Alright. Enough is enough.

I miss blogging.

A LOT (LOTLOTLOT) has happened since I last wrote.

I took my General Adult Psychiatry Boards.

I decided to stay in North Carolina Chicago North Carolina Chicago North Carolina after graduation in July.

I went on job interviews. In Chicago.

I have a cat.

I turned 33.

I had really awful migraines like all the time. (They're better now, ever since...)

I gave up gluten.

I had a crisis of...something.

My car is perpetually flooded now.

I worked a lot.

I knitted stuff.

And, like, a million other things.

I meant to get back to blogging in September. Then, October. Then, you know, November is NaBloPoMo, which is the daily blog posting thing that really got this blog going in the first place. But, you know....it's been stressful here.

We'll talk more, though.

I think I'm back.

Ai ai ai...

So my dad's back in the hospital. Doing okay, in pretty good spirits, but his blood pressure's a little low.

Mine, however...

Mom, on the other hand, is doing pretty well. Did great in PT today, getting up better, etc. There was a big thunderstorm today while I was at work and Dad was at the hospital. My mom says, "Maggie was jumping all around and really upset about it."

"Aww, poor thing," I said. Because, you know, my dog is terrified of thunderstorms. "Sounds like that was upsetting to you, too. But," I reminded her, "you can always say 'go to your bed' and she'll go get in her crate."

"Oh," my mom says, "She was in her crate. But I knew she was scared, so I told her to come out and sit by me. And she did, for a while, and then started jumping around. I felt bad for her."

This I love.

Happy Mother's Day

So it's Mother's Day.

This is a day my own mother has traditionally hated. I'm not sure I've ever figured out quite why, exactly, she dislikes it so much - I get explanations ranging from "it's a stupid Hallmark holiday" to it making her miss her own mother too much. But, since this year I'm grateful that my mother is even alive after this whole fiasco, so we celebrated it by spending most of the day together.

It's been a rough weekend. My dad's hopefully getting out of the hospital tomorrow. But the weekend (or, you know, past two months) has been kind of crazy, so I took a couple of hours this morning and went to Starbucks. I got caught up on my discharge summaries (let's not talk about my clinic notes) just in time to go back on service tomorrow, and met Matt for coffee and good conversation. I felt a little better after that. My mom and I went to the Mothers' Day brunch here at Shady Pines, which was absolutely delicious. My mom doesn't talk much during meals these days, so it was a lot of chewing in silence, but it was still nice to be in the thick of things. We then got in the car (which she's getting better at) and drove around looking at houses in the neighborhood, and found a lot lot lot of great options for me to talk about with the realtor. We came home, I fell asleep for a minute and then went back out to Target, came home, made dinner, installed the transfer bench in the shower, and then my mom and I watched Betty White on last night's SNL (my mom's commentary? "That was weird." I, however, loved it). And then we got my mom showered, which was a 45 minute ordeal. And sent me off on a whole new spiral succumbing to the gravity of this whole situation.

Matt and I talked a little this morning about the cultural differences between his WASPy self and my Greekness. He was like, "I'd probably be more hands-off about the whole thing, but my parents are also younger and I have a high-functioning sister." Right, I said, and you're a son. I'm an only child, and a daughter, and in my culture, that means something entirely different. And sometimes that difference is wonderful, meaningful, amazing. Sometimes that something is a jagged little pill.

There have been other aspects of this weekend weighing heavily on me, but that's another post for another day. Meanwhile, I have a 7am therapy patient tomorrow. I'd better get to sleep...

Today

sucked.

Tomorrow will be better. If only by sheer force of will alone.

The best laid plans...

We had a great day planned. It didn't work out so much.

So my mom's doctor called, because someone finally got around to reading her MRI three days later and was like, oh, hey, look at that shower of embolic-ness. Maybe we should do something about that. So her doc called my mom and was like, come on in. So we packed her up and I loaded my mom in the car and we went off to my old stomping grounds (where I went to med school). It was a significantly less pleasant day than we three had originally intended, but, my mom was a trooper, my dad hung in there, and I? Am tired.

The nurses were awesome, and the neurology resident who admitted her was very kind. He pulled me out and went through the MRI images with me. I'm actually starting to figure out that I'm better at reading these things these days. Which, sometimes (like today), might actually be a disadvantage. The MRI's not horrible, but it's also not okay...but I was really grateful he let me see it, and walked me through it. She's getting an MRA tonight, though, poor thing, so back in the scanner.

Keep thinking good thoughts.

