My Thoughtful Spot

giving for the 4th

For the last six years, all or part of my Independence Day weekend has been spent in the hospital, as have many other holidays. But this summer I'm technically unemployed and spending my days preparing to take the surgical boards. Which means that I get to play with most of the rest of the country to celebrate the 4th. And that leaves me feeling a little guilty.

There are a lot of injuries that happen over this particular holiday; perhaps more than any of the others. And likely more this year since it's a three day weekend. Not only do people travel, but they're usually drinking and playing with fire. Literally. Add a dash of stupidity in there and there is plenty of potential for some serious harm to come to many. And for the last six years, I've been on the "front lines" helping them. Operating. Being in the ICU. Discharging the ones who got better so they could go home. Something.

So this year, I figured out a way I could still help some of the countless people who will be injured, either by doing something stupid or being in the path of someone who is doing something stupid. Give blood. My blood type is B-, which is pretty rare. Only 1.5% of the population has this. (Find out where your blood type falls here.) Oh, if you decide to comment and know your blood type, please tell me. For some reason it fascinates me.

So even if you're busy this weekend, there will still be patients needing blood transfusions going well into next week. Go to the Red Cross, find a blood drive, and give blood. It doesn't hurt that much. Promise.

the L

When I was in Chicago last week, I had occasion to ride the L, which is Chicago's version of a subway system. It's called that, I think, because at some points the cars are "el"evated above the streets. Of course, they also go underground, but it's their train; they can call it whatever they want.

My last experience on public transportation was five years ago in Boston's T (T for train). When we first moved to the area, we lived in Sommerville and I worked at the airport. Even with a bus ride and two train changes, taking public transportation was much easier. I quickly got used to weird people and took for granted the street... er... subway musicians. A few years later, we moved out to West Newton and I took the train less. If I did have to go into the city, I would drive or take the commuter rail.

I've never lived long enough in New York to even begin to understand the complexities of their subway system. I've heard horror stories about certain trains not working on the weekends, trains never coming, and people getting completely lost in that underground maze. There are even rumors of people and alligators living under there!

So when I was faced with riding a new public transportation system, I was, I'm not ashamed to say, a bit apprehensive. Chicago's map was much bigger than Boston's. But was it as big as New York's? California is known for it's lack of public transportation and I was quite out of my element.

I decided to brave it anyway. I walk up to the entrance gates and don't see a thing to dispense L tokens. Ok, they're on a card. I can feed two dollars into a machine. It's like a copy card at the library. (I just compared riding the L to the library. Nerd!) I went to the gate, thank goodness there was no one behind me, and tried in vain to get it to read my card. After about 10 seconds which seemed like an eternity, a nice L employee walked over and wordlessly adjusted my card and shoved it into the slot. A sign that read "Tourist" and was attached to my back would have completed my outfit nicely. I uttered an embarrassed "thanks" and went up to the platform.

When the train that was heading my way approached, I boarded and was immediately transported back to Boston. The interior design was like the Red line that goes through Harvard Square. We passed station after station as I headed toward the city. Then I began to wonder things I hadn't when I rode the T. What do all those people who ride the L think about when they're staring off into space?

I was reminded of a funny show that used to be on Comedy Central called Upright Citizens Brigade. It was sketch comedy that took place in New York. There was a sketch on the subway that explored this very idea. I tried to find this clip on YouTube, but it's not there. So I'll put the quotes.

• "If I had more money then, I'd have more money now. Money."
• "I could kick his ass, I could kick her ass... hmm... better leave that guy alone." 

I saw a musician. And was approached by a weird lady. As far as I could tell the L is in the middle; not as simple as the T, but not as confusing as New York. Which turns out to be just right.

Feeling kinda quiet today. Have lots of studying to do anyway. Hopefully I'll be able to sort myself out before the Angels game tonight with Daniel. The gym should help a lot.

Ya know... just because I'm a surgeon doesn't mean that words don't hurt. I'm still a person.

back in the saddle again

Oh my. I just read the post Dawn did for me in my absence and I'm speechless. So all I can do is to thank her profusely and be grateful that I have such a great friend -- all by virtue of a blog.

