My Thoughtful Spot

open wide

I have a confession to make: until yesterday, I hadn't been to the dentist in at least five years. When I was a resident, I sort of had an excuse; if you don't get to take sick days, you certainly don't take time off to go to the dentist. But I could have arranged it if I really wanted. On the days I was post call (after being in the hospital all night), I could have gone in the afternoon. But after working 36 hours straight, sleep is more important than dental hygiene. Then when I graduated and started working, I had gotten out of the habit and just... let it go.

My avoidance of the dentist's chair goes much deeper than simple neglect, though. I have quite an extensive dental past. When I was in 4th grade, I was running, slipped and fell onto concrete. I broke my fall with my face and one of my front teeth popped out. I was able to be saved for most of my childhood, but not without spending hundreds of hours in the chair. I essentially had the equivalent of a root canal every three months on that tooth for several years. I got used to it.

Then in college, the root of that tooth developed an abscess, requiring that they pull it. Also requiring a root canal on the neighboring tooth. Because there was an infection there, they couldn't try to put another tooth there, so I had a removable false tooth there for a while. (That did wonders for my self esteem, lemme tell you. Also contributed to my ability to inhale food.)

Finally, I got the chance to have an implant. But because of the infection and lack of a tooth there, the bone where the root usually sits had been resorbed. I don't have the usual "bump" of bone under my gums there. They tried to put a bone graft there, which they got when they removed my wisdom teeth, but that got resorbed, too. So I have a permanent bridge. You'd think that all that time and money spent on my teeth would make more inclined to take care of them. I guess I was figuring I've put in enough time in the dentist chair for a while.

My new dentist said that my bridge is good for now, but they only have an expected life span of about 10 years. I'm on 13 or 14. She also said that I have no new cavities! Dodged a bullet on that one. I need to have two fillings replaced and some sealant put where my gums are receding, but that's it.

The hygenist who cleaned my teeth, however, was disappointed. I basically don't floss unless I have something stuck in my teeth. She showed the staining and had to spend a ton of time scraping away tartar. She kept remarking how much my gums were bleeding and that I needed to floss. The final verdict was that she wants to see me again not at the regular 6 month interval, but in 4 months. Oops.

From today on, I'm turning over a new oral hygiene leaf. I will floss. Not sporadically, but 95% of days. I will keep up with my cleaning appointments. I will save up for my new bridge and the periodontal consultation that I'll have to have before I replace it. Who knows... I may even brush my teeth after lunch.

celebrity look alike

Like much of the world I have a Facebook account. If you do and you're on there at least a little bit, you'll notice that different activities or questions get passed through that community. Most of them are silly (most of fb is silly anyway) but sometimes I like to play along just to make life a little more amusing.

The most recent "game" has been posing a celebrity look-alike as your profile picture. This is something I can easily do as I've been told I look like two celebrities pretty frequently. I think most of the time it has to do with the fact that my hair is reddish and I've got pale skin, so people make the connection.

The first celebrity I was compared with was Gillian Anderson, of "The X-Files" fame. Gosh, when that show was in it's hey-day I would hear that I look like her almost weekly.

See? We also both have very strong chins, which helps with the comparison. This is the photo on my profile now. One of my friends (who is a plastic surgeon) actually emailed me and said that I had a nice pic and that "I clean up pretty good." HA! I only wish it were me!

When I lived in Boston, one of my (many) jobs was working at a car rental counter at Logan. We got plenty of international tourists and one day these two Japanese young men rented a car from me. As soon as they entered the building, though, they saw me and started screaming "Scully! Scully!" I tried to assure them that I was not actually Gillian Anderson, but they could not be disuaded and insisted that they take their picture with me. First one then the other. So somewhere in Japan, these guys have a random photo of a Scully look-alike from their trip to the states.

"The X-Files" has been off the air for a long time and it's even been hard to find re-runs. So the "You look like so-and-so" declarations have dropped off for a long time. That is, until the show "Private Practice" has been around. Every once in a while, I hear that I look like "that doctor from 'Private Practce.'" That actress's name is Kate Walsh and I don't think I look like her as much as I do Gillian Anderson. But pale, red hair, etc.

To be honest, I take it as a huge compliment that I even remotely resemble either of these two completely stunning women.

