November's not for sissies

How to cram the last 5 weeks in one blog post? Halloween weekend was a celebration of the last weekend of freedom before my return to being a slave to my pager, to TFM and to the needs of patients, colleagues and administration. I enjoyed it fully with a weekend in Seattle, playing a remarkable concert with RCB to a sold out house. Our concert theme was TV Land, complete with a LGBT and Ally friendly Brady Bunch video and sing along (below!!).

I dressed as a mad scientist last year. This year I was daddy Warbucks, complete with a bald head, three piece tux and pocket watch. I also had with me a pretty convincing Orphan Annie!

November rolled in like a steam truck and plowed pretty quickly over the peace and balance I had spent most of October carefully cultivating. My grandfather, not a month after his 99^th birthday, died. It feels like one minute he’s doing his morning calisthenics, shoving 5-dollar bills in my hand, telling the same jokes he told me last time I visited. Then, the next minute, my mother calls to tell me he’s dying. In a way, it was a good way to go, relatively quickly with people you love by your side. His funeral was in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida in a plot adjacent to my Grandmother, Minna. My mother and her sister, their two children, and the five of us cousins were able to make it. A pretty amazing event. I can’t even recall the last time all five cousins were in one place. I think it would have made Grandpa very happy to see us all.

The most riotous part of the funeral (yes, we put the fun in funeral) is hard to pick out. Getting lost in a minivan with family had its charms. Mother’s quirks were particularly funny – in that van adventure she must’ve called her sister 2 dozen times announcing each intersection as we passed it to make sure she knew we were finally going the right way. Self-depreciating humor was rampant and the men poked fun at the suggestion of their submission to the powerful Jewish women in my family. We Detroiters had stories of being held up at gunpoint, Black Panther and police evasion, and mayoral corruption (circa 1970’s and 80’s – how retro! Funny how little things have changed). Somehow, even the darkest jokes coaxed everyone into laugher at one point or another. The resident Catholic even managed to get a few colorful nun jokes in there.

From the funeral I basically went right back to work, where I found my fellow residents falling out here and there, felled by the flu or other family emergency. I worked twice as hard as I had anticipated, filling in on extra clinics, working as back up on the weekends, working on my elective at an HIV clinic in Tacoma. Not to mention a number of presentations I’ve done over the month: formal, informal, at meetings, teaching sessions and the like. In fact, instead of writing this blog post, I should be preparing a presentation on the culturally competent care of transgender patients and a quick overview on hormone therapy and standards of care. But, I’m not! Or, rather I should be working on my research for my 3^rd year project. But, obviously, I’m not.

Thanksgiving 2 years ago I was on call at the hospital, getting pimped in the morning by ruthless (er, invested) teachers and feeding my sorrows in the afternoon with 12-hour-old, 3,000-calorie cinnamon rolls listening to cheerful voicemails from my family’s respective celebrations. Last year was a huge improvement. While I still had to work too much to travel, I did find some time to enjoy Thanksgiving Seattle-style with sushi and salmon at my cousin’s place surrounded by a number of relatives from around Washington State. I also had the immense joy of busting my chops Christmas Caroling with Renegayde.

This year traveling far was out of the question as the time off was not guaranteed, and the two days of traveling it would take to get to anything in the Central or Eastern time zone would make the trip essentially futile (and maybe more stress than its worth). So, Karin and I opted to hit up a beach on the Oregon coast. We were pleased to have some sunlight and enjoyed the hotel hot tub and in-room fireplace. Always non-conformists, we walked the beaches on the windy day and flew a kite on the calm and sunny day (pic at left). We visited bookstores and toy stores and tried to whale watch, however, as I lifted the binoculars to my face to try and spot a spouting behemoth the woman working at the whale watching center mentioned to another employee that "there's nothing out there this time of year". No whales. Maybe in a few weeks. Alas, before I could even focus the binoculars, I put them back on the table. They were probably teeming with bacteria anyway, and we were much better off eating bagfuls of salt-water taffy driving up Highway 101 admiring the view.

Restore Order

Intro:
It goes without saying, parking in Capitol Hill is a real bitch. Since I've been spending so much of my time there, I've noticed that parking spots could be markedly increased if people would only follow proper parking etiquette. In fact, over the last few months I have been fantasizing about making some sort of friendly, but firm, reminder to drivers that their poor parking choices affects us all.

Methods:
Karin and I had been ruminating what would go on this flier. She is particularly peeved at those who don't use their driveways (#4) -- especially the yahoo across the way with the gigantic SUV. Me, I wanted to make sure people don't perpetuate poor line-up (#2).

