Friday, October 14, 2011

I could be an electrophysiologist now!

Last week I had a lucky, lucky opportunity to attend part of a Cardiology Conference. I sat in the audience as the speaker reviewed and enhanced my knowledge of dyspnes, asystole, tachycaria, fossa ovalis, ganglionic plexi and axons, paroxysmal cavotricuspid isthmus, typical atrial flutter, and thromb embolism.
Seriously? The conference could have been presented in Italian and I wouldn't have understood any less.
Suzanne needed to attend an early morning class in Flagstaff and invited me to tag along so we could go hiking afterwards. I have realized that there are areas of study that clearly have a full and rich language of their own. Rachel was sharing some charting of a musical piece she was working on a posted this photo.I've been involved with music all my life and she regularly comes up with theory that I never knew existed. Obviously, this is Webern's Op 21 mvt 1 charted out. (Oh to be a music major...)
Anyway, after my mind got kind of cluttered up with cardiological information, we headed out to do some hiking and clear our heads. We found a trail head that had several options, some too short, some too long, so we just headed out and planned to just hike for a certain time, stop and eat our lunch, then head back. I always have a hard time with that plan. I prefer to hike to a destination, or do a loop trail. I always worry that when we just randomly turn back, that I might be missing something just around the next bend, or over the next hill. I'd hate for someone to tell me "If you'd have hiked 5 more minutes, you would have been at the waterfall!". Anyway, the weather was great - long sleeves on and still just a little bit chilly. Even a little bit of snow on the ground. Perfect.
After we finished hiking we drove to Sunset Crater. As many times as I've driven by, I've never stopped. We were too pooped to walk around much, but there is a lot to see from the scenic drive and the 1/4 mile walking loop. The lava flows are fascinating - like being on another planet. There was also an display of how many volcanoes are in the area around Flagstaff. I had no idea . . . fascinating.
After that, I became a dull traveling companion, I passed out asleep in the car all the way home.

5 comments:

Lauri said...

thanks, you have increased my vocabulary for the day. Now if only I could use paroxysmal cavotricuspid isthmus in a sentence. (I had to cut and paste it...I couldn't even spell it.)

Sarah said...

We were at sunset crater a couple of weeks ago too. Those lava flows are pretty amazing. Very cool.

Suzanne Barker said...

As usual, it was great to spend time with you, even when you are unconscious!

Anonymous said...

You lead a very interesting life!

Billy's Baseball said...

Definitely did not understand anything in the first paragraph. However the hike and the rest of the post look super fun. Was the hike brutal with higher altitude??