Bleh. Did I mention I'm tired? My own brain is grinding along, and so, I think I'm going to take it to bed. But to brighten this dreary post up a little bit, I give you....my cute dog. In a cute picture, seen through the lens of my friend Bill.

See, now, don't we all feel better? (Except now I'm worried about my mom AND I miss my dog. Whoops.) She's staring ever so intently at a crust of bread I later handed her, which she promptly dropped on the floor and walked away from. Silly dog. But so cute though...

Tales and Tails

So here's an interesting tidbit - this is my 990th published post on this blog. Blogger keeps track of all of these things, of course, but it turns out that I have 11 unpublished posts floating around, so it was like, hey, you've written 1000 posts! But, in fact, that particular milestone is another ten posts away.

I started reading through the things I didn't publish. A few were empty posts or earlier versions of things I ultimately did post, so those got deleted. A couple were rants I just never finished, snippets of interestingness, or stuff I meant to come back and address later. I think I should revisit a couple of those...

So I'm home, I think I mentioned. All is fairly well. My mom seems to be doing somewhat better. My dad is his usual self, if perhaps a bit more short of breath. I'm so glad I live in a time where I could just hop on a plane and be up here in a couple of hours; I think coming up was the right choice. Since the cat appears to already be out of the bag (mostly thanks to the Greek Aunties News Network), my mom seems to have had a small stroke last week. She's got a little facial droop on the right, but not any huge deficits. However, because her knees already suck (this is the curse of my family. Both sides. I should just get mine replaced now...) that mild bit of weakness on the right side is making walking a lot more difficult. So, we'll see. She seems to be doing better today, as I said. She's getting physical therapy, and had an MRI of her cabeza last night, the results of which we should get Monday or early next week. So we'll see. I'm trying not to let my doctor-y-ness make me too crazy with thinking about what else could be going on. She (who is never sick) is being a trooper. My dad (who is always sick) is hanging in there, too.

I've been trying unsuccessfully to take a nap all day. I think I'm going to give up and go to bed.

Oh! But first - check this out. It's a little blurb in Scientific American on doggie genetics and people genetics and what that implies for each. I always knew Mags and I were related.....

Seems appropriate for a Sunday....

Listen. This post got a little too long and wound up being all about religion and faith and the philosophy therein. This is my blog, my belief system, and my external processing. Please, if you feel the need to leave some comment about how I'm going to hell or have missed the point, just....leave. Now. Quietly.

Thanks, The Management
_______________________________________________

It's been kind of a rough day for me today. I slept poorly, which isn't new. I couldn't quite get my shit together at any point today. In truth, this is a smaller representation of a larger truth for me.

It's been kind of rough lately, period.

And there are a million and twelve reasons why that is, but I struggle daily nonetheless with things I never thought would become this important. Or maybe still aren't important but feel like they should be.

One of our patients came into the ER a couple of years ago, high on who knows what (he said he'd been smoking phone books. Nobody believed that as the literal truth, but also, none of us knew of any common substance of abuse that got referred to as "phone book"), requesting detox from ghosts.

That is primarily how I feel today. I feel toxic, I was realizing, as I drove home from meeting Matt for lunch. Matt himself I do not find especially toxic (nor, say, breakfast, which was yummy today). But Matt and I get into these deep, personal debates about such trivial things and the purpose of life and the true place of scripture in religion, not to mention the place of religion in faith. I love having these conversations with Matt because we can; we're both well versed in many aspects of what we speak. We're respectful and polite but engaged and can disagree easily. And it's rarely true "disagreement" as much as exploration. Having come from a strong Orthodox Christian background, a militantly Lutheran undergrad, and a very Jesuit medical school - not to mention that I have an undergraduate degree in a theology-heavy view of Humanities. It was somewhat more polytheistic in its spectrum than his MDiv, but, see above, re: militant Lutherans. We both talked, and we both listened, and had useful discussion of things like the overlap between the Christian faith and Wicca, Judaism, Islam, etc. Given all of the name-calling and hell-sending and hypocrisy and righteous indignation and fear (above all, fear) in that my view of "religion" is so steeped...given all of that, it was absolutely fabulous today to sit at an outside cafe, surrounded by beatniks and people from all strata, basking in the newly arrived spring breeze, eating tasty organic hippie food, with a good friend who can have these discussions with me in a non-judgmental, non-secular, non-threatening way...it helps.

It also brings up a great deal of pain, which I realized about halfway through our lengthy discussion that in large part what I was doing was (if you'll pardon my digression into psychoanalytic babble) discharging a lot of my intolerable affect and painful energy around this stuff, giving it to him to contain, hold, detoxify, metabolize. In lay terms, one might use a word like "dumping." In realizing this, I also realized just how much pain, confusion, disappointment, conflict there is in this for me. I'd not been aware of the extent of this before today.

