surprise September 7, 2008

this was a golden weekend for me, meaning a weekend with TWO whole days off.  in a row.  these only come once a month during our inpatient rotations, and i usually spend mine: 1) catching up on sleep, 2) catching up on dictations, and 3) catching up on errands. 

i was post-call Friday, and basically slept all afternoon, woke up and ate dinner and tried to do some work, and then back to sleep til Saturday.  did a little bit of work on Sat before heading out to the parents’ house in Cerritos.  i had plans to go shopping at the mall with my brother, so when I got to Cerritos, my brother and i headed to the mall almost immediately.

unbeknownst to me, something (by the name of Josh) was afoot. 

my brother and i spent a couple hours at the mall; i returned a few things, bought a few more.  at one point, we passed by a jewelry store going out of business and i joked to my brother that i should tell josh to look for rings there.  my brother spent a lot of time on the phone, talking to someone i thought was one of his friends.

though Josh had told me he was visiting his family in Atwater, he had apparently driven down from Norcal on Sat morning, and had reached Socal by the afternoon.  after my brother and i left for the mall, Josh went to my parents’ house to formally ask them for permission to marry me.

my brother and i returned from the mall, and had dinner with my parents (josh had left because he was planning to surprise me at my apt).  i did some laundry, and was hanging out, waiting for my clothes to dry.  the entire time, no one let on that anything was going on.  in retrospect, the only thing that seemed unusual was that my mom kept telling me to call her the next day.  (i thought it was just my mom being her normally weird self.)

by the time i got back to my apt, it was past midnight.  i called josh for our nightly phone conversation but he didn’t answer. (he’d gotten tired of waiting for me, and had decided to go to 24 hr finess, since he had nowhere else to go).  i was awoken by my cell phone ringing at 2 am, and was surprised to find that it was josh calling me in the middle of the night.

“do you know what time it is?!  why are you calling me?!”  i sleepily answered.

the next thing i know, someone is knocking on the door at 2 in the morning.  very confused as to why Josh was calling so late, and now why someone would be knocking on the door so late, i stumbled out of bed and opened the door to find Josh standing on my doorstep with a bouquet of roses.

“what are you doing here?!  i’m sooo confused,”  i said, still half-asleep.  I couldn’t quite believe everything that was happening, it was like a strange dream.

And there, in my living room with boxes still unpacked, and me in my PJs and half-asleep, Josh proposed.  I cried, of course.  And somewhere along the way,  I said yes.

we're engaged!

 

the ring

the real world June 17, 2008

For those of us who have been in school way too long, and are just beginning to step into the real world with our first *real* jobs (with salaries and benefits and all that extra paperwork jazz)…

NYTIMES:

A Primer for Young People Starting Their First Job

By RON LIEBER

Published: June 14, 2008

What employee manuals on health insurance, taxes and retirement plans should say, but don’t.

 

 

budapest observations April 10, 2008

• everyone here is very friendly
• lots of old, beautiful buildings
• also lots of graffiti
• pool = billiards and pinball = flipper
• order of items on a menu:  drinks, soups, main courses, salads, desserts
• cost of a glass of water: 250 forint (roughly $1.50)
• cost of a glass of wine: 300 forint (roughly $2.00)
• cost of a glass of juice: 300 forint
• bars are coffeehouses and restaurants as well
• coffee is usually an espresso with milk or cream or both, to be enjoyed at the cafe, not in paper cups to go
• i have not yet seen a sugar substitute (ie equal or splenda)
• vegetables are not a regular part of dishes or sandwiches
• salad seems to be a foreign concept.  the only raw vegetables eaten are tomatoes and cucumbers.
• cream and/or cheese is found in nearly all dishes – there is no shortage of calcium here.
• the cheapest opera tickets are 1000 forint (roughly $6.00)

