Yep, that about sums it up.

Love. This. So much.

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2009, précis

Here's to 2010

Tuesday exhaustion

I kept thinking it was Wednesday all day today. I think I was just being hopeful that I could put up a Wordless Wednesday post today....

My dad had a cardiac stent put in today. For those of you who didn't go to medical school, basically they threaded a catheter up into one of the arteries in his heart, removed the clog of plaque there - so, basically, it's like breaking up a clog in your slow-draining sink with a pipe snake - and then placed a tiny little tube of metal mesh that looks like those Chinese handcuffs you used to play with as a kid, which is designed to help the artery stay open.

As dramatic as roto-rootering the arteries in one's heart sounds, it's actually one of those not-a-very-big-deal kinds of procedures.

Which is only true when it's not YOUR parent they're proceduring.

But he is, of course, fine. He's staying overnight in Hotel L (where I went to medical school; he's in good hands) but we'll spring him in the morning. And I suspect he'll be feeling better in the weeks that come; the very adorable doc who did the procedure remarked how big that vessel was, even though it's not usually a super-important vessel.

I do have to say one thing for the docs I met today; in NC? Our Cardiology fellows are generally assholes. In fact, remember Dr. Asshole from my days on the State Hospital Medical Unit? Now a Cards fellow at Baby Blue. The guys I met here today? Generally very nice. Now, admittedly, I was also a family member, not some terrified psych resident paging in the middle of the night because "the monitor says those PVCs were a run of NSVT!! Clearly the patient's about to die!! Eeeek!!!" Might make a difference. Or, you know, it could also be something about Hotel L.

Regardless, y'all, I'm pooped.

Monday wonderfulness

I had a lovely day today (mostly). Spent the morning with my HS friends, and their kids, including the lovely and adorable 2 week old new addition. Then, unfortunately, we went to my old roommate's grandfather's wake, which was an unfortunate circumstance, but it was great to see his family, and also his wife's family (with whom I grew up, actually). And then I had dinner with my friends from medical school, including my one friend's two small children, who were awesome. I just hope I can sleep tonight, what with this loud ticking of my biological clock after all that people-under-4 exposure....

But, alas, I need to get up early tomorrow, which means I need to get my ass to bed. So, to keep from making it a total misuse of blog space, I'll give you this, which is Caitlyn Crosby's song, Imperfect is the New Perfect, which I dug up for a FB post and, frankly, might be one of my favorite songs ever. Enjoy.

Sunday night

Today was lovely here. Got up late, ate breakfast, napped, went to the gym, had dinner with Claud, traipsed around Target...can't complain. Sundays at home I usually try to go meet up with my old knitting group, but I think they were mostly out of town this weekend.

Also? It's cold out there.

I spent my time at the gym (going very slooooowly on the treadmill, yawn) watching CNN, which was of course talking about today's airplane incident, thinking about how much I don't want to fly back to NC. Apparently, someone also blew up a couple of people in Lebanon, which seems suspicious to me, given that this is the one-year anniversary of the Gaza assaults.

I don't understand war, y'all. Not for a moment. It's all just senseless to me.

The morning after

First of all, watch this (for some reason, I can't seem to embed it, so you'll have to settle for a link).

It's a parody. We sang that one year (in four-part harmony, of course) in Madrigals. It still cracks me up.

Today was a very delightful day of doing pretty much nothing. My mom made bread, I ate some of it. We had a crackling, lovely fire. I read some Hawaiian ghost stories in a book I bought while we were there in October, that I finally cracked at the airport. All three of us did some napping. I did leave the house, once, when my mom and I went to Starbucks for breakfast.

Yesterday was....I dunno. Not what I remember holidays being when I was a kid. Which isn't new, really. Things haven't really been "right," I guess, since my yiayia (grandmother) died, but that was almost 20 years ago, now. There was a lot of contention in the family after that, for a while. Then my grandfather died, then my aunt's mom, then her dad. Now it's just us, my aunt and uncle, my cousins, and my aunt's sister, sitting around a table, making too much food for eight people and sniping at each other. It's a far cry from the jubilant, boisterous holidays of my kidhood, when D an I used to complain about sitting at the kiddie table, my grandmother made too much food for the 12 of us and whatever distantly-related (or not) koumbari happened to be joining us for the holiday, and we all clustered around the tables and argued loudly. Now it's like we're white people or something. But with more food.

