I think I’ve lost the ability to breath.

Erik’s engaged.

Even writing the words hurts more than it should, and I can’t look at them again. I’m just sitting here, blinded by my eternal patheticness.

I don’t know even how to explain how I feel. I shouldn’t feel so strongly. I haven’t seen him for two years and I haven’t been in love with him for a while now. I finally grew past that. I’m not good at letting go, but Erik I’ve never wanted to let go, not completely.

He was my first crush, my first love. I fell for him in the eighth grade because he went to Norway and came back and had all of these exciting stories. He was cute, he was funny, he was super nice to me, treated me as a friend, and I adored him. I knew his strengths, his weaknesses and I loved everything about him. I truly did. Everyone I’ve ever met has been compared to him and has fallen short. I’ve nursed so many fantasies that I knew were pathetic but I couldn’t help myself.

I don’t know him anymore, it’s true… Our lives have diverged and I don’t know if he laughs the same way anymore. But the thing was, he doesn’t know me either, and I’m so different from how I was in high school. I guess a part of me has just always hoped that one day, one day, things would finally align and he would finally see me. That although we had diverged and changed since high school, it would really be what brought us together. I’ve always felt, deep inside and I’ve never been able to get rid of it, that he was “the one.” And when he didn’t get married, when he didn’t date anyone, I saw that as confirmation.

And now he’ll be married in a month.

Part of me is angry too, that once again, love has passed me by, and I am still alone. He’s getting married and he still lives in my home town where there is nobody and yet, he’s managed to find someone. And I can’t even get a casual date.

It’s just adding to this feeling that I’ve been drowning in recently. I haven’t talked for three months to the woman I’ve considered my best friend of seven years. She and her husband came to visit family over the Fourth of July and she didn’t even called me. I’ve called her several times and she’s never returned my phone calls. How do I not take that personally? My friendship with Liz has turned so superficial since she moved out. And Chris… we’re going to be on completely different rotations starting tomorrow for the entire year. How long is it going to take before he’s a mere shadow in my life? I’m scared that I’m losing everybody, that everything that I’ve loved is just delusion. That everything that I’ve felt has just been me, and that people were just putting up with me until they could find an excuse to leave.

I hate feeling pathetic.

Wow, once again, long no update from me. Tsk tsk.

And even though it’s almost a month later…. thank you, thank you, thank you for all of your notes of congratulations about my boards. It’s been such an exhaustingly busy month that I only just realized that I never told you how much your words meant to me. You all had much more faith in my abilities and it was soul-enriching to have that faith confirmed. So *BIG HUGS* I love you all, I really do. Reading about your life and struggles and inspiration has made us friends… And there’s so much in my life, that II keep thinking of to share with you, and of course, I run out of time and don’t get to it, but please know how much you mean to me.

I just finished my rotation today, took the written final (contrary to my happy post eons ago, I still unfortunately have tests. Blah.) Yesterday, I had the practical and oral exam portion–which I thought that I blew. I knew the disease that they were quizzing me about, inside and out, but I never even mentioned the major (and only) treatment for the disease! I could have killed myself… But when I got my evaluation back today, the doctors didn’t even seem to notice! If I did well on the written (which, as always could have gone either way), I may have gotten honors. Honors! *shakes head in disbelief*

My evaluations from all of my residents basically said the same thing: I need to work on the confidence thing and take initiative… It sounds so simple, but it’s much harder to implement. I know it’s one of my weaknesses, but it’s hard to wipe away a lifetime of feeling insignificant, a part of the grey background.

