I went over to a friend’s house tonight to have some hot cocoa and catch up. She’s a medical student, which I know exactly how overwhelming and consuming and exaperating that can be. Talking to her reminding me of all of the drama that med school can entail (I’m so glad I’ve left that behind!!) She’s been in much the situation that I was in those many years ago with Chris and Candice, only she’s in Candice’s position and another mutual friend is right where I was 5 years ago–stuck in the middle and not sure how to get out. Their friendship has been strained to say the least and it’s been bothering me. I do really regret how things turned out between Candice and I, this failed friendship. Years have gone by, she has barely acknowledged my existence since that day (although, she’s friends with Chris on Facebook and contacts him occasionally there. Kinda burns me up a little. He’s the one who broke your heart, honey!) and my experience in med school was radically changed after that. Her friends were no longer my friends, I was excluded from a lot of activities and Chris became the inseparable chum.

In any case, I kinda made it my mission to intervene here because I could see the direction it was going. Don’t know if I did any good (I felt a little like a matchmaker); we’ll see. I’m not sure if an intervention would have helped our friendship then either–I did try on multiple occasions to reach out and explain and was met with deaf ears.

Med school: junior high all over again.

Dear men of the single persuasion,

I have two rules of advice for you as you seek to date others.

1) Movies do not make a good date choice, especially if it is a blind date and/or we barely know each other. Dates are supposed to provide an environment (and I will not argue that it is an artifical environment. I still cannot figure out how one manages to get to the marriage stage by starting off dating, but this is a detour of thoughts) in which the two partners get acquainted with one another and decide if future dates would be nice or not. You can’t talk in movies (you can, but you make your neighbors very upset and then Roger Ebert singles you out in his online review of the movie and you can’t show your face for shame for months…again, another diversion) and given the limited number of choices of movies, you can’t even tell about your partner’s taste based on the movie.

Rule number 1 is especially true if you don’t like movies. Do not take a date to something that you don’t want to go to–that is to wait until later when you are an established couple and have to suffer through those events for the sake of supporting your loved one.

Likewise, if there are movies that you don’t want to see, don’t put it as a option. The Dark Knight should not have been a choice if you couldn’t stand the first one and think that it’s a franchise that is protraying good as evil, etc.

2) Wear a nice shirt. Not a t-shirt. Not a church shirt. Just a nice, casual shirt that shows you put some thought into the evening. If you don’t have one, find a sister or a random girl on the street to take you to the Gap. (I hadn’t realized how much being around Chris spoiled me for well-dressed men).

Good luck in the future, I’ll be eagerly awaiting to hear of your success.

Julia

The date was okay. He was nervous and I was sleep-deprived (advice to myself – no more dates post-call). We may have had a little in common, but I sure didn’t get a chance to find out. Wall-E, btw, was even better the second time. Any movie that uses “Hello, Dolly” as inspiration is automatically elevated to levels of awesomeness in my mind. Date proclaimed that it was “alright.” Hurmph.

We’ll see if he improves on closer acquaintance (hee!)

I could have just made an empty post with this icon and it would have summed up my day. 🙂

I took off after early morning church to Madison and spent the day with Chris and his friends. We hung out at his new apartment (which so reminds me of Suz’s apartment that she shared with her sister in SLC), fixing his water faucets that, of course, sprayed rusty water across the room, ate bagels for lunch, wandered around a little bit downtown (it’s definitely starting to get chilly!), went to the movies (Quantum of Solace), ate fried cheese curds (it’s a really good thing that I didn’t know that those existed before) and played trivial pursuit while eating dinner. My friends started falling asleep around 9 (they tend to wake up at atrocious hours like 4:30 to get to work), when I graciously took my leave then.

I don’t get to see Chris much these days. Granted, it’s much more frequently than if he had done residency anywhere else (I haven’t seen any of my classmates since graduation), but considering that we only live an hour and change away from each other and we practically spent every day together for 2 years, it’s pretty paltry. I love how we can get together and nothing has changed. I think I also get the benefit of really seeing him become a surgeon; every time I see him he is more assured and comfortable in his role. He’s planning on applying to this research program that exactly fits his plans for life and I’m so stinkin’ proud of him that I almost don’t mind that it’d be 2 years completely across the country, starting this summer. Oi.

