Dr. Cranquis' Mumbled Gripes

You have a pun-filled father? AWESOME! Dads that specialize in corny eye-rolling “groaner” jokes are the BEST.

At least, I certainly hope so, because that’s all Baby Cranquis is gonna get.

Thanks for your kind words, Allison, and have a wonderful day!

Medically-Correct Nursery Rhymes: Jack and Jill

Jack and Jill went up the hill,

to fetch a pail of water.

Jack fell down, due to dizziness from an inner-ear infection, and suffered a depressed skull fracture with intracranial bleed;

so Jill drank all the water herself, but it turned out to be contaminated with Giardia, resulting in a severe bout of diarrhea.

(These are the kinds of things I think about as I’m singing/patting/whispering Baby Cranquis to sleep.)

Photos of the Cranquis Family’s Caribbean Island Vacation

Oh, what a relaxing time we had! Probably one of the top 3 best vacations we’ve ever taken as a family. No schedule, no rush; lots of naps on the beach, building (and destroying) sand castles with Baby Cranquis, and reading books in the quiet evenings after the boy went to sleep.

Thanks to Mrs. Cranquis for taking the pictures. And I’ve included the traditional “Picture of Cranquis in disguise.” :)

violenceandscience submitted:

Best holiday gift this year?

(Note: “Togetherness” is not an acceptable answer unless you find a way to incorporate some crazy elements into said answer such as a unicorn with a candy cane horn teaching a Rabbi how to speak Swahili just in time to write the message on J.C.’s birthday cake before the surprise is inevitably spoiled by an excitable party guest…Then and only then could say togetherness was the best holiday gift).

Well Familia Cranquis finally exchanged Christmas gifts last night (New Year’s Eve), since we only now got the whole family together from around the country. And the best holiday gift at the event this year was the wooden toy kitchen (with a bucketload of toy cooking utensils, pots, fake food, etc) that we gave to Baby Cranquis. He and his cousin were so enamored of the thing, that they actually stopped opening any more presents for the rest of the evening — we had to sit them down to open the remaining presents this morning.

And that was the best gift I received, too — watching those two toddlers, mouths agape and eyes wide, as they slowly realized that this “replica of grown-up stuff” was for THEM, and all the possibilities it contained. Yep, I’m a dad now.

(Oh, I got some board games too. Those are cool.) :)

The Bad: Baby Cranquis falls down while getting out of the kiddie train at the zoo, landing on his arm.

The Ugly: He stops using his arm, keeping it close by his body despite not appearing to be in pain.

The Good: Momma brings him to Daddy’s work, where Daddy easily reduces his subluxed radial head (elbow dislocation) — and Baby Cranquis rewards Daddy with a big two-armed hug. :)

VOICE TROUBLE?

Hey Cranquis!

I am a (was?) a singer. I noticed that my vocal range was seriously cut down when I was pregnant, but I just attributed the change to having a rather large little mooch crowding up my organs and squishing my diaphragm. However, after I gave birth to said little mooch (who is recently a year old! Sorry for the proud mama moment), my voice took a turn for the worse. My voice cracks now when I try to sing and sometimes talk, I sound like a pubescent boy! It’s really embarrassing and hasn’t let up in the past year at all.

My question for you: what in the world happened to my voice? Can it be fixed??

Hey now, no need to apologize for being a proud parent! If that’s your lil’un in your Tumblr icon, he/she sure is kay-ute! If I wasn’t so gol-darned stubborn about hiding my identity on this Tumblr, y’all would be forced to endure an unending barrage of Baby Cranquis pictures! (Seriously, at last count my iPhoto contains 1,600 pictures of my 16-month old son. Dat’s a lotta picshures.)

But I digress. Now let’s clarify your question — there can be crucial differences between “losing your vocal range” and “having a pubescent-like cracking voice”. Both can be caused by the hormonal changes which take place during and after pregnancy (particularly in women who breast-feed: lady-hormones linger longer while lactating!). Along with the “crowding of the diaphragm” effect, the blood vessels into the sinuses become a bit dilated and congested, causing changes in vocal tone and range.

Your cracking/hoarse voice is a bit more concerning. Causes could include simple irritations from acid reflux or post-nasal drainage, or more troublesome problems like vocal cord nodules or vocal cord paralysis. Vocal cord nodules and cysts can happen to anyone, but more often to people who sing or scream a lot. Vocal cord paralysis can happen from viral infections, masses, surgery, or trauma. An ENT evaluation might be useful to evaluate for these. (And not to frighten you, but persistent voice change/hoarseness can also indicate laryngeal cancer — which an ENT can also evaluate for.)

Can a hoarse voice be fixed? Depends on the cause: possible treatments would range all over the place (acid-reducing meds, sinus rinses, voice rest [HA! Fat chance for a momma of a 1 year old!], speech therapy, singer’s vocal therapy, surgery, other options). So you may want to discuss this with your primary care doc, and consider getting a ENT consult. Good luck, and enjoy that cute bebeh.