Can you believe that it’s been six weeks already? The time (for the most part) flew by. The last part, the Gyn rotation was difficult. While I enjoyed the cases that I got to see and the patients that I followed on the floor (if they were admitted), it was physically hard on my body to the point that I could barely move at the end of a day. I knew that I hadn’t healed as well as I had hoped from my last surgery a year ago. I’ve had three surgeries on my right shoulder and each time it’s taken longer to get back function… I’ve got full range of motion but my strength is dismal, as I discovered when trying to hold back retractors for the surgeons for minutes and hours at end. And now, I’m starting to “feel” my other shoulder. The last CT scan showed that I had a tumor under the scapula on that side, and if I have to have surgery again, I don’t know what I’ll do. Yes, I survived Gyn, but I’ve also got 8 weeks of surgery coming up in a month and a half, where it will be the same thing–only longer and harder. I’m scared that I won’t be able to do it–that that will be my limit and the stressing factor that sends me into the spiral of more surgeries…

Enough of that. It won’t do any good worrying about it. And I’ve fretted and worried enough already. No, I really am doing good. I loved my rotation so much that it’s really lit the passion again for all of this… Medicine is truly what I love, I’m in the right spot, and somehow I’ll make it through everything.

I was asked twice on rotations if I was pregnant. Yeah. Those were great days. I’d love to blame it on the scrubs–they fit everybody ill, but… So, now I gotta add weight loss to my to-do list. *sigh* 🙂

It was Chris’s birthday on Monday. His girlfriend threw him a surprise birthday party last Friday–I was in charge of transporting him to the condo… Much amusement, especially when I had him put a towel over his head so he wouldn’t guess where we were going. The looks we got from other drivers had me in hysterical fits. It was fun. Met some of his old high school friends, which I always hate doing. I never feel more stupid than trying to make small talk with people. All of his buddies are these athletic, super smart, witty people… Seeing them, I still have no idea how Chris and I became friends… No, you think that it’s just my self-esteem issues coming out again, but really? We have so little in common sometimes, I can’t see how we got from point A to B.

Anyway, for his birthday, I made him a collage of some of his pictures from his travels and friends (trying to get on his computer and sneakily download his pics was a challenge!) and then finally, at the party got some pics of the two of us. We’ve been friends for over a year, and these are the first pics I’ve had of him And since I love sharing photos:
Chris and Julia, just click on the images. Some of them look pretty crappy–the flash only worked some of the time and I’m not clever enough with the photo editing programs to get them to look right. I’m the red-head, btw. 🙂 The one of him in Thailand is probably my favorite. It captured him perfectly when he’s trying to be charming.

And yep, that’s Melissa, his girlfriend of a year and a half now. She introduced me at the party as “Chris’s other girlfriend.” Melissa and I get along really well, I like her very much and I think she’s been fabulous for Chris, but when she says things like that, I’m never quite sure how to take it. Most of the time, she seems to be joking, taking it in stride, and then this trace of acid taints her voice and I wonder…

PS…. I heard through the rumor vines that Becka got a new job!!! Congratulations!!! I’m so excited for you. You need to give me details!

My heart is breaking….

The Unnatural is on tv and I have to go to bed. WAAAHHH! No Mulder and his fine piece of ash, no Jesse Martin… *sniff* *sigh*

I’m not liking the gyn part of my rotation as much. Too much surgery and very little patient interaction. And it’s really hard on my body, my shoulder is absolutely killing me. I hope it get better.

Just a quick note of hi before I head home for the weekend. I have (had) three whole days off, due to the 24th of July holiday. Sweeeeet! I’ve never loved my pioneer ancestors more.

Day off has been nice. Helped Chris move, cleaned my bathroom. Yep, nice and boring.

Have to run….

Pssst…. I passed my boards! 🙂

Started the morning getting yelled at by my favorite resident. Yesterday, I was supposed to see a patient, before my resident. When I went to see the patient, the chart was gone, so I assume that the resident had seen her and written in the chart. I didn’t follow up on it. Big mistake, chart basically says that the resident agreed with what I wrote–and I didn’t write anything. Resident gets chastised, and I get the load this morning. Great fun.

Ten minutes later, I was criticized again by the other resident. And then again, not five minutes later by my classmate. Little things, petty things, that normally I could have blown off.

Needless to say, the morning did not go well. By ten, I was in tears, frantic because I had to go into surgery and I knew I was going to make huge blunders.

Thank TPTB for Chris… He let me cry, calmed me down, made me laugh. Have I mentioned recently how much I love the kid? The day did get better, thank goodness. The C/S went okay, and my staples were parallel!