Do you have a celeb look-alike? Put it on facebook!

too damn easy

Over the last year, I've been up and down with my activity on blogs, mine as well as others. I've often resorted to my google reader, which I love. It automatically tells me when someone whom I follow makes a new post. I click on the title of the blog, and the new post magically pops up in another window on the same page. No extra open windows crowding my neat computer desktop.

But it makes it easy just to read and move on. Too easy. I've commented on people's blogs less and less because of the reader. Not because I don't like them anymore or I don't have anything to say, but because it's so easy just to move onto the next bold blog title in the list on the left hand side of the screen.

I'm going to change that. If I read a blog entry, I should click the link to open the blog's window. Most blogs have counters and me cheating like that really messes up those counters. They become inaccurate because they don't count that I've actually read the blog entry when I don't comment. And I really should try to comment more. I almost always have something to say or respond to when I read an entry. Who doesn't like getting comments on their blog? Right. No one.

So, thanks, Google reader, for helping to keep the blogs I follow organized. In the future, I'll be using you less like a pair of crutches. I'm advancing to a walker.

Love,
Nichole

what i did this summer

Labor Day marks the end of summer and for many, a re-organization of their lives. Back to life as usual. In this spirit, I thought it was a good time for me to start blogging again. And what better way to do it than with a tribute to those annual essays we all wrote when we returned to school entitled "What I Did This Summer." A lot has happened. I'll do my best to summarize. It might take several entries!

WORK

This is, by far, the biggest category. To recap, I was working as an employee for an older surgeon who was supposed to retire. But things weren't quite working out at his office and he knew that if he retired, I would be making a lot of changes. He didn't want that, so he decided not to retire and wanted me to pay him $10,000/mo as a share of his expenses to stay there. As a young surgeon, I can't afford that, so I needed to find a different place to work.

I wasn't the older surgeon's first attempt at finding someone who would run his office for him after he retired. There was another young male surgeon and things similarly didn't work out with him. After young surgeon had to leave, he was able to share space with another established surgeon for two years while he built up his practice and saved enough money to get his own office.

When this younger surgeon heard that I needed to move out, he was kind enough to offer me refuge at a rent I could afford. I still had a lot of start up costs... phone, computers, desk, not to mention the personalized materials like business cards, letterhead, envelopes, and prescription pads. Even though we had to dip into our savings in order for me to land there, I was happy to be leaving the older surgeon's office. It got progressively weirder as the summer progressed and my last day (August 31st) came closer.

I moved all my things, told my main referring doctors that I was moving offices and was thrilled to have a fresh start.

Four business days after I landed in my new office (which, by the way is actually the break room, but I don't care), the younger surgeon calls me into his office.

"Have a seat."

"Um, ok." I think, "Oh, brother, what kind of drama is about to ensue NOW?"

"I think I made a mistake. See, I thought I could tolerate another person being in the office. I wanted to help you out and I thought the extra cash would help me, too. But I just can't handle it. I like my solitude. I can't relax here any more and I'm all figdety.

"Alright. It's your office. So I have six months? Til the end of our agreement?"

"No, actually, either of us can terminate the agreement with sixty days written notice. So here is your notice." And he hands me a three sentence paragraph telling me to get out.

He doesn't want to share. Fine. It's his office. He can do what he wants. But that was information that would have been useful BEFORE I MOVED ALL MY SHIT OVER AND SPENT $400 ON OFFICE STATIONARY. What a remarkable lack of self-insight. To put it another way? Complete selfish dickhead move.

Part II to come.

TRAVELS

Daniel and I usually take one significant week vacation every year. But this year, things just worked out such that we did a lot of extended weekend trips. We went to Vegas in May and kicked it in a suite at the Wynn, to Napa and stayed in a house on a vineyard with some friends, to Boston to catch a Red Sox game with Dawn, and to Disneyland and stayed in hotels there instead of driving back home. (No, it's not that far, but it's nice to be able to head back to your room in the heat of the afternoon.) I also went up north and visited my family more than usual.