My week away from home was quite an adventure. In addition to the board review course and the new friends I made there, I also solidified a blossoming friendship with Nilsa and Mega, and met Princess Pointful for the first time. Nilsa and Mega live in the area, but PP was actually in from out of town for business like me. Completely random that we were both there at the same time and knew the same bloggers... Anyway, we met up last Tuesday at a Cuban restaurant and had some great discussions. I didn't get to see much of Chicago because the course was so time consuming and not downtown, so I have decided that I'm going to go back for a more touristy trip at some point.

Onto the course, which is where I spent nearly all of my time. I was concerned about meeting people. Not because I'm shy about that sort of thing, but because, by and large, surgeons are weird. They tend to be a bit aggressive and don't trust each other. Plus, most of them come to the table with a half empty toolbox of social skills; a natural outgrowth of having to do so much studying just to get where they are.

Usually the "odd" personalities in a seminar like this come out pretty early. They're the frequent question-askers, the people who talk during class, the terd who feels he has to pimp the lecturer just to prove how smart he his.

After the first day of lectures ended at 6pm, all I could think of doing was getting back to my room and possibly stopping by the hotel bar for a beer. My brain was full, I was tired of sitting, and needed to decompress. As I was making a bee-line for the door, the freqent question-asker came up to me. In his hand was a gold toe ring with the Celtic claddagh design on it.

"Excuse me, I found this on the ground near where you were standing on a break. I notice you're wearing sandals and was just wondering if this was yours."

I looked blankly at the toe ring without an owner, squinched up my face and said, "EW! No!"

At that point, he, too, realized that his hand was touching someone else's toe germs, said he had to go off to scrub his hands. "What should I do with it?" he asked as he walked toward the elevator to his room.

"I don't know, but I would try to touch it as little as possible."

The next morning, he was conspicuously sitting next to the spot I had occupied the day before. Ok. Sure. This could be amusing. I sat down, and he introduced himself a little more formally. Then he continued the saga of the toe ring. He couldn't bring himself to throw it away; what if it had senimental value to someone? So he scooped it into an envelope, washed his hands again, and turned it into lost and found at the front desk. Turns out someone had been asking for it... several times, in fact.

Two or three hours later, he continues, there was a knock at his hotel room door. He opened it to a young French girl. She is the owner of the toe ring and came to thank him. She was a foot model, here for a photo shoot. She was given the toe ring to "practice" with and was terrifed what would happen when her superiors found out she lost it. She was so relieved to have gotten it back that she began to offer him money... as a reward. He couldn't accept money, he explains, he was just happy to have been able to help.

But she insists. And they have a long conversation. Does he know anyone who would like to get into the foot or hand modeling business? She would hook them up with the necessary paperwork and connections. After all, it's good money -- $1,000/hr. Actually, he says, my girlfriend might be interested and there is this girl with nice feet at the conference I'm attending...

I was briefly amused at the Seinfeldian course his story had taken. But my amusement quickly turned to annoyance when he consistently talked to me during lectures, passed me notes on subject matter that they were neglecting to cover, and kept subconsciously scooting his chair closer and closer towards mine. He was a space invader. I would have moved, but I felt bad for him; his surgical career ended before it started because he developed a neurological problem that prevented him from operating. He kept asking me if his questions were too many, if what he was wearing was ok, and that he usually has his sisters to keep him in line. It was plain to see that he had poor self esteem. Sure, I could have moved, but there were no open seats. And by the time the third day came around, it would have been obvious that I was moving to get away from him. So I stuck it out. And put my bag in the space between us as a border. During the course of our conversations, I mentioned that I have patrolled the border between the US and Mexico and that my bag represented the broken fence that exists in real life. That helped.

When Dawn Met Nichole

This post brought to you by Dawn, which is not nearly the same as Nichole, but is hopefully better than no Nichole posts for a week while she is in Chicago.

In honor of this event, I thought I would share my own first time meeting Nichole. I can't believe it was over two years ago now, and yet Nichole is the kind of person you meet for the first time feeling like you've always known her.

It's funny, I don't remember who visited whose blog first, but I remember the first comment I left for her; it was like every other first comment I've left on a blog. I was a little nervous, hoping I wasn't intruding on someone else's private party, looking like a total dork. I couldn't help it though. Something drew me in, and not just the fact that we cheer for the same baseball team. She just comes across as so genuine. We traded a few comments back and forth on our respective blogs, and before I knew it, we were "regulars".

