My first month as a free woman

This is a particularly hard blog entry to compose. No, there's no bad news to share. It's just that after three years of waiting for this freedom I feel like there's a lot of pressure for the first month after residency to be about how relaxed, rested and happy I am.

Not that I'm not, I assure you, but it's really only been in the last two or three days that I have had time to read a book or take a run (two things that have been on my "things I can do with reckless abandon when residency is over" list).

The month has been busy. Sive and I moved, that was certainly a feat. My family was all in town, no simple thing either. Then, as soon as family left and all my stuff was in piles of boxes around Karin's (and now my) apartment, I left for nearly a week in Boston, not just for fun like last year, but for a slew of LGBT health meetings. When I returned the unpacking fairy (a.k.a. Karin) had tackled many of the boxes but there were still weeks worth to go through, too much furniture and not enough room for everything. At the same time there was the ABFM board exam - a day-long multiple choice test that I had to prepare for and take. And I can't forget the band gigs, local transgender health meetings, local community drama, all which absorbed free time and energy like thirsty sponges.

Karin and I updated our closet, remodeled our bathroom, filled trash bags and attics and basements. Sive, like Rapunzel, has been locked in the loft, high above all the activity of the rest of the house and safe from the Scary-Barking-Chase-Monster. I climb up there, careful to close the protective gate behind me, for visits at least once a day and to provide her with her yummy new wet-food diet. Her only two experiences down from The Tower have been too eventful and scary for her. One was an accident where she fell dramatically from the loft into the living room, bounced off the coffee table and landed on the floor where she righted herself, crouched low, poofed her tail, and hissed as a confused Lucy came up to her wondering why cats where falling from the sky! Both animals survived the event without injury and are still living in their separate areas. At the advice of a well-respected animal trainer, we are trying to clicker-train Sive so we can introduce the pets in a controlled and pleasant way. It's not easy. Lucy already has dibs on the actual clicker sound so we have resorted to the cumbersome alternative of a baby rattle for Sive - it's also not as loud and less scary for her. No progress has been made as of yet, but I'll sure keep everyone posted. I'm hopeful the two beasts will live in peace. Sive has coexisted with dogs in the past, but Lucy appears to be somehow more frightening than she can quite manage.

In sum, the first weeks free from the clutches of residency have not been quite what I anticipated. There's no backpacking in exotic lands or horseback riding every day. In fact, a large part of my days have been spent doing housework: dishes, laundry, cleaning, sorting, shopping and cooking (with various levels of success). But it is amazing how much residency took from me that those simple household activities suddenly seem like a luxury. The fact that I can do 6 loads of laundry and two sinkfulls of dishes in one day is like a dream come true! It will be curious to see how the next few weeks develop. They are also pretty packed. Half of August will be dedicated to entertaining Karin's 11-year old niece and I'm heading up to Vancouver, BC for a few days to visit my good pal, Lisa, from Australia. But maybe I'll also find a horse to ride and rekindle my relationship with exercise and self-care. Let my real life begin...

You want an update? I got your update right here.

UPDATE: Reunion
Quickie update on being able to go to my 10 year college reunion. Remember my 23 steps to get a vacation? Well it failed at step 10. I got a phone call from the pediatric rotation liaison where she called and said, "We all discussed this switch at length and after much deliberation we decided: pppffffttt!" (okay, not a direct quote, but that's what I heard).

So I tried another tactic. Instead of swapping the week I proposed swapping out the entire rotation. It was accepted! So now I'm at the point where I need to request the week off. Here's the updated to do list for just this step (step 15 is where we are if you remember the old list).

1. Find coverage for my colposcopy clinic - DONE
   
2. Find coverage for my AM and PM gynecology clinics - IN PROCESS
   
3. Find coverage for my obstetrical patients.- DONE
   
4. Find coverage for my patients that may be admitted to the hospital while I am gone.
   
5. Find coverage for my in-basket and mailbox and any patient calls or concerns while I am gone.
6. Get signatures on the request from each person covering all the above
7. Submit this signed request to the chief resident.
8. Then on to the scheduler for approval.
9. Then to the clinic director for approval.

So much more manageable than the last list, don't you think? (Photo is actually of New Haven, but close enough...)

UPDATE: Band
This swap will also give me the opportunity to play with my band during the marching season. Which I'm totally excited to do! I'm really really geeked about the band. In fact, I think everyone (including the homeless lady outside of Starbucks) is really tired of hearing about it. We have two Christmas shows. I am on call for one of them but am trying to swap the call. I get to play the horse whinny solo in Sleigh Ride so it's definitely worth extra effort to go!

The fall concert went swimmingly. I hear there's a CD of the performance, maybe a DVD - not entirely sure. I am still singing the songs we played. If something shows up on YouTube and isn't entirely embarrassing I will definitely post it here. The turnout was great - a few hundred from what I hear? I played horrifically out of tune for the very first portion of Thriller and was inspired to improve in my tuning and pitch. It will be really helpful for the ballad-y holiday pieces we are playing like Imagine. So I bought a KORG tuner. An awesome invention and totally fun and I will probably talk about it more another time.

