To know one life has breathed easier because you have lived. That is to have succeeded. - RW Emerson

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

A Longing for Home

The first time I packed up my life and drove away from my home was at the age of 14, the first year I went off to boarding school. I remember that day clearly in my mind, looking back at my family's home out of the back window of my parents car, my bike seat blocking the view of the tree in the front yard. I was so incredibly excited at that moment to be starting a new life, one that would hopefully help me find my path in life and get me where I needed to be. I can say truthfully that it did, and that I wouldn't be sitting here surrounded by medical text books and frantically scribbled notes about the heart. I don't know where I would be.

The three years I spent at boarding school were incredible, and I look back with almost all fond memories. But I can't say there weren't days that I didn't miss home, my family, my town or the mountains. There were plenty of those days, but as each month, term and year rolled on, I had less and less days of longing for home. I started to feel like my school was my home, and that my friends and teachers were my family.

I also recall that during my first year of University there were intense days of longing to go home, mostly during the first semester of school when I was fighting to save my leg from amputation. Over the last two years of my undergrad, I could have gone home every weekend, but in total over two years I spent 4 weeks at home. I chose not to, I loved where I was living, what I was doing and my friends. I had no reason to go home really.

But since starting medical school, I don't think I have ever had so many days where from the core of my being I just want to go home. Sometimes I miss home, my family and the mountains so much that it almost hurts. Maybe it is because I have been sick since returning from Tanzania that I want to go home so badly. Maybe it is because I don't see myself sticking around this city after I graduate. I don't know what it is, all I know, is that I want to go home.

18 days and one exam to go. 

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

No Power to Change

We have community placements in our first and second year for 3 hours every week. As a first year, I essentially know nothing at all. I might know a bit more than some of my classmates because my background/bad luck with my body experiences, but over all, I don't know anything. The lack of knowledge and experience makes me feel completely powerless to say anything about things that bother me.

For example, I was observing in a specialized clinic that deals with very specific issues, and a patient asked if the doctor would be able to prescribe her an inhaler for her bronchitis, even though it was well outside the scope of the clinic. It wasn't however outside the scope of a very experienced family doctor. I saw the look on the patients face of frustration, anger, neglect and disappointment when the doc said that she couldn't and walked out of the room. I don't know if the doc saw it, but it felt like I was being punched in the gut to see her face and then to walk away like it wasn't a big deal.

Obviously, on the level of medical neglect, not being prescribed an inhaler for a non-emergent situation is not a big deal. Possibly the doc didn't feel comfortable prescribing an inhaler given she didn't know the patient's medical background. I don't think the doc should have given the patient the inhaler given the scope of the practice, but I do think she should have addressed it in a better way. Ask why the patient wanted one, explain in a less abrupt way why it couldn't be prescribed, and at least acknowledge that the patient was suffering. I don't think I will ever forget the look on the patient's face and in her eyes, you could tell she was upset, and wanted to say something, but didn't know how. I felt the same.

Maybe this experience resonated with me more because the very same day, just hours before I was observing at the clinic, the same thing happened to me. I had an appointment with my family doc to talk about a chronic GI issue that I have had since returning from Tanzania in June. Back in September I had been referred to one of the two GI docs in town, and I expected from what my doc told me that the wait time would be 3-5months. I could live with that. But when I called the GI's booking nurse to ask roughly where I was on the list, I was told I was number 500, and I would be lucky I would get in by May. I'm not going to be in the city from May-Sept because of a placement and then I'm going home for the summer. So I wanted to talk about that and what my options were. I also wanted to talk about the fact my symptoms had gotten worse and that I now had nose bleeds and abdo pain that I had never had before. She didn't acknowledge it at all. I had to FIFE (Feelings, Ideas, Function and Expectations) myself to try to get her to understand what I was going through. Even though I was trying to spell it out clear as day for her, she just brushed it off like it wasn't her problem, which is what the doc I was observing later that day did to her patient.

I wanted to tell my doc I wasn't sure if I could make it through another 6 months of school with these symptoms, but considering she graduated 4 years ago from the same school I am attending, I felt like I would be judged for being too weak to handle being in medicine. I honestly thought she was going to be a really great doctor, I keep being told that the docs coming out of my school are different and practice patient centred care, but now I am wondering. Now I am not only worried that I won't make it through the year, but if I make it through the next 4 years that I am going to do the same thing to my own patients.

