My Thoughtful Spot

good day

"There's this person in my head. She is brilliant, capable. She can do chest tubes and craniotomies. She can run a code without freaking out. She's a really good surgeon. Maybe even a great surgeon. She's me... only so much better.

It was a good day. Maybe even a great day. I was a good doctor. Even when it was hard. I was the me in my head. There was a moment when I thought, 'I can't do this. I can't do this alone.' But I closed my eyes and imagined myself doing it. And I did. I blocked out the fear and I did it."

--Meredith Gray, from Grey's Anatomy

a healthy dose of perspective

"King Charles said in his prayer: 'Let my sufferings satiate the malice of mine and thy Church's enemies, but let their cruelty never exceed my charity.' And he gave his life for the things which men of such minds are unable to perceive."

-- from the Anglican Breviary

::giggle::

Wait til I tell everyone about this! Then I'll feel important with*out* drinking. That'll be weird. -- Homer Simpson, in the one where Ned temporarily moves out of Springfield

homer says

"I can't take his money, I can't print my own money, I have to work for money. Why must everything in life be so difficult??"
-- Homer J. Simpson

t-3 days til simpons movie

Here are some quotes for today. There are so many, I couldn't pick just one...

"Even my boogers are spicy!"
-- Ralph Wiggum, after being pepper sprayed by an agoaphobic Marge in the episode where she got mugged.

"What good is money if it doesn't instill fear in the hearts of your fellow man?"
-- C. Montgomery Burns

"Will you guide me in, Smithers?" -- Burns
"With pleasure, sir!" -- Smithers

homer quote

In honor of the new Simpons movie coming out this week, I'll try to find awesome quotes. Here's the one for today:

"Is there nothing beer can't do?"
-- Homer J. Simpson

grey's musings -- the one where we meet george's dad

Another rerun of Grey's last night. This is one of my favorite episodes this year because it was pretty funny. The whole thing with Izzy and Alex referring to themselves in the third person still made me laugh.

• "You're probably not going to want to be friends with me because the sheer intensity of my happiness is going to make your teeth hurt." -- Meredith
• "Ah! Excellent! My invaluable intern. Is it bring a hot blonde to work day? No one told me..." -- McSteamy
• "Why are you being modest? Modest looks weird on you." -- George to Christina
• "What the hell is going on with the men in this hospital?" -- Addison
• "People in high powered careers. I get that. But they should think twice before having kids." --Meredith
• "Why bother having a kid if you're just going to see it on evenings and weekends. Why not just get a cat?" -- Meredith
• "Last week Izzy was digging through crap, this week Izzy is fondling man boobs." -- Izzy

In this episode one of the side plots was following a little girl who got hit by a car. She had "internal bleeding" from her liver or some other solid organ. Then they took her straight to the OR, do not pass go, do not collect $200. That is how this situation would have been handled about 15 years ago. Nonoperative management of these kinds of injuries actually originated in pediatric patients. They get closely monitored in the ICU for any signs of continued bleeding. They may get transfused two units or so if they need it, but if it's any more, then they go to the OR. Would not have happened that way.

And the scene where George's dad was getting an "endoscopy" made me laugh. They weren't using an endoscope; it's about the diameter of a marker. The Chief was holding a bronchoscope... for looking at the airways and down into the lungs. Silly props department...

The best news of all came at the end of the episode. We get a new one next week!!! :-)

musings on grey's -- meeting Denny

The folks at ABC are kind enough to replay the Thursday episode of Grey's on Fridays. I missed the first part of Thursday's episode, so I erased it from the DVR and recorded Friday's instead from the beginning. Except it wasn't the same episode! It's an episode from last January; from a time when I wasn't watching the show. I have, of course, caught up on the story line since then, but it's good to see "new" old ones. We're back when Alex is still mainly a jerk, Christina is dealing with her now-ended pregnancy, Miranda is pregnant, we don't like Addison, and Meredith and Derek are trying to get over each other.

I think that because of March Madness (gag, gag!) they will be showing re-runs for a while. If I haven't said anything about them, I'll go ahead and put up my two cents here. This particular episode had a lot of good quotes, so get out your coin purse!