…to be continued

limiting reagent December 8, 2007

we’re so used to ordering whatever tests we want for patients, though we do occasionally consider cost.  for one of my patients we had a bit of a discussion whether this test was indicated, considering that there was a good chance we would not make any changes to his management.  the attending, however, wanted the test, and so it was ordered along with another scan.  it was a bit surprising to learn the next day that he would be unable to undergo these tests, not because of time or cost or efficacy, but simply because of a national shortage of technetium-99.

i guess the upside is that this forces us to really evaluate the necessity/utility of the tests we order.

so true! October 4, 2007

MSNBC: Men sleep better beside mate; women worse

josh isn’t a snorer, but still.  i’ll wake up multiple times in the night when he’s sleeping over.  partly it’s his jerky arm syndrome but other times there’s nothing specific that wakes me up.  i guess i just don’t like sharing my bed.

it really pours September 21, 2007

i just had to add that today was my very last day, and we had yet another baby with end of life issues.  what a way to end a rotation huh?

when it rains, it pours September 20, 2007

living in the hospital as i have for the past month, it has been disconcerting to suddenly find that the sun sets before 8 pm and that i need a sweater when heading out for the hospital early in the morning.    and tonight, i found storm clouds hovering close by and a weather forecast of rain the next few days.  what happened to summer?  wasn’t it 100+ degrees a little over a week ago?  how dare the seasons change, or time move on. 

for me, time has stood still as my days have become the same blur of running downstairs for deliveries and managing the daily minutiae of nutrition and respiratory needs of sick babies and adjusting to wildly opposite attending styles each week and taking call every 4th night.  but all of a sudden, i was at the end of my rotation with one last call night.

on my last NICU call, i found myself, for the first time, watching babies die.  i watched my attending wrestle with the bad news that had to be broken and the nagging question of whether anything could have been done differently.  i watched the nurses dress and wrap one of the newborns for pictures that would now be post-mortem.   i watched an 8 yr old sister and 2 yr old brother of the other baby run around in the waiting room as their parents cried at their newborn brother’s bedside, a bedside crowded with machines and monitors and drips.  i watched the parents attempt to wipe their tears and put on a normal face as they picked up their kids and headed to the hotel for the night.

and then i came home this afternoon, opened my email, and discovered that one of our gyn onc patients had passed away suddenly.  she’d had a complicated post-operative course, but had been on the road to recovery when i left the service.  and every morning when we rounded at her bedside, her husband would update us on her latest progress and anxiously remind us to request this consult or make sure that issue was being carefully managed.  he was her best advocate – her personal intern or medical student, if you will – and was overjoyed when she was deemed well enough to be transferred to rehab.  they had gone through so much, and i could only imagine his devastation.  knowing her husband, he was at her bedside every day until the sudden end, and this comforts me somewhat.

and then later tonight i found myself on the hospital’s employee homepage, about to click on the “Clinical Resources” link so i could research my assigned topic for tomorrow’s rounds, when a headline under “Today’s News” caught my eye.  one of the attendings with whom i had worked just one month ago had died of a heart attack three days ago.

i hope it doesn’t start pouring tomorrow.

my second home August 24, 2007

these days, i find studying at home impossible.  when you need the internet, however, it’s a bit harder to find places to study.  i’ve tried a dozen coffee shops in sacramento, but none seem to have the starbucks effect.  some close too early (9 or 10 pm?  that’s when the studying really starts).  some have inconsistent internet.  others play awful music or serve lattes that are neither creamy nor sweet enough.

the starbucks nearby is open 24 hrs (!) and has the standard Hear Music playlist (which i usually like) and the standard starbucks drinks.  the only downside is the lack of free internet.  but i caved last night and decided to go for the tmobile hotspot internet so that i could actually get some studying done instead of feeling miserable at home.

the minute i stepped into the starbucks, a feeling of calm and focus settled over me.  more than just the coffee and music, i think that all those years of studying at starbucks has left me ingrained with the sense that starbucks = studying. 

