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8th April 2009

budding neurologist

Today, I woke up and thought to myself that for the first time in almost three years, I like neurology again. I’ve taken care of some really interesting patients with diverse diseases; I’ve come up with diagnostics and differentials that my attending agreed with; and I had a chance to read so I was starting to feel like I understood the difference between polyradiculopathy and polyradiculoneuropathy (don’t ask). It didn’t hurt that we had maybe 1 consult a day, so I could really sit and think about my patients care.

Of course, right after I thought that, my pager went off nonstop all morning with new consults and complicated questions (as well as stupid questions), making me feel like a freshly chopped chicken and the love faded. It’s still there, dimly trying to stay alive. Who knows, if I manage to survive tomorrow and clinic, it might take up permanent lodging; that would be nice.

Other thing going on in my life:

  • I have just about caught up with all of the little requirements that residency piles on me. I completed the last of my dictations (it was nine months old, but, as I discovered when I dictated it, I had never even taken care of the patient and it really wasn’t my responsibility. So I suppose that evens out). I finished all of my evaluations. I’ve stayed caught up on my clinic notes (that will probably change tomorrow). So I’ve finally been able to concentrate on something else: my house. It’s been a disaster since January when I got sick for a month and was working close to the 80 hours/week limit. But this week, I went through all of the papers that I’ve collected and recycled three entire boxes of junk mail and have collected another 3 boxes of patient information that I need to bring back to the hospital for shredding. No wonder I felt like I was drowning. I’m focusing on the progress and ignoring for now the pile of dishes, the laundry that needs to be washed and all of the sweeping. All in due time.
  • My beloved mommy finished my Regency dress this weekend and mailed it on Monday. I hope to get it tomorrow. There will be pictures. 🙂
  • I had a fabulous weekend, visiting Chris and his friends. We went to the symphony (incredible pianist!) and out to eat and then made crepes the next morning as we watched Sicko. Three years ago, as a fresh idealistic medical student, the documentary might have inflamed me to action. Now, after experiencing the multiple complexities of the medical system, I am become more cynical about the likelihood of success with medical reform. Doesn’t mean that I don’t support efforts to do so, but I see much more of the pros and cons of all of the proposals. Surprisingly, Chris was as conservative about the movie’s premises as I; residency has changed him as well.
  • In any case, there is some pictorial documentation of the weekend at my Picasa site. It already hurts thinking how much I’m going to miss this.
  • I’m getting an elliptical machine and a bench press from my friend who is also moving away (*sniff*). I’m so excited to have my own little gym. Now, the bitter cold of Milwaukee won’t be an excuse to keep me from exercising AND I won’t have to endure endless ball games. As soon as my house is in order (I’m hoping this weekend) I’ll get to retrieve it.
  • It’s actually been really hard recently, thinking about all of the friends that are leaving this year. My medicine resident buddies are graduating and going on to fellowships and careers, leaving me behind for another two years.
  • I am trying to get the courage to buy tickets to visit Sam and her little one in New York over Memorial weekend. In New York. I start hyperventilating at the thought (serious phobia issues here!) but I think my love for baby Meghan’s poofy hair might win out over my fears. I may not see anything more than central park and in the inside of her apartment, and I may just be one quivering jellyfish the entire trip, but it’d be worth it. Right?

And that’s all folks. Tune in next time for another addition of Glimpses of Julia’s Oh So Boring Life.

posted in All About Me, Chris, Friends, Healthy Living, Resident Life, Social Life, Those Rare Days Off | 1 Comment

28th March 2009

-blows off dust-

Mom has a lists of blogs from family members that she follows on a regular basis. I don’t think she’s quite ready to tackle blogging herself (I can set you up if you are, Mom!) but she enjoys staying involved in the lives of family who live far away. Of course, that doesn’t work very well when the blogs don’t get updated. My sister updated her blog Feb 18 (even though she had plenty exciting news to tell), my cousins the early part of March, and me, well, I haven’t updated this since March 1. So much for my goals of writing about Tolkien.

Thanks to Mom’s persistent pestering, you now all get to hear about my very busy life.