I love his friends. His co-surgery resident (Aaron) is an absolute hoot and in many ways a mirror image of Chris; its not hard to see why they get along. His girlfriend (Gretchen) is someone that I heartily approve of and I’ve almost forgiven him for not telling me that they were dating. She’s smart, athletic, funny, and sensible (a trait that I found somewhat … lacking in his other girlfriends). Plus, she belts out musicals in the middle of a restaurant too–definitely a kindred spirit. I hope she’s around for a long time.

Man, it’s really hard going back after weekends like this.

I just got home. I left my house at 10:30 this morning and just got home. Most of the time was spent chatting with my girl friends, eating yummy noodles and sampling chocolates. Just the way a Saturday should be spent.

Now that’s how a weekend should be. 🙂

I did almost contemplate going Christmas shopping today, to beat the rush, but since everything is going to have to be shipped this year any how, I wisely talked myself out that. I am thinking seriously about a Christmas tree, though, and can’t decide whether real or fake is the way to go. I love the smell of real ones, but I don’t have a stand, or a tree apron and I’m not sure that I’m the most reliable one in terms of watering the poor thing. I had a fake tree for a couple of years in SLC and enjoyed it, but left it behind when I moved.

I also really want holly around my house. I’ve never been able to find “boughs of holly” before but figured that it was because Utah was much too desert like to support its growth. Sadly, I’ve been unable to locate any here either.

And I think I just beat my midnight bell toll. This post won’t be turning into a pumpkin after all!

I am in a really happy mood right now.

All of the patients for clinic this afternoon showed up early and since I was gone to the neurology business meeting for lunch, by the time I came back they had all been seen (or not shown up) and my attending basically waved me away. A whole afternoon off. I love this rotation!

I finally got the bookcase and water bottles out of my car. Yeah for better gas mileage! Tomorrow I’m vacuuming the entire thing out and washing the windshield. Baby’s gonna sparkle.

I got more leaves swept (gutters are still full).

Chris just called, he’s got the weekend off and I’m going to Madison on Sunday to see him! I need to find someone to teach my sunday school class (anybody itching to discuss the law of chastity to a bunch of single adults? Yeah, didn’t think so), but that should be the only glitch. I haven’t seen him for more than a few, brief hours in months, so I’m really excited about the prospect of an entire day. I’ll get to see his new apartment, eat some kind of exotic food and just catch up.

I am relishing the thought of sleeping in tomorrow.

I had pumpkin frozen custard last night, which was phenomenal. THis really is the best time of year, ever.

In just a week, Susan and her family are coming for a weekend visit. Suz and I are going to the opera! And then we’re having an early Thanksgiving/birthday celebration with lots of mashed potations and pumpkin pie.

I’m doing great with my NaBloPoMo goals, haven’t missed a day yet. How are you guys; I hope I’m not boring you all too much! (I have noticed that as my posting has increased, the blogging of many of my friends has decreased… Hmm. A scientific correlation, perhaps?). NaNoWriMo has, as expected, fallen drastically short of the mark, but I’ve really come a long way in brainstorming ideas and plots and characters so it might be something that I can continue to pursue.

And to top it all off, there’s this:

I love Doctor Who and can’t wait for Christmas. 😀

I have had a fabulous weekend. It’s been so refreshing and relaxing that it almost feels like I had the entire weekend off, instead of just Saturday.