The interesting thing, to me, I was thinking on my way home, is that God is never the pain, confusion, disappointment, conflict. God and I are on solid terms. It's people that I can't seem to grasp.

Apparently my faith, which is a different entity than my religious affiliations, is something a bit more mystical than I'd realized until the past few months or so. I believe in the existence of God because I know God. I just do. I see God in the faces of my patients, the laughter of children, the brilliance of spring daffodils, the sweet and complete affective honesty of my dog. I see God in my life, and my family, and believe firmly that I was created in the image of God. Do I believe in the dual nature of Jesus and that He was the son of God? Of course I do. I think we're all children of God, and Jesus of Nazareth had a particular path, and investment of divine energy to understand and reclaim the bond to these creatures that had done exactly what God wanted them to do - develop autonomy. Truthfully? I believe Jesus saved us. All of us - not just the Christians. And in a way, I believe Jesus saved God. Jesus struggled, he was tempted and tortured, and did not always make what contemporary humans thought to be the right choice, but made the "mistakes" he did because they were so important to understanding humanity. This, I think, was his deity. He was the man he was to help us understand God, who through the passing of the Old Testament times had become less vengeful, more loving. Jesus not only told us what he saw as the desires and ideals of God, but showed them to us as well.

I bet Jesus was tired.

I align myself with the Greek Orthodox church, for reasons of culture more than reasons of doctrine, but that doesn't mean I ignore the dogmatic. But when it comes down to the truth of my relationship with God, I draw from countless traditions that are full of good ideas. Various inceptions of Christianity. Wicca. Islam. Buddhism. Hindu. Kabbalah. I've read the Q'uran, the Mahabharta, and the words of the Buddha. I know a lot about voudou and Santeria and Wicca. I get what we're all trying to do here - understand that which is incomprehensible. We don't all do it in as different ways as we might think, truly. I have my own interpretation of scriptures that at times may seem incompatible with things I endorse, but they aren't. Because it all makes sense in how I understand and relate to God.


But - and this is what struck me later, and is ostensibly why this rant has gone on so long - where we get ourselves into trouble is when we insist we've got it "right." This is why wars are fought over belief systems. I'm right, you aren't, and unless you see that you aren't, I'm going to have to annihilate you because I can't tolerate your dissent. And that can manifest itself in a lot of ways - torture, imprisonment, whatever means it takes to break your spirit; actual death; or, simply dismissing you as not being one of the chosen. I, having the one and only very correct answer to this, will spend my life in servitude to something greater (usually very apparent, loud, and obvious servitude, lest you should miss it) and be rewarded with the privilege of Heaven, because I am better and you are not. Poor you, condemned to fire, brimstone, and endless congressional filibusters.

You'll notice that the people who truly live their Christian (or whatever applies) faith rarely feel the need to rub your nose in it. They'll engage you about it if need be (or want be). They'll model it if you watch them closely. But they won't announce it every thirty seconds and smack you in the head with their well-worn religious tome. They will not condemn, they will not disdain. They will love, they will try to understand, they will do their best to accept.

Humanity....we all want to be special, chosen, elite. Christians...Muslims.....hell, have you met a Jungian lately? It's part of our inherent narcissism - the key to which is always poorly structured self identity and the inability of the ego (self) to defend itself from rejection, because it feels so inherently fragile that at any conflict, even relatively minor, it will be destroyed. The Buddha, though, who was self-identified as a philosopher and not a prophet, the Buddha makes all sorts of observations about self and non-self. About how we are nothing.

I've started to come around to this idea. Because it isn't as nihilistic as one might think. My interpretation of this is, we are nothing, precisely because we are everything. There is not one of us on this earth - future, past, and present - that is not connected. As parts, we are amazing, but the sum of those parts is something so big and all encompassing and important that it is simply unfathomable. It's like, consider the fibers of flax or cotton, cleaned and combed and laid just so...spun into a thread with a tensile strength well beyond that of an individual fiber. The thread is dyed a vibrant color, and delicately, painstakingly woven into its place. When you look at the great and impressive tapestry, the individual thread may not be noticeable, but it is of tantamount importance to the design, not to mention the structure - if you pull on that one scarlet thread, the whole tapestry will be altered and may well unravel.

