… my new blog:

http://redheadsnippet.wordpress.com

All edited and family acceptable. I removed about 100 entries, I think, mostly the fandom related stuff and the very personal. I think I got rid of every reference to LJ, so that means my dear mom can show it around to my entire family AND the entire town (as she did with my Africa letters. Yeah, I would have sent much different letters had I known that), and I won’t have to worry about being found out here. It should satisfy the masses in knowing what’s going on in my life, without revealing too much. Plus, WordPress has a very easy LJ import tool, so it’ll be a snap updating both.

The layout’s plain, but WordPress doesn’t have that many options, one of their failings and you can’t edit anything, colors, width of columns, nothing. There were other layouts that looked better, except that the columns were so narrow, it crunched all together and looked awful (especially the few posts with pictures). So this will have to do.

It’s Irish Fest today, one of the last “ethnic festivals” of the summer, I think. When we were in Doolin in May, we actually saw posters advertising for it, so it’s supposed to be fairly authentic. I’m really looking forward to some good fiddling and Irish jigs. I don’t know if Chris has the day/evening off or not as I haven’t heard from him for a couple of weeks; I hope so, but his schedule’s been crazy busy.

A quick internet search didn’t reveal any answers, so I come to you.

Did the Doctor ever have any older companions? And what’s the longest, canonily, that a companion was with the Doctor?

Thanks. 🙂

Atul Gawande is still the man. If there was anyone that I would be tempted to worship and make a golden calf in his honor, it would be him.

He was a guest commentary for the New York TImes in May. Unfortunately, these all required a paid subscription, but I finally scrunged them up on the web, so if you’d like to read them, they can be found at my medical blog, here (I know, I have way too many blogs).

Read his commentary about Sicko and the debate about universal health care here. I think it’s one of the best articles, as always, for addressing that the issue of medical reform is complex, but there are several different methods that we could try and then reject if necessary, that are better than the current system.

I am doing so much better. 🙂

I regaled some of my friends with the date story… seriously, had a crowd who were interested in every detail, which launched me into full storyteller in my finest element. Apparently, a date is a rare and special occasion and needs to be details so everybody can live vicariously through the event. All agreed that the outfit was horrible (in the original story, it should have read that he was wearing khaki shorts, not pants. Khaki pants are perfectly acceptable. Shorts on the other hand, are not), but that the guys in our church are lame and don’t know how to date, so not to take it personally. In fact, they all seemed pretty impressed that he had accepted the invitation in the first place, as he has a reputation of never dating anyone. Huh. Well, I guess that explains the shorts.

So thus ends the saga. I promise I won’t be spamming your flist with any more of my gloom and doom. 🙂 Thanks for the support, in any case.

I’m really making progress in the transferring of this blog to WordPress. It’s a lot of fun going over my old entries. I pruned most months down to just a entry or two; when you get rid of all of my Lord of the Rings squeals, my fanfiction and random memes, I really didn’t say much the first years.

The fact that I can edit comments is almost enough to convince me to head over there entirely. I love that I can go through and fix all of my annoying misspellings. But it doesn’t have userpics, and it doesn’t have threaded replies and it doesn’t have *you*. 🙂

“However, I feel much better now than when I began this entry. I’ve got quite a bit of resentment and rebellion and discouragement out of my system. That’s the chief use of a diary, I believe.”

Like everybody, in daylight Emily found things much less tragic and more endurable than in the darkness.

“Night is beautiful when you are happy–comforting when you are in grief–terrible when you are lonely and unhappy. And to-night I have been horribly lonely. Misery overwhelmed me. I seem never to be able to stop half-way in any emotion and when loneliness does seize hold on me it takes possession of me body and soul and wrings me in its blank pain until all strength and courage go out of me. To-night I am lonely–lonely. Love will not come to me–friendship is lost to me…”

~ *Emily’s Quest, *LM Montgomery

From the beginning, I promised myself that I’d treat my blog like a real paper journal… what I write, I keep, even though I cringe afterwards. So that means no filtering or privatizing those entries which, in the morning, are particularly whiny and self pitying.