I think being a patient is harder than training to become a doctor. Acknowledging that might not only make doctors more compassionate, but give patients permission to be sick.




Thursday, October 9, 2014

Learning to Talk

Med school is a fascinating thing. In the words of my preceptor, "medical schools accept people who are generally very good at talking, interacting with people and are naturally patient centred individuals, and we turn them into biomedical machines who get stuck in conversations."

I am actually afraid of interviewing patients. Before medical school, I loved talking to people and getting them to tell me about their lives. That is honestly one of the reasons I like to fly so much, you never know who will be sitting next to you for the next 4 hrs. But now, I am paranoid that I will forget to ask something, ask too many closed questions, ask too many vague questions, say something wrong, or make an inappropriate facial expression. Talking to people just became one of the most difficult and nerve racking things I have ever done.

It's not the workload that is overwhelming, it's learning how to talk, act and essentially be another person almost overnight. And being a former athlete and somebody who has not had to struggle much to do really well in school or other things I have taken up, so I'm not used to being awful at things. Somedays it makes me question whether or not I am cut out to be a doctor. Everybody has told me for such a long time that I would make  a "great doctor" but not being good at the actual doctoring bit is really hard. (Note: nobody has told me I am awful, I just feel awful because it is such a struggle to do such a simple thing.)

Med school isn't hard because of what you need to study, it is hard because of what you need to learn to become.

This is how I feel all the time in clinical skills.

Thursday, September 18, 2014

How to be a medical student and a patient

Basically my dilemma is summed up in the title.

I am not yet sure how to bridge the issue of me being somebody with chronic medical needs and me becoming somebody who will eventually be caring for others with chronic medical needs.

I think, right now, at this very moment I want to be a Neurologist. So, last night, when perusing "Access Medicine," there was a video on the side demonstrating a Lumbar Puncture. So I watched it.

I almost vomited. It wasn't the actual procedure that made me feel ill, it was the fact that I couldn't stop thinking about my own experiences. The procedure filmed looked like there was a lot of CSF that leaked out onto the drape (or what I would call "wasted CSF"), and all I could think of was the raging headache that the patient might have for the next few days.

I don't understand how I am ever going to be able to do procedures like this without being able to disconnect myself from my patients. 

Sunday, August 31, 2014

Future MDs are Pretty Cool

I started medical school on August 25th, 2014.

Well, that was a weird sentence I honestly thought I would never to get to write. It all still seems like a a dream and that eventually I will wake up, and go back to just be regular old me. But I keep waking up in a room that feels foreign in a city I hardly know.

So far, the only medical school related things I have done were a part of Orientation Week. So these are the following things I have learned so far in medical school:
1. Med students seem to have an endless ability to party
2. As a whole, med students have an above average liquor tolerance
3. Med students are still above average humans when hungover, and surprisingly good at playing quiddich.
4. I feel like every single member of my class (there are only 64 of us...) have amazing talents, incredible life stories and are overall just amazing people that I am excited to spend the next four years of my life getting to know and learning from.
5. Upper Year Med students are kinda crazy.
6. Amazon Prime for students is officially the best way to buy text books in the history of man.
7. Medical schools feed you a lot...and I have decided that they do this to make you too full to ever try to run away.
8. Med School swag is awesome.
9. Getting dressed in the morning and trying to decide if what you are wearing is "Casual," "Business Casual," or "Smart Casual," and which kind of cloths belongs to which category, and whether or not adding a scarf to your outfit makes you "Smart Casual" or "Business Casual," essentially leads to a morning crisis everyday.

This is Smart Casual...
Can somebody please point out  the difference???
   
And this is Business Casual...


10. I'm like the only single person in my class...

Check back in the future to see if I have actually learned anything about medicine!!



Thursday, August 21, 2014

The Doctor Shortage

Finding a Family Doctor in Canada is tough. I have never really had to try that hard to find one, until now that is. Growing up, my Dad always had some sort of business relationship with every doctor in the vicinity, so we never had problems finding one. But then I left the nest at 15, and it was challenging, but my school had a doctor (although, not the best) who I could see before school or in the evenings. Then I went to University, and I had the University Clinic, and then when I changed schools, and a clinic 300m from my house had just hired a new doctor. So far, things have worked out for me, which is really great because you know, the whole chronic pain thing tends to require doctoring.