Friday, I came home post call and packed for the “girls only” camping trip. It was one of my friend’s 30th birthday, so to celebrate, we decided to go camping. Yay! I’ve been wanting to go camping all summer long but have been thwarted over and over again by forgetting tents, threatening rain and long work hours. The weather didn’t look promising, but I was naive enough to believe the forecast of “20% chance” of rain. It started raining before we were even on our way. There went those plans. Instead, we went to my friend’s mother’s house, and sat under her car port, grilling our tin-foil dinners (seriously, tin foil asparagus is the most incredible food ever), and basking in the glow of the fire pit (I’m more determined than ever to get one). Afterwards, we all came back to my house and had a sleep over; my upstairs room almost looks like an oversized tent and everybody fit perfectly. We stayed up late talking (well, they did. I crashed early. 2 hours of sleep in 40 hours does not a coherent Julia make) and in the morning consumed pancakes (cooking tip: the addition of vanilla, cinnamon and cardamon makes a fantastic pancake). I haven’t had so much fun in a really long time.

After they all left, I decided to take advantage of my one day off and went over to Home Depot to research more about garage doors. The contractor was busy with another customer, and I got impatient waiting, so just as I was about to decide to leave and just order the darn thing online, one of the other sales associates stopped me. He listened to my rambling complaints of what was wrong with my door and felt that the door and opener were not the problem, that likely I needed some lubrication and new wheels as they get worn out.

I attempted to install the wheels yesterday and I think I’ve figured out the whole problem. It’s doesn’t even seem to be worn out wheels. The tracks were entirely caked in about 6 layers of grease and grim and the bottom part has rusted and the wheels were in a similar state (I don’t think those wheels have made actually contact with the tract in years, hence, there is barely a sign of wear on them, once you remove some of the grime).

I spent all day yesterday getting as much off as I could with a combination of paper towels, knife, fingernails (they could angle the best. I chopped them all off afterwards), and finally, dish soap (didn’t work so well). There’s still at least one multiple layers, but it’s already running just a little bit smoother. I just need to find a really good grease solvent to cut through the rest of it (any ideas???), and then lub it up good with some WD-40, and I think I’m set! YAY! You have no idea how much of a relief this is, this possibility that I might not have to replace my garage door. Of course, I still might have to actually replace the tracks if the rust at the bottom is worse than my original glance-over, but my bishop’s wife has recommended an independent contractor who is reasonable, so I might be able to get that done for a quarter of what I originally predicted. SWEET.

Afterwards, I cleaned up and went over to my neurology program director’s home for dinner which was nice. Everybody brought their kids, there was more food than imaginable (we have a rather large mix of vegetarians, meat consumers, Muslims observing Ramadan, etc). And then after that, I went to my friend Laura’s birthday party. She decided that she wanted to do a sing-a-long party, so we all got together and sang “The Music Man.” Yep, you read that right. We are such nerds. I haven’t seen it since high school at least; I remember most of the lyrics.

This morning, I rounded on all of our patients. We’ve cut the number patients down a lot, which made for easy rounds so I actually was able to make it to church for the first time in three weeks. And then I came home, ready to make potato soup for our on-call pot luck tomorrow, but I’m missing several ingredients, so instead I’m heading to the grocery store bright and early, chopping the vegetables and bringing it all to work so that it can cook in the crockpot all afternoon. Yummy.

And, I’ve figured out most of the problems with my from-scratch blog. It should be up and running in a couple more days. I’m so excited for its unveiling.

This week will be busy. I’m on call tomorrow and Friday. Saturday, I’ve invited my entire church over for a party. *boggles* Not sure exactly what possessed me to agree to host a party when I’m post call and sleep-deprived but there it is. It’s going to be fun, with a firepit in the backyard with camping chairs around and white Christmas lights on the fence, music in the front room, games and instruments downstairs, more games upstairs and tons of food. Luckily, I have the day off on Thursday to clean and all of my friends are coming over Friday when I’m at work to set up, so I don’t have to do that; hopefully, all I’ll have to do on Saturday is nap, take a shower and put on clean clothes and greet the guests.

Okay, I’m off to bed. Gotta get those veggies in the morning. 🙂

It was one of those rare occasions where Chris and I both had the same day off work, so we made plans to meet up. Of course, as is always the case, his free day was rapidly trimmed from all day to just a few hours mid-afternoon, but as I have not talk to him more than a total of 10 minutes over the last two months, I grabbed at the chance to spend a few hours together.