The first part of March, I actually went on vacation. As a resident, I get 4 weeks of vacation a year (which I have to plan out a year in advance. I also have to plan out my 4-days-off-a-month 3 months in advance, which makes spontaneous outings nigh unto impossible) and I haven’t had any vacation since October. I was pretty ready for some time off, believe me.
cut to be nice to your bandwidth! Click to read and see more!

posted in All About Me, Family, Photography, Social Life, Those Rare Days Off | 3 Comments

5th February 2009

reasons #500,435,562 why I’m still in residency

I wonder if there will ever be a time when I feel confident in my abilities to take care of clinic patients. Hospital patients, even though they are sicker and more complex, don’t bother me (too much. Don’t worry, there’s no an ounce of cockiness in me. Except that I know more neurology here at the private hospital. But that’s not hard). I have the labs, the xrays, the ancillary support and the time to figure out what’s going on. When a patient is admitted to me, I can concentrate on that problem and the one or two other medical problems to go along with it and everything else, I can, if not ignore, document and not worry about it. I have pharmacists to consult, time to look up articles, time when I can go back and ask the questions I didn’t get to the first time. I’m very efficient at it; I can see a new patient and have a good idea of what’s going on within 20 minutes.

It seems like an entirely different world in clinic, where I have a limited amount of time to get the patient’s entire history and yet pressure to produce answers right away. Symptoms that have been going on for years, I have to address and I’m expected to have a solution right then. I have no labs, no supporting procedures that I can order and have done by the next day. I feel like a fool because I haven’t done pelvic and breast exams, prostate and rectal exams, except for very specific cases, since I was a medical student. I don’t know the subtlities in how to treat erectile dysfunction or allergic rhinitis, because those patients don’t get admitted to the hospital.

My classmates don’t seem to struggle with this. I’ve never “belonged” in the clinic world and I feel it more and more acutely every week. I’m enjoying the medicine clinics much more than the neurology clinic, but I think that’s just because I’m new. Every week, I’m so drained and discouraged afterwards.

I keep waiting for that someday when it’s supposed to get easier.

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3rd February 2009

the gentleman of milton

To the people out there who knew of the existence of North & South and had not insisted on my watching it years and years ago: You are no longer my friends. To hold this from me! Hmph.

Now I’m conflicted. Darcy or Thornton?? I mean, I thought Colin Firth did an amazing job with the smoldering glances and tortured pining. Richard Armitage can give him a run for his money and then some.

Maybe you should decide: The mini-series (with french subtitles)! Only click if you have four hours to spend. You’ll never get away!

(runs off to slip in another viewing of the ending before bed)

***

As a complete aside, my most amusing story of the day: after I had gotten sign out that there were “no overnight events” with a particular patient, I discovered that the patient had had a minor procedure with some major complications, requiring emergent surgery and intubation where patient subsequently coded and required CPR to restore heart rates. He stabilized after that and as everything happened before 7 or so (I had left the hospital sick some hours before) I guess, technically, “no overnight events” was accurate. Boy, was it a shock, though!

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2nd February 2009

blech

This may have been one of the worst post-call days yet. I did get some periodic sleep (so it could have been so much more awful) and then woke up this morning sick. As in, I-think-I-got-food-poisoning-from-my-spinach-salad sick. I was sick enough that had it been any other day, I would have left and have one of the other residents cover, but as it was, we were already short a resident so that wasn’t an option. I finally managed to get away and I’ve spent the day sleeping and only now have been able to tolerate some sprite and bread. Good times.

To make up for the TMI of this post, some YouTube videos that friends have posted that have caused much amusement in my convalescence.

The Weepies – Can’t Go Back Now. The Weepies+puppets=awesomeness

German fashion show. My friend Brooke linked this on her blog, wishing that she understood German. I’m not sure that I do–the images are searing enough!

And now, I’m going back to bed.

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19th January 2009

just a little homesick

Flaming Gorge

There are times when I get really, really homesick. Usually it’s when I’m tired of dealing with the layers of responsibility and the daily rush, rush, rush. Today is one of those. I’m getting claustrophobic again, when I get need to get out of the city and breath fresh air and not be around anybody for a few hours. Growing up in a town of 250 people was in many ways difficult, but I do miss the slower pace of life and the solitude.