My cousin brought his girlfriend to Thanksgiving. That was sort of monumental - none of the three of us cousins has ever brought anyone to a holiday dinner. Apparently she was lovely (I say "apparently" only because I was in NC). I was hoping she'd come for Christmas...I've suspected for a long while that they were involved but have never met her in person. Alas, though, she was off visiting her own family in a whole other state.

Lucky her.

I can't figure out why I'm so irked after this particular Christmas dinner. It's not like anything has really changed with our little family. My aunt makes me feel inadequate and worthless. My uncle doesn't say much. My one cousin is sullen, the other is beige and answers any direct questions in monosyllable responses. My aunt-in-law (my aunt's sister) is kind of funny but spends a lot of the time sniping with her sister. My mom gets anxious about the food. My dad tells stories. I? Wish I drank more.

So I don't know why it was so painful this time. Maybe I'm paying more attention to what I want it to be. Maybe I'm more sensitive to my own internal responses (damn my shrink and my progress in therapy)(no, not really). Maybe NC is really starting to feel more like home than home. Maybe I'm different with them than I am with other people.

I just wish I felt like my family liked me more (and by "family," here, I'm referring to my extended genetic family. My parents, and my non-genetic relations, seem to like me just fine. Weirdly). It's amazing to me how no matter how old I get, no matter what I manage to accomplish or that at which I manage to fail (because sometimes it seems like the accomplishments are more problematic), I never feel like I'm even close to good enough. And I can't ever seem to figure out what it is that would make me so.

I could keep whining, but I'm not sure it's useful to anyone outside my head.

It also finally caught up with me that I don't think I really have a whole lot planned for the week, unlike my typical whirlwind home visits. I think a lot of my non-core friends are out of town. So maybe I'll get to spend some actual quality time with some of the core group this time? That'd be cool.

Merry Merry

Merry Christmas from Chicago, y'all.

(No, I stole this picture.)

Ho ho ho

I'm in Chicago!!

Left my house at 4-freakin-am, with the anticipation that I'd have to sit in the terminal and wait a bunch of hours, but as it turns out my 6am flight left right on time. And despite losing my favorite necklace somewhere in the transition (I'm crushed. Seriously. I was wearing it precisely so I *wouldn't* lose it), the trip was largely uneventful.

Except....well, for this:

I was sitting behind them on the plane, too. They were very nice people, as one might imagine. And they pleasantly tolerated all the comments about, "Hey, is the sleigh in the shop?" I asked if there was an outbreak of Reindeer Flu.

But the best response to this, by far, was this, which my friend penned on my FB page:

Twas the night before Christmas and in RDU,
St. Nick waited patiently to check luggage through.
The desk agent saw him and shouted with glee
"I trust that you're Santa but I still need ID"
"And just in case the sign wasn't clear,
Your pets must be crated unless they're service reindeer"
The TSA agent took one look at his sack,
And said "sorry you'll have to leave some stuff back"
"The cookies are fine, but the milk's got to go,
You have way more than three ounces you know"
"We will happily let through Dasher and Dancer,
But this one's red nose has set off our sensors!"
Santa said "Rudolph's fine, see he's on my nice list!
I always background check for terrorists!"
So with out any milk and a reindeer detained,
Santa begrudgingly boarded the plane.
And he exclaimed as the Boeing took off and was gone,
"Next year I'm staying home and using Amazon!"

Merry Christmas, y'all. May it be a blessed and magical one.

What *is* the proper container for this?

Need a little Christmas...

I'm so ready for a vacation. In case you've missed that.

I'm a little bit packed.

I have way too much to do at work tomorrow.

My dog is snoring.

One of these things cracks me the hell up.