But, now that I am going to school in a "northern" community, and in Canada north = nobody wants to live in places that are freezing cold. So naturally, well educated people who can practice anywhere in the country, don't generally choose northern or rural communities. (Hence the formation of my school...). But, in any event, I am having a lot of trouble finding a doctor, especially because I am an out of province student. Being out of province shouldn't matter, given the whole Canada Health Act thingy, but it seems to pose barriers to accessing health care for me in Ontario (another problem to add to problems with the health system/health practices notebook I have been keeping since the 11th grade).

So in conclusion, the doctor shortage is really affecting me. And to add to another problem, because the community I am studying in only has a population of 110,000, pretty much all of the doctors in the City will be my professors and instructors in the very immediate future.

It is very strange all of a sudden switching from just being the patient, to being the provider (a very green and IdontKnowAnythingAtAll provider), but still being the patient at the same time. I feel like I am stuck in the middle!!!!

I never thought about my situation as being both a patient and a physician at the same time, and it is stressing me out. 

Sunday, August 3, 2014

A Tuition Slap in the Face

Why is that medical schools expect students to say "how high" when they ask you to "jump?"

We got sent our tuition cost August 1st (we only had estimates before then), and were told it was due on August 15th...There were no mention of due dates before this.

I thought that after you got into medical school, they would stop throwing unreasonable curve balls at you and expecting you to catch them with your eyes closed. I was clearly wrong on that one.

I don't know about you, but I don't have $21,300 just chillin' in my bank account at all times. I have enough for the year, but not currently in bank account. And I can't access the majority of it until August 12th plus 2-3days for fund transferring...sweet!

And to finish off the email, they said "We hope you have a relaxing and enjoyable long weekend!"....yeah, thanks, I will have a great time trying to figure out how to rob a bank.


Thursday, July 10, 2014

A New Beginning

Those of you who frequent my blog will have noticed a little change. I am no longer a premed!

As of this September, I will officially be a first year medical student, studying in Northern Canada. (If you are Canadian, I'm sure you know where this is, if you aren't, I'm sure you know where google is.) It is very exciting, and relieving to know that 4 years of hard work has finally paid off. That all those days stressing about my future and my grades were worth it.

Something else has also changed. I have finally decided to let go of cycling. Too many concussions, too much risk for crashing and sustaining another concussion. I'm not hanging my bike up forever, but I am boxing away the race gear. I will become a weekend warrior. I love riding a bike, it is probably one of the best feelings in the world, but I want to be a doctor, so now I have to start considering the consequences of injury more than ever before.

I feel like I need to find a new hobby. Right now I am training for this: www.waves4women.blogspot.ca which has effectively been my hobby from the moment I got home from Tanzania. But I need something while in school to help ground me, and that for me was always cycling. But what now?

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Lions and Tigers and Bears...Oh My!

I'm only 1 day late for Medical Mondays...oops. But, I have been really busy with pre-trip preparations (aka packing and seminars) for my trip to Tanzania and we leave this Thursday! But I thought I should drop by seeing as I have been a bit MIA lately.

Headed to Ngorongoro Conservation Area to the University of Calgary Field School

Finishing up my 4th year of undergrad (senior year for the American's in the crowd) was seriously difficult. In the past 4 months, I have have interviewed in 4 different cities in 3 different countries. In the month of March alone, I spent a total of 24 hours on planes and I watched every single movie Air Canada had to offer. I am also now a co-author on a Nature paper that was published a few weeks ago (first publication!), and I successfully defended my honours thesis.

As you may remember, one of my goals this year was to get a 4.0 in my 4th year, and mission accomplished!! Some how I actually managed to get 100% on the last undergrad paper that I submitted, and in my opinion it was one of he worst because I was only aiming for 77% in order to get an A in the class. Aim low and you will land among the stars?

I have not yet been accepted into medical school sadly, and the stress is kind of getting to me. I was wait listed at VCU (which was an absolutely amazing school) and people have been started to be accepted off of the wait list...but not me. The two Canadian schools I interviewed at release decisions next week when I am in the middle of no where in Tanzania looking at stool samples. Graduating feels great, but it also kinda feels like crap because I just want to get in.

