Golden Crowned Kinglet

Explored Illinois Beach State Park this morning, and saw my very first kinglet - a golden crowned kinglet.  Right next to the sandy beach bluffs, within perfect view. The bold yellow crest on a cute little bird is unforgettable. Apparently this little guy can withstand -40 degree F winters! We will definitely be returning to this State Park, it has a mix of habitats including marsh, dune, swale, oak
woods, beach and Lake Michigan, which make it an ideal birding location. Plus Quincy loved it. :)

Look at that glorious golden crown! Thanks Pinterest

Winter Wren

Like the chickadee, the winter wren is a CUTE bird. I found him on the ground, looking for insects most likely, near the North Pond restaurant yesterday morning.

 Fun fact: "On a per-pound basis, the winter wren generates more song for its weight than any other North American songbird". It is one of the smallest birds around, the size of kinglets (I saw a few of these as well but couldn't ID the exact species). The winter wren differs from the house wren with it's stubbly upright tail. 

The wonderful winter wren!

Red-Breasted Nuthatch

It's a fall-out! Stormy weather in Chicago brought so many great birds to Lincoln Park this week. If only I could identify them all. These fall migrants are tough for a newbie birder like me. The majority of them seem to be colored in variants of brown and yellow, and they are so darn quick it's been tough to definitely identify most of them. The red-breasted nuthatch stuck out though and I was able to make a positive ID. Hip hip hooray!!! :) That rusty-cinnamon belly cinched it for me!

Isn't he handsome? 

Hello Kidney

Just finished my month as senior resident on the Inpatient Kidney Service. Incredibly busy with very sick children all month. Learned a lot, worried a ton. Now have several more grey hairs and probably need a new eyeglass prescription. It's worth it though, I'd do anything for these kids, they are AMAZING. And ridiculously cute.

In case you don't know, the kidneys are really important to every day life.  A litany of potential problems, and possibly all at the same time! Hyperkalemia, Hyponatremia, Hypocalcemia, Anemia, Hypertension, Uremia, Hypertriglyceridemia, Hyperphosphatemia, Proteinuria, Hypoalbuminemia, Thrombosis, Infection, the list goes on...

Any little thing can go wrong when you have kidneys that don't work very well, especially when you are small. Many of our children with severe kidney disease live for years on dialysis until they are big enough for a kidney or until they find a matched kidney donor.

Try to imagine..

• Having a little baby and needing to connect them to peritoneal dialysis every night for 12 hours a night. 
• Trying to give a toddler 10 medicines every single day, and they taste bad.
• Your tween-age sister needing urgent dialysis for kidney failure because of a diarrheal illness a week ago
• Every time your school-aged kiddo has a fever they needed to be hospitalized to rule out a serious bacterial infection

A few acronyms from the month:
STEC, HUS, ESRD, ARPKD, CKD, HD, PD, AKI, ATN, SBP, BUN/CR, UP/C..

Electron Microscopy of Kidney's Glomerulus. Thx WikiCommons!

Kids with chronic kidney problems are at higher risk of infections than us regular folk -whether it be from immunosuppressive medicines to preserve their kidney transplant, extra fluid that can get infected or having a central line/catheter that puts them at risk for infection. Just in case you weren't a germ-a-phobe already, here's a list of the infections I've dealt with recently:

• Adenoviremia
• CMV colitis
• Cryptosporidiosis
• Clostridium difficile colitis
• Enterococcus faecalis bacteremia
• Infectious Mononucleosis
• Streptococcus pneumoniae meningitis
• Ecoli O157H7 

Bottomline: The next time you pee, thank your kidneys. They don't get enough credit for all their hard work!