The weather was gorgeous when I left around noon. Chris called to say that he had finished his 65 mile (!!!) bike race and we made plans to meet in about an hour. 30 minutes down the road, I pass a sign. “Freeway closed ahead.”

They weren’t kidding.

Suddenly, traffic was diverted from the 3 lane highway to a 1 lane, narrow country road that was heading south. The perpendicular direction of where I wanted to be heading. No matter, I’d take one of the east-west routes… only big signs were plastered that those roads were closed further on.

I drove on. And on. And on. And eventually made it out to another highway, where I discovered that I was now as far away from Madison as when I started out.

It took me 3 hours to get to Madison. THREE HOURS.

By the time I got there, found my way downtown (missed a turn, ended up in Oregon), argued about where to meet for lunch, got lost, etc, etc, my afternoon visit turned into a mere hour. We met with a couple of his friends, started to eat lunch…. and then it started to downpour. “Lunch” was spent huddled under an awning, and after the rains slowed, I drove them to their cars, and said goodbye, because they all had to get ready for a dinner that night.

I did manage to get a map this time and we plotted the way back (where I once again missed a major turn). The adventures on the way back were almost as fun. The road I was taking had a washed out bridge…something not mentioned until you were there at the bridge, so I had to back track. At one point, it started dropping torrential rain and hail, so heavy I could barely see the road and the wind was gusting hard enough it almost pulled me off. I did manage to pull over and wait some of it out, but I was concerned that if I waited too long, those rains would cause further washouts, so I crept my way forward, until I made it to the freeway. The east bound freeway was open and I drove it the rest of the way home. There was water from the overflowing rivers on the west side, so really, I’m a little glad that they closed it, although I certainly wasn’t feeling that way driving out.

All in all, I put 220 miles on my car, drove over 5 hours, for a hour lunch that got soggy. Somehow, I think it was worth it.

I’ve missed my friend so much, I don’t think I could ever find the words. For four years, he was such a part of my life, that this… “acquaintance”ship where we talk once every couple of months for 20 minutes and don’t share anything important is killing me (Sidenote to all of my friends out there who I talk to once a month–it’s different. You and I get on the phone and gab for hours. We really catch up on everything. You aren’t flitting off to your real life within minutes of getting the update that I’m alive). We do great when we get together in person, that old camaraderie is felt in full force–we tease each other and laugh and it’s great. So I’ll take any chance I’ve got to get that back, if even for an hour on a random afternoon.

(More pictures that I took during the trip can be found here. I unfortunately was not able to get the really cool pictures of the rain storm as I was gripping my steering wheel in fear of my life. Just take my word that it was awesome.)

So, I was right on my call night predictions. I’ve had such good call nights so far that I knew I was due for a doozy (I swear, I never used to be superstitious before!). We had 3 ICU admissions, my senior medical student’s patient almost coded on her and was transferred to the unit, where I once again was reminded how much I dislike this hospital and their “whatever strikes their fancy” way of managing patients. We attempted to get a consult to prevent this patient from actually dying on us… when my student is explaining what happened to this particular consultant, his response: “I don’t believe you” over and over again. !!!!! She told me of this particular conversation after she hung up with him or I seriously would have had some words with him. My med student is awesome. As a med student, I so would have had my senior call, but she pluckily does so without a complaint. Luckily this patient didn’t die and when the consultant finally dragged his lazy butt to the hospital the next morning, he agreed that the patient was sick and needed urgent intervention. Ya think? Stories like this, has, unfortunately, been a frequent occurrence. *sigh* Patient, by the way, is doing well.

Chris ended up not coming into town, because he wouldn’t be able to see me. Yay! Now, I’m trying to figure out when our schedule actually match up, which is of course impossible. His free weekend don’t line up with mine. I do have a few actual weekends off coming up in April, May and June, so hopefully, we’ll figure out something. I haven’t had more than a 5 minute conversation with him in months, so I don’t know what we’d talk about for an entire weekend now anyway (I kid).