Today and tomorrow I am shadowing my lab supervisor, who is on neurology service this week, on morning rounds. It is sort of a goodbye and thank you gift for being "the best undergraduate student he has ever had." All of the residents have been amazing, and are going out of their way to teach me and help me understand what is going on, and it is absolutely a fantastic experience. (I also got to see the inside of the docs lounge...they have their own flippin cafeteria!!) But, it also makes me even more anxious about getting in, I just want to start training for a job I have always dreamed about doing. I look forward to late nights in the library and being on call. These are things most people dread, but I honestly can't wait. Shadowing only confirms this, and will make the disappointment even harder.
I might be crushed next week if I am not accepted into a Canadian school. I have already started my AMCAS application again. But because I will be in Tanzania with likely no internet access, I am not going to be able to submit it one the June 1st opening day, and I am going to have to phone home to parents so see what the results of my other applications are.

So great to graduate, yet soooo stressful.

Also, I am still training for the 35km swim, which has also meant swimming 9x a week for the past 3.5 weeks...so ready for a break!

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope I have good news in September for y'all (and for my emotional wellbeing). 

Monday, March 3, 2014

Interview Hopping

I missed the last Medical Monday because I was desperately trying to get to Richmond, Virginia before my interview at VCU. But lets back up a bit to get you up to speed about what has been going on for the last few months.

In January, I received interview invitations for 3 different schools in a span of three days. One for VCU on Feb 4th (my top US choice), one for Michigan State on Mar 28 (second choice), and one for Northern Ontario School of Medicine on Mar 29th (that one was a shocker). In that same week, I received an invitation to write the subject test for the Neuroscience MSc/PhD program in Göttingen, Germany. 7 days later I received an invitation for THE interview that I really wanted, which was at my home school, the University of Calgary.

February 3rd I left the frozen Canadian waste land to fly to Richmond, Virginia for my interview at VCU. Except, my flight out of Calgary was delayed an hour and half due to a mysterious light being on. When we landed in Minneapolis I abandoned my Canadian manners and full out sprinted about 2km from gate A to gate F where my flight to Richmond was departing from. I got to the gate, and the women in Delta colours told me the plane had just closed its doors, and wouldn't re-open them, and that I had been rebooked on a flight that would get me to Richmond at 12:30pm the next day. I had to be at VCU by 11am for the interview.

Me: "But I have to be there at 11!."
Delta woman: "Well, you won't be."
Me: "This is literally my future we are talking about, the results of tomorrow may very well dictate the rest of my life."
Delta woman: Fake smile
Me: "What about a flight to DC tonight?"
Delta woman: "Oh, yes. We could do that. The last flight closes its doors in 7 minutes. Its back at gate A."

So, I full out sprinted back to the exact same place I had just come from, but managed to sequester a nice man driving a Delta cart to get me there a little faster. I get to the gate just on time, and I get handed a boarding pass which indicates a 1st class seat (score!). I hurried on to the plane (nobody checked my passport by the way...I guess flights to DC aren't as secure as we thought), I was sweating buckets, clearly didn't belong in first class, and when I arrived at my seat, I noticed it was a window seat....right next to a very nicely dressed US Senator. I have never gotten such a severe death stare in my life. Upon arriving in DC (which is the scariest runway ever, it looks like you are going directly into the river), I was provided with a $300 taxi voucher to get me to Richmond, Virginia. I made it to my hotel by 1 am, after having to spend half of the taxi ride on the phone with the driver's daughter in order to get directions to my hotel because my taxi driver didn't know where he was going. End of story, I made it, I think my interview went well, and VCU blew my mind. I didn't think such amazing schools even existed. As an aside, if Delta had waited 3 minutes, they would have saved them approximately $700, and reduced my cortisol levels about 2 fold...this is why we Canadians love Westjet...they wait for everybody.

This past Saturday I did my interview for Calgary, I think I nailed 9/12 MMI stations, completely blew 1 (had an awkward 2 minutes of silence because you can't leave the room until the 7 minutes are up and I was totally done discussing the question), and 2 stations that I am a little unsure about. I hope it evens out...on to May 15th!

Next up on the interview schedule is Göttingen, Germany next Monday. I didn't study for the subject test, and figured my chances of getting an interview were pretty much 0 as I guessed my way through the 40 physics and chemistry questions. But apparently not...or I just failed less than the other 300 people who wrote the test. The program is paying for my travel and accommodation, which is awesome, worst case scenario is that I have a free trip to Germany :).

