I Passed!!!!!!!!!

For the last 3 months or so, I've been studying to take my Neurosonology Registry Exam. It's been long hours, evening after evening, but I finally took it a couple weeks ago, and I passed!!!! It's such a relief!

Let me explain what this is, exactly. I'm sure you all are like, the Neuro-what? What is that??

So, technically, to perform Ultrasounds in the United States, there is no National certification required like there is for X-Ray or Nursing, etc. This is due mostly to the fact that it's never been proven that getting an Ultrasound is harmful to the body, which is why it's an imaging tool best known for pregnant women and children. There are a couple of states that now make it a requirement to work in that state you must be a "registered" sonographer. (New Mexico was one of the 1st!!! Thanks to my sonographer friends and teachers @ DABCC) Most facilities (esp. hospitals) around the country require a sonographer to be registered in at least 1 area, for their insurance purposes, mostly.

There are various areas you can be registered in which lead to various initials after your name.

RDMS- Registered Diagnostic Medical Sonographer (5 different specialties)
RVT- Registered Vascular Technician
RDCS- Registered Diagnostic Cardiac Sonographer (3 different specialties)

For those of you who don't know, Ultrasounds are VERY technician dependent. They're not like a CT or MRI, where the patient lies on a table and is put through the machine while the technician is in the other room manipulating the quality of the image. In these cases, even if the technician doesn't notice the pathology, the information is all there for the Radiologist to interpret.

With Ultrasounds, the technician is deciding what to take an image of or not, while also manipulating the machine to produce an optimal image. It's up to them to know that when they see certain things, they may need to investigate further in other places in the body in order to help the Radiologist obtain the most accurate diagnosis. If performing an Ultrasound of the kidneys (as was ordered) and they happen to see that the person has gallstones or a liver mass, are they going to take a few images and document that, so it can be fully looked into at another time? Or are they going to completely ignore it because that wasn't what was ordered?? This is why it's important to have a good Ultrasonographer performing the exam.

So, how do you know if you have a good Ultrasonographer performing the exam?? Well, the sad thing is that you can't always know, but there are things you can ask to help you distinguish.

The 1st thing that I would ask: Is the sonographer Registered?
If so, then: What are they registered in?

Like I said, there are many specialties within the categories, so the more registries they have, the better I would feel that they know what they're doing (even if the exam they're performing isn't one of the areas they're registered in). The fact that they're not registered in a specific area does not mean that they don't know what they're doing (which is why I said you can't always know) but if they have multiple registries, you should feel assured that they take their job seriously and don't just do the minumum requirement. If a person only has a registry in 1 area & has been a sonographer for many, many years raises the question of, are they just doing what is the minimum of what is required and no further, or are they just not good test takers and are actually good sonographers. You never know. Simply the fact that you are asking, should let them know that you know a little bit about their job & they'll probably take the extra time to be extra cautious not to miss anything.

So what am I registered in, you may be wondering?? Within the RDMS (registered diagnostic medical sonographer) there are many different specialties. I have been trying to get registered in as many of those as I can. I graduated in May 2006 and in September I recieved my registry in OB\GYN. After that, I followed in October of 2006 with my registry in Abdomen. And now, Sept. 2010 I now have Neurosonology.

There are many different ultrasound exams that can be performed on an infant that can't be performed on an adult or child because of the fact that the bones calcify and we can't see through them. So in an infant we can see inside the hip & look for hip dysplasia, inside the spine, looking at the spinal canal because the spinal bones aren't fully calcified, and inside the head at the brain because the soft spots of the cranium provide an optimum window by ultrasound into the brain.

So the Neurosonolgy registry is all about the newborn brain and spinal system. It may sound like not that much but, holy cow!!! There is so much to the brain that I didn't even imagine!! I've been doing newborn head ultrasounds for years now and had no idea of the complexity of it all! Luckily there's been a fully qualified radiologist interpreting the exams so as long as you take good images and good short videos clips through the brain, it all gets seen (hopefully). But can you image what little amount falls through the cracks with a sonographer that knows what they're looking at, so that they can get optimum images to tell the best story of what's really going on?

That's the importance of continuing your education and obtaining different registries. I'll have to get continuing education credits, of course. There's even an upcoming requirement for mini-tests to ensure that we stay up to date and knowledgeable in each field we obtain registries in. It's all for the good of the patient, because that's what we're all doing it for, really.

Hope this helps you all know exactly what is required of the sonographer that performs your next Ultrasound. Feel free to ask questions. Just don't expect them to tell you what they're seeing (because while they probably know, they're not supposed to interpret).