Aaaand now we're back to mind-numbing exhaustion

I...seriously. I can't even come up with something remotely coherant to say tonight. Except, that was one long-ass, totally exhausting day...

Sunday stuff

Y'all, it's been a rough month.

I know I've been less than awesome about posting useful or interesting things, but there's been so much more going on than I could even start to tell about. The big stuff? My dad's been sick. Someone else who's really important to me was just diagnosed with cancer (I'm not trying to be cryptic, I'm just not sure it's my story to tell, here), and that's been a tough thing for the whole family. And I went to the sports medicine guy on Friday, who stuck a needle into my knee and added even more fluid (with steroids in it), and then gave me a string of diagnoses about what's wrong (patellar subluxation. Plica syndrome. Gigantamous, multi-loculated, huge-ass Baker's cyst. Meniscal tear. Patellofemoral syndrome. Osteochondral damage. Effusion).

And then there's a large pile of little things. For whatever reason, Matt and I ended up being the designated people to fuss over Eva while she was having kind of a difficult end to her pregnancy (which, of course, ended happily). Little Amelie has joined us, albeit a bit early, which of course involves a little worrying on Thea Kate's part. Dude, there's been a lot of baby-ness going on lately, which is kind of making my ovaries anxious. Being on the eating disorders unit is actually kind of fun, but really, really triggering - in ways both positive and negative, often at the same time, which is in itself exhausting. There are a number of things going on with my friends right now that are weighing on me. I'm leaving to go home in three days (which, yay), but my house is a mess, I'm completely exhausted, and haven't even figured out how I'm getting to the airport, much less even really thought about the fact that I'm going to be, you know, home. For the holidays. Oh, right, and it's the holidays, which are difficult for a lot of people, one of whom is me, and a lot of whom are patients of mine who are suddenly in crisis. And on and on and on.

Whine, whine, whine.

So, given the chance to be social yesterday or be seclusive...well, I was kind of hoping the predicted snowpocalypse would give me an excuse to go with seclusive, but since it didn't, I chose not to make up another excuse and went out and made like a butterfly. As I said, I spent the first part of the day trying frantically to finish that blanket, but then I actually made it to the shower for the newest member of the Ming psychiatric dynasty. We had fun. It was more of a party with gifts than a shower, really (i.e, no stupid shower games). What was decidedly weird about it, though, was about an hour or two into it, talking to my recently-married (like, this past week. Well, sort of) friend, I realized that Matt and I were the only two single people there. But, you know, that's okay, and that's part of what I like about my friends here.

Later in the evening Edie had a Yule party. Which was cool, actually; I like her a lot, of course, but also just find her kind of fascinating. She's a practicing witch, and is one of those people who's just really open and tolerant, which of course, also brings with it a good deal of endearing quirkiness. Edie and Peng were sort of the only people I knew there for most of the time, which was kind of interesting, but Edie's friends are of course also a quirky bunch, so it was entertaining as well. And from there, Peng and I went on to Wayne's overgrown frat party (seriously. There was beer pong). We met back up with Matt...and, Wayne's random neighbor, who was very awkward, and walked into the party with us even though he wasn't actually invited. Fortunately, he also didn't stay long (Did I mention? Weird guy). Wayne has a kind of hilarious conglomerate of friends (I told you about the random Australians, right?), which was very entertaining. Mike and his girlfriend were there, too, as was Tony, and Wayne's brother, and one of the girls from work, though, so we at least knew some people. It was also apparent early on that Peng and I were partially there to protect Matt from the scary cool people, which is sort of amusing, considering the coolness quotient that is me and Peng....

So, you know, some good stuff this weekend. I also made it back to the gym today, finally, after like a month. Slowly, but, it's progress. And, well, on we go, with another week. We'll see what happens. At least it isn't dull around here...but damn, I'm tired...

But, tomorrow, for real

I had these great plans for today about sitting down and writing a real blog post and saying something at least moderately interesting. But, instead, I spent the great majority of my day doing two things. One of them was this:

This directly plays into thing #2, which is the afternoon/evening that I spent party hopping. I started with my friend's baby shower, for which I was crocheting the above blanket. I finished it about 10 minutes before the shower was supposed to start (nothing like last minute!!). I'm pleased with the way the blanket turned out, though. Two of the squares were Tunisian crochet, which I just learned and liked a lot.

