Death and Taxes

On Saturday, J's brother texted (?!?!) to let us know that one of their friends was dying. A shock to be sure. We knew that things were amiss so to speak, but this was stunning. So we waited for the news which came on Sunday morning. J heads home tonight with another friend for the funeral.

Men their age are simply not supposed to die, especially suddenly and unexpectedly. He leaves a wife and daughter. I am so sad for them and for his parents and brother. We know them all. Ick.

My plans for Saturday had included filing my taxes, which I went ahead and did. Albeit, I tried to file with my SSN typed incorrectly, so they were rejected. I felt like a moron.

They say the only things in life that are inevitable are death and taxes. They shouldn't come in the same day. Ever.

Kids DO Say the Darndest Things

I would rather poke red, hot needles in my eyes than pay attention to anything but the commercials during the Super Bowl. So here I am.

Tomorrow I start my family medicine month. Apparently, I volunteered to serve my month at a local practice, so I am going to be out on the other side of town. This means I will not be back at UK until April. Three months of being away from my school!! Yippee!

I learned a few things about myself during my peds months. First, kids rule. I haven't spent much time with small children since I ended my neighborhood babysitting monopoly in college. Kids are great! They are generally healthy, so it isn't super depressing (even on inpatient). But mostly they say hilarious stuff. For instance -

9 yo Pt: I heard that there are hospitals where, if you have a third ball, they can take it off.
Dr. Q: Do you mean testicle?
Pt: You know, balls, like down there.
Dr. Q: I have never seen a patient who has that.
Pt: My uncle does.

At this point, rather than bust a gut laughing I look at pt's mom who confesses that it is HER uncle who has the rather prolific reproductive anatomy. The doctor assured the pt that problems like that can be corrected. Then I left the room to laugh. I couldn't help it. The kid knew what he was doing. His mom didn't say anything about it. Hahahahahahahaha.

I have also learned that the biological clock is a real thing. Ugh. I know too many pregnant people and have seen far too many cute babies in the last two months. Save me.

Mostly, I have learned that I will not be practicing medicine that doesn't include children.

Couchbound

Calling in to work for me is like raising the white flag. Admitting defeat and the inability to simultaneously handle the eight million things I attempt to do (badly) on a daily basis. However, I realized I had become sicker than my patients and retreated. I found myself hoping that I had strep throat so that a quick, antibiotic solution could be found and I could be back to it ASAP.

No such luck. As I secretly suspected, I have a viral URI. The second one in three weeks. This is the only downside to working peds. Otherwise, I adore peds. In the end, I had to call in. I can't learn or treat patients when all I can physically do is cough.

This means that I had to slow way down. This drives me bananas. For all but five hours of the last two days, I have been in my house, alternately blowing my nose and coughing. Tonight, I am finally going more than 10 minutes between coughs. Quite the triumph. I am so ready to go back to work.

On the upside, my looking forward to work remids me that the time in coming to decide what I am going to do with my life. Ugh - another day.

Keeping reappearances

So I have not, historically, had great success with friends. I could not describe anyone I went to high school with as a friend at the time, though I had a few from church. College was less of a struggle, but I still didn't feel like I had the social grace of so many people I knew. Or perhaps I am more choosy in how I differentiate between friends and acquaintances.

I think social networking in some ways undermines the concept of a friend. Because everyone we choose to associate ourselves with is a "friend", the word is broadened considerably. I don't mind that my fb friends have access to the information I post. Otherwise, I wouldn't post it. But, I definitely don't share everything on my facebook wall.

I can use fb to keep up with friends who are across the country and across the street. See pics of their lives, their kids (not sure how I feel about the ultrasound pics though).

This all being said, my favorite part is finding people on facebook who I thought I might never see again. A year and a half ago, I found a friend whose absence had created a huge void in my life - a void that I was in the process of learning to accept and has instead been filled by his presence. Ours has been a long, wonderful rediscovery.

Yesterday, I lucked into a good guess and found a friend from my very small college major. Hadn't talked to him in a little over ten years. Chatted like it was ten years ago. The fact life recap and then on to shared interests.

Many things about the last year and a half, for me, have been supremely lousy. Different post, different day. But reacquainting with old friends is marvelous.

Clean Slate

I am a certain percent there. We are all always a certain percent there - just depends on what you are looking at.

Today, I restart blogging with a clean slate. I am about 60% doctor, which was the original motivation for the title - to trace my progress in becoming a physician. This process is so all-encompassing that we seem to be required to become 110% physician at the expense of friends, family and previous lives.

I refuse.

Because I refuse to become a slave to my medical education and my desire to practice good medicine, I still have my friends from before medical school, I still have my marriage, I have found new friends. I am also not a straight A medical student, a gunner, a competitor.

The first time I tried to blog, I had nothing to say. Or I thought I had nothing to say. Now, I have a lot to say. Even if no one ever reads it. I hope someone does.

Dreaming away

I do nothing the easy way. I probably cause that for myself. But nothing ever goes according to plan for me.

Before high school I wanted to be a singer. I did have the mostly mistaken opinion that I could make a decent living singing sacred music. HA!! But I wanted to. When I discovered musicals I wanted to sing on stage. Wearing too much make-up, singing beautiful, sometimes goofy songs. I have evidence that I even got to do some of this (oh yeah - VHS evidence of me singing in musicals - one of the Backstreet Boys is in the same video - much good it did me!).

When I was about 12 I decided that my life's goal was really to be a doctor. I came to this profound (albeit badly researched) decision based on a PBS show called "So, You Want to Be a Doctor?". or something like that. I loved the relationship that the students had with their cadavers.

Then I went to college and realized that going to class seemed to be optional and attempted to screw up my ability to go to med school. After a rocky semester at home, I returned to school in search of a new major. I ended up in English and then, at the sage advice of a friend, in Linguistics. I loved it! I changed my goal and went to grad school. Three months in I changed back - finished the MA and returned home to go to med school.

I have since then taught college, gone to half of medical school, sung in a couple of local groups, reacquainted myself with linguistics, made new friends in all my activities.

So what is the problem? I still want to sing. and I still want to do linguistics. and I still want to teach. and I still want to be a doctor. and I still want to do a lot of other things. and I can't give anything up. I am afraid to lose one dream in favor of another.

Evidence of Existence

So I haven't blogged in over a month. Mostly because I believe that I have no readers and therefore post only to purge to the ether.

Apparently, I am wrong as I found a link to my blog on a friend's blog.

Crap. Now I have to find meaningful things to say again. Or really, completely not meaningful, banal and wonderful updates of my life.

I can do that....sure.