That last one was really emo, wasn’t it? Good thing I’m at the VA where I can’t access LJ or I *would* be tempted to delete.

I’m better now. Really. If I wrote early in the morning, this blog would be drastically different. Bunnies and sunshine different. Things are always so much more positive in the sunshine than they are at midnight.

You know what. I had a great time, even though it didn’t fit with my expectations. I did. I’ve certainly experienced worse. At least it wasn’t ten innings at a baseball game with nothing to talk about. *shudders at memory* So, Jared’s a subpar date. Fine. I can accept that and I’ll move on. Maybe I will consider approaching the cute (but oh so young! 7 years younger!) guy at church. For one, he knows how to dress. 🙂

Theoretical question. If you were a guy (or if you are a guy, I have a few of those on my flist *hugs my manly friends*) and a woman called you up and invited you to a dinner and a movie, emphasizing as she did so, that it was a date (I believe my exact words were “I’m getting a group together to go out to dinner and to see the new movie Stardust, and I’d like you to be my date”), would you wear a teeshirt and khaki shorts and not shave for 2 days?

Now, I may have been spoiled by my friendship with Chris, who keeps Banana Republic singlehandedly in business, but uh, really, I thought it was more than just Miss Manners preaching to put a little bit of effort into an evening out. Granted, he was post call, I do make allowances, but still.

So there you have my first impression of the evening: not impressed at all.

Okay, I’m being a bit unfair and setting the evening up as a total failure. Which it wasn’t. We had a good time at the restaurant and the food was good (Indian. The Chicken Tandoori was very dry but improved with some of the sauces. The Chicken Tikka Masala was much better, although I have had better. Bombay House for you Utah people. ). I tried very hard not to talk just about medicine (which since it is my life was very hard) and we found a lot of stuff in common and time quickly passed; we actually had to race to the movie. The movie, Stardust, was fabulous and we were both rolling in laughter. And I looked beautiful (for a human). I did. I don’t think very positively about myself very often, but I don’t think I can look better than that.

Jared apparently raved about the evening to his roommates. Both of them came up to me (one practically leapt across the foyer to talk to me, which I found a wee bit amusing as we’ve had very little to talk about before this) and asked me how our date was, which I thought was promising. And better yet, they actually used the word “date,” so I was somewhat reassured that the message had gotten across.

But he barely talked to me today. Well. I guess that says it all.

I told myself that I wasn’t going to have any expectations. And I did manage to squelch most of them. But there’s still that romantic bit that refuses to give up that had hoped, so hoped that maybe, just maybe he would the guy who would find me interesting enough, attractive enough to push for one more date to get to know me better. And that part of me is undeniably hurt tonight.

Geez, I’m crying now.

This isn’t about Jared. I really barely know him, and now I know just a few more small talk things about him. He likes much of the same types of movies as me, has 5 younger brothers and sisters, grew up in Idaho and is, at least when it comes to health care, a Republican (which made me shudder. While I am a moderate, I’m a flaming liberal with my ideas about health care reform). That’s it. But I had hoped for a chance to learn more.

I know, I know the old saying that love comes when you are least expecting it. To stop looking and it will find you. And all I see is years that I’ve been alone, where I haven’t been looking and it hasn’t come, and a future that doesn’t appear to be changing.

I’ve always stocked my unattractiveness to the fact that I’m overweight. Medically, at this point, I’m at least 30 pounds overweight. That’s not getting me to a skinny weight, that’s just to the high end of a healthy weight. I’ve told myself since high school, since junior high that one of the many reasons that I didn’t have the dates or even a dance was because I was fat. I found my high school yearbook and I was astonished. I broke down in tears looking at those pictures. I wasn’t fat back then. I was average and I was beautiful. So if I am successful about losing the weight, which I am working so hard to do, it’s really not going to change anything. Because I’ll still be me.

I don’t know what to do better. I don’t know how to make myself more “dateable”. I’m trying so hard to have faith, to believe in God’s plan for me, that He is watching out for me, but being surrounded by blissfully happy couples, and not even getting a chance, I’m struggling.

