A night out and a great honor for Ry

Last night was the annual dinner for the Lehigh Valley Hospital Surgery Department that welcomes the new Interns as well as says goodbye to the graduating Chiefs.

Pretty bittersweet

. Each year as a wife I tend to know more faces and make more acquaintances...just to have them all slowly get ready to leave when their husbands graduate residency.

Ryan has also been very busy working on some research papers and submitting them into contests, and in fact he was recognized last night in front of everyone for the award he won a few weeks ago. This award is apparently quite prestigious and not only did he win a framed certificate, he got a check for $1000 and a chance to present at the American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress conference in San Francisco in late Oct (which apparently someone at his level of Residency doesn't get the opportunity to do!). From what I was told last night, it's one hell of an honor, and I'm extremely proud of him. His attendings are always "volunteering" him for presentations and research so it's nice to see it all pay off because I swear he is always working on something and being "forced" to go to Philly or Pittsburgh to do presentations at smaller conferences.

We have 2 more years before we're in the residency graduation boat though, so until then we just sit back and enjoy the ride. Once the next 2 years is up Ry will be doing a Trauma Surgery Fellowship and that can be a one year or two year program depending on which hospital he chooses to train at, and then after that we're hoping to come back to the Lehigh Valley, where Ry will be the Trauma Attending. but who knows. So much can change before then...

Meeting Ry's attendings at these functions is always fun too because some of them are quite entertaining. These are men that have been in surgery for longer than I've been around, and they know their stuff, and they have plenty of entertaining stories. Plus since I work in the lab it's nice to be able to put faces with the names of doctors whose labs I work on daily.

To make our night out possible my friend Krysta agreed to come hang out with Aidan for the night. She even brought him presents, of which there were some squirt guns, thus making her the coolest person in his eyes!

Apparently he was on his best behavior for her and when she told him she thought it was time to put his PJ's on and get ready for bed he said OK and headed up the stairs to his room! Haha man he's funny!

I stole these from Krysta:

When he woke up this morning I told him I heard he was a good boy for Krysta and he said "yeah!" and when I asked him what they did he told me all about how they played with the squirt guns (or nerf guns as he refers to them). Then when we got downstairs he looked around and said "Where Krysta go?" I'm glad he was good for her and doubly glad that he had such a good time with her!!!

Thanks again, Krysta!!