So after that, I had my friend's Solstice party, and then hopped over to yet another party, courtesy of my friend Wayne and his amazing proclivities to find random people and befriend them (there were random Australians).

And now, it's 1am, and I'm sleepy....

This kid is my new hero

(From Pundit Kitchen.)

Wow, did this week kick my ass.

Love Thursday, practicum

Sorry I never got a post up yesterday. There was just a whole lot...badness at work, family stuff, one of the skinny ladies fell and cracked her noggin...I didn't leave the office until almost 7 and I didn't get home until well after nine and then had to eat and finish (write) the H&P for the admission I did yesterday morning and the system kept booting me off.

But, also, I had someone very important to meet between leaving the office and leaving the hospital.



So, this is the latest addition to our department family. He arrived Wednesday, along with his little brother (they're one minute apart), who was unavailable for pictures but who is also doing just fine. Fell solidly in love with this little guy. Can't wait to meet his brother.

I also have a new niece to meet when I go home. And within our department, counting these two and the other baby who was born yesterday, we have 11 babies due in the next six months.

Just awesome. And totally adorable.

Loculated

It's my knee. Well, a small cross-section of the gigantic cyst in my knee (it continues for a lot of cuts; this is sort of the middle). Which apparently isn't the problem; apparently the pain is coming from the patella being out of place. But, this probably isn't helping.

Also? It's a pretty good metaphor for how my life is going right now....

Mars

I made a skinny girl cry today.

So I'm on the eating disorders unit now. I'm covering for Mike this week and Sparrow next week. And then I'm back for a full month in June. It's an interesting thing, to be up there. It's a whole different planet, really. With very underweight, constipated little Martians.

When I decided to go into psychiatry, I'd originally planned on being an eating disorders doc. I haven't abandoned the idea, but I think that it might be more in the context of trauma. Which is an interesting thing at the moment, because our inpatient unit is really a weight stabilization unit. Which means we tend to get the severe anorexics, who tend to be more on the OCD spectrum. What we tend not to get up there are the bulimics, who tend to be more normal weight, and also have a higher correlation with a history of trauma. They're generally more borderline-y, less inflexible, and I tend to understand them a bit better (duh). The anxious, perfectionistic, rigid anorexics make no sense to me. And because they make no sense, I have a harder time figuring out how to work with them in any sort of useful way. Because the program is so structured, too, I have a hard time figuring out exactly where the therapeutic part of my job is and where I fit into the picture.

The staff is pleasant. My attending is awesome. There's an NP on the service now, too, whom I've known for a while and like very much. I actually really like about half my patients, and the others are tolerable.

But we had this family meeting this morning. And for whatever reason, I identify with this girl. Yes, she can be a pain in the ass, but I really do think she's working hard. And I listened to her parents sit there and give her all sorts of mixed messages about what she's worth to them. She regressed a lot. It stressed me out.

But the crying and yelling and throwing of non-injurious items didn't actually bother me. I have a high tolerance for that stuff. She called one of the staff members a bitch. I laughed. The staff member got huffy and walked out. I was like, really? This isn't about you. She's just being a brat because she doesn't have the ability to say what she's actually trying to express. And if that's the worst thing I'd get called by a patient, cool. But no, she wanted a response, she wanted to push the staff member away, she accomplished what she was trying to do. So the staff member walks out, I kept talking about how we believe she can do this, we know it's hard to tolerate, etc. I made a couple of extra interpretations. By the time I walked out of the room, the patient was able to give me a little humor.

So, you see the difference, there? I tolerated the affective storm without reinforcing it, and we connected in some small way. The other technique? Puts up walls. I agree with the idea that you need to set limits about the way people treat you, but come on.

So I'm back up on the unit later, and the staff member comes to me and is just like, oh my God, that girl, blah blah blah. And I was like, oh, dude, she's terrified, etc, etc, but the staffer couldn't see past the obnoxiousness. The staffer was also incensed that the mother (of this adult woman) didn't say anything about the name calling. I couldn't control the eye roll on that one.