I can't pinpoint a specific date, but it was revealed that Nichole and Daniel would be vacationing at Disney World that coming May. We chatted a bit about the possibility of meeting up while they were there, but to be honest, I wasn't sure it would happen. A few people had casually mentioned a meet-and-greet at Disney in the past, but vacations are busy, especially vacations at the House of Mouse -- either that or I really am a huge dork! -- but none had actually panned out. Much to my surprise though, as their vacation approached, a solid date was made: we would meet up at ESPN Club at Disney's Boardwalk to catch the Sox-Yankees game one evening and then spend a day in the parks on Saturday.

I was excited but a little apprehensive. I had some major... issues going on in my world at the time, some of which really affected my confidence. But the days marched by and we counted down with anticipation until finally it was the appointed day. I hadn't had the world's best day at work, I was tired and feeling mildly under the weather, but I stopped at home and collected my, errr, "baggage" and off we went to watch the Sox with RSN-West.

I remember walking down the steps that lead to the Boardwalk. I was as nervous as if I were going on a first date. Would they like me? Would we get along as well in person as we did online? Would we have anything to talk about or would the evening be filled with awkward silence? Heck, would I even recognize her?! I tend to be a bit on the shy side when it comes to meeting new people, but I'm ok in small groups. My anxiousness was born entirely of hoping this would go well, because I so enjoyed her online buddy-ship.

Step. Step. Step. I could practically hear my footsteps ticking down the dwindling distance between the Flying Fish at the corner of the Boardwalk and my destination.

And out of nowhere burst Nichole. I found myself caught up in a huge hug, only two-thirds of the way to the front door of the ESPN Club. To this day, I still don't know how she was able to pick an almost complete stranger out of the crowd from that distance. But she did and immediately, I felt as if I were greeting an old pal.

For reasons I won't go into here, that evening was not all that it could have been, but still left me looking forward to our next plans, and two days later as we ate breakfast with Pooh and friends, and then spent the day playing our way through Epcot, me without any baggage and much more at ease, I couldn't help but feel like I was spending the day with old friends.

We talked and laughed and shared stories. And that's just how it is being around Nichole: She's just as warm and friendly in person as she seems on her blog or when she visits yours. She is funny and engaging. She truly brings any environment to life around her. Some people just have that gift and it doesn't matter where she is, she can draw you in and make you feel like you're someone worth knowing, someone worth *her* time and attention.

I will never forget that feeling of ambivalence that I felt, not due in any part to Nichole, but some personal circumstances, and how close I came to "calling out sick" that day. And every day, I thank my lucky stars that I listened to that internal pull to meet this "Nichole" in person. I had no idea I was walking into one of my very best friendships that day, and like she has since that Thursday evening in May, more days than not Nichole meets me two-thirds of the way and pulls me outside my usual tentative comfort zone on some adventure, whether in person or in spirit or in conversation. She is in so many ways my polar opposite, but all in ways that complement my quiet and reserved demeanor.

If a single one of you ever gets the opportunity to meet up with Nichole, all I can do is urge you to jump on that chance. There is not a single day I regret seizing that opportunity myself and I believe that you, like me, will walk away better for knowing her.

hair tie will be in tow

Tomorrow morning I'll be taking off for the Windy City! I'm taking a board review course and they assure me that I'll pass. They even put their money where their mouths are: if I fail the boards, I'll get my course fee refunded plus an additional $500! If it were not a successful program, they wouldn't still be around with that kind of guarantee, right?

I don't know if I'll have access to a computer and I don't currently have a laptop (something that will be remedied with my signing bonus), so I've asked a few people to sub for me. Dawn is a prolific blogger and I've asked here to come over here and chime in. We met through blogging back in 2006 and since then we have spent holidays and vacations together and she has become one of my best friends. Daniel (my husband) is one of the smartest people I know. I thought for a long time that he should have a blog, but he's too busy taking care of me to devote time to a whole blog. A one or two post commitment is something he has agreed to do!

So I hope you have a good week! Who knows, maybe I'll post from my "dumb" phone! You'll know I've txted from my phone when you see some stupid tag that Verizon puts on all it's messages. :-P

Ciao!

graduation dinner

Before I begin to forget the details, I thought I should post about my graduation dinner. This is an annual event for the department and there are all kinds of awards given out... best intern, best chief, best clinical instructor, plus best resident and instructor at each of our off-site hospitals. (yawn) The highlight was, and has been for the last four that I attended as a member of the department, was the roasts of all the chiefs.