I am special precisely because there is nothing special about me. This is the conclusion to which I've come today. There are many things about me which are good, many less good, many that are defining and I am as unique a creature as one could imagine. But I'm part of some greater whole, and that is truly the amazing thing about me. Life, humanity, the Holy Spirit, a Higher Power...the echoes are endless. I am but a scarlet thread.

And I, too, am tired. But also feeling better about getting that down. I might read it tomorrow and disagree with it some, but you know, if that happens, it is what it is.

This is the crap that goes on in my head all the time, ps. All. The. Damn. Time. This is part of my perpetual exhaustion...

Calm

There's a storm brewing this week. It's a metaphoric one, but nonetheless. This week is going to be particularly psychologically challenging for me. Well, it could be.

Not to be cryptic or anything. Mostly what I'm saying here is, I'm a little stressed. I don't do anticipation particularly well, but I'm always well-prepared. Details will follow when I feel it's okay to tell them.

(I'm fine, btw. So are my parents. So don't waste time worrying.)

But here's what it makes me think of.

There was this guy, a few years ago, with whom I was involved. It was probably the single most vulnerable point in my adult life, and in as many ways as he was toxic, he was also one of the most helpful and supportive people in my life for a time. Peter (I'm sure I've mentioned him on here before) had a lot (LOT) of his own issues, and I still occasionally hope to hear from him some day down the road when he's had a lot of therapy or is on his Eighth Step or something. But nonetheless, Peter and I had this really interesting way of interacting, wherein, when he was most revealing of himself, he always spoke in these big metaphors. I really don't think he actually knew he was doing it, but it was still somehow always my job to listen to the story about remodeling his home or rounds at the hospital and at the end, say, "So what you're really trying to say is..." He spoke of his home as a metaphor for himself, frequently, often talked about our ways of relating in stories about how he related to his patients. He'd tell me a story about a woman in his office enduring a procedure without anesthetic, how he felt really worried about how much pain his ministrations were causing, but she told him to keep going. I said, "So, what I think you're really saying is, you're afraid that you're hurting me by trying to help, and worried I won't tell you when the pain is too much."

His answer was always the same: "What? No. I mean, I'm saying, I mean, no, I mean....yeah, okay."

At his core he was a good man (possibly several); I still believe this. But there was just so much that got in the way. Not to mention, I was not at my most stable right at that juncture, and my shrink at the time was encouraging me to be a lot more engaged with Peter than I ever should, for reasons that were probably not all that altruistic on the shrink's part. Ah, it was a mess.

So, at one point, he and I are fighting (because we did that about 60% of the time), and there had been a blowup, and we weren't speaking (because he knew that I HATED it when he stopped talking to me). And I was in northern Florida for some other reason, and he was refusing to acknowledge me being in the same state.

And then, there was this little storm that blew through.

I remember being caught in the outer bands of Katrina; I have never seen it rain that hard in my life. I was soaked straight through to the bone from running from my car to my hotel. They had to give me towels in the lobby because I was just so drenched I was leaving puddles on the floor. I knew the eye was passing over southern Florida, where he was, but well, it was only a Category 1 storm at the time. And I'd gotten quite an education from him already about Cane-Proof windows and storm readiness and blah, blah, blah.

But I got up the next morning, and opened my browser, and the first thing that popped on to my screen was "KATRINA BALLOONS INTO CATEGORY 5 HURRICANE." I looked out my window at the glorious sunny day that had appeared, and tried to figure out what to do with the ball of lead in my stomach. And after much internet reading, caffeine, and contemplation, the answer seemed irrefutable to me: I was headed south.

An hour or so down I-95 (far enough that I wasn't likely to change my mind but not so far that it would cost me much time if he was like, fuck you, stay the hell away from me), I decided I should probably warn him that I was in town (my friends in north Florida had all been like, just show up in the south. Call and be like, hey, I'm at the Starbucks down the block, come meet me for coffee). But that felt a little too stalker-ish to me, and I wanted to give him the chance to tell me not to come. So I called.

He answered, of course, because no matter how mad he was at me, he never seemed to figure out how to screen my calls. I could hear people talking in the background, recognized a couple of the voices as those of his family members. And I was like, hey, I'm heading your way. He balked a little - never told me not to come, said he wasn't sure he'd have time to see me, wasn't sure what kind of disaster their clinic schedule was going to be the next day, wasn't sure of much of anything. How long was I going to be down there? Because maybe he could see me the day after. I was like, look, I'm coming down because I'm so much closer than I usually am, and because there was just this big natural disaster, and that tells me it's time for you and me to work this the hell out. Once and for all (although it wasn't).