Finally, I did it. Using scissors, a glue stick, ball point pen and magic marker, I made the flier! When done, I emailed it to Karin who then posted it on the famous Capitol Hill Blog.

You can read the post (and view the original flier) if you click HERE
Click on the picture above/left to see it up close and personal.

Discussion:
First of all, I think it's hilarious that people were angered by inaccuracies! Apparently my glue-stick and cut-out artistic rendering of the parking situation wasn't quite enough to scale for the sticklers. Additionally, some folks just HATE being told what to do! One person sarcastically suggested I teach them how to brush their teeth. too. Which inspired me to make a "how to" poster on brushing teeth just for them, but in their cowardice they didn't leave an email address to which to send the poster!

The "5 foot law" - which I was very well aware of when I made the flier (as well as the 72 hour law which states you can't leave your car parked in any one place more than 3 days) - seemed the thing most people focused on so I did make a revised copy that I can use when passing out this flier.

Conclusion:
Conclusion is yet to be determined. We'll see if my fliers do any good in Capitol Hill. God knows it couldn't get much worse!


*and to you researcher folk - I know this blog post may rankle those of you noticing missing "results" section and out of order discussion/conclusion, etc. For the love of god, it's a blog post about a parking flier!

My Big Gay Autumn

I know, I know, I let you down, I didn’t post at all this September. It wasn’t for lack of activity. As reported in my previous post, I rotated through OUE. I did enjoy looking at retinas, tympanic membranes and bladders which, surprisingly, do resemble each other once magnified through one sort of scope or another. I was also “back-up” a good portion of the month, and as is my curse, it was overwhelmingly busy on the wards and I was called in most of my back up days, weekends included, to round and cover for other residents.

But… I also partook in some awesome band adventures! The LGBA had its annual conference over Labor Day weekend where I got to play both concert and marching gigs. New Orleans was gorgeous. If you hadn’t told me I would never had known the city was recently ravaged by a series of hurricanes. Apparently LGBA was the first marching band allowed in the French Quarter in more than 40 years (thanks to narrow streets and close quarters). In addition to the pure awesomeness of thousands of screaming fans (and yes, some nudity, some protesters, and a plethora of drag queens), some of my favorite things were: Beignets and iced coffee at Café Du Monde (pictured), Bananas Foster at Brennan’s (the inventors of the dessert!), gumbos, étouffées, crab, oysters and more oysters… in short, THE FOOD! The street music was also pretty amazing featuring predominately brass music. New Orleans deserved its own blog post but the trip was so crammed full of rehearsals and sweltering hot marching and dehydrated sun-stroked performances it just didn’t happen.

Here is a one of many YouTube video's made of our performance. I picked this one because it doesn't have all the expletives the other ones do.

(never mind on the imbedded video - formatting issues too frustrating to work out - try the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6T0x36qWdM4)

Two other awesome band events were with Renegayde Pep Band: Lullaby Moon and Seattle AIDS walk!

Lullaby Moon is awfully hard to describe. I tell people to imagine Lewis Carroll meets Julie Taymor. It's a performance art event that happens each new moon (for the last year) in Seattle. Funded, I think. by the City, by the UW Arts Department and well staffed, well executed and well attended. Renegayde was asked to play a "sleepwalking marching band" in their 12th and finale-esque installment. Attached is a picture a friend took (as I was busy performing) but go to their website to see some amazing pictures (or check out this from the Seattle PI) and maybe videos as well. It was breathtaking. The only damper on the whole event was that ultimately it ended up pouring rain. So we were frozen and wet to the bones by the end - yet people stayed to watch and enjoyed. Seattlites are a fun-loving and fearless bunch!

AIDS Walk was my first real gig with the organization last year and it was great to come back and do it again. Karin made a video of part of the gig and after she finishes it up and submits it (for a grant for our org!) maybe I can get permission to post it here. It is always wonderful to give back to the community and perform for such an important cause.

October, while not yet half over, has so far been an adventure the likes of which I haven’t had in some time! The last two days of September I head back East for my GLMA conference where I thoroughly enjoyed two days of engaging board meetings (seriously) followed by 3 days of conference programming where I presented twice: once on LGBT advocacy and once on transdermal estrogen in male-to-female transgender patients with clotting disorders (two obviously very different presentations). I went to several social events, rubbed elbows with some more famous individuals (Bishop Gene Robinson laughed at all my bad jokes, I like him!), made a few speeches, schmoozed and surprisingly rekindled a very old friendship with someone I had traveled with in Cameroon 12 years ago! I also lobbied on capitol hill, traipsing from senator to senator’s office making sure we don’t let health care reform go stale and letting them know about LGBT health disparities! LGBT folks are 2-3x more likely to be uninsured than their straight counterparts. Why? Think about it: the top two ways people get insurance are 1. From their employer and 2. From their spouse.