(Not my picture. Stolen from here which has some absolutely lovely pictures of Utah. This is not five miles from where I grew up.)

***

My talk went well, by the way. I didn’t get nearly enough time to prepare and had my usual pages of random quotes that I shuffled around (I’ve gotten quite good at reading out of the corner of my eye since I started teaching Sunday school), but I did have a good opening, I made people laugh and I didn’t lose my place too many times. I even used last week’s horribleness as a object lesson as how one ought not to be the foolish virgin. Hopefully the next time I speak in church (which I doubt, now that I’m back on the radar, will be another 7 years), I’ll remember this lesson.

And I’m done with all of my clinic notes. This week will still be busy as I have to finish the discharge summaries that I neglected last week, but it should definitely be better. I’m on call tomorrow; guess that probably means I should be getting to bed, eh?

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8th January 2009

Shhh

I figured out how to access LJ here at work! Yay!

Wow, has it been a busy two weeks. I’m back over at the VA on the cardiology service and there hasn’t been a quiet day yet. We’re just slammed with patients, the entire hospital is, really, all of these people who decided that they’d just stick it out for the holidays and now are coming in with raging pneumonias and cellulitis, and more pertinent for me with chest pain or florrid congestive heart failure. I admit virtually every day, on call (the 30 hour stretch) every 4th night and for the vast majority of the last two weeks, I’ve carried most of the team as well as most of the ICU patients because none of my patients could be discharged home and just kept adding up.. The call nights have been long so far. I’m not quite to the “neurology call night” busy level, which is the definition of a busy night.

Worse, I’ve still been sick. Had a sore throat every day for over a week. Make that two weeks. This morning, I woke up without a sore throat and was so excited… only to have it return this afternoon. If it’s still here by the time I go home tomorrow, I’ll have one of my coworkers write me a prescription. Nice knowing those in power. 🙂

My fellow just left for the evening. As he was walking out the door, he spouted off last minute reminders of tests that needed to be ordered or checked up on and then, he bolted back to ask me if I was “single, married, children?” Bizarre.

I have the whole weekend off. It’s going to be bliss.

I never made it to the post office to get stamps and mail off Christmas cards. Would you all still want them now? Every year, I swear I’m going to get them off and every year, I forget that I work beyond the hours that the post office is open. *sigh*

I know that there have been several emails, voicemails, telegraphs that I have missed and am behind in responding to and for that I beg your forgiveness and patience. I’m also behind on 8 discharge summaries, 2 dictations, 6 evaluations (from October) and 31 one clinic charts. I’m failing everybody right now and just trying to stay above water.

Anyway, I’m off to order dinner (frozen custard, snickers flavored. And something else), but just wanted to check in and let every one I’m alive. 🙂

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1st January 2009

This was not how I intended to ring in the new year.

33 hours. I was at work for 33 hours straight. I worked 33 hours straight without sleeping and somehow made it home and did not kill myself or others. And then when I tried to sleep this afternoon, my pager kept going off.

I still have 8 daily progress notes to write and 2 procedure notes before I really fall asleep tonight, but it’s not going to happen. I don’t know what the consequences are if I don’t get them done, but seriously, I had 10 patients that I saw this morning and a to-do list of at least 60 items before I could leave and I wasn’t going to stay for another hour to finish the notes, and I’m still to exhausted to do them now.

I performed a subclavian (missed it and the fellow had to get it. I was doing so good!) and an art line on one sickish patient, sipped a cup of black current juice with the nurses (who I don’t really know so it was awkward), admitted a couple more, got called urgently to evaluate another patient who wasn’t quite as sick as promised (thank goodness) and then 2 minutes later got called to admit another patient to the ICU. I then spent something like 2 hours trying to get ahold of the fellow so we could discuss a plan on how I was to take care of this patient. Good times.

**

I’m still sick myself, with an enlarged tonsil and earache on the right side. Pain control is working (I drool otherwise) and I’m afebrile, so I know it’s just this nasty cold, but I keep freaking myself out thinking that it’s an abcsess and OMG! what if it needs to be drained! There are reasons that I make a very poor physician to myself.