***Pending Cranquis-Mails: 3; InBox: Closed***

FAVORITES!

Tell us your favorite books, movies, etc. Music??? Hobbies (besides video games :p)

:)

Somebody hasn’t read my FAQ page! Go check it out, Dig Doug; all those things are discussed there — except, maybe, My Favorite Hobbies:

Besides reading, computer games, and web-surfing, I also enjoy
Playing the violin — classically-trained until college, now mainly jamming with bluegrass/celtic music with friends, or playing with song services at church;
Drama — writing, directing, and performing in plays and skits (started in my college/summer-camp days, sadly don’t get much chance to do this now);
Improv Comedy — again, not too many opportunities for this lately (So I watch “Whose Line is it Anyways?” clips on YouTube to make up for it);
Snowboarding and Snow-Skiing
Hiking, Rock-Climbing and Bouldering
Camping
Inventing games to play with ~~Baby~~ Toddler Cranquis

***Pending Cranquis-Mails: 6 ; Inbox: Open for maybe a couple more questions***

Thank you! And congrats on DocStar getting some residency interviews. 4th-year of med school is an excellent time to do a medical missions trip: travel, time with spouse, serving others, and valuable perspective on what is “truly important” in your medical training and career.

I’ve discussed medical missions a couple times, but have never done it myself. But oh how I want to! We came very close to signing up for a medical-missions trip to Mexico for this winter, but decided to hold off until Baby Cranquis is a bit older and fully-vaccinated against some of those yummy diseases like hepatitis and polio… :(

I look forward to seeing pictures of your trip on your blog. :)

***Pending Cranquis-Mails: 1; TumblrMSG Inbox: Open***

Wow — deep questions! Thanks for sharing your inner struggles with me (and for giving me permission to post this question/reply on my blog). I think most of us humans tend to go through periods of feeling overwhelmed and “in need” of help from something (or Someone) bigger and stronger than ourselves — I know *I* do, even though I do feel pretty satisfied with my life overall. And I agree, I can’t imagine being able to persist in the face of suffering and pain if it wasn’t for my faith in God and His “Bigger Picture” plan for humanity.

I’ve written about my faith/beliefs before, and that post also talks about how I find meaning and strength in my faith and my relationships, and how I came to have these beliefs in the first place. So I’ll let you read that post for those answers — but I’ll expound a bit on the “big questions that keep me awake at night”, since I haven’t talked about that before.

In general, I tend to be an easy sleeper. Mrs. Cranquis would attest to this: I can fall asleep almost anywhere, and be snoring happily within minutes. But on the occasional night when I’m feeling stressed out about something (or if I’m just sitting up dealing with a fussy teething Baby Cranquis), the main thoughts that cross my mind are:

Am I going to raise this boy to be a gentleman? Will he be loving and kind, a good citizen and a good father himself? Am I being a good example for him?
Am I being a good husband? Does Mrs. Cranquis get enough attention and validation as a busy mother?
Am I making any progress on avoiding/decreasing my personal flaws? Am I letting God work on those issues too?
Am I using my money wisely? Am I prioritizing my life properly, or am I starting to get too focused on having the latest gadgets?
Am I spending my time wisely? Am I taking time away from my family and “wasting” it on computer games or surfing the web? Am I making time for personal devotions?
Why did Firefly get canceled after one season, while Jersey Shore is still on the air? WHY, GOD — WHY?!?!?

***Pending Cranquis-Mails: 2; Inbox: Closed***

Anonymous Asks:

I am a genie and I grant you 3 wishes with no limitations (excepf for "100000 more wishes). What would you wish for?

cranquis Said:

Nice to meet you, A Genie. Well, I’ve been asked “What one thing would you change about the world if you could?” before — but not the classic “3-wishes (with wishing-for-wishes excluded)” offer. So, hmm… I’ll answer this one in a more selfish manner, just to keep things interesting.

I WISH FOR…

A job schedule which would let me be free for church every weekend, and home before Baby Cranquis goes to bed.
All my school/home/car debt to be erased. (I don’t need to make more money, I just don’t want to have to spend so much of it on debt payments.)
A young couple/family to move into the neighborhood, so Mrs. Cranquis would have a woman her own age to pal around with.

There. Is that too much to ask? :)

***Pending Cranquis-Mails: 6; Ask Box: Closed***

Hello there! Ditto to you, I’m enjoying your blog and its unique spousal perspective on med school. Congrats to you both on being almost done with the med-school part of the Medical Journey.

Warning: intern year sucks as hard as the worst week of the worst 3rd-year rotation x 52 weeks. There were 3 main times/periods/points in my medical training where I seriously considered quitting (first set of final exams 1st year, first week of general surgery rotation 3rd year, and daily for the first 9 months in intern year). But I have actually written an Internship Survival Guide post before, so check that out, and may it give you and hubby some measure of comfort or preparedness. I’ll be praying for you guys…. *Wow, that doesn’t sound reassuring at all, does it?*

As for baby-timing around residency: regardless of whether you guys had residency looming or not, I would advise you to wait at LEAST 2-4 more years of married-life before having kids. That’s because once kids enter the picture, your marriage will change (mainly for the better, but also for the more-stressful) for a LOOOONG time. And with residency coming at you right now, too? Yeah, I’d wait, at LEAST until after intern year.