studying at home can feel so lonely.  sitting amongst all the other starbucks customers (law students, med students, couples on dates, cops, random people reading books, parents with their tiny tots), i feel more alive.  though i don’t strike up conversations with random people at coffee shops, simply being in their presence is a comforting reminder of the world out there and the lives being lived.  even if for some, that life involves endless studying…

a summer in a post August 15, 2007

yes, it’s been a long time.  not that i’ve been any busier than the always-busy feeling that i will never be rid of as a medical student…  i guess i just haven’t been feeling as inspired, or, as is usually is the case when i blog, i haven’t felt as desperate to put off some studying.  but i decided i might as well start somewhere or else i’ll never get back in the swing of posting.

so some random updates of the last few months:

may :: we saw bright eyes at the Greek in berkeley, and ben gibbard (of death cab for cutie) at the Fillmore.  bright eyes was a fun show, but i LOVED the ben gibbard show - it was him and a guitar, and also a surprise appearance by jenny lewis for backup vocals on a couple songs.  i’ve previously posted my love for DCFC, and this show only augmented that love and especially for ben and his geeky glasses and charming performance.  the link above takes you to the NPR live concert series, where you can listen to ben’s show.  i loved that he opened with donovan’s “sing a song for you, that’s what i’m here to do, sing for you…”  ::  josh graduated, not once, but four times.  because of my schedule, i only had to go to one of these ceremonies, which his family later told me was the best one anyway  ::  one reason i could only make it to one ceremony was that i had to sit through a mock medical malpractice trial, which was the most boring thing ever (poor volunteer judge) and cemented my absolute lack of interest in being a lawyer.  it was interesting to hear the fake jurors’ rationale for their decisions, and at the same time disheartening to realize how little medicine can be taught during the course of a trial, and how much their decisions were based upon preconceived notions.

june ::  josh and i saw Jersey Boys in SF (think dreamgirls with less girl drama and more humor and italian mob).  josh knew i loved the music, though it looked like the two of us comprised 20% of the under-40 yo audience  ::   i went home for a week, whereupon i began my obsession with pinkberry frozen yogurt (more on that next time).

july ::  we watched Transformers, which was entertaining, but had some way too cheesy lines  (e.g. Sam making demands of some agent, and doing what any hero would do for the love of his life: “I want my car, my parents. Maybe you should write that down. Oh and her juvie record. That’s gotta be gone. Like: Forever.”)   ::  otherwise, i was in the hospital.  a lot.

august ::  i chopped off over 7 inches of hair and josh got a buzzcut (we should’ve taken before and after pictures)  ::  we finally watched harry potter #5  ::  josh left for europe.  as i helped him prepare for his trip, which included shopping (yay) and convincing him to bring more than two pairs of underwear (the tagline on the package was something like: 17 countries, 3 weeks… 1 pair of underwear) i decided i wasn’t really that sad that i would not be joining him on his backpacking trip  ::  this past friday, i finished hospital work, and to ease the hospital withdrawal, the next day i spied on my patients via EMR because i hate signing off when there are still acute issues, and also, i am a hospital junkie  ::  to celebrate having enough time to sleep more than 4 hrs a night, i proceeded to stay up til nearly 5 am reading harry potter #7, which was both wonderful and bittersweet at the same time.  i woke up sunday morning in harry potter withdrawal, and decided i had to re-read the last few chapters.

and now, i am desperately trying to put off studying.  i’ve already paid bills, done laundry, and even re-organized some of my mp3s.  i guess it’s time to study…

socal checklist June 23, 2007

home since thursday, and so far have checked the following off of my to-do list:

• rollerblading at the beach
• trying the hyped-up pinkberry
• playing piano
• going to the library for some fun (aka non-medical) reading
  • Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go
  • Annie Proulx’s Close Range
  • Christopher Buckley’s No Way to Treat a First Lady

more socal to-do:

• karaoke
• guacamole fries at Albertaco’s
• a visit to H&M
• shopping, in general
• hazelnut chocolate gelato at Al Gelato
• croquette curry at Hurry Curry
• oh and starting my personal statement… blah blah blah