4th Anniversary and 4th of July

We try to go on a trip every year for our anniversary (at least while we can without kids), and since it's the day before Independence Day, it works out really well to get time off . Plus, we always get fireworks in celebration for our anniversary, right? =)

So this year we decided to go to Washington DC. It's about a 10 hour drive from here, so the 1st day we went about 8 hours and stopped in Hershey, PA! We had to stop at Chocolate World!

About 2 weeks before we went there, they started a Create Your Own Candy Bar! It's like Build-a-Bear, only with chocolate, of course. You pick what's put into it, design the wrapper/cover, and watch as it's made. It was kinda fun....and oh so yummy!









This is the World's Largest Chocolate Bar!!




The next day, we left early and went the 2.5 hours to DC. The hotel let us check in early and upgraded us to a nicer room and gave us free breakfast since it was our anniversary! We love Marriott's!

The Washington Monument.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to get in! It was extremely busy while we were there, since it was 4th of July weekend, and there were lines and waits to everything. You apparently had to get in line at the crack of dawn to get tickets inside the monument.

This is one of the more recent memorials. It's the World War II Memorial. And this is only 1/2 of it! There's a wreath pillar for every U.S. state & territory.

The White House

White House at night.

Can you see the sharp shooters on the roof?? We didn't either, but we're sure they were there. This was taken 4th of July, right after the firework show ended. The security was obviously heightened, we weren't allowed to get any closer than across the street.

Lincoln Memorial.

The Vietnam Wall Memorial (with the Washington Monument in the reflection)

The National Archives.
We weren't allow to take pictures inside this building, so the outside will have to do, but we were able to see the Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, Constitution as well as many other historical and old documents. It was amazing!

We visited the American History Museum. Among many historical American artifacts, they had the original United States flag! It was HUGE!!!! We'd never seen a flag so big! Of course, no pictures allowed of this either, so you'll have to just visit it yourselves.

The Capital Building

Arlington National Cemetery.

JFK and Jackie's grave sites.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

There was some type of Memorial that was taking place as we were waiting for the Changing of the Guard. We never found out why, but I'm sure it happens a lot these days.



Guarding the Tomb, 24/7

After visiting the Cemetery, we headed South to Mt. Vernon - George Washington's home.

Front of the mansion (especially for back then!) And again, no pics inside.

The Washington's view of the Potomac River from their back porch.

Back porch......chairs lined up across the whole thing. Supposed to be historically accurate

George and Martha Washington were both buried at Mt. Vernon grounds in the exact location that George requested in his writings (probably his will).

Martha Washington

President George Washington

For the 4th of July, we did a lot of walking (actually we probably walked 5-10 miles every day). There is a festival every year that celebrates different countries around the world. (We thought this a little strange, since it is our Independence Day) This year it was Mexico and Asian Pacific Americans. So we walked around that for a while and saw a few of the exhibits, and had some Mexican food. It was sooooo hot that day though, that all we really wanted to do was duck inside an air conditioned building and wait till sundown! Seriously!

We walked about 8 more blocks though, to visit the American Art Museum. We're not usually ones to visit Art Museums, but starting that week and continuing until next January, there was a Norman Rockwell exhibit! All the paintings were from both Steven Spielburg and George Lucus' private collections. It was soooo cool! He was an amazing artist that was able to say so much with just one scene. Hence, the reason the two directors admired him so much. Of course, no pics allowed....again. So you will all have to take a trip yourselves to visit it before they're back in the director's homes and offices or where ever they keep them.

We went back to where the fireworks were going to be set off about 2 hours early to camp out and insure that we had a decent spot. They expected about 2 million people, after all. We could have gotten closer if we wanted to stand in more lines with probably no shade until sundown, but we didn't want any of that. So we sat and chilled under some trees with tons of other people and when the time came closer, moved. We ended up literaly sitting in the street in front of the Washington Monument. It was so amazing and patriotic to have the fireworks going off right there with the monument!

Here's the finale for you all to see!.......Sorry it's sideways!



Our thought to get out of there after the firework show with all the madness was, to walk around & see the White House at night, let it all calm down a bit, ya know? Seemed like a good idea at the time, anyway. We waited about 45 minutes and got into the subway terminal to this.....(Not even on platform yet!)

These are all the people that were waiting on the platform, trying to get into already jammed packed trains! When we finally got onto the platform, we had to wait through 3 or 4 full trains, before we were lucky enough to find a car that could fit us! Every stop from there, 3 or 4 more people tried to get in. We were packed in like sardines!