Some highlights from the conference:

-Did you know King James was not straight? Me either? Bishop Robinson was commenting on the irony of his bible being the one often used to prove homosexuality as a sin.

-One of Bishop Robinson’s best points is that homophobia (and to a larger extent, transphobia and violence) is really about the end of patriarchy, not so much LGBT acceptance. Men who don’t act like men or chose to become women are most brutalized and victimized.

-When it comes to LGBT Disparities, Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin knows her shit (pardon my French, but it's true!)

-The following exchange was relayed to me. In true “Operator” fashion, the quotes are certainly not exact. Senators Kyl (R-male, Arizona) and Stabenow (D-female, Michigan) were both in a discussion about women’s health and maternity care and accessing prenatal care to prevent adverse outcomes in pregnancy. Senator Kyle: “Maternity care? I don’t need maternity care!” Senator Stabenow (dryly) “It appears your mother did.”

-There was a medical student who flew 36 hours from Perth, Australia to come to the conference. Proving my point that there remains a critical need for an LGBT Medical Organization!

After DC I took the Chinatown bus (another adventure in itself) to Philadelphia where I worked at the Mazzoni LGBT Health Center. At nights I stayed with a new friend from LGBA (who I marched with both in DC and in New Orleans) and her family of 4 (including husband, daughter and lovable 14-year-old Elkhound mix). Mazzoni was simply a fantastic experience. I got to work with HIV/AIDS patients. I drew blood, gave flu shots, did STD checks, transgender care, primary care, free adolescent clinic to mostly HIV+ homeless youth… at one point I thought to myself “ah, this is what it is like to actually make a difference!” I actually honestly LIKED my job! Go figure!

In case you haven’t noticed, residency has gone past rubbing me raw, now I seem to have ended up a huge callous. I think I need a good long soak to rid myself of it. Mazzoni was a nice break but I think I need more time to rediscover non-resident Liz. Still have my countdown going...

Hopefully the rest of my month will continue to bring me more smiles than piles. (Hm! I think I just made up a new saying!). And, who knows, maybe I’ll get another blog post in this month to make up for the last…

August ends with a whimper

As you may remember from my last post, August started with night float. Running like a mad woman around the hospital. Some of those nights truly tested my reserve. Between attendings scutting me to the point of near breaking (so they can get more shut-eye) and technological mishaps such as pager blackouts and electronic medical record crashes I survived by the skin of my teeth!

Mid-month, after a well deserved first weekend truly off in over 7 weeks, I changed gears and started my next rotation: ophthalmology, urology and ENT. Whoever thought eyes, ears, nose, throat and prostates were well lumped may have been a little nuts. But I can't complain. For the most part, I have had just about the whole of the last two weekends free and it's been wonderful.

One highlight of late was a totally awesome Seattle Storm game (Karin's iPhone pic at right at overtime!).

Another more recent highlight was a weekend in Rainier National Park with family and my super awesome girlfriend who put up with two distractable, hyperactive Eamans in a place without telephone, TV or Internet!

This photo at left is just a sampling of what an amazing place that park is! Walking through the clouds, wild flowers, clean air, blue skies, was pure joy.

But the same weekend I frolicked in the wild flowers something sad happened back in Michigan. My dog, Kiki, the sweetest beast on 4 legs, passed. She had battled cancer for years. My mother had treated her with this experimental "electric probe" device that supposedly cured her. I'm not sure that's true, but maybe it gave her a year or more of a decent good quality of life. Kiki was a red leopard Catahoula (or, so we think - she was a rescue dog). She probably weighed a good 50 lbs more than your average Catahoula and was a good two heads taller. She may have had more Dane or some other big breed in her but god knows she was the most devoted and lovable creature I've known. I'll miss her! The below video was before a leg surgery to repair her torn doggy-version ACL. She was particularly wobbly but so devoted she couldn't resist my mom's voice and had to get up for love at the sound of it!



Looking ahead
In a few days I head to New Orleans for the LGBA national conference. It coincides with an event I originally thought was a large LGBT event to help rejuvenate the city of New Orleans but on further research seems to be more of a gay-boy circuit party? Who knows - I'll know more once I get there. All I care about is that I get to play music with awesome people from around the US and Canada and explore New Orleans for the first time. The coincidence isn't lost on me that Catahoulas are the state dog of Louisiana. I'll be thinking of Kiki while I'm there, I'm sure.

See you in September!