I slept about 4 hours or so on call and then went and taught Sunday School. Now that was an experience! I was slurring and mispronouncing all kinds of words and I think I repeated myself a couple of times. Luckily, I had had enough time to go home and shower and actually dress up for church so I didn’t look as exhausted as I felt. I came home and crashed by 6 and didn’t wake up until almost 8 this morning. And I still feel tired. It’s rather amazing how my body gets “unused” to being on call and up all night when I go a few weeks without doing so. Going back to the horrors of neuro call in April is not going to be fun.

In other news, the hospital that I work for has established a new policy that all clinic notes have to be done with a month or they start docking from paychecks. Now, for residents this doesn’t matter because 1), they hardly pay us anything because they bill it as 40 hours a week rather than than 80 that we really work and 2) it’s not a real paycheck, it’s a stipend as if I was doing a summer internship selling alarm systems.

But it does matter for the attendings, so all of a sudden, they’ve been down our backs on getting the clinic notes completed. Which is all fine and dandy, except because of the way that the clinic schedules are set up, there is no time to get the notes done and as I mentioned, I already work 80 hours a week (well except this month. I think I’m closer to forty hours, which is insane when you think about it. On my slow month, I’m working as much as the average American and I feel bored. THIS IS HOW THEY HAVE BRAINWASHED ME. Anyway, continuing…) and I get testy about devoting more time to paperwork. Since I am on a cozy rotation this month, I figured I’d better get them done so I can get some peace. I completed 13 already today and have another 9 to go. Yay progress! Of course I have 5 patients that I’m to see tomorrow morning, so I’ll be promptly behind again, but let me bask in my accomplishment for a minute here.

No repeat episodes with possessed, crazed doorbells to report, thank goodness. I’m finally sleeping with the lights off again…

Chris called me last night on his way back from Guatemala. I had no idea that he was down there; I though that he was slaving away and too busy to talk, like I was. Words do not exist to express my jealousy. It was really awesome to hear him talk about the places that I had been. He stayed in Antigua, climbed the volcano ( which was erupting!), visited Lake Atílan and went to the markets (where he had a much more enjoyable time than I did, because he’s used to the in-your-face bartering-and-begging system than I was).

It was, btw, 4 years exactly when I was Guatemala myself, struggling to learn Spanish, enjoying the 70 degree weather heat, hiking the ruins of Tikal, riding a donkey in the mountains near Antigua, wandering through the cathedrals during Lent and seeing the processionals. I dug up and posted a few of my Guatemala pictures here. Unfortunately, I have lost a bunch of the emails that I had written at the time to document my travels and didn’t realize it until now. I had written them on my old school account and I thought I had forwarded most of the messages to my other accounts, but apparently not (and that account is now way beyond defunct). I’m hoping (*hint, hint*) that my family decided to be sentimental and preserved some of those emails, but as we communicated mostly by instant messenger that trip, I’m not sure that they exist any more. I know I emailed Chris on a regular basis, but for the last 2 weeks of my trip, he was in British Columbia and didn’t write me. And his school email account is gone now too…

This was the only place that I had been that Chris hadn’t, so once again, I’ve fallen way behind in the world travels race. Drat.

****

In other news of my life, (aka work), the new hospital has certainly proven to be interesting. It ‘s a private hospital a couple of miles down the road for me, and I feel like I’ve entered a different world, because things are so different from the academic world that I came from. Here, decisions are made purely by the whim of the attending physician (which never seems to be the same person for more than 2 days in a row) and trying to get the attendings to practice evidence based medicine, well, it’s a battle that I don’t think I’m going to conquer in the 4 weeks that I’m here. For example, yesterday the admitting physician seemed to have this bias against giving IV fluids. Our team admitted 6 patients over the age of 80 and ALL of them were dehydrated and showing signs of going into renal failure, but I had to fight with this particular attending to give them any fluids at all. I also had to fight for 2 patients coming in with fevers and elevated white counts to get the appropriate antibiotics–I’ve discovered a little bit of a stubborn streak that I never knew that I possessed.