And then I made some comment about the eating disorder being a life-long illness, that you can be in recovery but you're never recovered. And the staffer starts arguing with me about that. And finally ends with, "well, it's controversial."

Uh....no, it isn't.

This annoyed me more than anything up to this point. She says later, "I just think people need to have some hope. By this time, the unit nurse and my friend John had joined the conversation, and were both like, nah, we see people up here over and over. We've seen people relapse after 20 years. Which, I have, too. You can be in recovery, you can be really strong in recovery, but you can't ever take it for granted. Because the moment you aren't looking? It will kick your ass, just because it can.

Seriously, lady. Why are you working with this population if you have no desire to figure out what's really going on, here?

Argh.

Fortunately, John rescued me and made me leave the unit and then bought me a cup of coffee. I'm not sure he consciously recognized the intervention, but let me tell ya, it was so exactly what needed to happen right then.

Perspective

(Pretend it's Wednesday...)

With the way this week has gone...

....I'm just not taking any chances tonight.

Much better

Today has been not nearly as crappy as yesterday.

I started out the morning....well, first of all, I started the morning without a headache, so that was a win. And then today was the Housestaff Council (like Student Council, but for residents) had our annual holiday charity Brunch with Santa. We collected donations for Ronald McDonald House, SECU house (like RMH, but for families of adult patients), Toys for Tots, and the NC Food Bank. It was a RAVING success. Over 250 people. Over $800 raised. Over 350 toys and over 350 food items collected. Hard working community and resident volunteers. And the restaurant we had it at this year was just awesome. We got the whole place to ourselves, which was fantastic. The atmosphere was wonderful and festive, there was a great turnout from the Psych department, there were many of my friends' children playing and being adorable. I got great pictures. It was a wonderful way to spend the morning.

Plus, there were Marines. In uniform. Wh0 - sadly - were probably way too young for me, but were still scenic. (Okay, mostly it's the uniform.)

I went home after that and played on the computer and snuggled with my dog and knit a little, and then I got great news - I'm an aunt again!!! My wonderful friend Bianca from back home, after two days of being a super duper trooper in labor, had a little girl today. She's a wee bit early, but then, I was born at 35 weeks, too. Welcome, little one!! Cannot wait to meet her.

And, of course, take lots and lots of pictures. Natch.

So then I got this Facebook message from my friend Syd, who noticed I had just posted, and was like, can you babysit? And since my dinner plans tonight had turned into coffee plans tomorrow, I was like, yeah, sure. Her usual babysitter flaked at the last minute, and she'd called a bunch of people, and then saw I was on, so, here I am.

Her son is...I'm going to say two. Could he be three? Yeah, he might, but I still think two. And he's completely adorable. We played Thomas the Tank Engine and read a bedtime story called Dog (he was having trouble picking a story. So I saw this one and suggested that the dog - this HILARIOUS big lab they have, whom I also find completely adorable - wanted to hear that one. So we did). And then, he was not crazy about the idea of going to sleep, and was clearly tired, but a little upset that his mom and dad weren't here (not that he'd admit that, it was very cute), so we snuggled in the rocking chair for a while until he was mostly asleep. He was out in like five minutes, of course. I kept going an extra five for good measure.

It was just the sweetest thing. He had that great little boy smell, like shampoo and Dreft and, I don't know, snips and snails and puppy dog tails or something. And was all warm and cuddly, and I was sitting there thinking, wow. I can't believe she's actually going to pay me for this, too.

So now I'm hanging out by the baby monitor, on their computer (which is so much cooler than mine), thinking about how very much this makes my uterus ache. Five years ago? I was kind of thinking I might not ever want kids. Like, I could be the cool aunt. These days? I'm thinking more about how my eggs are getting old. Tick, tick, tick.

Okay, the ticking is still fairly faint. And, honestly, I do NOT want to do that alone. So a husband would be the first order of business. No, wait - boyfriend comes before husband, right? It's been a while (never) since I've had a functional relationship...

