Hey hey everybody!
I’ve had an incredibly busy week so let’s back up a bit to recap what’s been happening.
As far as the internship goes, this week was spent with the dietitian who covers the cardiac units. Being that February is Heart Month, I thought it was pretty fitting that I was able to shadow her the last week of the month. Aside from the monotony of seeing post-op patients and consults for congestive heart failure, we did a lot of other things.. fun things! On Tuesdays and Thursdays, she helps teach a cardiac discharge class to all the patients who are well enough from their open heart surgeries to go home, or at least transfer to a rehab facility. The class focuses on properly healing after surgery, but also lifestyle modifications. Many open heart patients (hopefully) see this as a big “wakeup” call and are ready to change their ways upon discharge. In the class, heart healthy diets are addressed, specifically cholesterol, types of fats, sodium, caffeine and alcohol use. It was interesting to see how receptive these patients are, and how eager they were to start a healthy life. I guess sometimes it takes a near-death experience to make people change?
On Wednesday, we stayed late to help with a cardiac health fair at the hospital that was open to the public. A few of the cardiac surgeons gave informal presentations, and afterwards there was a lovely spread of “heart healthy” food, tables set up with the hospital’s fitness centers and nutrition information. I was recruited to help with the nutrition table, and it was fun being able to talk to all of the visitors and answer their extremely random questions. Oh you want to know about stevia? I mean that has nothing to do with heart health but yes it’s better than aspartame. Lots of these visitors were over the age of 70, so you can imagine the amount of personal stories I heard.
When I wasn’t busy with the internship last week, I was sneaking in yoga sessions in my living room. My posture has been really poor lately, I think just because I’ve been doing a lot of sitting and standing in one spot, so I wanted to kind of wring out my spine.
On Thursday I was excited to get my Sweat Pink Ambassador apparel in the mail! They were seriously generous with the shoelaces.
Friday was a whirlwind day. I was at the hospital by 7am and left around 3pm so that I could drop Annie off at the doggie hotel for the weekend. At 5pm, Andrew and I left for a three-hour drive to Sarasota. His great-aunt and uncle, who live in Boston, were visiting friends on Longboat Key and invited us for the weekend. They generously rented us our own room at a little beach hotel called Coquina on the Beach. When we arrived, we quickly made our way to the Tommy Bahama restaurant for a late dinner. I ordered a glass of Sauvignon Blanc and the roasted vegetable entrée with warm farrow salad and grilled tiger shrimp. It was perfect, but after dinner we made our way to the Kilwin’s ice cream and fudge shop next door. If you know me, you know I can’t pass up ice cream so I went with the salted caramel flavor. SO good.
Saturday morning we made our way over to the hotel that Andrew’s great-aunt and uncle were staying at and made breakfast in their little kitchenette. Since it was such a cold day (by Florida standards), after breakfast we took a quick walk on the beach to do some shell searching and then decided to do something indoors. We headed over to the Ringling Estate and Museums. His great-aunt was a professor of dance and theater history at Harvard for many years, and is still a respected critic in the Northeast. Though I’m not a huge fan of art museums, it was still interesting to hear her input on everything as we walked around.
For dinner we headed out to an Italian restaurant in downtown Sarasota, Mediterraneo. I loved everything about this place. The atmosphere was lively and the food was amazing. We ordered a bottle of Italian red wine for the table, which I happily drank without even thinking to look at the label… I regret that now because it was delicious and would love to find it again. For dinner I ordered a Caesar salad to start, and the Black Linguine with Shrimp in a spicy tomato sauce for my entrée. Fun fact: black linguine gets its color from squid ink! For dessert, because you just can’t pass on dessert at an authentic Italian restaurant, I ordered the Tiramisu. So light and fluffy and not too overpowering with the rum. A perfect ending to the meal.
After dinner Andrew and I wanted to get a drink, but instead opted to pick up a bottle of wine to bring back to our hotel room. We watched movies and talked about quantum physics. You think I’m joking, but sadly I’m not. Wine makes you smarter I guess? We’re a strange couple, don’t even worry about it.
Today we woke up and headed over to their hotel room again for bagels and lox with coffee before saying our goodbyes and heading home. I had so much homework and paperwork to send in by 9pm tonight for my internship so we made sure to get back by early afternoon. As you can see I’ve been pretty busy, and hopefully will be able to get back into a normal routine this week.
Stay tuned for a recap of my February goals and new March goals tomorrow!
Have you ever been to Sarasota? How was your weekend?