I’ve really admired my residents and having them think poorly of me, or think that I’m a slacker really bothers me. It’s more than just getting good recommendations, I really want them to feel like I’m helping them out, making a contribution.

Well, my motto in life is calling me: everything looks better with more sleep. Night, all.

The count so far: ~~2 tubal ligations (one that I almost passed out on… the very last stitch too, so it wasn’t like the surgery got to me. It was murderously hot in that room and the gowns are even more stifling. Luckily, I got away before I tipped over and contaminated the patient. Yep, I’m sure the doc was highly impressed.)

~~7 c/sections. I mostly blot with little clothes and try not to 1-contaminate myself (check), 2- suction at the wrong time, risking damaging internal organs (check, but everything was fine), 3-staple crooked (check, and check again), 4-get in the way(oh, yep, done that many times too). Yeah, I’m a fool in the operating room… And I keep coming back for more. I almost got to see twins, had to scrub out right before they were delivered. (sigh). Maybe this week.

~~6 births, three of them that I delivered myself. With help, of course, but it was awesome. today’s was probably the best–the doctor let me do pretty much everything. It was a girl.

Have I mentioned recently how much I love this job? Seriously. I don’t mind taking call. I don’t mind spending long hours there, because it’s fun.

There’s been some hard parts too. Little premie babies who are so young and fragile, it just makes you hurt. I hate that part, and talking to the parents whose lives completely changed in only a few short hours.

I still hate getting up at 5. 😛 Which means I have to go to bed now.

P.S. Does anybody have a copy of the song “Vindicated” from the Spiderman 2 soundtrack? Lovelove that song, and I would, as I usually do, buy it through iTunes, but for some reason, the only way you can get the song is to buy the whole album… And thank you, but no. I really don’t like the Train song and the theme just gets old. If someone has it and could somehow email/IM/post it for me, I’d love you forever. Just comment, and we can make arrangement.

*smoochies to friends out there in cyberspace* Love you guys.

Got a big white envelope in the mail this afternoon, from the National Board of Medical Examiners.

My heart seriously dropped to the bottom of my toes. I wasn’t expecting my results for at least another week. Tore the envelope open, with help from my sister (my fingers were shaking so badly) and….

I’ve been selected to participate in a survey of those who took the Boards.

Bastards. The least that they could do is put some kind of warning on the envelope that it did NOT contain Board results. Right now, I honestly think I don’t want to know.

It’s just been one of those days. Matt came by today, to drop off some books I lent him… I haven’t seen him for a couple of months now, and thought that he was purged from the system. Nope. Got that whole twittery, gut on the floor (hey, that’s twice today. Must be a record) at his voice and he’s looking good. Too good. And when he said that he had missed seeing me…. Guh. It’s so hard to remind myself that this crush of two years hasn’t progressed at all and isn’t going to. He’s either not interested (most likely) or just pathologically shy and it’s not going to change. Period.

And of course, my face chose today to break out and I was wearing my greasy glasses to give my poor eyes a break. I’m sure I looked fabulous.

Saw Spiderman with Chris and Melissa. They didn’t like it so much… I did. Well, except for the scene where the doctors and nurses were all killed–that was a little too graphic. I remember with the first one, the first time I saw it, I didn’t like it so much because of the clichéd writing, but got over it after reading that that was the point–to make it sound like it came from the comic books. That was their complaint today. Ah, well, next time I’ll see it with a more sympathetic crowd.

Rotations are going great. I’ve seen a couple of births and a c-sections and followed several patients in “my care.” Next week, I’m hoping to actually “catch the baby” and deliver it (with help of course). Birth is amazing, and I really like being around patients like this–mostly healthy, young women about my age and then being able to participate in this special time of their lives. Who knows, maybe I’ll end up going into OB, it’s definitely on the list to consider now. I have call on Monday night and then all of Saturday. I hope I can handle it! Me being up for more than 24 hours seems like a bad idea.