Alls I can say tonight is this:

My. Effing. Head. Hurts.

Ow.

Massive Dumbassery

I? Am the worst friend. Ever.

Well, okay, maybe not ever. But I lost some big points tonight.

Mike's dad passed this weekend, and Cleo, Sparrow, and one of our other coworkers drove down to GA for the funeral. And since I can't seem to get off the gero unit for more than a week anyway, I covered the Gero/ECT service today and tomorrow for Cleo. I'm covering the eating disorders unit next week for Mike, and then the following week (well, three days) for Sparrow. I don't mind the bouncing around, and I'm happy to help.

But it turned out to be this weird combination of a very strange day and a very slow day, for a bunch of reasons. So, okay, Mikaela wanders in to my office at the end of the day, and was like, can you leave a few minutes early? Want to grab coffee before my 5:30 appointment? I said, sure. Took my laptop so I could work at the Starbucks for a little while before I took care of something I had to do before I went back home. But then I get this call, and I've been really distractable all day anyway, and then I tried to get some work done and the software wouldn't cooperate, and I got all sorts of frustrated, and then I called back...and then I got upset...and so then I went home.

And I ate dinner, and snuggled my dog, and read Facebook, and continued to be upset, and then I get this text from Sparrow saying, hey, how's little Maxine?

And now I kind of hate myself.

Because you know that thing I was supposed to do after Starbucks? I was supposed to go let Maxinie out. Because her mom was two states away supporting a good friend of ours in a time of need. And then when I called and was like, oh my God, I totally flaked, I'll get back in the car right now and drive all the way back there and let her out, Sparrow was like, no way. If she poops on the floor, she poops on the floor, so be it. You leave your house, I'll smack you.

I suck.

And Maxine is getting one big ass Jumbone for Christmas....

Maybe tomorrow will be better. I'm about to write off this whole damn week.

Every time I blink, I have a tiny dream

Funky

Dudes. I'm in a funk.

I'm not sure what it is. And I'm not even sure I really noticed until this evening, when Mikaela looked at me and was like, "what's wrong?"

Who knows, really. It might be hormones, frankly. It might be the lack of sunlight. It might be a number of other variables. But whatever it is, it's funky. I kind of noticed yesterday that I was sort of flat. Today I noticed I was a little more irritable than usual. I snapped at Ruthie a couple of times today.

There's a lot going on. And, simultaneously, not really that much.

I'm just going to chalk it up to an extended case of the Mondays....

Silence, part two (take two)

So, here's the thing.

There's this "silent protest" going on at work. Because...um........okay, I'm not entirely sure what we're supposed to be protesting. The idea, I guess, is that there are things about our residency that aren't perfect. And if we continue to recruit people to the program, then nothing will ever get fixed. So, instead, a couple of my cohorts are promoting that we should abstain from all contact with the prospectives that are filing through in small, black-suited droves three times a week.

I......I can't even enumerate all the things wrong with this plan.

Let's start with, they're tweaking things at our program all the time. Two, our program? Pretty much rocks. We work hard, harder than most psych programs, but we get solid training as a result. They listen to us, they support us, we work with good people and we get a very broad range of experiences. Three, if none of us were to do recruiting, then we would end up with poor quality residents in the next class. 3.5, if you don't like the kind of people in the residency, you're shooting yourself in the foot by not having a say in who comes in next year. Four, this leaves a significant burden on those of us who now have to pick up the slack from those who aren't participating. Which means, for example, I'm interviewing every week and attending between two and four recruitment events per week. Five, the people who are "protesting?" Are the ones who don't want to get involved to effect change, and in fact are resisting the proposed changes the hardest. Six? Don't think the administration isn't well aware of who's in the pit up to their elbows and who is standing on the sidelines whining.

To name a few.

But beyond that, the principle of this whole thing irritates me. I mean...the thing about a silent protest is, no one can hear you. And don't misunderstand - I'm all for civil disobedience. This country wouldn't be where it is right now if it weren't for a tired black woman on a bus. But to do nothing and expect that to cause things to change? Um, go back to elementary physics, my friends, and talk to a man named Newton....