I know that when compared to the challenges that others have to go through, of poverty, illness, abuse, abandonment, true obesity, hunger, death, etc, this is pretty minute. I know. I meet people every day who face more suffering and trials that I’ve ever had to see in my protected life, and they do so, with the grace and strength that I hope someday to possess. I feel little and selfish and ridiculous that I’m in tears because some boy didn’t live up to the fantasies that I had imposed, which makes me feel even worse about everything.

In a few days, I’ll laugh at myself again, and go on living the life, and will try to ignore those stabs of loneliness and longing and be back to my normal self. For now, I’m allowing myself a little bit of moping and tears.

***

In other news, the sore throat and earaches are completely gone today. And I’ve started the process of moving my blog over to wordpress to make a family acceptable version that will at least keep them updated in what I’m doing in my life. It seemed like the best compromise, because I really need to keep one place where I can vent and not have to filter. The nicest thing about wordpress? You can edit your comments! It’s a beautiful thing.

I get my haircut in a hour for my fist and most likely last date with Jared tonight.

I’m a little frustrated right now. My initial plans was to turn this into a mirror of the Plethora’s Date Night, and have a group here go. But slowly, everybody started weedling out. Last to go was Sarah who texted me and told me that she couldn’t find a date. I’m so frustrated with the boys our age that she couldn’t find one guy, one guy who was willing to have some fun. So it’s just Jared and I, which is fine, except that I work better in a small crowd and I’m afraid that once again, this is turning into into something that appears like it’s a Big Deal. However, I have talked to him a few times this week, giving him plenty of opportunity to back out and he’s refused to, so maybe things will still be alright.

But I did go shopping for clothes and really found some great things for work and for tonight, including this absolutely wonderful skirt and sweater that I can not wait for autumn to come so I can wear it. Plus.. I’m down a size. 🙂 It’s amazing what a 5 pound weight loss can do. The gym and the better eating is starting to pay off. Slowly. Oh, ever, so slowly. But that’s the best way, so we’ll keep plugging away.

I’m still leaning to getting my haircut like Julia Stiles as pictured here. What do you think? It’s pretty much how I always get my hair cut, but it’s longish and I should be finally able to blend in my growing-out bangs that are now just beyond my nose. I’m still undecided about the highlights. I guess I’ll see what they manage to talk me into when I go.

And I finally went to the doctor today. I’ve had the sore throat and earaches for 3 weeks now and I wasn’t getting better. I mean, I got over the worst of it 8 days in, but it was still bad enough that it was affecting my sleep and I had difficulty swallowing at night. My chief resident was the one who examined me and gave me grief for taking three weeks to see a physician.Yeah, I know. Negative for strep, but I’m exposed to enough bacteria on a daily basis that we both felt it wise to get a prescription. It’s kinda funny being on the patient side of thing–I was able to give him my complete history with review of systems in 5 minutes (sore throat for 3 weeks, minimal cough and upper respiratory symptoms, fever the first week, none since then, no lymphadenopathy, no exudate, erythema in the back of my throat, no difficulty breathing, no history of GERD), he examined me for 2 minutes, wrote me out the prescription and we were done. Hopefully the antibiotics will make me feel magically better–if they don’t, then I’ll know that it really truly is viral and I’ll just wait until I get better. I hate wait.

Wish me luck tonight, guys? Three and a half years since I did this… I’m going to need it.

Happy Birthday, shirerain!

I hope you had an absolutely splendid one! I’m so happy that we’re friends, that I had the opportunity to meet you. You’ve blessed my life in so many ways.

*hugs*

I called up my sister to wish her a happy birthday. I had left a message on her blog, that linked to my other medical blog (which I rarely update), which she brought up. Somehow, I mentioned that that blog wasn’t my real blog.

Oops.

Now, she’s begging for the address, and soon my whole family will be over here. Which I mind and don’t mind at the same time.Opening the blog up to the Plethora was the first hard step, so I’ve gotten used to having RL friends reading. But, I don’t know, it’s so hard exposing myself. I mean, I still have never directed Chris to my blog. He knows about it, and I know that claidheamhmor and melancthe had told him that he needed to start a blog and get into the LJ thing, but I’m not sure if he ever read mine.Of course, now he’s too busy to browse the internet, so I can talk all kinds of smack about him. And I’m afraid that it would stilt my carefree writings having family here and I’d slowly drift away from LJ. It’s nice to have a place where I write without thinking how it’s going to be interpreted.

