all around me are familiar faces, worn out places, worn out faces--tears for fears

my downfall began last thursday...no...wednesday....hm...no...thursday.  starting again:  my downfall began last thursday.  every moment i have been home and awake...i have been eating.  anything i can get my greedy little hands on, i consume.  the worst part of all is that i KNOW i have a problem...i just seem to have no desire to fix it.  when out of work, all i do is eat and sleep.  my new name--lardium.

somewhere along the lines of my last week on nights, i became incredibly exhausted.  for that reason, it has taken some time for me to refuel the energy and motivation to begin writing again.  i promise you, in my mind i would write the greatest posts, but once i sat to actually type, i realized none of them actually made any sense, and though delirium had set in strong, it wasn't so much that i could not see sense from nonsense.  thank you for being patient.

i am currently on a surgery rotation.  now, some of you may know or remember that i have always hated the OR.  it really is a most detested area for a number of reasons.

1) it's ALWAYS freezing in there.  always always always.  the place was made for beastly beings with a boiling internal thermometer.  i, for one, always have blue fingers when in there.  also, my teeth start chattering, and unless i am constantly moving, i will turn into an ice sculpture.

 2) always moving in the OR, generally doesn't work very well. what i mean is...well...here's the thing...so the attending i work with has done most procedures laparoscopically, which means he needs someone to run the camera.  enter: me.  i get to hold the camera, which for all of 2 minutes i thought would be fun, until i realized this was just about as bad as being the retractor holder!  anyway...as i'm freezing, i have to make sure to hold the camera in place, following my attending's movements so that he can see...and keeping the camera steady, which isn't so difficult, unless of course, you're so cold and you know if you don't move your arm, it might just fall off.  yesterday, the patient was tilted at a weird angle and i was stuck in a very uncomfortable position between my giant of an attending and the patient's arm, which was strapped to a board behind me...and though because of that arm, i had to stand in a really odd way in order to see the display while not getting in my attending's way, i have to say, that one arm emitted so much heat that it warmed my body and i appreciated every inch of that arm.  i know that sounds weird...but when you're freezing, you take heat from anywhere you can get it.

3)  scrub nurses.  the most hypercritical people the world has ever met.  'nuff said.

okay...all of surgery isn't so bad.  there are okay moments.  i like practicing my suturing...though my fingers are as clumsy as the rest of me.  i like that the patients are unconscious...it's a nice relief from the jibber jabber i get all day.  and i'm sure there are more that i can't think of.

yesterday, however, in the surgery clinic, i did have one patient who decided to treat me like the family doc i am and started to say, "well...see...when i was 11 years old a tree hit my head and then..."  i cut him off right there.  in surgery, there's no obligation to listen to those stories.  you stick to what's pertinent.  when evaluating an umbilical hernia...a tree falling on someone's head 49 years ago just doesn't matter.

there are some parts of this hospital that just confuse me.  when i was doing GI, my attending pointed down a hall on our basement level floor and said, don't ever go down there...it's too scary.  and then he laughed and said, okay...go once...but don't go alone...it really is scary.  and quite frankly, it IS scary.  i haven't been down there yet, but one day when i'm on call...i'll make a lil trek.  i'm sorta confused as to where it might lead.  according to my mental layout of the hospital (which is probably grossly incorrect...i have no idea where it could go).

we also have 2 surgery areas.  one is the main on in the hospital and the other is located across the street...mostly dealing with outpatient things, i think.  there's a way to get there without stepping foot outside, and the other day, since i had to go there, i decided to try this indoor method.  i had asked a couple of my colleagues and one told me that it wasn't so hard to get across the street using the overpass (of which i didn't know how to get to), but once there, it was hard to get to the correct building.  he told me that "you have to go into the bowels of campus ridge..." to find the way.  and he was right!  once i made it through the overpass and across the street...i looked for any stairs that took me down into what i could only be led to believe were the bowels of campus ridge (campus ridge is essentially a separate building that belongs to the hospital).  once down into this rather strange and creepy area, i followed any hallway wide enough and lit up enough to look as though it was leading somewhere.  more importantly, i followed my internal senses, which i swear are repelled by any room even resembling an OR.  as my legs became heavier and my breathing became more difficult, i knew that i was closing in on the very place i had to be but didn't want to go.  campus ridge was constipated...and i...i was the obstructive piece of stool.

anyway...patient here.  gotta run.  laters.