The positive side of this has been that I finally can see that I have learned something in residency; that I am comfortable in making independent decisions. There’s still a ton that I need to learn – it’s not like I feel any where comfortable enough to go out on my own yet, and I’m more than grateful that I’ll have another 3 years of training before I get to that point, but I have developed the critical skills in that I can look at a patient, their labs and their x-rays and determine if I need to give them fluids. Or (roughly) which antibiotics I need to start them on and so forth. There are certainly areas where I need more guidance and direction, but I don’t think that the philosophy here at this hospital (where the interns meet with the attending and he tells them the plan and they scribe it down) is the best way to learn that.

But I certainly am enjoying finishing work and leaving the hospital by 1 or 2 pm on my non-call days. Friends, did you know that there is such thing as a round yellow ball that sits in the sky and gives light and warmth to the world??? Who knew??

I decided to make a list. I don’t know why.

– Crush news (which right now, is ever so much more interesting than patients and their neuroanatomy): He has a freckle on his right ear lobe, and a faint, thin scar down his right middle finger. His hair curls across his forehead (it’s such a good thing that these many many years have trained restraint!) and he’s had his beard for as long as he’s been a resident here (as evidenced by his name badge) which manages to hide a very small dimple and I can’t find adjectives to describe his blue eyes. And he has really bad breath post call. Oh, and he owes me big time for doing his discharge summary for him. Am I wonderful or what?

– I had a wonderful weekend. Saturday night, when I woke up from the post call coma, I went to the symphony with one of the neurosurgery residents. Mahler. My dad used to love Mahler, but until Sat. night, I never understood why. I’m now addicted. Absolutely lovely.

– Sunday I went to watch conference at my bishop’s house, which is always a spiritually uplifting time. Pres. Hinckley is still looking amazing for his 95+ years. One of the guys there hugged me and reminded me that it was exactly one year since we had met. I had forgotten. I thought that was sweet.

– It was the first day off that Chris and I have had off together in 2 months, so I drove up to Madison and spent the afternoon and evening with him, fixing his bike, eating Vietnamese food, and digging through all of his music collection. I came home with 300+ new songs and all of his pictures from Ireland and Scotland. Scotland was incredibly gorgeous from his pics… I guess I’d better add that back to the list of Must-Go places.

– Chris broke up with his girlfriend. And didn’t tell me until I pressed. Okay, I think I overlooked a big dropped hint earlier in the evening, when we were putting together pictures for a framed collage, but still. *sigh* Anyway, we had a great talk sitting on a park bench overlooking the lake. I told him about the many dating woes of the past two months. He thinks I’m missing clues (I think that no reciprocation and avoidance of conversation afterwards speaks volumes). He’s thinking about taking up Match.com dating, which I can’t wait to see how that goes. 🙂

– I’m still really bad at music guessing games. Apparently I need to listen to more Phish and Eagle Eyed Cherry(ies?).

-He beat me on the word games as well. The Word of the Day emails are not helping.

-I’m not on call again until Saturday. !!!

–The Seeker has gotten terrible reviews and didn’t do so well at the box office. Maybe that will stop any sequels.

-Still can’t figure out exactly what you do on Facebook, but at least it lacks the ads and spam of Myspace. Am trying to collect friends like mad over there. Perhaps I will make a trophy wall with all of my friends. I guess I need to add more photos, or so a little bird told me.

-I’m reading New Moon right now, as I finished Twilight a few weeks ago on call (man, I miss the ICU call). Liked Twilight, although spent a majority of the book irritated at the heroine and her love interest. I’m really looking forward to reading this, after mulling over valancy_s‘s recent posts about why we go for vampires.

-Congrats to Michelle and Kelly! Maybe, hopefully, I’ll be able to see this little one before he/she’s 40 (are you going home for Christmas?)

-I love Matchbox Twenty. This new album is just gorgeous as always.

– You all are watching Friday Night Lights, right? You’d better be. Best show on TV right now. I’m watching it online, so what’s your excuse?