All in all, we had things going on almost every weekend during the summer. Between traveling and Angels baseball, we were plenty busy! I'm glad we had the opportunity to go lots of places, but long weekends are tiring and do much less to re-charge my battery than a whole week all at once. So towards the end of summer, I decided to go north to hang out at my mom's. Because if I stayed home, I would do work instead of relaxing. Distance forced the issue.

EXERCISE

All these weekends away and baseball games haven't done me any favors with my eating and exercise routine. I haven't lost any weight and am actually a few pounds heavier than I was on Memorial Day. I can still run six miles, but I haven't run 10 miles in a long time. And I'm no where near as fast as I used to be. Which makes sense because I'm carrying extra weight, but I'm still not happy about it.

As a matter of fact, I had to go buy new clothes for my fat ass because most of my current clothes are just a bit too small. And I can't wear scrubs all the time at work.

Not only did the long weekends sabotage me, but I'm more socially active and have more evening meetings. We all know that we can't control what restaurants put in food; even if you order steamed vegetables they are often full of fat.

I'm working on it.

hey...

Woah, have I been a horrible blogger. I'll update you briefly with what I've been doing, but they're not excuses. Just... life.

I've almost reached a deal with my work situation. I don't want to say too much and jinx the whole thing. What? A woman of science believing in a jinx? The only people more superstitious than surgeons are baseball fans. And I'm both, so I'm pretty much screwed. As soon as things are finalized, I'll post the news here!

I've also been semi-depressed. I think. Not so much so that I'd need medication or anything like that, but I've been under an incredible amount of stress. As usual, most of it is self-imposed. So I graduated from residency a year ago this month, which was a whole new change in and of itself. Started a new job. That's a lot of upheaval in one year. And here I am in the same position again. And it's not fair to Daniel. Don't get me wrong, he's not complaining, but he's dealt with enough of my f*&king career development already. A decade and six figures worth of debt later and I'm still not settled. And I just want it to be done. For his sake. No one should have to go through all that, especially with someone who has dealt with the whole process as ungracefully (is that a word?) as me.

So in addition to the change/stress of a new job, I've also been trying to deal with all that and my enormous desire to settle somewhere.

Sorry this post ended up being somewhat of a downer. Guess that's why I've neglected posting, too. Cuz I knew it would turn out like this. But I'm alive, vertical, and breathing without the assistance of a machine. Which is a lot more than a lot of people can say, so I must be doing pretty well, right?

vip event? yes, please!

I have a little problem. I'm getting to that age where I need to wear makeup. To brighten the eyes, diminish under eye circles, even complexion, and, of course, to get deadly eyelashes. My problem is that I'm completely clueless on how to navigate through the endless choices out there. Colors, concealers, plumpers, blushes, powders... it's like you need a separate degree to figure it all out. And I'm pretty much done studying.

Over the last nine months or so, I've gained a powerful ally at the Lancome counter at my local Nordstroms. Going to a make up counter in a department store can be hit or miss, as I've learned over the years. Some of the girls just don't know what they're doing when it comes to matching colors to complexions, whether it's foundation or that perfect shade of eye shadow.

My ally's name is Toni and she knows what works on me. She can even pick stuff out before I get there. Once, I went when Toni wasn't working. I asked for some pink eye shadow. I had unsuccessfully tried it before, but there must be a way it could work on me, right? The non-Toni girl tried some things on me. I knew it wasn't working, but I didn't know how to fix it or even how to express what was wrong. I think she knew something was wrong, too, because she asked her manager what she thought. She promptly came over, cried "Oh, no, that's all wrong. It looks like a bruise," and told her to take it off so the manager could do it.

Anyway, back to Toni. A few weeks ago, she called me (yes, Toni has my cell phone number) and told me they were having an internationally renowned make up artist come for a VIP one-on-one session and she immediately thought of me. I'm sure Toni said that to dozens of other people, but I was willing to overlook the hyperbole and signed up for the event without hesitating. After all, who doesn't want to have their make up done by a professional... just for the cost of a few items?

dream images

I don't usually remember my dreams. Even the ones where I start screaming, wake up Daniel, and promptly fall back asleep while he is wide awake because I freaked him out.

The other night, though, I had one that was long and was very detailed.