I'm the first one to point out that you cannot apply logic to an irrational situation, which this clearly is, but come on, people!!! There is absolutely no logic in this!

And, we do this. We, as humans, we want people to "just know." We don't want to have to tell our husband what we want for Christmas; instead, we buy into this notion that if we were important enough to him, he would know us well enough to get the perfect gift. But here's the kicker - no matter how important someone is to you, no matter how well you know them, you still can't induce telepathy. And let me tell ya...the sooner we let go of this notion, the better.

No one can read your mind, so you have to tell people what's in it.

The thing that is really pissing me off, here, is the reluctance of those complaining to do anything active to fix the problem. And I get it, I do. It's easy to whine, to be unhappy, but it's scary to try the unknown, even if it might be better. But it's irritating as shit to the people around you, especially when they're trying to help and you just keep pushing back.

Here's the thing, folks - there's a lot of truth to the adage about how if you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem. And in refusing to become part of the solution, in my humble little opinion, you forfeit your right to whine about what's not working. You can either complain, or do nothing, but you can't do both.

So I'm irritated about this situation, obviously. But I've decided that being pissed off about it is also not part of the solution. I'm not entirely sure what *is,* yet, but I'm working on it.

...nope, not lost on me.

So I sat down to write tonight's episode of This Boring Blog and discovered that yesterday's post....wasn't there.

Um.

Where is it?

Beats the heck out of me. It says it's published. But somehow, most of it is missing, and what isn't missing is certainly not posted. So...?

Meh. It's already 10pm here. I guess you'll have to endure the agony of wondering what was included in my diatribe about nothing ever changing if you don't make any noise about it.

(PS, did everyone figure out how to read Friday's post? Highlight the text. It's not that exciting, though. I had really wanted to write Saturday's diatribe in Friday night's post - in just that format - but I was too tired...opportunity lost, I suppose.)

(And as an interesting piece of trivia, I learned that little bloggy trick from like one of the three episodes of CSI: Miami I've seen in my whole life. Good times.)

The weekend, on the whole, has been really productive. I got some knitting done. I got some cleaning done. I got some errands done. I taught myself Tunisian Crochet.

I went to the recruitment dinner tonight, which was....fine. One candidate that kind of annoyed me, one that was sort of eh, one that I really disliked, and then this guy from my med school. Him? I loved. Partly because he brought his wife along, and her I totally adored. Plus, it was nice to talk about the old place. Which...apparently...has changed quite a bit. Several of my best mentors are gone. The surgery program is descending into chaos (and it was pretty awful when I was there). They continue to have one of the weakest psych programs in the country (that's not new. I applied out of courtesy when I was on the trial; I then declined the interview). Gyn seems to have gotten a lot better (which makes me kind of sad that I didn't stay there five years ago. Although, I cannot complain about where this path has led me). We had a nice chat. Made me a little homesick.

I also put my Christmas tree up today for the first time in probably six years (and had to buy new lights, because, surprisingly enough, all of those were dead). It looks sort of pathetic (it's seen better days, and I don't have a whole lot of ornaments on it, etc), but it's mine. And my holiday spirit is definitely picking up. After a trip to Michael's this morning, I made a wreath for the front door, too. And I had a ton of stuff to take to work, so I stopped by on my way to the dinner (Wayne was very confused when he came out of his office and I was standing in mine). And while I was there, I put the office decorations up (heads up, Peng). The three stockings from last year are now on the wall, the tree is up (I bought a tiny fake tree this year, instead of a tiny real tree like I got last year which turned out to be dead and they're probably still finding nettles in our old office). And I made a wreath for the Pink Office, too. Which...I initially had decided it was too tacky even for us. I toned it down a little, and now I think it's just tacky enough.

I'm back on consults this week. Ruthie's back from vacation. My clinic schedule is full-to-bursting, but at least there are five of us on Consults, plus two rockstar med students. We'll see how it goes (but, I could still use just a little more weekend....).