"when you're on a holiday, you can't find the words to say all the things that come to you, and i wanna feel it too"--weezer

it's a little late to be talking about this, but i was reminded the other night about the topic, so...yea.

let me start at the beginning:

i live in a neighborhood complex of apartments.  most are 3 story buildings...mine is 2.  part of the attraction to my building is that the first floor is dedicated to handicapped people...meaning, each of the apartments are a little bit bigger.  not that i need a whole lotta space...but well...space is nice.  one of the people living below me is a guy in a wheelchair.  most of the summer/warm weather days, he spends outside in front of our building, smoking a cigarette, talking to passer-bys.  he's lived here for a few years, so he's made some quite solid friends...and enemies.  just so you don't get too excited, this is not about his friends nor enemies.  the thing is, he talks...a lot.  like...too much.  and he's not even the most pleasant person to talk to...but because he's often out there, i'll make a couple minutes small talk and then jet up to my place.  now that the weather is cooler, he's not out there as often...but from time to time...usually when i don't expect it...before i make it to the stairs, he'll emerge from the dark shadows...usually saying something that makes me feel a lil uncomfortable.  

anyway...i'm talking too much.  the other night i had a fairly long conversation with him.  most of this conversation had to do with his last visit to the doc...which, fine...he had some questions...i answered them for him.  from there the conversation too many odd twists and turns and i'll be honest with ya', i totally tuned him out for a bit.  when i snapped back into it, he was saying something along the lines of, "like how i am.  i always want to know more about your religion...like how i ask you if you celebrate columbus day or thanksgiving..."

now, this post is not meant to pick on him...but it got me thinkin (again...i've had this thought before already)...this year i was asked by quite a few people if i celebrate thanksgiving.  really??  is it a religious holiday?  is it even a celebration?  because my understanding was that it's a day to stuff face...and FINE, i'll give you that there's a traditional turkey involved...but c'mon now...there are plenty of people who don't care for the turkey aspect.  i don't take offense to the question, i just find that it doesn't really make sense.  if someone were to ask me, "so what do you normally do on thanksgiving?" i'd find that would be more relevant.  

and columbus day too.  i had maybe 3 people this year ask me if i celebrate columbus day.  huh???  i should've said, "question is, do YOU celebrate columbus day?"  if celebrating columbus day means taking advantage of columbus day sales...then yes, i DO at times celebrate columbus day.

here's the other thing too.  so, when i'm asked if i celebrate something like thanksgiving, there's surprise in people's faces when i say, something like, well...i guess so, since we tend to take advantage of the day off to have a big dinner with family and friends...(kinda like EVERYONE else)...so, people are surprised that i do "celebrate" thanksgiving, but then like this year, when i mentioned i was taking off the day after thanksgiving for a religious holiday, some people would give me this look...like...not like "oh, okay...which holiday would that be?" but more like this look as though i were crazy and how could i POSSIBLY have a religious holiday that they don't know about.  there's very obviously something not right with this picture.

and fine, most people who ask me these questions are either wheelchair guy or patients who have only heard of muslims and find me something of a rare specimen...but i've decided, it's NOT okay for people to not know the absurdity of the questions they are asking.  or...if asking such a question, don't be so bewildered when i say something like yes...and don't look even more bewildered when i mention an ACTUAL holiday that i may have that you obviously know nothing about...especially if you're asking me such things as if i celebrate columbus day/thanksgiving.

i know it's a boring rant to have, but it's a thought, and a concern...and so...well...changing michigan one michigander at a time...signing out.

"years go by and i'm still withering where some snowman was"--tori amos

it's snowing!!  i know in a few short weeks i'll be grumbling at the very idea of snow, but secretly every time i see snow, my heart does a little dance.  a good dance.  the kind of dance that shimmies around to ridiculous songs and jingles and yes, i admit it, even christmas songs.

get over it...you know you do it too.

today i did a circ on a really cute tiny baby.  later, in office, i had the cutest chubbykins come in for a check-up.  i have two fears on days like today:  1--when i'm in the nursery with the newborns, i'm always afraid i might forget that i'm supposed to be playing doctor and might canoodle a bit too much with the new baby.  i can't help it if my nose likes the feeling of baby cheeks!!  2--in office, sometimes...fine, maybe all the time, i feel like taking the baby and just well...taking it.  hah!  things i should never admit, i know.  but they're so chubby!  it seems everyone overfeeds their babies...which is completely fine by me.  chubby babies=most takeable babies....except when they grow up to be obese and gross....at which point i would promptly return the child.  totally not a bad idea.  win-win situation, if you ask me.

anyway, busy night and now i'm feeling tired.  here's to hoping all the patients are fixed by 8:30 pm so i can do nothing at work.  hah!