**

In better news, one of my best friends rang in her new year by giving birth. Meghan Anne joined the world sometime this evening and by picture, she’s just absolutely gorgeous. We’ve been awaiting her arrival forever. 🙂

**

I hope you all had an awesome New Years and more importantly, I hope you all have a wonderful year. 2009 is going to be a good year. We have a perfect month after all to look forward to. 🙂

And now, I have bed to look forward to. Ah, sleep, how I love thee!!

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27th December 2008

Marking the passage

As of midnight tonight, I will (finally) be half way done with residency. I hope that eventually it’ll start feeling like I’m on the downside slope, but right now, it just feels like an eternity. Two and a half more years.

How am I ringing in the celebration? By taking some Nyquil and going to bed. I woke up this evening (post call) with a sore throat and aching ears. I do miss the days when I could tak a sick day and just sleep myself better. Alas, we round at 7 tomorrow, which means waking up at 5 and little rest for the weary…

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16th December 2008

Oh, I love a ball!

I’m in such a tizzy. If you’ll remember, in my last entry, I mentioned that I am going to a Christmas ball. With English country dancing like this:

I’ve been very excited since I heard about the possiblity of a ball, but I had mostly reined it in. Until Susan posted on her blog about how excited she was and how she was thinking about trying to shop for a new dress for the occasion, which of course set me off looking for regency gown patterns all afternoon while I waited for ABGs and EKGs for my sort-of-sick-but-not-really patient. And I found a darling pattern that doesn’t seem like too much trouble if we keep things simple. Short sleeves. No overdress or stays or chemise this time.

Susan’s going to try to recruit some of her friends to help her out down there. If they can, then hopefully she’ll work on her dress this week. I’ll buy material tomorrow for mine, cut it out here and we’ll sew it when I arrive on Friday/Saturday (I’m unfortunately on call Thursday night, so won’t be able to work on it. Unless I drag along my sewing machine, which will just taunt the powers that be to send me every crashing patient in the state. No thanks). We’ve had to sacrifice the opera to make it work, but if I have a ball gown to make up for it? Totally worth it.

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2nd December 2008

100 Things

Felt like wasting time. I have to go to bed now, because I’m on call yet again tomorrow, and am still feeling sleep deprived and we’re rounding early. (As an aside, it is supposed to snow all day tomorrow, meaning I have to dig myself out again post-call before I can sleep. And more head traumas as people slide on slick roads which translates to more 4 am consults from neurosurgery when they decide that they don’t want to operate after all with means less sleep. Am somewhat bitter at Mother Nature who is not doing a great job of nurturing right now.)

1. Started your own blog (I have several right now. Most are just mirrors of my original livejournal, but I do have my own that will be revealed officially to the public as soon as WP 2.7 is released and working properly).
2. Slept under the stars (Several times)
3. Played in a band (I jammed with my 8th grade guitar class but I don’t think we ever made a band)
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
Read more

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1st December 2008

death warmed over

I think I hate post-calls days more after each one. Busy day yesterday, I finished with all of my work around midnight and then had to wait to talk to a family about next plans of action and didn’t actually get to bed until around 2. I had a couple hours of fragmented sleep, but then was awoken at 4 for a consult and that was it: just enough to trigger a migraine, making me sick the remainder of the morning. I actually was so sick and so tired I went downstairs and slept in the call room for an hour before slogging home. There, thankfully, wasn’t much snow but it was enough that the snow plow has blocked me from entering my garage and the wind has picked up creating large snow drifts. So I’m parked out front and I’m going to bed. I’ll deal with the snow later.

BTW, I think all attendings should be flogged if they engage in petty pimping sessions when you’re post call. Exactly what is my tired, overworked brain supposed to be learning in that situation??

Goodnight all.