• "I don't have an answer. I'm not being Christina, I just don't have an answer." -- Christina
• "I gotta hand it to the guy... trying to get some action when he's practically a corpse." -- Alex
• "I ate my novel, okay? Every last piece of that unmitigated crap." -- Mauer (patient)
• "There is a land called Passive Aggressiva, and you are their queen." -- McDreamy
• "But I'm sweating like, like, like... Nixon. President Richard Milhouse Nixon. That guy could sweat." -- Mauer
• "In high school I was the secretary and treasurer of the... Dungeons and Dragons Club."  -- George
• "I'll hold my breath, which will stop my heart, killing me. You're right here. You'll be charged with murder. Lifetime in prison being loved by a big ol' girl named Hildy." -- Denny
• "I poured my heart and soul into that book and now it's stuck up my ass. I want that on my tombstone. On my tombstone!" -- Mauer
• My point is we all have setbacks, Mauer. But I'm a doctor and you're a writer. We don't have a Plan B. -- Alex
• "You can't work the way we work. You can't want the kind of careers that we want and not take... pause." -- Miranda, referring to her pregnancy
• "I sat up one night. Middle of the night and I knew that I could do this. I still don't know how I'm going to do this, but I knew I could do it. You just have to know. And when you don't know, then no one can fault you for it. You do what you can, when you can, why you can. When you can't, you can't." -- Miranda, again, talking about her baby.
• "Who gets to determine when the old ends and the new begins? It's not a day on a calendar, not a birthday, not a new year. It's an event. Big or small. Something that changes us. Ideally, something that gives us hope. A new way of living and looking at the world. Letting go of old habits, old memories... What's important is that we never stop believing we can have a new beginning. But it's also important to remember, that amid all the crap, are a few things really worth holding on to." -- Meredith

Patient Mauer had what is called a bezoar -- a collection of inanimate things that have congealed together and caused a blockage. I took one out of a four year old once. It completely filled her stomach and had distended her stomach from the usual four year old size to a larger than adult size. Man, that was nasty.

And what Miranda said about pregnancy? She's totally right. People all around me say, "Oh, you can do it if you want, lots of people do." It refers to getting pregnant, carrying it to term, giving birth and then starting the long task of raising it... all while working 80 hours a week. I hate to tell them that it's just not that simple. And this... this whole career and family thing... it is harder for women. And I just can't. Not yet.

grey's musings

Warning: Spoilers about this week's Grey's Anatomy! Don't read the rest if you haven't seen it yet!

So this was the last episode of a three parter. Hmmm... what was it that I said last week?

• "She is not dead until she is warm and dead." -- Chief

Gosh, that sounds so darn familiar! ;-) Here are the rest of the quotes I liked:

• "This is not your brain on drugs. You're dead." -- blown up guy
• "Meredith always makes me think that screwed up people have a chance." -- Alex
• "I had intimacy issues! Do you know how stupid that seems now??" -- Meredith
• "At the end of a day like this -- when so many prayers are answered and so many arent -- we take our miracles where we find them." -- Meredith

I am very proud of their resuscitation of Meredith. I mean, they got down the drugs, the calcium and the magnesium, the external pacer... I was wondering in the beginning why they didn't put her on cardiopulmonary bypass, but then they did it a few minutes later! Yay for the show's medical researchers! They also got the end right. You know... right before they decide to give up. You assess how many rounds of ACLS (Advanced Cardiac Life Support) meds she got and decide when enough is enough. So for Christina to come in and ask for one more round could have happened. They could have come to that decision on their own.

Am I the only one who likes McSteamy and thinks that he and Addison could be great together? I know, Addison is an adulterer, but who isn't on that show? He really does love her. And it will be really funny to see where they go with the no sex for 60 days thing. Kind of like that Seinfeld episode where they had to "master their domain."

Oh! And I can't believe that Izzy went off on Callie -- while she was giving blood! Izzy needs to realize that, best friend or not, George is Callie's husband. That's it. Izzy isn't first for George anymore. Callie is first for George. George and Izzy can and should be friends, but Izzy has to accept her new position in George's life. Or she'll ruin whatever friendship is left. I'm a big fan of getting things off your chest, but there is also such a thing as a filter.

I love how they focused on the miracles. (It was almost like they knew people were out there critiquing their medcial facts or something.. ) There are mircales in medicine. Some where we don't want them... like the guy who shot and killed the cop and just pulled through a horrific, theoretically unsurvivable injury... And some where we need them and they don't come... like for a young father who has metastatic colon cancer that just isn't responding to chemo.

So I just try to see them and appreciate them when I can. Because there is so much death and truly gruesome things around here that even if I don't want them... I'll take them.

amen, dr cox. amen

I was watching Scrubs last night. I still maintain that Scrubs is the most accurate medical show on tv. The writers just get it. Relationships, attitudes, frustrations of working in a hospital. The actual medicine isn't great, but they don't really talk about that much, so it doesn't matter.

In last night's re-run, Dr. Cox was writing a letter to the lab tech. It started "Dear Incompetent Ass-Hole."

Bahahahahahahahaa!

Later, he and JD were in a bar at 2am. JD asked him why they were still there because it was so late. Cox said, "Because if I go home and try to go to sleep, all I'll do is think about the fact that I have to go back there in the morning."