Weekend Review: Padmanadi, Escape Room, & Step 2 CK Score

I really can't believe how fast July has gone by! It's been nice out this week for the most part, despite the constant threat of thunderstorms. On Thursday afternoon the warnings came to fruition with a massive storm that had the clinic lights flickering and us finding a window to check out the hail. Thankfully within half an hour all signs of the storm had disappeared and I had a nice sunny walk home. Work-wise it's been a great week, apart from some very last minute Powerpoint efforts for a rounds presentation. I don't know why I haven't learned to start preparing for rounds earlier. Presenting on 2 hours of sleep is really not ideal. Here are some better things that have happened in the past seven days:

1. cutlery -- For the past year an occasional frustration has been having only four of each cutlery item, so I was inordinately pleased this week to finally get another set.

   

   simple joys

2. Step 2 CK score -- I wasn't as worried about this one as I was Step 1, but thankfully I passed (again, not respectably, don't care).

   

   And I did best on endocrine?

   

   ...and worst on immunology (this one's less of a surprise).

3. naturally imperfect apples -- I was excited to see that Superstore has jumped on the naturally imperfect produce bandwagon...just for apples, but it's a start! It's a little ridiculous because there were no imperfections whatsoever on any of the apples in the bag I picked up but hey, I'll happily pay $0.74/lb to rescue any apples deemed too small or too ugly.

   

   See, they're perfect! High standards much.

4. food trucks -- Friday was the final day of weekly food truck visits to the hospital, which was a little sad (I know summer is short here, but come on...last year it didn't snow until September 8). Anyways, there were two food trucks instead of one so we got to try Australian "chicken chipees" (basically chicken fingers shaped like fries) and ice cream cookie sandwiches for lunch.

   

   black cherry ice cream was a good decision (and yes, that's a bite out of the cookie)

5. Padmanadi -- I had an interesting dinner at Padmanadi, a vegetarian restaurant downtown that specializes in meatless "meat" dishes. From ginger beef to kung pao chicken, I was so impressed by how closely the appearance, taste, and texture of the tofu resembled actual meat. Apart from one curry chicken dish (which was still delicious) there was no way I would have known that I wasn't eating meat.

   

   I'm a lousy blogger because I get self-conscious taking food photos :S Here's one from http://exploreedmonton.com/food-drink/padmanadi

6. escape room -- On Friday my residency program reattempted a Breakout Entertainment escape room...which, as you may recall, we didn't fare too well in the first time around. This time we chose the "Bomb" room, the premise being that we had to solve puzzles to diffuse a bomb in 45 minutes. This scenario is set up a bit differently from the first room we tried, in that the room is subdivided into three smaller rooms, with capacity for 3, 2, and 3 people. The two end rooms cannot communicate with one another and must relay all information through the middle room. One end room can see the middle room through a window but cannot hear them and the other can only communicate with the middle room by sound. Each room depends upon clues from the two other rooms to make progress in the puzzle. While we had fun, Bomb was definitely more confusing than Secret Lab, where we at least were all on the same page. At the end the staff didn't offer up the solution to the room, so I'm still pretty perplexed about the whole thing!

   

   No photos allowed, so here's the room description (http://breakout-ent.com/).

7. potluck -- It was fun to catch up with friends at a birthday potluck yesterday. We ended up playing Resistance: Avalon for a few hours, which was significantly more fun than it sounds :)

   

   the best lemon mousse cake

8. MA.20 -- The most exciting thing that happened in my work world this week was the long-anticipated publication of the MA.20 study (Regional Nodal Irradiation in Early-Stage Breast Cancer in the NEJM). Studies are a big deal because they form the basis for any treatment we offer, so a new study that refutes the present standard of care can be practice changing. I'm just starting to learn about the landmark oncology studies, so I'm not going to pretend I have much to say here, but I am very happy that Canadian cancer centres are collaboratively putting out excellent research and that people who have worked hard on this study over the past fifteen years are getting the recognition that they deserve.