The nightstalker

Nothing like showing up as the sun sets to a full bay of ambulances, their engines pumping diesel fumes, smokers sneaking puffs below the “This is a Smoke Free Campus!” sign, certifiably insane patients of mine yelling to their cell phones with central lines flopping around their necks. This is how my nights will start (although, admittedly, the insane patients of mine don't always greet me at the entrance). Then, about 12 hours later (plus or minus), I will drag myself back through the same ER doors, past that wet sound of people vomiting into blue condom-shaped emesis bags, past another line-up of rigs, not nearly as plentiful as the night before, sometimes EMS personnel joining the patients and families in creating that silver cloud of stank under those “no smoking” signs.

Such is the life of a night float resident.

I’m plodding through the night as I type most of this post. Admitting patients to Pediatrics, Internal Medicine and our own, beloved, family practice service which includes not only our bottomless barrel of sick TFM patients but additionally the Indian Health Service patients who happen choose Tacoma General over the multitude of neighboring hospitals and ER's. I cross-cover the same panels of patients and am the back up for the labor and delivery deck, in case things get a little crazy in their neck of the woods, too. It has the potential to be eerily quiet or insanely mad.

When not on the wards or in various ER's or delivery rooms I will camp out in our call room (me being insanely mad in the call room at left). This call room is located in the "M wing". The patients reside in L, K and J wings. The call room is flanked by volunteer services and the learning and development offices. Neither which are staffed after 5 PM. Thus, at night, the lights are off, the hallways are dark, and this part of the hospital feels completely abandoned, in a Stephen King kinda way.

One night in the winter, last time I was night float, I was walking back to the call room in the dead of night when out of the corner of my eye I spotted what I thought was a man down at the end of the dark hallway. The eyes play tricks on you that time of night so my first instinct was to ignore it. Then the man-shaped blob moved and I looked again. "Oh hi! You scared me!" Or some such generic statement miraculously came out instead of a yelp. He reported he was lost and looking for the elevator. How one would end up in the abandoned wing down a dead-end dark hallway looking for the elevators is beyond me. "They are over there," I pointed and discreetly entered the code to get into the room and closed the door behind me.

Not much later I get called to standby for a delivery on obstetrics. On my way down the yellowed stairwell of the M-wing I find the same man sleeping on a landing between stairs. I call security: "Does he have a red baseball hat on?" They ask. I recall that he did. "Thanks," they offer, "we have been looking all over for that guy!" I tell them his location and later find out they have evicted him from the building with the promise of arrest should he come back. I spend the rest of the night safely nestled in the bustle of a nurse's station.

But I digress. I wasn't talking about creepy night stalkers! I was talking about my current rotation: Night Float! Brought to you by the letter W! W: Withdrawal, the act or process of ceasing to use an addictive drug. Seems to be the flavor of the week for me and my adult admissions. And before I get called to admit another patient brought to TG by the letter W I will also present to you a superfast ubershort summary of July.

July 2009: Red, white, blue and burned out

Hold on tight, here we go.... July 1st I get the pleasure of starting on call. In the deep end from the start. On my first day a patient expires, my second day I get threatened with a lawsuit (by a crazy patient, go figure), and my third day we get 14 admissions. I get a day off on July 4th - march in a Parade, get this amazing photo taken (left) by the Adventure School photographers. Then back to work on the 5th for more insanity. Things persisted to be totally and inexplicably crazy until my "golden weekend" where I take a red eye flight and a train to Chicago and proceed to engage in a weekend long board meeting before coming back just in time to be on call the following day. By this time I am exhausted and worn out and amazed I'm still upright. Post call on the following Saturday I manage to stay awake well into the night, hell, into the next morning and finally crash after being awake for nearly 48 hours straight, a gig with my band at the Roller Derby and Bite of Seattle squeezed in for kicks. And did I mention my mom was visiting that weekend? Finally, I get a day off, it's spent perusing a farmer's market in the sun and before I know it I'm back at work and don't have a day off until August 1st - when I change rotations and now find myself immersed in the life nocturnal.

So there you have it. I won't even begin to go into the week-long heat wave with temperatures topping 104, the joy of having only one working elevator, the horror when that one decides to break, and how hot the stairwell can feel after 15 flights in 100 degree heat!

Ahead: another week of nights and then, holy crap, I have a full entire normal weekend off! The first real weekend off since the last weekend in June! Plans? I'm going camping and and plan to eat, nap, sleep and spend some QT with my cutie! (first photo is from my apartment window, of course)

June's post - just under the wire

Last day of June. Tomorrow I officially start my last year of residency.