The cocktail reception started around 6, but we met with a few of our friends in the hotel lounge. They had a brilliant idea that may persuade me to go back just to hang out: half price champagne bottles between the hours of 4:30 and 7:00. Seriously? A bottle of Veuve was a little cheaper with this deal than what I could have got it for at BevMo. Being the smart people we are, a few of us got a bottle and took it over to where the dinner was being held. Hmmm... lemme think about this one. A cash bar where you pay $8 for a crappy glass of merlot or champagne? You know the answer.

We talked and generally didn't pay much attention until the roasts of the chiefs, all of which were excellent. Well, one of them was boring, but it was really because the object of the roast has absolutely no personality and has never done anything crazy in his life. Not the roaster's fault at all.

My roast was done by one of my friends and she did a great job. She's a second year resident and we were on a pretty tough rotation together this year. So, after going through pictures of me as a little girl and some wedding pictures from 9.5 years ago, she got to the 10 things she's learned from me:

1. You're not a female surgeon until you can do a 12 hour stint on vascular surgery wearing 4in. heels. Damn straight. I refuse to wear clunky ol' shoes with a cute outfit to work, no matter what. As she stated during the roast, "You could hear her coming down the hall long before you ever saw her."
2. Experience life to the fullest -- competitive wine tasting. She and I went wine tasting locally for her birthday. It ended up pouring, but there was no way we were going to give up and go home. We worked too darn hard for a little rain to send us running back home. We went to so many wineries that day -- almost all of them in the little valley. "You haven't been wine tasting until you've been competitive wine tasting with Nichole, stop at every winery in the valley in the pouring rain, and get kicked out of at least three."
3. Don't change to fit your environment, change your environment to fit you. So most surgery residents are boys. And boys have a tendency to put up pictures in call rooms that girls wouldn't necessarily like looking at.  So I promptly bought a picture of my own (he had nice abs), and put it up next to their picture. The next time I went to work, my picture had mysteriously disappeared. She had pictures of both posters. omg.
4. Make time for your hobbies. One of my secrets is that I do scrapbooking and cardmaking. Secret because most boys don't get it. But one of our affiliated hospitals had a lot of female surgeons. When they found out I sell stamping stuff to supply my habit, they promptly bought a bunch of stuff from me. Like thousands of dollars worth. 
5. Don't be ashamed to display team loyalty. "We all know that Nichole is a big baseball fan." And then she flashed a sign for the Yankees. My heart stopped beating for a few seconds. I'm pretty sure Daniel's did, too. I'm not sure, because I was temporarily blinded, too.
6. Make time for social causes. She flashed signs for the Republican party, the NRA, the Lincoln Club, and about three other conservative groups while professing that I was just too busy to do any of them. Which everyone knew was crap. That was a visual one -- had to be there.
7. Spend time with your loved ones. Then she showed a picture of two people in full desert camo pointing long rifles (I actually think it was Prince Harry) and said that she had captured a tender moment between me and Daniel while patrolling the border. It was uproarious.
8. Don't be limited by the system. After years of getting ripped off at the cafeteria for drinks, snacks, and crappy food, one day I had just had enough and came up with a pretty good idea. Let's go to Costco, buy some drinks and nonperishable snacks, and sell them just outside the cafeteria. Dirt cheap. That was the quickest way I could think of to force them to drop their prices. I still don't know how they could charge that much... mainly to people who make less per hour than the janitors. She outlined my plan in detail. 
9. & 10. I really wish I could remember the last two, but I'm coming up with a big blank. Good thing I didn't wait any longer to post!   

After the dinner, we returned to that very chic lounge and hung out for a good long time. It was great. I sure will miss my friends and the adventures we had, despite being supremely sleep deprived. Glad it's over. 

gift for a surgeon?

As I may have mentioned before, I'm not the cook in our house. I could argue for title as baker, but for as much baking that goes on around here, that title holds little meaning. Now that I have more time, I thought I'd take more responsibility for my own lunches and make them myself instead of having Daniel make them or buying them pre-made.

This morning when I came home from my yoga class, Daniel was just getting ready to leave for work. I decided that my lunch was going to be a pasta salad with chicken, chick peas, stewed tomatoes, and artichoke hearts. The last three ingredients are easy; all accessible in a can or jar. Any idiot can make pasta, so I was pretty safe there. But grilling chicken? Uh... that would require me to do some cooking. Better ask for help when I have the chance.