And somewhere in all the discussion of semantics and scheduling, I finally realized the one thing I hadn't asked that I really needed to: "You guys are okay, right?"

He says, "What? Oh, yeah, fine, of course."

I guess I'd known from the tone of his voice, the stories (metaphors) he'd told me about the day's activities, the laughter in the background. But I still needed to hear it stated.

As it turned out, I drove down, we had a very long phone conversation while I was stuck in traffic on 95 and he was sitting in the hospital parking lot. We never did get into the same space, but we parted on much more amicable terms (that time). I was able to drive for a while around sunny south Florida, in a town I absolutely adore (with or without him in it), and see for myself that Katrina, there, had been little more than a thunderstorm in their view - a far, far cry from the devastation it was unleashing on the Gulf coast.

Somehow, Katrina, from my vantage point, seemed as equally metaphoric as any story that had passed between us, any words spoken or unspoken, in so many ways. It was, indeed, a harbinger of things to come with us; it was also a perspective on how each person individually perceives and experiences a storm, how that storm may vary in lethality and intensity from moment to moment, and how none of these things have any bearing on what has been forecast.

It's better that we've parted ways. But I still worry about him. I have moments where I still miss him (or, at least, parts of who he was). I know how different I am from then; I wonder what he'd think about that, what he'd say, how he's changed. And I can't get through one of our southern squalls without thinking of him, of Katrina and what she meant, and smiling a little at those few fond memories I still hold.

Oops, there goes gravity

So, it's back to reality in NC tomorrow.

(My apologies both for the ridiculous title of this post as well as the Eminem reference from whence it came.)

I had a pretty un-busy Sunday, which was completely delightful. Mags and I slept in a LOT (I woke up at 9:30, dozed and refused to get out of bed for another hour). We went to Starbucks and then stopped at the Teeter to get a Sunday paper, with the goal of attacking the coupon circulars. Now, hear me when I say that cutting coupons is NOT my idea of a good time, frankly, but one of my goals for this year is to be more fiscally responsible (because, in trying to work out out a budget over break, I somehow can't afford my life, which is honestly not all that fancy. Electricity, heat, basic cable, no landline... I make way too much to be this poor). And then I looked at the ads, and the online specials, and plotted, and planned (and played on the internet), and then somehow it was 3pm. So I headed out. I went to the gym. I went to Staples. I went to Trader Joe's. I went to Walgreens. I saved a very not-insignificant amount of money, but most of that was at Staples, which I'll explain in a minute. But, between the ads and the coupons, and not including Staples (or the $.50 notebook I got there on clearance), I estimate I saved about $12. Not bad.

So, running a bit counter (although not entirely) to the fiscal initiative...I haven't been able to find the power cord to my old (in the tech world) and often cranky printer. I've looked in every box, crevice, and usual hiding spot I could possibly think of. And it's becoming more and more irritating to only be able to print things at work. So I got stuck in the middle of something today and was finally like, screw it. I'm going to look around, and if I can find a justifiable deal, I'll suck it up and buy a new printer. So I research it, and this week, at Staples, I find a very nice Canon 3-in-1, reasonably priced to begin with, that has a $50 instant rebate. And duplex printing, and wireless capability (thank heavens, because I already have enough things tethered to my laptop), and it prints photos straight from the card - or the internet - and, you know, some other fancy-dancy things. All for the same price that I paid for my old 3-in-1 a hundred years ago (well...2002 or 2003, probably). Cool.

So I rationalize the hell out of this purchase. I go, I buy it, I come home to set it up. And....okay. I open the box, I fuss with all the cords and cartridges, etc. I go to clear off a part of the table in my bedroom which is currently acting as a temporary home for a bunch of different things, not the least of which is the old printer. And....I'm moving some things....and what do I find?

The power cord for the other printer.

Of course.

In a spot where - I'm so not kidding - I've looked AT LEAST 30 separate times.

::sigh::

But, it does print a lot better. And the duplex printing thing seems valuable. Tree-saving and whatnot. So, okay....

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...

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.

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.

I mean really though

Weekend coverage somehow turned into two full workdays. Yesterday I got in before 7 and left at 2-ish. Today? Left my house 10 minutes earlier, got there ten minutes later (right about 7), and left 11 hours after that. And in that, spent like three non-consecutive hours fighting with one of my outpatients who's now inpatient and is being a brat.

Here's a tip, people - one of the most annoying characters is the help-rejecting complainer. You get one or the other; either ask for help or bitch about what's wrong with people trying to help you, but not both. Otherwise, soon enough, you have no one around to listen to either.

Except masochists like me.

Holy crap am I tired...