But here is my dilemma. The only reason I applied to the program in Germany is because I thought I had no chance of getting into any medical schools that I actually wanted to go to after not hearing from VCU, Michigan and being rejected from UBC. Now I am worried that I will get into a top choice medical school (or any at all), plus the program in Germany. I was hoping to not have to make any decisions. It will be hard to turn down a 3 year PhD program at one of the top scientific institutes in the world (and in Germany), but I also don't know how I could possibly turn down medical school. Best case scenario, I get to defer for 2 years and do an MSc in Germany and come back to a medical school spot. But, its pretty rare to get more than a 1 year deferral.

Also, my thesis is due in 18 days and I am no where near finished. I don't have time for Germany...but I can't not go...

Side note: check our Waves for Women blog, which my friend Caryn and myself will be chronicling our training and fundraising journey for our 35km open water ocean swim in July to raise money for Women's Cancer Research.


Monday, January 20, 2014

The Floor

Today I spent a long time on the floor of an emergency room. You know those pictures you see of sub-par Canadian hospitals in American media propaganda about how bad universal healthcare is? Well, today I flat out was lying on the floor of the emergency room, creating one of those pictures

I have a spinal headache from the procedure that I talked about here. If you have ever had a spinal headache, you will know it to be one of the worst headaches of your life, when you are sitting or standing up that is. When you lie down though, it is gone completely - hence the floor.

You know what? I actually don't even mind that I had to lie on the floor. There was a chair I could have sat on, but it wasn't quite as horizontal as the floor. I am not unhappy with the care I received. I ended up being seen by my own doctor (a specialist) to set up a follow up appointment for Thursday and a team of anesthetists who offered me the choice of doing a blood patch today, or later in the week if my headaches cannot be managed with the pain meds they gave me. I am happy with that. They gave me choices. I chose the conservative route of trying pain medication and then going back directly to anesthesia for a blood patch (skipping the emerg line up) if I feel like I can't take the headache anymore. I think that is awesome. I am not above lying on the floor. I don't have a life threatening emergency, just a painful complication, other patients who are sicker need the bed more than I do.

Even though I am Canadian, and I believe I have the right to healthcare, I also believe in equitable healthcare. I think, despite the lying on the floor thing, that I received equitable and quality care today. I have the right to healthcare, but not the right to take it away from others.

Is this just the inbred Canadian niceness coming through, or do I have point here? I am willing to sacrifice my own comfort and not complain about it because I know that resources are being used to help the people who need it most.


Being in a hallway doesn't mean they aren't receiving the best care possible.

Friday, January 10, 2014

The Worst Day

I had a really awful day yesterday. Let me outline for you in a time line

7:15 am: Missed the bus
7:50 am: swimming behind a rather slowish person, the make a weird dead stop at the bulkhead, I try to avoid them and smash my ankle on the bulkhead. Ankle bleeds and I have severe nerve pain
9:10 am: I stop to check where my 9:30 class is as I stand in line to buy milk for the cereal that I packed to eat after swimming. My student centre reads "No Enrolments." I had been un-enrolled from all of my classes.
9:15-9:45 am: I wait in line at enrolment services
9:45-10:10 am: Person at the registrar tells me all of the classes I was enrolled in are full and she can't enrol me in any of them. I argue that there has to be because was registered in all of them the night before. She makes phone calls, senior official comes, sees my desperations and restores my enrolments.
10:20 am: I arrive at my 9:30 class almost an hour late, and I am not even sure if it is the right class. It was supposed to me neuromuscular physiology, but all the prof was talking about was learning and memory.
10:20-10:45 am: I sit in said class wondering if I am at all in the right place and hoping that I am not, because the class had nothing to do with neuromuscular physiology.
10:45 am: I apologize to prof for being late, and ask if I am in the right class. Sadly, he told me it was neuromuscular physiology.
11:10 am: I arrive back on the campus where my lab is and I go to the cafe to buy milk
11:20 am: I get back to the lab, exhausted, hungry and excited to eat my cereal that I was supposed to eat after the pool. I pour the milk onto my cereal and it comes out in globs.
11:21 am: I dump my cereal in the garbage
11:26 am: I return the spoiled milk to the cafe and get a new one
11:30 am: I get back to the lab, open the milk take a tiny sip and realize it is also bad.
11:32 am: I feel like crying
11:38 am: I return the second expired 2% milk for chocolate milk and have to explain my self to two friends and the cashier again.
11: 45 am: I give up on trying to do anything for the day and I just sit there drinking my not expired milk


