Friday, May 28, 2010

Like a speeding bullet

Hello readers!

Winding down to the end of residency now. Hard to believe, no? If I keep to my once monthly posts this may be my second to last blog entry of residency. *Gasp!

Part of me (the biggest part) is unbelievably thrilled!
And part of me (that little noodley part) thinks: "ohmygodihavetotakeboards
andrecertifymyACLS
andpackandmoveand
beforeilosehealthinsureance
seeadoctoranddentist
andpreparemyhumongouspowerpoint
andpublishmypaperandholycraphowmanydays?"

But, like I said, most of me is just tickled pink!

So, panic attacks aside, shall we review the month of May?
It began at breakneck speed, starting with a post-call party at Swing Fever, the band charity auction where I stayed up way too late and bought way too many auction items. My wins included interesting items such as an off-peak week-day stay at some resort somewhere on the Washington Coast (exciting, yes?). I also won a gift basket from the Jet City Roller Girls and a few other small items. The coolest item was a drumhead from my own inauguration parade experience. The winning of this was somewhat incestuous as I donated the item with a few of my bandmates. But I wanted it, and wanted it something fierce! Fierce enough to outbid, so there!

Immediately after the event, or more specifically, after 4 hours of sleep, we head off to Minnesota so spend some QT with Karin's family (as I described at the end of April). We flew into Fargo, endured a nearly 4 hour delay, drove about 3 hours to that little place called Middle River and, after I was awake nearly 3 full days, I ate and slept the whole week away. One highlights of the trip was a D.A.R.E. graduation at the local middle school. The end of the ceremony was punctuated by a rousing version of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" but with the lyrics altered to reflect the middle schoolers promise to not drink or do drugs. Then we had cake and fruit punch in the cafeteria. Another highlight was on a literally freezing cold rainy (and in some places, snowy) May day we planted 50 lilac bushes. We stayed in Fargo the last weekend an played in the swimming pool and perused the mall. Mostly, we ate. By the end of the week, we were butter soaked, lard-laden little roly poly's barely able to waddle on the the plane thanks to the Land of Lakes predilection for all things dairy. (Note lovely MN rainbow above!)

I was welcomed back by total TFM chaos. We were still two residents down, and with pores still oozing Minnesota sugar and butter, I took an extra black weekend call, spending my first Saturday night back again on the wards being paged all night with admissions I was admittedly uncharacteristically remiss in admitting. (say that 10 times fast!) It was as if I had never left.





See, my "last call," ending May 1st, was evidently not truly my last. In fact, this coming last weekend in May, the "holiday weekend," will hopefully mark my last weekend at the hospital (note the quotation marks to emphasize annoyance). I already know I will be working both Saturday and Sunday as back up. Regardless, back in the pre-vacation blissful ignorance of May 1st, I treated my (supposed) last call as such and celebrated its end by roller skating around the wards (See above). I'd been fantasizing about this since they installed laminate floors and since I noticed a gently sloping hill from the 5J patient wing to the resident call rooms that just screamed "roller skate on me!" Filming is not allowed in patient care areas so I got some footage of me testing out the skates on this part of the wards, the nice slopey part! Most of my bloggy fans are on Facebook (and may even be reading this blog on FB, even though it is far superior and actually formatted on its original host, Blogger). So, they've probably already seen the video. But... for the three of you who haven't, there you go.

[Insert seamless transition from evils of residency to joys of band camp here. Or not.]

Band Camp! Last experienced in the summers of 1991, 1992, 1993 and 1994 as a high school student, I remembered band camp as a time of sore arms, worn out chops (chops: trumpet-speak for lips) and sun burn. Grown up gay band camp has much the same, but is waaaay more fun! I got to hang out with my 60 closest friends and partake in a talent show, play games, and play my instrument, dance and get some vitamin D and be near the ocean! It was really spectacular. And exhausting. And, did I mention fun?

Coming down off of a weekend like that was hard. Getting back in the swing of things, I took a look at my to do lists and, BAM!, was hit by reality. Not only is residency over and done with in just about 30 days, but I also will be moving, and lose my health insurance and no longer have a salary. But, hey, freedom does come at a price, n'est pas? I have so much to do, I thought about making lists of my lists. Instead, I thought it would be more fun (and debatably less productive) to make a list of reasons I am grateful about moving and finishing residency. E.g.: #8: I won't have to mouth-breathe between exits 134 and 137 anymore on I-5 (the aroma part of Tacoma). #11: less left lane driver rage, etc. I do love Seattle dearly and am excited to officially be a resident. Karin and I, as an homage to our favorite city, wrote a little song we performed last weekend. Left lane drivers are featured in the middle of the song. See below:





So, this brings me to the end of this here blog entry... So much to blog about all of a sudden but so little time. Perhaps June will bring multiple blog entries? That's probably an empty threat however. I would like to tell everyone about the video I'm working on for graduation with my classmates. I would love to vent about all the job offers I'm getting in "random small town only 40 miles from a great golf course in somewhere USA. Call now to sell us your soul and we'll call you every five minutes to harass you until you explode." But for now I must take care of patients, do this pesky big TFM Day presentation and publication thingy (worthy of its own blog entry but annoying enough to avoid the topic altogether), and try to maintain as much of a normal life as possible in the next 30 days while accomplishing the great feats of my endless to do lists. Next on the list: world peace. ...wait... wrong list.... right! Correction: forward my mail.

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