A Celebration

Life is in so much flux right now. We still have no idea where we are going to be for the next three years, and we won't know this fact for another four weeks. So, pretty soon here, I will *crossing fingers* be happily announcing our move to: Missouri, New Jersey, Michigan, California, New York, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Illinois or... Texas.

You know, I had thought that during third and fourth year, I would blog a ton about all of my experiences, and I fully expected to ramp up my posting. Instead, looking back, the opposite has happened: my third year of medical school has been hardly documented at all, which is a shame, because it was an absolutely fascinating year, and I loved it and will never ever forget it. I think what happened was that life got more interesting than a blog post could express, so I got frustrated and gave up trying. It was more interesting, more poignant, more real, more heart-breaking, more funny, and more amazing than I could really write about and do justice in the short amount of time I had. Sure, I posted a few choice stories, but I have to to tell you there are a shameful number of unfinished blog drafts that will never be posted now. 

Like the time the OB had trouble with her sterile gloves and I was the only fully gowned and sterile assistant during a complicated delivery, and I was instructed to, when the mother was pushing, "push the hell back!" The staff didn't want the poor baby to fall onto the floor of the OR, which is a reasonable concern with a G6P5 (read: this lady had lotsa babies!). So I held that baby in that poor mother's sacrificial vagina and I'm pretty sure of this: she hated me.

Or the time I met a meth-abusing white supremacist neo-Nazi whose life was totally saved by our trauma team after a nasty gunshot wound--a trauma team that included a Pakistani Muslim, an African-American lady and two East Asians. I like to think we changed his life.

I have a long, drawn out draft that I never did end up posting, about a Code Blue on a HLHS child (a congenital heart defect)... that didn't end well. I stood in the corner and tried not to cry as I watched a child die before my eyes. The mother was screaming and screaming...

And then all the beautiful stories of people going through the craziest things life could possibly throw at them, who still come out the other end with a smile. Like the hidradenitis sufferer that I met, who had basically had his gluteal cleft (i.e. "butt cleft") carved out from his sacrum to his scrotum, due to his disease, and was undergoing twice-a-day wet-to-dry dressing changes... *shudder*. But he greeted me everyday with "yes ma'ams" and "no ma'ams" and apologized every time he swore (gently) as we ripped the cotton from his new surgically-sharp ass crack and stuffed in fresh dressing--again, twice a day. Respect.

I have lots of inappropriate hilarious stories about silly patients, strange patients, crazy patients, and as many ridiculous stories about classmates, physicians, nurses, and... just, people. I met more people than you would think exist that were determined to have a disease. Like this one guy who was determined to prove that he had a GI cancer, even though he didn't have it. His wife was an embarrassed wreck. I have also had lots of other hilarious experiences which are not at all G-rated, so I will defer recounting them to more private audiences :D.

And while all of this was going on, life continues to surprise and delight me: such as, for instance, Miriam.

She draws faces!

She looks cute in hats!

She plays cat pianos (thanks, Grandpa Dan)!

 

I get to do things like make ratatouille, which I have posted way too many pictures of because this dish takes 5 hours to make and is worth every hour of prep.

We get fliers in the mail like this one, because we live in the Ghetto.

And Andrew gets "decorated" by Miriam. She is certainly her mother's daughter.

My shmexy man makes bread from scratch (here is is kneading the dough and Miriam is copying along with her play-doh).

We've been slowly packing up our books. I have been slowly throwing away junk that we don't need for the move. There have been trips to the thrift store ($2.99 J-crew shirts and cute dresses FTW). Pizza Fridays with my little bro. Game nights with the brother and sister in law. Working on my children's novel, which I am very excited about. Andrew is planning a celebratory graduation dinner in April, and graduation is in May. Andrew graduates in May also... for those of you who don't know (hopefully you do) he is a grad student and a TA, and a good one at that.

I have so much more to write about, and therein lies the problem: my life is too full to be explained in a blog post, so I hope I have given a little glimpse of what we've been up to recently. I think what I am celebrating right now is life, family, and adventure...

I am so blessed.