Irony....

Silence.

Kudos to those who figured out how to read this!! Nice work.

Yep, I clearly have more to say about this.

It'll be the target, er, subject of tomorrow's blog post.

I really do have a point.

Well, as much as I ever do...




.

Blah blah blah

Today turned into a really long day. One of my coworkers is having some pretty rotten family stuff going on, so we all have sort of scrambled to take on what of his we each could. Which translated only into a couple of things for me, but one of them was going to the pre-interview dinner tonight. Which turned out to be quite lovely, actually. I met one candidate in particular with whom I definitely vibed well. She's also a knitter, and we spent a good deal of time swapping stories about leaving jobs we couldn't tolerate. It was very nice. They were fun. We laughed a lot.

But it also, as I said, extended my day by about three hours. And I'm on walk-ins again tomorrow, so I need to go to bed. But here are five random things, just to make your stopping by worthwhile. Ready? Go:

1. Apparently, high heels began as a men's fashion, related to their shoes not falling out of the stirrups when they rode. I learned this at dinner tonight. I find it hilarious, because I can't imagine most of my male cohorts doing well at all in heels (cowboy boots notwithstanding).

2. I spent a while in L&D with Eva yesterday watching her babies on the monitor (she's fine, just a little puffy). I really miss obstetrics.

3. I had a patient today who claimed to have had "just one glass" of wine yesterday, who turned out to have a BAL of 0.45 (remember, legally intoxicated is 0.08). When sober, I reminded the patient that that blood alcohol would kill me. And I'm thinkin' that was a very big glass.

4. I had another patient, a cute little old lady who's been hearing this buzzing noise, which presented like an auditory hallucination (which it may well be). And I'm asking her about it, and she's like, nope, I never hear it outside the apartment, but it's almost constant there. And I was like, has anyone else listened for it? And her boyfriend says, "NO. I'VE NEVER HEARD IT." And I giggled a little bit - inwardly, of course - and thought, turn your hearing aids up, grampa.

5. I really like this picture, which I stole off of Twitter. I was listed as, "Not a hot dog, but a warm dog."

(Coco)Nutty

One day closer to Friday

I'm so freakin' tired...

The consult service, at least, had a reasonable day. I'm sure we'll get slammed tomorrow. I spent a lot of time fighting with a particular medicine service about why high sodium, dehydration, and a white count could still be making my patient delirious, even though she'd already had antibiotics...so, uh, maybe you should give her some fluids. Even if it means tying her down a little. I mean, soft restraints, not ideal, but dying? Less ideal. Seriously, people, why am I doing your job for you? Remember, I'm "just" a psychiatrist.

In better news, my dad is home from the hospital. Which is making *me* very anxious, because this afternoon they were like, "we need to do surgery!!" and then like an minute later were all, "Never mind. We're discharging you. Go see your real doctor." I'd been trying really hard not to "interfere" to that point (SO difficult...I know enough to get freaked out by everything). But at that point I was like, "GO CALL YOUR CARDIOLOGIST. RIGHT. NOW." Which he did. And said Cardiologist - whom I learned Cardiology from - was okay with them discharging my dad. Him I trust. So, okay.

Still. Bleh.

One nice thing, though, about all of this - when I heard the whole surgery thing, I went and told the people I needed to tell that I might have to bolt in a hurry. Everyone was like, no problem. Do what you need to do. We'll get it taken care of. Don't even worry about it. I also brought up with most of them that I might need to have my knee scoped in the near future, and got the same response.

Back at the Emerald Palace, I neglected my abscessed tooth for about six weeks. By the time I actually went to a dentist, he was like, "Oh, holy crap!", started me on a course of antibiotics before he'd even really look at it, and sent me to an endodontist for the root canal because it was too complicated for him. I think I went to the dentist post-call, but when I tried to take an afternoon off (on Anesthesia, who, of course, were like, yeah, get out of here, hope they give you the good drugs) to have my root canal done? I was "abusing the system."

So much better here. I really like the people I work with, and it's nice to know they've got my back. And not because they're sticking a knife in it.