotel room because I am broke.  Not broke because I didn’t budget, but broke because I am buying a house. :(  I won’t get my first paycheck till July 15th so part of me is secretly longing for that day to come, even though I’ll be working my arse off. 

Anyway, I just want to give a hearty thanks to everyone in my life who has supported me throughout these 4 years, especially my Mom and Dad, without their encouragement I’d have been down and depressed my first two years.  I’d also like to thank my loving wife for her support. Lastly, Mike Peterson and Erik Buzzard who’s friendship I’ll never forget through school.

It’s funny, after graduation, odds are I will never seen most of these people again.  Yet we weathered probably one of the most inhumanely stressful things one can go through.  Adversity has a way of making bonds in times of need but as residency rounds the corner, there will be new challenges and new bonds formed.  I am hoping I will make new friends at Carilion Clinic in the residency program and have the same bonds I shared in medical school.   

My best friend and his wife was nice enough to take one of their few days off to come down for graduation and hood me when I receive my degree.  A big hearty thanks to best friend, Jade Hoy and his wife Malissa!

So anyway I’ve been sappy now.  I’m going to get some sleep.  Graduation is two days away and I have ALOT to do and no time to do it
Hope you all are well!
-Richie

Ah, yes! They say that the most stressful things in life are 1) Buying your first home, 2) Getting Married and 3) Graduating from Medical School and 4) Starting Residency Well I’m doing all 4 in a three month period! Crazy eh!?!

Anyway, I know before I get a comment that says “This thread is worthless without pics!” here are a couple photos of the new place. We will move in around June 16th, give or take a few days. At that time I will bid farewell to the fine state of West Virginia and hello to familiar territory in Virginia (which they say is for lovers..but that is like saying “West Virginia: Open for Business!”).

In other news, my music is now available for free download/on-demand streaming at the website: http://www.last.fm Enjoy!

As promised here are a few photos from our wedding and honeymoon Cruise on the Celebrity Century! I’m busy working on my network of Ebay stores and my quest to buy our first house together. Hopefully you all are doing well! I got the itch to write some music but put it on the backburner for now.

I’ve purchased a new domain for my new project: Generating Income Online. I’m hooked because I’ve made about 250 bucks so far these past couple months with affiliate marketing. Next month looks to be a 150% increase thus far.

Ok here are some pictures to whet your picture-seeking appetites for now

I just moved all of my sites from Aplus.net (crappy server speed) to a new hosting provider with good speed.  It will take a couple days to get everything back up and running.  In the meantime, relax and enjoy things.  Married life is great so far and I had a wonderful honeymoon cruise.  Some pictures will be coming soon

-Richie

So here I am in Wise, VA staying with Patty.  It is snowing outside and I have to get up early and drive 2 hours to work in the morning.  I have aquafresh whitening strips in my mouth right now, which are making my teeth sensitive.  Patty is doing her nightly “Spend an hour on myspace and surf the internet for wedding stuff” ritual so naturally I am bored out of my mind.  I thought to myself, A) how much I have hatred for myspace (mainly for their ads, spam and complete idiots that post stuff on it) and B)  I’ll update my website.

 I’ve had alot of questions about the music.  Well I paid Artistlaunch for my yearly bandwidth dues but I got an email back stating that ”They will be launching their new site soon.”  That was a month ago.  They just now put up Artistlaunch 2.0 BETA and I can log into my account now.  You’ll be able to buy MP3s and hopefully also download them soon…in the meantime, I’ll try to get some hosting.  Speaking of which, avoid Aplus.net like the plague if you can.  My server speed is way way down and so I am going to switch to hostgator.com when I can get my last loan disbursement. 

Patty had her Bachelorette party this past weekend in Asheville.  I had my bachelor party….no wait, I didn’t have one.  All of my close friends work for a living, are way far away or are in medical school so no bachelor party for me. :(   Yeah go ahead and say it…ya know you want to! :P  Luckily some friends of mine were available to play games online that night and keep me company.  Sometimes being up in West Virginia away from all your friends you grew up with sucks!  Ah the sacrifices we make to be sucessful in life.  Please drink some beer in rememberance of the soon to be bachelor-no-more.

Still 6 days away and I’ll be a married man.  I’ve had quite a few emails lately asking if I have been getting along ok or if I am getting cold feet or if I am stressed out.  I really appreciate your concerns ;)  First off, I’m not really stressed out about the wedding. In fact I am kinda excited for it to get here.  I’m majorly stressed out about moving to Roanoke, particularly buying our first house which I have never done before.  I’m also still waiting on my COMLEX PE score to get back…which is the final thing that could possible keep me from graduating.  I feel pretty confident that I passed it but waiting is by far the worst part.  Never know until you get that paper with “PASSED” on it. ;)   I love Patty, she is amazing and I’m steadfast in getting married to her.  We are going to have a great life together.   So no on the cold feet thing.  I don’t think I’ll have a runaway bride situation either hahahaha.  Still, some interesting emails this week, mainly from you crazy people in the United Kingdom! ;)

Wow, the snow is really coming down out there right now.  Which means I *may* be late for work tomorrow due to the plows not coming.  For those who are asking I am on my last rotation which ends on April 11th….then I will be done with school till graduation on May 31st.  

I’d like to give a special shout out to my new soon-to-be collegues at Carilion Clinic in Roanoke, VA.  Looking forward to working with ya’ll for the next 4 years.  Let it be known that delivering babies still scares the poop out of me!

Hitting submit, time for bed, these aquafresh white strips are killing my teeth.  Ah, the things we endure all for the vanity’s sake.

 -Richie

So I’ve had my bowflex for over a month now and I am starting to see results. It fits perfectly in my computer room so I cannot sit down at the computer without feeling guilty for thinking about ditching my workout plans. It’s a beautiful thing isn’t it