So of course, this means it’s poll time.
poll time

(Sorry for the continual spamming of frivolity. I’m procrastinating going to the gym.)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/longwaydown/

Ewan and Charlie made it safely to Cape Town, 3 months after taking off from Scotland.It has been so much fun following their journey (even though I have to bite back my jealousy ever time I look at it).

See them arrive here *giggles hysterically over Ewan’s hair*

(Okay. Have to go to gym now for an hour. If I don’t, I’ll hate myself. Off sofa… now.)

Duchovny’s new “X-Files” movie should start shooting later this year, he said, directed by “X-Files” creator Chris Carter.

“I’ve had no compunction about being tied to that character,” Duchovny said of his Agent Mulder alter ego. “I doubt I’ll ever again play a part as popular as he was.”

From here

That sounds like real confirmation. Doesn’t it?!? *sigh* They really have perfected stringing the fans along.

(And no, I won’t be watching his latest tv series. The speedo was more than enough for me thank you. 🙂 )

Also, Amazon has the X-Files DVDs on sale for less than $25 dollars a season. I’ve been waiting for this sale for a year now and I know a few people out in friendland were as well.

Jared grabbed me in church today and apologized profusely for not being able to make it Friday, as he’s on call (med student. Probably totally wrong of me to go on a date with him, but I live dangerously), then stated that he had looked up the movie, and it sounded great and he really wished he could come. After chastising him royally for the text message rejection (to which he apologized again), I pressed him slightly and asked him if I moved it to Saturday, would he be interested in coming then. And he said yes.

🙂 *muffles squeal*

I am excited. Still a wee bit wary that he’ll come up with a last minute excuse or that he’ll never talk to me after Saturday, but it’s been three and a half years since my last real date, so you all will allow me a little bit of girlish delight, won’t you? I’m getting my hair cut (I think the Julia Stiles style (hee) is winning out) and I might get a new shirt or something equally fancy. In other words, I’m going all out. I might even wear makeup, that’s how big this is.

It was a good day. I teach Sunday School, which I enjoy a lot. There’s a really, really young (20? 21?), adorable guy who attends, who told me a few weeks ago that I was his favorite teacher, which of course, set my heart aflutter. Today, he complimented me, telling me that I looked really nice in my dress today (I was wearing pink which I never do. Huh.). Then another guy, who I teach with, told me that I was awesome. *blinks* Wow. It’s been a long time since I had one of those confidence building days. Good thing they don’t happen all that often, don’t want the noggin getting too big. 🙂

There’s a reason that I keep Chris around. 🙂 It never fails that when I’m frustrated with the male species, infuriated at being ignored, tearing myself apart because I’m not pretty enough, charming enough, slender enough and too “smart” to be attractive to anyone, he comes and reminds me that while I might not have the romantic aspect, I have at least one guy who thinks I’m important enough to make me a priority in his life. It’s kinda nice to be reminded that it’s not entirely me that’s the problem.

We went out for Indian food and then to a movie (Bourne Ultimatum, which was fabulous. Seriously. Matt Damon is hot (36 and not one crowfoot wrinkle. I was checking) and I want Julia Stiles’ hair), so I guess I did get my date and male company after all. 🙂

Jared did finally get back to me today. By text message. Which I think is the lamest, cop-out way of communication ever invented. What a great way to tell the other person that you’re not even worth a 5 minute phone conversation. I think this will be the last time I ask him to anything. I’m going to still try to find someone for Friday night, but pickings are slim in my ward so we’ll see how it goes.

My friends in Utah are having a Date Night next Friday. They’re all going to dinner and then to the opening premiere of “Stardust.” I was so disappointed that I’m not able to go, because movies and evenings out have become a rarity with the Pleth since the kids started cropping up (love all of my pseudo nieces and nephews, but they did change our fun-loving times).