Daniel got me going and I cooked the chicken on a little fry pan with just a touch of olive oil. Before I went to flip it over, he warned me that the little oil I used could spatter and suggest I put on an apron. The chicken was done and Daniel could safely leave for work. I walked him to the door, gave him a little kiss, and told him to have a good day. It was very June Cleaver of me, I must say.

This got me to thinking: I've been racking my brains trying to come up with a graduation present for one of my friends who just completed her plastic surgery residency. She's adventurous, stunning, funny, and fashionable. Not domestic. Everything I thought of was either too expensive or just not clever enough. Then I had my Donna Reed moment. Problem solved -- she's getting an apron.

Now which apron? Here's where you come in. If there is no picture, please click on the link. For some reason I wasn't able to get a picture of those ones.

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

blue seashell #7

polka dot ruffle #8

red and white #9

I think my favorites are the pink cowgirl (#4) and the leopard halter (#5).

jim and helen

We, meaning my brother, sister, and I, grew up in a very interesting neighborhood. We lived in a section of town that had never been incorporated, but the incorporated part of the town grew around it. That meant there were no sidewalks, street lamps, or water meters. We had a different garbage service than the people across the road. The best part was that each lot was huge. Our was nearly three-quarters of an acre. That left plenty of room for a big pool area, a coi pond, or a garden as big as you could handle. We had the pool. Jim and Helen had the coi pond and garden.

Jim and Helen were our totally hip, elderly next door neighbors. They were both retired and either in their late 60s or early 70s. But when you're under the age of 10, anyone over 40 might as well be 100. Both of them were retired and most of their days were spent gardening.

In both the front and back yards they grew a weird, soft grass. Not the usual bladed grass; it was more like clover. I remember being told very kindly that it isn't the kind of grass that can survive kids running over it all the time. It's okay if you had to walk on it every once in a while, but you shouldn't be running around on it.

So when I got sent on an errand to Helen's back door to ask if we could borrow some sugar for the cookies Mom was making, I walked on the 4 inch piece of cement the bordered the clover grass.

We could let ourselves into the back gate to knock on the back door because that's just what neighbors did back then. Before I would complete my appointed task, I would wander in a few more steps to take a closer look at the large coi pond they had just beyond the back patio. It was the size of a small swimming pool with a waterfall at the back and was filled with several large fish.

Sometimes, if it was the evening when I was on my errand, Jim and Helen would be sitting on their porch swing when I opened the back half gate. They would be feeding crickets to the coi, which I thought was the coolest thing ever. There were plenty of bugs where we were, and I never knew if he caught them or bought them at the pet store.

I was always the kind of kid who got bored if I wasn't doing something. (Heh, some things never change.) During the still of the hot summer, I would often wander over to Jim and Helen's to see if they needed help weeding. On very special occasions, as a break from weeding the front yard, Jim would take me around the back, past the towering walnut tree, to where his fruit and vegetable garden was. We didn't get to back there very often, but from what I remember, they grew everything... tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries, blackberries, bell peppers, and more. He had put little spikes on top of the fence that surrounded it because the local cats like to use the garden as their own personal litter box and the spikes kept them out. At any given time, there were also at least two gopher mounds somewhere on the property, which indicated a two pronged attack on his garden.

They were always nice enough to share their mini harvests with us. We would routinely get big gallon bags of walnuts (the tree really was gigantic), vine-ripened tomatoes, and an occasional helping of blackberries. In return, we shared our cookies with them.

The time they spent on their gardening had lessened over the years. When I moved out at 18, they were still there. I'm sure they've since passed away, but I'll always remember what great neighbors they were. I've never owned a house, but from talking with my friends and family that do, these kinds of neighbors just don't exist anymore. But a little part of me hopes that somewhere, they're out there, waiting to share a cup of sugar with me through an open back door.

freedom

Every once in a while, I'll look down and realize that I don't have any pieces of equipment hanging off my waist.

I cannot describe how good it feels to be free from that damned electronic leash that makes my blood pressure and heart rate increase when it goes off. It will all end when I start my new job and I get a new leash, but I'm completely enjoying the freedom.

If only for the summer.