ETA: Some people write “drunk entries”, I write “post-call” entries. I think the misspellings are the same in both. Oi. 🙂

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28th November 2008

Gray Friday

*grumble grumble*

My chief resident sent out the holiday schedule earlier this week, so we would know who was covering each service and could plan our time better. I noticed that I wasn’t listed to work at all until Sunday, which I knew wasn’t right. We have 4 days off a month, and my four days are later. Because I know from personal experience how overwhelming the neuro ICU can be on the weekend (splitting 12-16 patients between 2 people is hard enough; when they’re sick enough to be in the NICU, it can take you a half hour to just gather information on each one, much less actually see them) and since that’s the service that I now belong to, I decided to do the morally right thing. Instead of sleeping in and going out to shop* for Christmas presents and a Christmas tree, I went to work. We were promised that even though it wasn’t an official holiday per the hospital, the neurology department was still treating it as such and therefore only needed to be there until approximately 12-1pm. Half days are so deliciously refreshing (sun! air! couch!) that they almost feel like a full day off.

I was done with everything by 1:30. I had admitted a new patient, talked the plan over with the fellow, written orders, confirmed results from the consult services, rechecked labs, finished notes and updated the signout sheet. And my fellow wouldn’t let me go. First, it was making sure the radiology would do the study we needed. Then it was signing out to the resident who was on call that day. Then it was waiting for the fellow who was going to start on the service starting that day; he was supposed to show up at 3, he didn’t arrive until almost 4. Then it was the back and forth decision of whether or not to place a central line in our new patient (patient left for the above study, removing that decision). Finally, both of the fellows left, leaving me to go around and write all of the orders that they had decided were suddenly needed.

I finished at 5:30 pm. Happy holiday to me.

(Did anybody understand the above paragraphs? I swear I really wasn’t trying to be cryptic.)

This is an important month for me. I love neuro critical care. I love the complexities of patients broken down into easily managed systems. I like the procedures (even though it’s been over a year since I did a central line or an art line. At one time I liked them). I like that it’s evidenced based. I just don’t know if I like it enough to do another 2 years of fellowship. More years of training, with long hours and which would require starting to do research now so I have a resume that looks impressive. And I don’t like research. All for a career that will always be demanding and time-consuming and I don’t know if I have the physical or emotional endurance for a lifetime of being an intensivist. I’ve been trying to make up my mind about this for months, mulling over both sides and never quite getting to a decision that felt right. So I’ve given myself this month to figure it out.

*Actually, after the news of the worker getting trampled to death at the Wal-Mart in Long Island, I’ve decided to continue my tradition of avoiding shopping on Black Friday, permanently. Because, that’s insane.

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20th November 2008

Don’t tell anyone…

But I played hooky from work today.

Okay, not really. I went to work this morning, saw all of my 9 patients. One of my patients told me that I “looked freshed off the press and not dry yet.” I think it was a compliment, I didn’t ask. We rounded and saw patients until almost 1pm, clinic started at 2pm and I knew I had to be back to the big hospital for overnight call by 4pm, which meant I’d have to leave at 3:30. So instead of going to an hour and a half of clinic, I went home and did two loads of laundry and took a nap. A much better use of time, I think.

Call so far hasn’t been bad. My sick unit patients are stablish at the moment, my intern is proficient and needing very minimal supervision and I’m watching Hugh Jackson on Leno. I kinda wanna see Australia. It’s Hugh and Baz, man.

Alrighty. I’m off to bed for a few zzzs.

ETA: Short lived. I think I was in bed for 10 minutes before the pager went off. It’s now 1:45 and I’m wondering if I dare risk the fury of the pager…

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2nd November 2008

National Something Something Month

So I signed up for Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month, for those not in the know, that happens every November. The goal is to write 50,000 words in that month). And I’ve written a total of (*checks*) 355 words. Yeah, I can see that this is going to go well. I did finally strike upon an idea a few days ago, and have gotten a prologue, but not much more than that. I have a feeling that this month is going to be spent doing more research and writing outlines than actual writing, but we’ll see. I’m not giving up yet!

I also signed up for NaBloPoMo as well, so you all are probably going to get very sick of me! What can I say, all of the cool kids are doing it, and I hate getting left out.

Alas, it is 4 minutes to midnight, I have to be up early to do “wound rounds” tomorrow on the spinal care unit (exactly how it sounds, folks), so I’ll have to share all of my stories at another time. Luckily I’ll have 28 more days to do so this month!