So I decided to recreate my own Date Night here and asked a boy from my church to be my date. Or rather, I called him on the phone and left a message. A very nice, friendly, nonthreatening, nonfreaky message. And I haven’t heard a peep since then.

Yep.

This is why I just love all of this. It’s a dinner and a movie. I’m not proposing. I’m not confessing my undying love. I’m asking for male company to talk about geeky things like fantasy and books, to eat Indian food, to find out a little more about the people that I associate with. That’s it. And all I want is an answer. Yes/No. I accept apologies, regrets, even “I don’t wanna because I think you’re lame.” I don’t accept silence. And seeing as I already asked this same guy out in April and got turned down… well, I guess it’s just time to accept defeat.

Luckily, I’ve kept my senses about me this time; while he seemed like a nice guy and I’ve enjoyed being around him, he also had some of the same characteristics like Oliver…very charismatic, funny, and flirty with everybody and I certainly learned my lesson with Oliver to be very wary.

So anybody wanna be my date on Friday? *sigh*

ETA: shirerain are you still reading LJ at all? I’ve tried to run into you on AIM a few times but haven’t seen you. And I’ve missed you and have been thinking about you. I hope you are okay.

My Tom Kha Gai soup was a success. I made it much more mild than you’ll ever find in any self respecting Thai restaurant, but even that was enough to open up my sinuses. Yummy! It’s been a long time since I had any and I can’t wait to have the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

The recipe, fyi, can be found here, I’d recommend just tearing the kaffir leaves, but leaving them attached to the central stem–they really aren’t edible, and I made the mistake of shredding them into tiny bits. And since you really aren’t eating the lemongrass AND the galangal, it makes a lot that you are removing in your mouth. I also used lemongrass powder as well, I think it made the flavor stronger.

The Pork Larb Moo on the other hand was an utter failure. I’ve never tasted anything so foul in my entire life and my house still reeks of the combination of fish sauce and lime juice. Ugh. I think I bought the wrong fish sauce as well. Fish sauce isn’t the most tasty stuff in the world, but this is down right nasty.

Tomorrow I’m trying out the Indian food. I’m really looking forward to the Chicken Saab, as it’s one of my favorite Indian dishes.

I feel 130% better than yesterday. Woke up this am with barely a cough, the sore throat decreased to a slight nag and no ear ache! No need for antibiotics after all. Life is sweet again.

Or at least, until I started going through the licensing paperwork again so that I can become a RealDoc™. I started working on it back in April, got overwhelmed by the amount of paperwork and let it sit and mold. Oops. Paperwork is still there, and now there’s all the pressure to get it done and get it done now. It’s so confusing, so expensive (I’m out $1000, just looking at the application), and the amount of stuff that I need notarized is crazy. I guess it’s good that I have to go through this, to prevent any Joe Blow from pretending that he’s a physician, but ugh. I have to have it all done by December, and it take “30-60 days for processing” which, I’ve already learned the hard way, is Wisconsin 60 days: 60 days plus 30 days to decide if we need to audit and 10 more days to tell you that we’ve audited and 30 days to audit and another 30 to tell you that we’re done auditing and 3-4 weeks for shipping (stupid Wisconsin Tax Revenue. Still waiting for my tax refund here). So that doesn’t leave me with a lot of time.

Off to the grocery store. I’m finally feeling up to making all of my Indian and Thai food so I need to get the rest of the ingredients. Ta!

Thanks again to all for the good, healthy wishes!

I’ve finally decided that after 8 days, I am really, truly sick and most likely have either strep throat (my throat developed plaques today. Nice!) and an ear infection and need antibiotics. Of course, I make this decision at 10 pm, after all of the walk in clinics and pharmacies are closed, so I can’t do anything about it until tomorrow. Where I still have to go to work and won’t be able to see a doctor/get those antibiotics until sometime tomorrow evening. The thought of dealing with this ear/throat pain all day tomorrow is making me cry…

This folks, is why doctors need doctors of their own. Because while we take excellent care of our own patients, we’re pretty lousy about taking care of ourselves. I’ve tried to convince myself all week that it was just a cold and ignored that voice inside that said “maybe not” when my symptoms didn’t quite match up.