My first day of playing doctor went a lot better than I thought it would. In fact, for the first time, I’m actually really really excited to be starting my rotations, I’ve been dreading them for so long…. Mostly orientation today, but I learned how to birth a (fake) baby and monitor labor. And I met my resident who seems really nice (I’ve heard so many evil!resident stories that would curl your toes) and willing to help us learn–I breathed a big sigh of relief after that. We made our call schedule–I only have 5 nights on call–and I get to go home afterwards!! I’m done pretty much every day by 5:30 (although I start at 5:30 am–still, I thought I’d be spending 18 hours at the hospital every day, this seems like the life of luxury!) And best of all–I get (most) weekends off!!

And tomorrow–tomorrow I scrub in for my first cesarean section!! I can’t wait!

Going to bed at ten seems like a crime, but alas, I must away. Night all!

Me other friendsies:

jcd1013 and _flutter share 0 interests.
jcd1013 and _starsinhereyes share 30 interests.
jcd1013 and avidtvfan share 6 interests.
jcd1013 and behrbemine share 12 interests.
jcd1013 and bjorks_defender share 7 interests.
jcd1013 and claidheamhmor share 12 interests.
jcd1013 and educatedtvgeek share 0 interests.
jcd1013 and fileg share 7 interests.
jcd1013 and frodo_story share 0 interests.
jcd1013 and igbykat share 7 interests.
jcd1013 and kimarama share 7 interests.
jcd1013 and mrschimpf share 5 interests.
jcd1013 and roxybluegirl7 share 5 interests.
jcd1013 and shirerain share 34 interests.
jcd1013 and watcher_junior share 2 interests.

I am sooooo loving my week off!! Just got back from North Carolina… Had a wonderful time, hanging out with Sam and her boyfriend and her roommate. Fort Bragg was not quite like I expected, but then I’m always surprised by new places. It wasn’t as hot and humid as Sam had threatened–but then it rained most of the time, keeping it pretty cool. She showed me her new place that she’s moving into in a week, and it made me go lusty. It’s a real house–two stories, with enough rooms that a vagabond could take a room downstairs and they’d never even realize it. And it has a patio, and living room and formal sitting room, with hardwood floors. I’m so in love with it–I want a real house so badly, with a real sofa–no more apartments. I’m thinking about doing my family practice rotation there, and Sam’s offered to let me stay with her… It would be so fantastic.

Didn’t meet all of the cute boys that Sam promised me. No, I take that back. I did meet a few, but they were very inebriated (I have no idea how they managed to drive themselves to the bar) and maybe I am a prude, but I prefer to be remembered for at least a few minutes… And, really, the military haircut looks good on very few. The uniform–hot. Crewcuts–not so much.

But I’m off again in an hour. My parents and I are going camping for a few days up in Wyoming. We haven’t been on a family vacation in years, and neither of my sisters could get work off, so it’s just the three of us. We’re just wandering over the state, exploring some of the mountains that we’ve missed. It’ll be nice and relaxing… I tend to write on vacations, so I’m bringing along a notebook and my drabble book. Here’s hoping that LNB manages to find its way to paper!

Ciao!

For better or worse, the test is done. It was hard, really hard with lots of stuff that I hadn’t even considered studying. And I was extremely tired, since I slept poorly last night, worrying that I didn’t know enough. I have no idea how I did. Some I felt good about–others, I couldn’t even eliminate one choice. Chris thinks he failed. I just hope I didn’t. 🙂

Off to North Carolina in four hours, and I haven’t packed!

Just a note to let you know I won’t be around for the next week. Right now, with only five days left, there’s absolutely no way that I’ll be passing the test, much less doing well enough to get me into a good residency. So my studying is being bumped to about 15 hours a day and I’ll be a frantic hermit. I’m about three steps away from a glorified breakdown as it is…

I hate this. So much. I’m starting to have nightmares–my kind, where I don’t hear my alarm clock and sleep in and miss the test. where I forget to leave my cell phone outside and they tell me I can’t take the test, and where I have names of drugs running over and over in my head.

I’ve neglected all of you horribly lately, I hope you can all be patient and forgive me. {{{{HUGS}}}}} to all. You are all so amazing that just knowing that you guys are cheering me on gives me happiness.