-Clinic tomorrow. Only 3 patients. Maybe I’ll actually finish on time (and possibly get my notes done, that would be amazing).

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

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.

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??

I did not end up getting a permanent account. I was really having a hard time justifying the expense of it and kept putting it off. I did convince myself yesterday that maybe it wasn’t that much money, but I was on call and that didn’t leave any opportunities to slip away.

I think I probably would have regretted it. I had been counting on the end of the year bonus from work so that I could indulge a bit and discovered that Uncle Sam had taken 40% of it, leaving me with less than what it’s going to cost to take get my medicine license, so I can’t even afford that, which is much more important in the long run. I’m so tired of money issues, so wearied. I was really hoping that with the very small cost of living raise that some of the money pressures that I’ve been drowning in for the last six months would ease, but taxes and insurance are going to suck that all away as well.

*sigh*

On a good note, I’ve completed my last call ever as an intern! Whee! Of course, things really aren’t going to be that much different next year. When I’m in the neurology department, I’ll be a “junior resident” which is really the exact same thing as an intern (still the low man on the totem pole) and when I’m on my medicine rotations, I’ll still have to take call as a senior resident (just not as frequent and I won’t have to write daily notes! Yay!).

And I just realized how confusing my life must be to those of you who actually read this thing. And that I’ve never explained what I’m doing. I have a tendency to assume that people can read my mind, and are really living my life with me (I should have probably outgrown that belief when I was, I don’t know 15 months old. I’m a little behind) So allow for a brief detour.

explainin’ stuff here

Last week, when I looked at the nice neat row of blue boxes on my mini calendar, I thought to myself, “Self,” (and then I giggled because I rarely speak to myself as a proper noun), “you know what would be a great goal? To fill that little calendar box with blue boxes. To write a little something every day.” And I was cheered and excited by the plan, and made little ideas of what I would write.

And then of course, I’m on call. And at the hospital until 10 at night. And somehow living a life. And lo, 5 days passed, and there went that idea. It was fun while it lasted. 🙂 At least I didn’t post that lame idea here. I figured that if all of you read that I was going to say something every day for 30 days, you’d run away screaming and I’d be promptly DEFRIENDED. I just couldn’t bear that.

Does everybody note the little happy, lilting tone to my voice? Notice that the gloom and doom has left the building? Yep, it’s true. Things have definitely gotten better. I’m down to 3 patients (who I can’t seem to discharge); one of my difficult patients I discharged a few days ago, the other has yelled at me every single morning (and every other person who walked into the room… I stopped taking it personally). I’ve been finalizing plans to send her home for about 5 days now, today I walked in and she actually apologized and smiled, so I think I won her over as well! My favorite patient was here for clinic today, which was nice (someone that I’ve actually been able to help a little). So all in all… things are better. 🙂

details about my little life

I almost started crying at work today. Tears of frustration mostly, at my patients who aren’t getting any easier to deal with, at being tired (stayed up too late), and to top of matters, being told right as I was leaving an hour early that I had to stay because the rest of my team had taken off, the overnight intern was in clinic, and therefore, I was the only one in the hospital and had to stay until the intern got back. It was just too much. Luckily, one of my colleagues was willing to cover and I headed home. I’m so weary of this month. Weary and ready to be done. And I’m only a third of the way through the month.

But I’m not on call again until Saturday, I should be discharging most of my patients by then, which I am really looking forward to. I took a nap this afternoon (yes, I do find it pathetic that I get off early and I spend it sleeping). And best of all, I got that hug that I so desperately needed, from the one that I really wanted it from, and dinner and a movie, and I now have a friend from home in the same state as me, so things are definitely getting better. 🙂

We went and saw Ocean’s Thirteen, which was a gazillion times better than Twelve. Many even better, since I don’t recall anything that happened in Twelve. A really, good, engaging time, much like the first one, and definitely the light hearted fun that I was needing. So, highly recommended if you liked the first one.