June was a pleasant month overall. The only really bad part would have to be the terrible bronchitis I had for four weeks. In all, I had several weekends off. It was filled with many wonderful band gigs. Renegayde played for the Seattle Majestics (the women's full tackle football league). We played for Bat n' Rouge, the fundraiser for the LGBT Alano Group (12-steppers) which was a blast. One of my favorite Renegayde favorite pieces is our rendition of the hip-hop song, Low, by Flo Rida - we toss in little dances, and shout out a "hey!" or two and the piccolo's rock. We'll be playing it again, surely, at our Rat City Roller Girls gig next month.

The marching group marched in Solstice and for Pride the last two weekends. I missed a few other parades and will be missing a few more but feel lucky to at least make those two events since they are freaking awesome! and being a part of them was filled with unspeakable amazingness (so cool, I make up words!). The best part easily was when the band would put down our horns for the the Thriller dance in, obviously, Thriller, by the recently departed Michael Jackson. The roar over the crowd (even before his departure) was so deafening it gave me chills and kicked my adrenal medulla into high gear! I have a video of it a band-aide got for us that I'll try to post later. Some random folks have posted pics up us doing the dance on the web so if you google Rainbow City Band and Thriller you may get a few hits like this one!

The rotation I've been on is GYN/FPO. Which basically means a hodgepodge of gynecology stuffs and touchy-feely stuffs the residency makes us do so they can make sure at the tender age of 32, and after 6 years of back-breaking medical training, we still know how to write an essay about feelings. No, really, it's potentially a very good opportunity for making sure we stay in touch with understanding our patients and, probably most importantly, coming to terms with things we can't understand. Since, as doc's, admitting we "don't know" sometimes feels comparable to showing up to work without any pants on.

I feel I've gotten the most out of the gynecology component, however. I do really enjoy working at Planned Parenthood and I particularly enjoyed learning to do colposcopy and treating cervical cancers with excision techniques. I feel pretty good about my colposcopic skills and wonder if I'll want to do them in practice. I also put in enough IUD's this month to put the Mirena manufacturer's kids (and their kids' kids) through college, I'm sure.

Next up: 4 weeks of in-patient Medicine (q4 call of course, first call tomorrow), followed by 2 weeks of the back-breaking Nightfloat. I have to reluctantly admit that I'm kinda sorta maybe looking forward to the next four weeks of in-patient. Don't get me wrong, I am NOT excited about the hours, the lack of time off, the sleep deprivation, the lack of time to see my girlfriend, or any of those terrible things. But I am looking forward to a routine - in the mornings at least, because as a 3rd year resident my afternoons will be spent in the unpredictable no-man's land known as clinic as opposed to the more structured wards. Additionally, I will be the senior to a fresh out of medical school intern in his first week of work as an MD! It's a little exciting to help him be a part of that. It's especially great because it's too soon for them to be bitter or burned out, maybe I can soak up some of that fresh perspective and get to see my job through new eyes again! Remember my first month of internship?

Additionally this month, I travel to Chicago for 30 hours or so (on my Golden weekend, getting there by plane, train and automobile). Which hopefully will be productive for myself and GLMA. My mother also visits which should be fun and we have that Roller Derby gig I'm thrilled about! On a sad note, Shilo will be leaving. For the next year at least, so there's a possiblity that this may be the last month I will get to spend time with her. I try not to think about it however and have been out to see her as much as possible in the month of June. That horse saved me when residency was about to break me. I owe her a lot (and of course her owner, who recognized a horseless rider when she saw one).

(photo credits: Michael Clark for the first, official Bat n' Rouge photographer for the second, and me for the third!)

Vacations make me happy

Ah Boston. My old haunt. What a great welcome you gave me! First you make me feel all at home with your Seattle-like weather, gradually warming up and showing me, step-wise, what the sun looks like so I don't run like a little groundhog back in my hole. It's bright! Then you awe me with your fabulous queer culture and I rediscover the sore muscles that come after playing kick ball in the park.

Since I last saw you you seem to have grown a little. I remember you smaller. Your gay band is really awesome, The Freedom Trail Band, and they were exceedingly welcoming and kind - even finding an old trumpet for me to borrow so I could join in on their practice!

Boston, thanks for always being there for me. JP, Somerville and even Cambridge still feeling a little like a homecoming!

Now if we can just do something about that East Coast Hospitality...

Coffee at Diesel: check
JP Licks ice cream: check
Queer kick ball: check
Chinatown: check
Naps: check
Lay in the sun: check (photo above)
Read my book: check
Frolicking in a garden: check (photo below)
Picnic in the sun: check
Meeting up with awesome old friends: check

Tomorrow: more sun-bathing (weather permitting), maybe another run in the park. Some Queereoke in JP and more naps.