But you say, “Oh, but he’s the resident, I’m the mom, I’ll be at home with the kid, so we could handle it during intern/residency!” Yes, you COULD handle it — many do — but why make it harder on yourself than it needs to be? How much nicer it would be to have both parents on deck, with daddy having the more reliable schedule of either upper-classman in residency or fellowship! Even if you plan to change every diaper and do every household chore for the baby on your own, out of some strange 1950’s misplaced sense of female “motherly duty”, you will need lots of support and help and diaper-changing and night-time sleep-loss duty-sharing from your husband, particularly during the first 3-6 months of your first kid. His learning and performance will suffer during residency if a new baby is in the picture, and your marriage will suffer from the tremendous double-dose of baby stress plus residency-slaveitude stress.

Mrs. Cranquis and I waited until our 8th year of marriage before having Baby Cranquis, so I was already 3 years past residency. I’ve been able to be very involved with my son from day 1, and it’s been awesome. If he’d been born during residency (especially intern year), I would have missed SO much of his infancy and development. I’m pretty sure Mrs. Cranquis appreciates my involvement just a wee bit, too. I’m glad we waited that long (even though I was chomping at the bit to start makin’ babies by our 2nd year of marriage). Good luck to you guys, whatever you decide!

***Pending Cranquis-Mails: 4; Ask Box: Closed***

Hello there! Welcome to Tumblr and my blog. I think this old post answers your question, for the most part. But let me add something specific to your OB-GYN (obstetrics and gynecology) aspirations:

Even if you start shadowing an OB-GYN doc (or a family practice doc that does OB also), chances are that you will not get to witness any actual baby deliveries as a high-school student (unless you know the delivering mother pretty well). But if you find a licensed midwife who will let you shadow her/him, you might get to see some home-birth deliveries. Chances are that (some) home-birth mothers will be more accepting of the idea of a non-professional witnessing their delivery. Since the birth is held at home, there’s no hospital rules to worry about that might keep you out of the delivery room regardless of the mother’s desires. And having done a lot of research into home births and midwives, and having experienced (most of) a home birth with the birth of Baby Cranquis, I think any future OB should learn about this sadly underutilized and safer-than-you-think concept. Just a thought! Good luck. :)

***Pending Cranquis-Mails: 5; Ask Box: Closed***

How I spent my Summer Vacation, Week 2: Photoset 1

We didn’t have many sunny days during our two weeks in France, but we truly enjoyed the ones we had! Walking, eating, people-watching — a simple but enjoyable escape from real life. We learned to allow extra time when strolling from place to place, to give Baby Cranquis time to look at everything (and to give random strangers time to admire him and exclaim how “mignon” [cute] he is… hey, who am I to question random French peoples’ opinions about my son’s good looks?) :)

South African man sent to morgue, wakes up 24 hours later, understandably pissed. →

Jeez, when I oversleep, Mrs. Cranquis just puts Baby Cranquis on my chest and lets him bother me until I wake up. Maybe this morgue needs to raise its admission requirements? ;)

I have actually posted about my personal dietary routine before, Thought for Food. So fear not, you haven’t “clogged up” anything too terribly. :)

Now that Baby Cranquis is a over a year old, he’s eating pretty much everything we eat, EXCEPT we’re holding off on giving him anything “sweet” (desserts, candy, syrup, honey) as long as possible, to hopefully strengthen his tastes for the healthy stuff (veggies, grains, and we allow all the sweet fruits he wants). Whatever his 6 teeth can’t chew up, we blend up. I guess we really haven’t given him much dairy yet either (except a few trials of eggs and milk to see if he has any allergies to them), but he’s still getting all the breast-milk he wants — as long as he gets plenty of produce, he won’t be calcium-deficient by any means.

Being a doctor can certainly jack up your eating habits, if you let it. I really pushed my nutrition to the back-burner during my 3rd-year of med school, and somewhat again during intern year of residency — and I paid the price. I would get sick so often, I felt tired all the time (which I at first chalked up to “being a med student/resident”), I would struggle with depression. After I started being more proactive about eating better whenever possible, my overall physical and mental health improved (though I still felt tired and sometimes depressed, but heck, that’s the life of a resident.)

It’s truly sad how doctors and other healthcare providers often have some of the poorest lifestyles (nutrition, exercise, sleep, water, time away from the job). We have to start practicing what we preach! Nowadays, we laugh at doctors who still smoke — but I predict that someday, we will laugh at doctors who still eat McDonald’s.

***Pending Cranquis-Mails: 3; Ask Box: Will Open 6/28/11 at 6am Pacific Standard Time***