And I think that’s it. I’m trying to have my friends over for dinner on Wednesday, we’ll see if it happens. But I’ll need to spend tomorrow night cleaning my living room (I did manage to get my kitchen, bathroom and bedroom cleaned before Chris’s surprise visit, so at least that’s done) and putting together the bookshelf and drawers that I bought months ago. It’ll be the first time that I’ve entertained at my place. I’m rather excited. I hope it goes well.

It has been one hard week.

My trip to Ireland just about fell through. I found out on Monday that I had been scheduled for jeopardy call (meaning that if someone called in sick or had another type of emergency, I would be pulled from my regular rotation to cover) smack dab in the middle of my vacation…. See, my vacation was scheduled a year ago, for the last week of May. When Chris and I started discussing meeting up at the end of his travels, we decided that it would be best for all involved if it was the first week of May, instead of the last. Since I knew I was going to be on Neurology that month, I discussed it with my Neuro program director, he said that would be no problem, and I made the switch, contacted my clinic, found someone to cover my phone calls, etc. It wasn’t until about a month later that it dawned on me that I should ask Internal Medicine’s permission as well, because of the possibility of being pulled for jeopardy. I had already purchased my ticket by that point, so I meekly emailed them, told them what I had done and stated that I would be willing to do jeopardy any other time that month (except Laura’s wedding. I also didn’t exactly ask for their permission on that either….) and didn’t hear back from them. Not a word. I assumed, naively, I guess, that it meant that they had no problem.

Until of course, I opened up that schedule. I pretty much haven’t eaten all of this week, I’ve been absolutely sick with how I was going to fix this and dreading the repercussions when I told them that I was NOT going to be canceling my vacation over this.

Luckily, I received another email today, switching my week of Jeopardy call to the end of the month. It does mean that I won’t be able to go down to see Susan and her baby that weekend as planned, but we arranged things so I’ll be going down for a shorter time this weekend.

Oh the joys of being in two programs at once! I’m still rather upset that I found out a week before about the scheduling conflict, when it states in the official policy that you’ll know your jeopardy schedule several months in advance. Even if I had had just a month, I could have at least not felt quite so pressured to get it resolved now. I’m still somewhat on edge, waiting for someone to say “no” and mess it up again.

***
I went shopping for a skirt for Laura’s wedding today. Apparently spring is the wrong time to find a plain black skirt. Add to the shopping joy that instead of losing weight like I had hoped over the last two months, I’ve gained at least 10 pounds since November and weigh the most I ever have and jumped up yet another size. I did find some cute shirts that made me feel a little better about myself, but ugh.

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Vienna Teng’s coming to concert in Chicago tomorrow. I had actually asked a boy to go with me… and he turned me down (had a good excuse, true). It’s okay. The relationship with him has been turning into exactly every other relationship I have with men: friends only. I’m just frustrated, frustrated that I am close to 30 and still playing the dating games of a 16 year old.

I had decided to go by myself anyway, to treat myself after this week… only to find out, as I clicked to buy tickets that it’s sold out. I could do the 10 o’clock show, but then I wouldn’t be back to Milwaukee until 3 in the morning… not good. So much for that.

***
Chris got back from his “bush adventures” across the southern part of Africa today and is now in Johannesburg. And I haven’t heard from him yet. *chews lip in worry* I’m sure he’s fine (I wouldn’t worry if it had been any other week, but sad to say, I do get a tad superstitious once in a while). Hopefully, he’ll be meeting up with claidheamhmor and melancthe in the next couple of days. I do hope that it all comes together and you have a lot of fun!

Anyway, must to bed. Another exciting day awaits me. *sigh*

You know your life is pretty pathetic when the thought that you have to get up a half hour early to shower is making you want to cry.

I fell asleep at 6 pm last night and woke up at 6. I didn’t even hear my phone ring (Chris, but I’m kinda mad at him right now, since he’s taken bloody forever to figure out his Africa trip, meaning that I have no idea when the Ireland meet up is going to take place, and tickets are dirt cheap now. A couple more days and they’ll be gone and then I’ll be royally pissed.) My body apparently needed the sleep. So why am I denying it now to write this, hmmm?