The thing that really gets me about yesterday is how disappointed I was with Zool 595- Comparative Neuromuscular Physiology having essentially nothing to do with neuromuscular physiology, but more about how squids can learn by watching their fellow squids. I was so excited about this course because neuromuscular neurology is something I am passionate about (you know, cuz I get to live with the ramifications of what happens when it goes wrong everyday) and the course let me down.


Today went somewhat better. I did get a bislster though (which are the worst) but that bislster earned me one of the last flu vaccines in the province. 

Sunday, January 5, 2014

The first week of the end of my degree

I think title says it all, but this is the first week of classes of the last semester of my undergrad degree. Come June I will be happily not walking across the stage to receive my degree in Health Sciences because I will likely still be in Tanzania. (Who would want to sit in stuffy gymnasium for three hours when they could be deep in the Maasai region of Tanzania at a field camp with giraffes walking around?) Needless to say, I am pretty excited that this is the end of my first degree and that I get to finish off with a pretty awesome global health research studentship to Tanzania.

The unfortunate part is that I will be starting yet another semester with post-concussion syndrome. You may remember this post from October, well the saga continues. I still have daily headaches, yet they are mainly orthostatic (I get them when I sit up or stand up, but if I lie down they go away). This has led the concussion specialist physiatrist that I am seeing to suspect I may have a CSF leak (which is what I asked about a week after my concussion when I threw up every time I stood up and the ER doc told me it was impossible to occur unless there was a skull fracture). Soo... I have to do a radionucleotide cisternogram (say that thee times fast) in two weeks, which essentially involves a lumbar puncture, an injection of some radioactive nucleotides and me lying on a table in the angiogram suit for 6 hours. I'm not excited...and I think that if it shows I don't have a CSF leak, I likely will have one after this procedure (every time a needle goes into my epidural space I end up with a CSF leak that doesn't resolve its own). From what I am told, this the best test to check for a CSF leak, and apparently they can't do a blood patch (the procedure done to stop CSF leaks) unless there is indication of leak, which there will be no matter what after this procedure because I am 100% certain (based on past experience) that I will end up with one. Some rules and systems don't make any sense and in this case will likely cause unnecessary patient suffering. This procedure seems pointlessly expensive (to taxpayers of course, GO CANADA) and I am fairly certain I will end up needing a blood patch in the end regardless of the test outcome.

And for further updates, I got wait-listed at Wayne State SOM (which was better than I though based on the strangeness of my interview) and rejected pre-interview by UBC by 0.5 (they give you your application score and the cutoff score for interviews). The UBC thing really upset me because BC has a huge shortage of doctors in rural areas, yet they reject rural applicants at higher rates than those from urban areas (they publish these stats). It has to be recognized that opportunities to build up extracurricular activities in a small town are limited (like there are none), I made some of my own, but even that was a struggle. Anyway, if i don't get in anywhere this year, I know my GPA will be high enough to put me above the interview cutoff for next year for UBC.

On another note I spontaneously decided to apply for graduate school in Gottingen, Germany. But sadly if they like me I essentially have to repeat the a German version of the MCAT (in English thankfully) so now I have go back to studying plant ecology, physics and chemistry.

Who wouldn't want to get a MSc or PhD from here? 
Despite all of these emotional up and downs, and headaches caused by the physical ups and downs, I'm excited for what 2014 has in store. This year represents a void of the unknown and not knowing what is going to happen is always exciting. It also represents long hours in the lab trying to finish my honours thesis on time (so I can actually graduate) and the challenge of fulfilling these 10 goals. 

I hope your 2014 is filled with moments of joy but also full challenges that help you realize its okay to not be in control, and of course, many Medical Mondays (12 to be exact).

Thanks for stopping by!!

(I should also share that I get to snag link up spot 1 because I am in a different time zone,  so technically it is still Sunday here. There are some perks of living in mountain time, in addition to the mountains and -20°C weather.)