UPDATE: Sive's health
For those who don't know, Sive has been having a bit of a peeing issue. She had this issue a little after I first moved out here. Now it's back and it started looking a little more serious. She had gross hematuria at the vets office and even passed some clot (that's medical talk for peeing blood and blood clots). We had an X-Ray done which was a little ambiguous and some lab studies. So about $500 later and after a specialist read of the X-Ray we still aren't sure. It doesn't look like frank stones, no evidence of obstruction, no massive tumors. Her bladder had some sludge in it and her urine culture is still cooking. So we'll see what bugs grow as it is likely she may have an infection as well. (Sive watching TV)

UPDATE: What am I doing right now?
Right now I am at the GLMA national conference. I serve on the Board of Directors and presented again this year on LGBTI curricular change and integration. What's amazing that this is still a very hot topic. It's great to think how far UofM came in just my four years there. So many schools are trying to go through the same changes and its an honor to serve as a resource for all these medical, nursing, naturopathic, social work, PA and other students, residents and faculty. Blah blah blah education blah blah advocacy and all this stuff that is really awesome and I've been talking about this whole weekend...

So now for a snippet of the pure fun that was Friday night out at Seattle Trannyshack (filmed by the iPhone of the guy standing next to me). Strung out Judy Garland and some stage diving below:

I wish I had a video of Ben de la Creme - the BEST performer - a robot strip dance with light-up body parts... excellent performance art. And she's a local drag queen so maybe I'll get another chance to see her!

No butts about it

My welcome home was rather uneventful. Beth was so kind to pick me up at the airport. Sive protested my absence with caterwauls for days (still more noisy than usual but more like her usual self). I joined my comrades for drinks at a pub a block away and took overnight call admitting patients to Tacoma General.

Then after a long post-call nap on Saturday I attempted my taxes.

Suffice it to say that it didn't go well. The sum result is many wasted hours and a totally dead computer. In fact, I type this from the call room at TG.

Sunday I caught up. Cleaned house, ran errands, repotted plants, shopped, shopped and shopped some more (and we all know how much I love shopping <-- sarcasm again in case you missed it).

Then Monday I started surgery. The morning began with me perusing anal anatomy in my text book while I ate my Kashi waffles. The first case involved making an anus in a child born without one (for those of you Google-happy folks, it's called an anorectoplasty). It was an interesting procedure. I was yelled at all of ZERO times (already an improvement from med school). And I even helped a little. At one moment in the surgery I was holding traction on the rectum, newly freed from its prison too high in the perineum, protruding like a little slug with black threads in my grasp like little whiskers, and I had a terrifying thought as the primary surgeon sewed sphincter muscle to the slug -- what if I hold too much traction? What if I pull the anus right out? And I flashed to terrifying future where Surgeons would shake their heads mournfully and remember the resident that pulled the rectum right out of the baby. But hold the traction too loose and perhaps the anus wouldn't be in the right position! Thankfully, the moment was short and the muscle was tacked on expertly. I let lose of the whiskers and after only a few hours at most, a little baby now could poop.

So hopefully surgery will be a more benign experience this time around. But I have to admit, I still hate scrubbing in, breathing my own breath in the mask, and living in perpetual fear that I may jeopardize the sacred sterile field.

Apologies for the poor metaphor above (I know slugs don't have whiskers) and thanks to Tacoma for being sunny and all spring-fresh and blossomy these last couple days. Making the transition much easier.

Runs with Cat

Traveling with my cat was much easier than I anticipated. For those of you curious as to how Sive managed the five days in the car here's an update:

The first day I had Andrea's help. She gave me great advice, grab the scruff of the neck (triggers endorphins and chills the cat out) and then pop the pill. Worked great. Every day I gave her a mild anti-nausea med with sedative properties. She wasn't conked out but was really chill in the car all the way there. Each day got easier in regards to pill popping and crate stuffing. One day she was so quiet in the crate we got worried and had to make sure she was still okay in there! She was fine, just hanging out.

After a couple days on the road she figured out the routine and began to hide in the mornings after her pill. Thankfully, all the hotels we stayed in didn't have space under the bed for her to hide so she ended up getting a bit creative. In Madison she found a way to wedge herself between the box spring overhang and the floor where the head of the bed hit the wall. Another couple places had lazy-boy recliners she could hide under. The other times she chose to burrow under the covers (see cat-shaped lump below).

She enjoyed the evenings most, checking out the hotels, sniffing around, drinking from the sink, jumping on things. She ate like a champ and used the litter box every night without issue (yay!).

Now we're settled and she's happy but I worry she might have a UTI since she is using the litter box about 5 times more than usual. She may be just marking her new space or being neurotic but there is a vet’s office close by so we may just pop in if it doesn't get better soon.

Now I just have to figure out where to put the litter box in this small space! The bathroom is waaay too small for both it and me so I'll have to be creative. Next post will finalize the travels and after that a bit of a dramatic summary of moving/unpacking hell. I bet you all can't wait for that.