My basement flooded.

Yeah.

I’m now the proud owner of an emergency sump pump (I got one of the last ones at Home Depot–there were a lot of desperate looking people there), my couch and my washer/dryer are up on cinder blocks, and I’ve got to make another stop and rent out a Rug Doctor so I can soak up more of the water.

I’m on call tomorrow, so at least it happened today.

ETA: It’s been alternating thunderous downpour for 10 minutes, followed by drizzle for 5, rinse and repeat for that last 2 hours. My home teachers helped me out earlier this evening and we got the water drained out of the window sill, but it’s filled up again and the little waterfall into my basement has spurted to life again. So far, my drain has continued to work, but there’s water dripping from the wash room now as well. I didn’t bother going to get the water sucker vacuum; weather.com is predicting this same weather for the next 2 days and I’ll just save my money until there’s a chance I can dry things up.

So I went to a noon conference yesterday at the adjacent Children’s Hospital. As we were walking back, my fellow was telling me some juicy gossip about some of the pediatric attendings (who I don’t know) and we walked by a couple of residents, who she knew and we greeted them.

As we continued on, it dawned on me why the one who had refused to make eye contact looked so familiar.

Kyle Jensen is apparently a fellow at the Children’s Hospital. Has been for an entire year. Of all the people to be out here in the midwest at MY hospital. I was irate the rest of the way back to my hospital. Instead of it being a joyous reunion with a fellow Utahn, an LDS Utahn at that, it was the same old snub.

I browsed through my entries to see if I had wrote about him in the past; there’s one passing mention of him on my fond look back of third year in the pediatric rotation section. Once upon a time, when he was a med student and I was a pre-med, I had a wee crush on him (which was all Suz’s fault because she had liked him a bit before she started dating her husband and gushed about how wonderful he is) and thought he was amazing because he was a med student. The crush very quickly faded because he never acknowledged my presence. Never. Not even when we were in med school together and we were friends with the same people. Opinion quickly changed to “He’s a JERK!” I was pretty gloomy when I discovered that we were going to be on the same team together, but over the course of the month we at least came to a reasonable state of friendliness, to the point that I thought I’d at least get a hi.

Bah.

The sun peaks through the heavy clouds, shining through the large bay window of the neurology physicians work room. The room, as always, is bursting with people. Dr. Peltier is rounding with her team; they have just admitted a new patient who has been a diagnostic mystery–an illness that not only is causing neurologic deficits, but GI complaints as well. The team is discussing what tests should be ordered: labs for vitamin deficiencies for sure, but should they repeat the MRI and spinal tap or get an EMG? Would a biopsy serve any purpose?

Around the computers, the neuro ICU team clusters. A patient had been transferred from an outside hospital because of a head bleed. The patient is surprisingly stable with no deficits (alert, oriented, pleasantly conversant and able to move all extremities), a different picture than the transferring team had painted. The images show the real truth: a tiny little speck of intracranial blood from where the patient had hit their head–something that would resolve on its own, requiring no intervention and needed nothing more than closer observation for a few hours. The team is disappointed, not only because of the lost opportunities for procedures and action (for real head bleeds are usually the sickest patients we admit), but because now they had to write orders to transfer the patient out of the ICU–when they had just written the orders to admit.

I sit on the window seat, conversing with Dr. Lynch, the neuro ICU attending who had quickly lost interest in the CT images. He’s my favorite attending and I’ve got a bit of a hero-worship crush on him. He’s three-fourths of the reason that I’m considering a career in critical care–I admire his calm demeanor in stressful situations, the relaxed yet structured rounds, the evidence based approach the patient care, and his endless supply of random bits of knowledge. Today, the conversation diverges from discussion of a patient who had had another stroke to the origin and extraction of heparin and its antagonist protamine. It’s a fascinating history lesson on 2 drugs that I’ve used commonly and had no idea how exactly they worked. I wonder if I’ll ever have half the knowledge that he does. He teases me to remember this conversation so that in years to come, I’ll be able to pimp my residents about it.

The conversations circle around me and I look around at all my colleagues, my friends, my teachers and a feeling of peace settles over me. I gripe so much about the endless paperwork and documentation, the senseless protocols and mandates, the increasingly demanding and ungrateful patients, the ridiculous phone calls in the middle of the night, the sometimes long and exhausting hours, and so forth, that it’s nice to have these moments of confirmation. There have been times, many, many times over the past two years that I have regretted my decision to go into medicine, times when I wish that I had a time machine and could go back and warn 20-year-old me to think more seriously about pursuing a career in creative writing or genetic engineering or becoming a bum. But now, looking around the room, I realize again that this, this is the place for me, the profession for me, the life for me and I wouldn’t change a moment of it.

***

It was the medicine department graduation last night. I almost didn’t go–because of my failed camping trip last weekend, I was determined to take off last night. The thunderstorms put an end to that plan, so I dusted off my google maps and went to the ceremony instead. It was a good decision.

Several of my friends graduated last night, friends who were my senior residents when I started as an intern and who guided me in patient care. Jenn graduated, done with her 5 years of residency. I met her when I interviewed for the program two and a half years ago and she’s the reason that I chose to do the crazy combination of two residencies in one, because she was doing it and was thriving. She rallied for me, told the program to pick me, and for that I’ll be forever grateful.

The program was great and I had a blast. I stayed out late and chatted and caught up with all of my friends (and some of the conversations weren’t even about medicine as well!). Now I’ve got to decide whether or not to go to the Neurology graduation this Friday. Normally, I’d just go, but my church is having a barbeque and a dance that night and there’s a good chance a certain fellow will be there…