Okay, back to the books. I can use all the good luck, wishes, karma, prayers that you are willing to send my way. 🙂

Two weeks of studying all day, every day. I’ve read the entire review book, gone back and filled in missing information. Rememorized the Kreb cycle, found out that patients with sickle cell disease are more prone to infections with Salmonella in their bones, tried to learn the side effects of a whole bunch of drugs. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

And it’s not doing any good.

I’ve been taking practice tests for the past two days. And getting around 60%–which was about what I was doing before I started the studying schedule. Today’s: 50%. Fifty percent! I’m doing worse than before!

Example question:

An obese patient is brought into the emergency room in shock and in need of intravenous fluids. No superficial veins can be seen or palpated. The emergency room physician decides to make an incision to locate the great saphenous vein for the insertion of a cannula (“saphenous cutdown”). In which of the following locations should the incision be made?

A. Anterior to the lateral malleolus

B. Anterior to the medial malleolus

C. On the dorsum of the foot, lateral to the extensor hallucis longus tendon

D. Posterior to the lateral malleolus

E. Posterior to the medial malleolus

Answer is B. Missing it is not the bad part (I thought it was D). The bad part is I didn’t even know where the medial malleolus was! I thought it was the knee. No, It’s the bony part of the ankle. And though I know it’s foreign to anyone who hasn’t taken anatomy–it really is a basic concept in anatomy, one that I should have known.

Yeah, this is good.

10 days… I am so screwed.

Chris emailed M—- this morning and got back an email that said she had already talked to Dr. B— and admitted her error of “laziness.” So it looks like we won’t have to do another paper and there’s no hard feelings or uncomfortableness. I am relieved. I hate thinking that people are out to get me–and at least in this case, it looks like an honest (although pathetically stupid) misunderstanding.

Spent most of the evening tracking down new icons. I’m like Oliver!–I want more, sir! I’ve got another dozen that I couldn’t use, and I keep thinking of more that I want. The Simpsons–I keep thinking I would die to have an animated one of “Lisa the Tree Hugger” and the five-star vegetarian or one of Homer and Maggie, Get Fuzzy, or Calvin n Hobbes for humor. Some more Anne ones. A pen and quill. Maybe a Harry Potter drawing, etc, etc, etc. Yes, folks this is how Julia procrastinates studying how the complement system works.

Parents were here. My great uncle died (I barely know him; we stayed once at his house when I was about 8) and they were in town to go to the funeral. Went out to dinner with them, where my mom reminded me that it was my dad’s birthday–two days ago!

I am slime.

This truly ranks as one of the worst days ever.

Gotta rant, and it’s long

I actually wrote something GG related! I’m still completely unable to channel Rory and right now, trying to write Jess is a little painful, so instead, I wrote this. Comments are always appreciated! 🙂

Title: Forms of Carbon
Word Count: 100
Characters: Lindsay, peripherally Dean
Adult Content: Not really
Author Notes: After the season 4 finale (spoilers). I tried to make it symbolic. I think I failed. 🙂

Forms of Carbon

I am soooooooooo sick of studying. I hate it all. I don’t care if I fail. I really don’t. It’s not worth it.

How it’s been: Wake up before 8 and let Chris in. Read. Read some more. Start to fall asleep. Wake self up. Eat. Read. Throw book across room in frustration and boredom. Take test. Do awful. Fall asleep. Wake up, feel guilty. Read more. Last night, I was up until 1 studying. Not tonight. Tonight, I slacked off. I shall pay tomorrow.

I’ve been distracting myself by writing GG drabbles. Yep, I can’t get away from the fandom. Today I got the loveliest review on LNB that is making me want to get it out and just finish it. The only thing that’s holding me back is I know how much work it would be. I’m the slowest writer in the entire world, and this next chapter is going to be massive…. *sigh*

Speaking of drabbles and my incessant love for them, I formed a community. gg100 Right now, it’s just a place to showcase my writings, until there’s more members. But hey, I’m cocky enough to think that that’s really all people want to read anyway! 😉

And this I found really amusing:

posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments