Nine months later, I arise from flames like the Phoenix to blog again. My sister Kelly, when talking about starting again, said "just don't apologize for not blogging", so I won't. You may ask yourself, 'what was Adam doing for the past nine months where he has neglected updating his friends about his life'? I have asked myself the same thing. Basically, we had Liam (please refer to thehammerherald.blogspot.com for Casey's in-depth detail of that aspect of my life) and I worked. A lot. And I don't have any pictures of work to document except a really cool looking purpuric (deep purple) rash that I captured on my iPhone back in December. Liam and Casey have traveled to Florida twice this Spring (which up in New England is actually just the end of Winter, I don't know if Spring is really a season). This picture to the left is a nice family photo, but is also posted to prove that the snow has officially melted and flowers have started to grow. This was taken on Mother's Day, so May 8.

This was a very long winter in one sense, but it was the fastest 4 months I may have ever experienced. It started snowing in October, but didn't really start snowing heavily/steadily until December. This photo to the right is after the first heavy snow in mid-December when all the Cassidys were up visiting. You may be noticing the stairs and wondering how they they look so perfectly shoveled, they must have been groomed by a seasoned Vermonter, right? Well, easy mistake, but I did it. There is something very gratifying about shoveling large piles of snow, but not when there is any ice in it. It's like mowing tall grass, but better. It's also a neat experience to get so hot in such cold weather that you have to start shedding layers. Maybe not everyone can appreciate this experience, but I am strangely attracted to shoveling. Now, I hope Casey doesn't read this so that more will be expected of me next winter.

This is proof that it did in fact get cold at our house. Very cold. I took this screen shot on my phone before walking into work with scrubs on. Once it gets to below zero it all just feels really cold, but the lower the temperature gets, the faster nose hairs freeze and the faster I develop ice crystals in my beard. Luckily I only had to be out in this weather for about 3-5 minutes on my walk from my car to the hospital. When it gets this cold, you also experience something else odd. Your car acts very differently. First, it is very slow to start, if you are so lucky to have it start. Then, when you start driving, it feels like you are driving on Flinstone wheels because they have frozen into the shape that they were in all night, which is not quite round. There is no snow at this cold of temperatures either. The wise old Vermonters with whom I have talked about the weather (people up here looooove to talk about weather, something I never understood as a Floridian) said that they used to get a solid 1-2 weeks where it never got above -25 F. I am glad that is no longer the case.

So, what did I do when I had time off from work, which was 1 day a week? Here is an example to the right of one of my days off. Otherwise we would go hike in the snow, sled, or just try to give Casey some time to herself away from the boy.

You can see that Liam has been storing up all his nutrients over the winter. He is quite the chunky baby compared to his friends. I had been storing up some nutrients as well, but have finally been able to get back into exercising more than the occasional P90x workout. I have started to ride my bike and run to work as much as I can, depending on the weather (and how early I have to leave). It is such perfect weather now. The skies are generally clear and the weather is in the 50s which is perfect for riding and running.



Here is a video of the wonderful noise we get to hear when Liam wants us to know something is not right. That could be anything from, 'I want to get up', 'I want to go to sleep', 'I want to eat right this second, not in 2 minutes after you have warmed a bottle', or 'I just felt something weird and need to scream'. I am not worried about his masculinity even though this is the most high pitched noise I have heard. I think it is around 16-17 kHz. Luckily we are relatively young parents, because if we were any older, the fine hair cells in our inner ear (cochlea) would be degraded and we wouldn't be able to hear such high pitched noises and he may go unnoticed. Well that seems to be a sufficient update for now. More later. I will be a resident in a month and a half and have much more time...

The Journeyman Years

The title of the blog deserves a bit of explanation. The other night, for date night, Casey and I went to one of the most expensive restaurants in the Upper Valley for dessert. We went to Simon Pearce, which is a glass making company where they still have actual people blow their glass products. This, of course, makes everything there ridiculously expensive. However, they do have reasonably priced dessert and a tour that you can take with all kinds of information that would keep a ceramics engineer entertained for hours. On one of the signs it showed the progression of training of a glass blower from Apprentice, to Journeyman, to Craftsman, and finally to Master.

I got to thinking that I feel like I am currently in a seemingly eternal training which could be likened to that of a glass blower. In that system, I would currently only be a Journeyman. Hence the picture here to the left, which happens to have been taken on my first day of medical school, my Apprenticeship. I suppose that makes residency my Journeyman period, Craftsman my fellowship (if I do one), and Master a real physician. Would you trust this man with your life? Dont worry, I looked so much more safe on the first day of residency. My beard was probably only three quarters that long. You can see that on the right even though that wasnt actually my first day.


Speaking of Craftsmen and Masters of their trade, a few weeks ago Casey and I got the chance to visit some good friends we met in Tallahassee who have since moved up to New Hampshire. Ryan, with his wife Jacci and two kids Sage and Caleb, moved here to head up the maintenance team at a ministry/living facility called His Mansion about an hour south of us. This place is pretty sweet. It is for people with any type of addiction to come and live in tight, Christ centered community with the obvious goal of freedom from addiction and growth in their walk with the Lord. Ryan is a carpenter by trade and has some pretty impressive accomplishments under his belt including multiple major projects at Brigham and Women's and Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston prior to moving south to Florida where we met him and his awesome wife Jacci. Needless to say, I feel very inadequate as a man around him, especially when Casey constantly seems wowed by everything that he has made around the house and camp (which is just about everything).


This past Wednesday, I had a surprise day off so we took full advantage of the beautiful summer day and traveled an hour to the furthest Southwest peak in the White Mountain National Park, Mount Moosilauke. The Dartmouth Outing Club (I think the largest student/alumni outdoor club network in the US, but dont quote me on that) owns a large portion of land and maintains a cabin and trails up to the peak. It is pretty awesome to find peaks here above treeline at only 4800 feet. We were fortunate to have a clear day where we could see all of the presidential peaks to the East of us. I practiced a bit of my martial arts and we lounged a bit, but unfortunately had to leave shortly after peaking to make it back to town for a Bible study with our new church, for which we were late, again.

As far as church goes, we have been going to one called Riverbank Church which is a small non-denominational church that is pretty different from any Casey or I have ever attended. The pastor and several members of the leadership moved up from Florida in response to a pretty clear call to come minister to the heavily un-churched area of New England. It is a pretty evangelistic church which is fairly outreached focused, but I would not put it in the category of 'seeker friendly' church. We have really enjoyed being a part of it, so much so that we haven't tried either of the other two churches in New England (that's a joke, sort of).

So last, but definitely not least, we have had all sorts of developments with the newest Hammer, Little Hamlet. We had an ultrasound last Thursday and will have the images scanned and digitalized soon. Casey should have them up on her blog soon at www.thehammerherald.blogspot.com . But, aside from the anatomy that everyone wants to know about, all the baby's parts look great, 10 finger, 10 toes, brain, etc. It must be one of the most active babies ever because it was constantly moving and flipping for more than 30 minutes. It really did not want the tech to look at its cerebellum and nuchal fold because it kept shoving its head as far down towards Casey's cervix as it could, away from the ultrasound probe. But we eventually got beautiful pictures which will be up soon!

Ok, now lastly, this past weekend we took a relatively spur of the moment trip to NYC. This was my first trip to the big city and I felt like I only got to experience 1/1000th of all that there is to see and do there. We stayed with a friend from Young Life Gainesville Mike McVicar in Brooklyn who was a fantastic tour guide and personal minstrel (musician, comedian, etc). We hit up Times Square late Friday night and a local Mexican place; it was so nice to have real Mexican food again. Saturday we woke up so late (11am) had brunch (so NY) which had a tap beer as part of the set price, so awesome! Then we hit the Metropolitan Museum, Central Park, SoHo, dumplings in Chinatown, the Brooklyn Bridge, then an apartment party back in Brooklyn. Sunday we had another brunch (so NY), the High Line, Chelsea Market, and then had to head out. The only bad part was driving in and out of town. So terrible.

So thats about it. I guess we've been able to do quite a bit for intern year and for that I am thankful. Just trying to suck the marrow while the sucking is good. Hope you are all well, look forward to hearing from you and seeing you at Octoberfest on the 1st-3rd!

Into the Great Wide Open

If you dont know by now, this is an official announcement that the Hammonds have moved northward to Vermont. We have settled into the little town of Hartford which is right on the border of New Hampshire where I am now working as a medical resident at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Internal Medicine. This was originally sent out in email form, so if you didnt get it that way, I probably dont have your email and would like it.

So, first of all, Casey is now 20 weeks pregnant and you get updates all about her and our baby at www.thehammerherald.blogspot.com . She is doing very well and adjusting to life up here well, except on the job front. Surprisingly, there are virtually no jobs even for nurses up here, but needless to say she is staying busy with all the great outdoor activities and new friends. Jamie, our dog, is also loving it up here because she gets to go hiking all the time. It is so crazy to have great hiking trails and swimming holes within 5-30 minutes from our house, some right out of our back door. If you come for Octoberfest this year (October 1-3!!!) you willl definitely get to experience them.

As for my work, I started on June 26, and yes, that was a Saturday. I took that as an sign for things to come, starting on a saturday. I started in the ICU where I came in on a team of 3 residents covering 11-14 patients. That means when one resident is having their day off, we each cover about 5-7 patients which was a little overwhelming. There is overnight call in the ICU also, and when I was overnight I was the only one around so I got called for everything on our patients. There was a Critical Care Fellow also there on call who I contacted when I was in trouble and that was a lot at first. I got used to it pretty quickly though and it actually started to be kind of fun, except the minimal sleep part. Being at Dartmouth, you are bound to run across some big name at some point, and I did without realizing it and got into a bit of a tiff with one the nationwide blood transfusion gurus on his first day as our attending physician. We smoothed things over after I made subtle comments about unresolved conflict interfering with a positive work environment. My next rotation starting tomorrow will be quite different. I am on a community health block working with an outpatient doc in a small town about 30 miles from here. I will only be working 4.5 days per week so we are planning to take full advantage of the summer weather.

One of the other reasons (besides the outdoor activities) that we moved up here, really a reason I moved up here, is for all of the great beer. There are more microbrews per capita in Vermont than any other state. Last weekend we went to Burlington for the Vermont Brewers Festival which was awesome. We stayed with some cool people, John Adams and Sarah Coonrad, who we met through a friend Marc from med school. I mention their names because I love that he is named after a president and she just has a fantastic last name. I may or may not have had a decent amount to drink at the BeerFest and the French Canadian dish called La Poutine (french fries with melted cheese and gravy) may or may not have been a very bad idea afterwards... We had another beer festival yesterday here at the Harpoon brewery with some sweet Bar-B Q vendors from all over the region. There were actually some really good barbqers there who had some pretty impressive awards from nationwide competitions, even in the southeast.

Well, thanks for reading. I hope you are well and would love to hear from you too. Peace out