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6th October 2008

Owie

The only thing worse than getting a flu shot, where my poor deltoid muscle develops a knot for days afterwards, is getting the flu. And boy, have I had the flu. Never again.

Not to mention that if I didn’t get the shot, my compassion and my professionalism would have been called into question:

“Remember getting your flu vaccine is important not only for your personal and family’s health, as someone at high risk because of your occupation, but also is important to your patients because of the risk of transmission from you to them, and as a matter of professionalism and courtesy to your colleagues who would have to cover for you if you are out sick because of the flu.” ~ Program Director.

Will do, sir.

BTW, the flu vaccine is now recommended to everybody, especially those with live with elderly people, or those with kids. The deltoid tenderness really isn’t that bad, I’m just a wimp. Promise. 🙂

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9th September 2008

46 hours

I’m surprised that I haven’t gotten emails/calls/signal fires asking if I was alive, since I’ve been absent.

Never fear, I’m alive and kicking. I think if I were to die, the medicine department would not stand for it, and would be administering pressors and bagging me in the grave.

I just calculated that I’ve worked 46 of the last 62 hours and that might be an underestimate. I’m tired. I’ve had three patients who when I admitted then a week or so ago, were sick but got turned around with the right antibiotics and fluids and TLC, take a turn for the worse in the last 48 hours. One has already passed away; another is likely to go tonight, the other is holding on by his cranky teeth. The hard thing about taking care of cute but sick 80 year olds (as three fourths of my service is) is that they have a tendency to take a turn for the worse very quickly, as at 80+, they don’t have much reserve left.

We admitted more patient today. I was in clinic all morning, only three patients and I still went over time and had to rush back to the hospital so I could figure out what happened to all of my patients and was confronted by catastrophe after catastrophe. I endured the chastisement of the pulmonary critical care fellow for not getting her involved in the sick patients sooner. I had to urgently call surgery on another patient for them to tell me that it wasn’t urgent after all. Two hours spent updating family members. Another 10 minutes talking about treatment options for cancer with another patient. And so forth. I didn’t even see the patients that we admitted until almost 8 this night, luckily they aren’t too terribly sick, just needing some monitoring tonight.

I’m supposed to have the sister missionaries over for dinner tomorrow night. Luckily they called and reminded me or I would have completely stood them up. I should get done earlier tomorrow, barring any more ICU transfers. Good thing too, because I have no energy tonight for washing dishes and straightening up my living room.

And now that I’ve chugged down my evening meal of cereal, I’m off to bed. To start things all over again tomorrow…

Also, my iPod completely died yesterday morning. Or rather, it started making horrible grunting noises and now displays a sad iPod icon before dying again, which from the website sounds like the sign of ultimate demise. My computer won’t recognize it, I can’t reset it. Call nights are going to be really, really, really long without some tunes.

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30th October 2007

i’m nice when i have sleep

Dear Program Director:

Please accept my apologies. Had not realized that page was sent to all of us loser residents and was not meant to be a chastisement, rather a reminder that 6 months to complete a note might be a little lengthy. I concur and will do better. Feel properly remorsed for little tantrum yesterday. No hard feelings.

XOXO,
Your Resident

On call today and for the first time in the entire month, the service is quiet. The NICU patients are stable (sick but stable, that’s a first), I’ve discharged all but one of my patients, I am only a few dictations behind, I managed to see almost all of my clinic patients (and if I had had someone to staff with on time, I could have seen them all) and I haven’t had an acute stroke (yet). Rather amazing that. It’s incredible what a better day today is compared to yesterda,y just because I could finally get some of my work done. And because work has now blocked Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and Facebook, I’m almost bored. But LJ still works (ha!) so that’s something. So I’m perusing my friendslist and looking at the newish Doctor Who promos, and I’ve forgotten how much I love wasting time.

Tonight looks like a night where I might be able to get a few hour of sleep. I love those call nights and I think, after the last few calls I’ve had, I deserve it.

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13th August 2007

i need not to need

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.

posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

11th August 2007

dating woes

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.

posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

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