Needless to say, we learned that we should have just made a mad dash for the subway right away and not waited. Oh well, we made it back to the hotel and drove the 10 hour drive back home the next day. It was a long drive, but we saw a whole lot and packed a lot in! We needed another vacation, though, by the time we were finished. Isn't that always the way!

Quick Trip

We've been wanting to go to Canada since we've moved here. Montreal is only about 2.5 hours away from here and we've never been! Every time we get a good time or think about going, it's Winter, and we opt out because Vermont is cold enough. "Do we really want to go 2.5 hours North?" Not really. So we took a couple days off for a long weekend to set out for Montreal in early June. The problem was, that when we started to look for a hotel to book (already got time off from work) everything in and anywhere near Montreal was booked, aside from the penthouse suites and such. Turns out, the one weekend we decided to go was a big race at the Speedway just outside Montreal. Just our luck!

So we had time off, what are we to do??? We compiled an assortment of things to do and see. We headed off to Boston. We've been there before, but there's always something to do in Boston, and it's only about 3.5 hours away!

It was a really pretty drive that morning. Lots of fog on the mountains. I had a hard time getting a good pic showing the beauty. This one doesn't do it justice.

For lunch we went to the Barking Crab. You may have seen it on the Food Network Channel....Man VS Food. We didn't do the ridiculous challenge that they showed, of course, but it all tasted great and soooo fresh!

Here's Greg's seafood challenge. A little bit of everything, almost. Nice variety.

Ohhh so good!

Funny shirt the staff wore.
After lunch we went to see the Blue Man Group.

A lot of you may be surprised to hear us say it but........disapointment. We don't recommend it. We paid the extra money to sit in the very front, you know, where you wear the ponchos, got the whole experience. They did some different things with percussion/rhythym, but a whole lot of the time they spent just looking at the crowd, then looking at themselves like they just landed on Earth and were trying to figure out where they were. A lot of dead time. Then they ate different foods (to a rythym) and spit it out all over the place. Gross. We went expecting to get dirty. We didn't wear anything we really cared about on purpose. We thought we'd get some colored paint on us or something like that. They did a 'bit' where they were trying to figure out how to get into the Twinkies baggies. They finally got it open and ate them. Shortly after, mashed up banana sprayed out of the metal bolt-like hole in their chest! It got all over us; in our hair, on our face, disgusting! It didn't take long to turn brown and stink! We had to stop by the nearest bathroom to wash ourselves off after and even then didn't get it all. Not a very fun time!

We didn't do much that evening. Wanted to get cleaned up/showered and relax. We had to eat at the Chick-fil-a in the mall nearby. We've definitely missed Chick-fil-a! Soooo good!

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The next day we headed over to Salem, Mass. We had plans to go on a harbor cruise, see the lighthouses, old ships, etc, but it got cancelled because visibility was limited due to fog/haze.

We stopped at The House of the Seven Gables 1st and took a tour through it. A really old house which inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne's book, The House of the Seven Gables. Interestingly enough, the house didn't have 7 Gables (peaks) when Haythorne's cousin lived in it. I think they said it only had 5 at that time, but over the years of different owners and remodeling, it did, eventually, have 7 Gables They didn't allow pictures to be taken inside the house, so the outside is all we can show ya.

At some point, they were going to tear down the home that Nathanial Hawthorne was born in. Someone notified someone in the tourist/historical society and they decided, instead, to move the house from it's original location in town, to right next to the House of 7 Gables. Better for tourism.

We took a tour through the Witch History Museum. They took you through the history of the Salem Witch Trials, how it started, etc. with lifesize dioramas to illustrate their story.

And here's the witches themselves.....they look like they're up to no good, don't they?

Not really sure who this guy is or what he's about. Took a picture anyway.

After doing the whole witch thing, we walked around Fisherman's Wharf and went into all the shops.

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The next day, we headed back to Vermont and stopped by Quechee Gorge in Southern Vermont. There's a hike up and down the gorge and pond at one end.

Looks cool, how you can see all the roots above ground.

Mill Pond at 1 end of the gorge.

I've seen lily pads in a pond before, but I've never actually seen Lily's on the pads before. So pretty!

From up above, on the bridge.

Cute little goose family on the side of Mill Pond.

That was about the end of our long weekend. We head back to Burlington to rest that evening and get ready for the work week to start again. We still need to head North to Canada at some time, but we got to do and see things we never had before, so all in all a fun quick trip.