*BIG HUGS* to those out there in friendsland who are going through difficulties. I’m sorry that I haven’t been there for you as I should have, but you have been in my thoughts and prayers.

I’m so tired of being sick. I’m on day 7 of the Killer Virus and it really hasn’t gotten much better. The fevers/chills/hallucinations are thankfully gone but I’ve still got the burning throat, aching ears and hacking cough and the Dayquill aint’ doing nothing. If I didn’t know in my little doctor heart since I don’t have a fever, exudate, lymphadepathy I don’t have a serious infection, I’d seriously be considering writing myself some antibiotics. And possibly some guaifenesin with codeine. I splurged on NyQuil since I finally will be able to sleep in tomorrow. Hopefully, a full night of sleep will turn me into a new person. But I swear, if it doesn’t improve by morning, I’m going to be one of those awful people and drop by the ER for a nonemergency, to get a rapid strep done.

Chris call this morning with the offer of visiting. I looked around at my pile of used kleenex (a word to the snifflers. Splurge on lotioned, brand name Kleenex. Your nose will thank you), dishes and dirty clothes and begged off. 🙁 Hopefully he’ll have the entire weekend off next weekend and we’ll find a festival or something to experience.

I lurched myself off the couch at some point and tracked down a Oriental market, where I have bought supplies so that I can make Tom Kha Gai soup, Larb, Chicken Saab, and Chicken Masala and fresh spring rolls over the next several days. So excited. Why the sudden urge for Thai/Indian food?? While I’ve been convalescing, I’ve gotten pretty involved in reading this blog: Six in the World, which is about a fix who took a year off and travelled around the world, which sounded pretty amazing. As in, I almost started planning my trip, until reality set in again. Yeah, won’t be doing that for many more years to come. I started getting really hungry when they were talking about all of the great Thai food and the Thai cooking classes, which caused me to remember the spices that Chris had brought back for me from Thailand and the recipes from his cooking lessons… so now I’ll be making Thai food and experimenting with Indian. Yummy!

And the last thing, before I drift off (hopefully) in drug-induced sleep. I have an infestation of fruit flies. Darn things are smaller than the holes in my screens. Any ideas of how to get rid of them??

Finally getting to do some procedures (after 3 months in various ICUs, it’s about freakin’ time!!). I got my first arterial line on the first poke… and have missed all three since then. But then… my fellow has missed on those ones as well, so I don’t feel so bad. I slid the needle right into the internal jugular with gorgeous flow back on the central line placement today, and only required a little bit of assistance to get all of the wires, scapels, and catheters in. No major bleeding and NO pneumothorax, a double plus. Hopefully, the ICU will start picking up a little more and I’ll have more procedures to do. I hope to get proficient enough that I can actually move to the teaching part of the “see one, do one, teach one” model. I’m excited.

I woke up this morning to my pager going off around 6:45, telling me that I had 2 patients to see this morning. As they were patients I was already familiar with, I paged my SMS and rolled over and fell back to sleep, intending to get up in time so I could be to work about an hour later. Of course, I overslept a little and was heading out the door right at 8 o’clock, when my pager started going off. Stat admission. Patient intubated. Patient coding… and I’m at least 15 minutes away. Luckily the cards resident was there and covered me while I raced into work, but my day was rather flustered.

Attending and I are getting along better, although I still don’t know how to read him. Right now, I’m trying to figure out how to keep my other SMS from breaking down entirely, as she’s convinced that he hates her and it makes her more flustered than she ever is when she’s presenting the same stuff to me. Being a resident in some ways is so much more difficult than being a intern, which I knew it was going to be so, but I thought more in terms of “I have to know more”, not so much of “I have to know more, and teach, and manage every patient, and direct a team, and tell attendings how to treat others and fix problems, and run codes, and…” I miss being an intern. I probably won’t be saying that come October when I’m the junior resident on Neurology again. 🙂

Think I’m making it an early night. I’ve been living on six or so hours for the last week and it’s starting to wear me down. Not good.