We had just woken up and I was in a house I didn't recognize. I don't drink coffee, but I was trying to make some. If we have house guests, we almost always make coffee, but we didn't have any house guests. I thought that was weird. Suddenly I realized that we were out of coffee; I was staring down into an empty percolator in my left hand and a large, half-empty coffee cup in my right hand.

Next, I was standing in front of a large window, again in a house I didn't recognize. The house was stately, not the kind that you would expect to have screens on the windows, but this one did. Daniel was with me. The window was open with only the screen between us and the outside. Just out side the window were dozens, maybe hundreds of swallows. I thought they were swallows, but they were very small... almost like gigantic moths. Somehow one of the small birds got inside and started flying around my head. I didn't notice until Daniel started freaking out that one of the birds had gotten in the house. We couldn't open the screen, because all of the other birds would have come in. So I hurried down a hallway to the other side of the house sort of guiding the bird who seemed to be in orbit around my head. I went outside and released the bird and he joined the rest of his friends.

I don't know what this dream meant... any ideas?

just like grandma?

My great-great grandmother (we called her ol' grandma) was born in 1884 and she lived to be 105 years old. She grew up in New York, where she was the first registered midwife in the state. She lived with her son and daughter-in-law, my great grandma and great grandpa, and we visited them when we were kids on a regular basis. She would always spend the afternoons in her room... being quiet, reading, napping... or exercising. I remember knocking on her door one afternoon and she was doing leg raises in her room. "One hundred on each side," she said. If she wasn't 100 years old at the time, she was damn close.

She read incessantly with a  hand-held magnifying glass. Not like Sherlock Holmes or anything; it was plastic and had a built-in light that would help her see the words of the newspaper or book she was reading. Even when she died just before my 14th birthday, she was sharp as a tack. She was hard to understand because she didn't have any teeth, but she could tell you exactly what was going on.

As I look at my niece, I see that she shares a lot of my qualities. She's a perfectionist, over-reacts about silly things, is very hard on herself, likes to look girly, her scalp hurts when she brushes her hair, her hair is going to be a mousy grey-brown (trust me), she's a bit of a drama queen, she likes school and gets good grades... (My poor sister can't seem to escape me!)

Now that I'm older I see these connections through the generations; from aunt to niece. I wonder how many qualities go from granddaughter to great-great-grandmother? She was a midwife. No one else in my family is in medicine, but I can't help feeling that we share this talent to comfort, if not to heal. She was an exerciser. I'm addicted to the gym. She could read people very accurately. I like to think I can do that sometimes. I wonder what else we share... 

if i didn't do what i do

I've worked pretty hard in the last couple of days and I'm completely pooped. The weekend was good, but starting a couple of nights ago, I was peppered with calls all night long, which has resulted in me getting 4 hours a sleep or less a night. It's during these times of being overly tired that my mind wanders a bit. Today I was thinking about the things I might have done if I weren't a surgeon:

1. Personal trainer
2. I could have gotten my MFA (Master's of Fine Arts) for vocal performance and either performed professionally or become an instructor. 
3. Flight attendant (it's what some dumb test we took in high school told me I should be). 
4. CIA Agent
5. Personal shopper 
6. Bartender
7. Restaurant owner 
8. Anchorwoman 
9. Ranger 
10. Mommy (and yes, I often think that being a mommy and a surgeon are mutually exclusive.)  

If you could change what you did to earn a living, what would you choose? 

goodbye, Christmas

Today is the feast of the Epiphany... Three Kings day. Today marks the end of the Christmas season. Many people take down their Christmas decorations on December 26th or on New Year's Day. We take them down today so that we can enjoy maximum Christmas. The twelve days of Christmas ended yesterday.

This always makes me so sad. The special sparkle and magic of the holidays is gone. Intellectually, I know it wouldn't be so special if we had these things year round, but it makes me sad nevertheless.

No more Christmas tree full of hundreds of lights.

No more familiar Christmas movies.

No more Christmas dinnerware with cute reindeer on them.

No more people letting me into their lane because it's Christmas time.

No more parties.

No more fun mail.

No more pretty lights to illuminate the usually drab shopping centers.

No more surprise gifts to friends.

No more feelings of good cheer and generosity from other people, just because it's Christmas time.

"Oh, that we could always see such spirit through the year." -- "Christmas Time is Here"