Just a few hours left to 2008! I remember so clearly the first few moments of this year, when Glen and I looked at each other and said, it's 2008! It's really here! It was like the fact that we were going to get married didn't fully set in until it was the year that we had been talking about for so long.

And, it was a great year :-) The first half was non-stop wedding planning, and after the Big Day was over, we came back to the hospital for the second half of medical school. First in psychiatry, my desire to become a doctor was reaffirmed... then in surgery I discovered I really really don't want to be a surgeon, both important realizations. I've also made some new friends in my new class and it's been wonderful; I guess if you spend 14 hours a day with someone for 6 weeks you're either going to end up loving them or hating them, and I got the former.

Now Glen and I head into the second half, and I have the feeling that as I made it through the fall, I can make it through the spring. There is also the wonderful feeling that in one year we will be effectively done... second semester seniors :) It's in the foreseeable future!

We spent a lot of time with family. There were a lot of birthdays. Somehow in our free time we managed to attend 4 weddings (and I attended 4 wedding showers). There were also a handful of funerals.. we lost a family member in his 90s, and family friends in their 20s and 50s. And on the flipside, we found out a friend is pregnant!

We ended the year with lots of friends here in Philly celebrating Glen's birthday. We've been out of college for almost 4 years now and yet we're still managing to get together every few months; I'm proud of us! If Glen weren't sick with bronchitis, we'd be ringing in the New Year with you guys tonight!

For a final reason to celebrate in 2008, two very special friends got engaged this weekend! It's not on facebook yet, so I don't think I should be the one spreading the news. I just can't wait for all the fun!

2009 holds our last full year of medical school, our first wedding anniversary, the first baby in our group of friends, lots of wedding planning for someone else this time, a young friend starting high school (which makes me feel old), President Barack Obama, a hopefully a thousand more reasons to enjoy this trip around the sun.

Happy New Year!

An a cappella song came on my Pandora holiday station.

"Unless this is the group from Carmen Sandiego, this is getting turned off.
...
Rockapella! This IS the group from Carmen Sandiego!!!!"


Amazing.

Today was the half way point between Christmas and Thanksgiving. I did
feel especially in the holiday spirit, but I think that was because I
was actually in a good mood today due to my working in the outpatient
clinic rather than the OR. These two half-days on outpatient have
renewed my desire to become a doctor, after 11 weeks in the OR all but
squelched it; they've reminded me that medicine can be enjoyable! (It
remains to be seen how I feel about inpatient medicine and, I guess,
the ER)

4 more days of work, then our exam, and then three weeks to recuperate!

The Team

This morning on rounds the 10 person team was spilling out of the
patient's room into the hallway and he asked the doctor if he had the
whole Verizon team with him. I like humor in the AM.

Also, I wanted to explain that I wasn't trying to say that that was an
excessive amount of hours. Lots of people work that much per week. I
just had promised to report the total. :)

med school, continued (and continued... and continued...)

A common question and actual answers I have received:

Could you rate your pain from 1 to 10?

"22"
"really bad"
"7 and three quarters"
"well last week when I was at the grocery store....."



The total for the week was 59 hours.

It's my patient's 83rd birthday tomorrow. I hope we send him home to
celebrate. He'll be with me always... as I believe there is a
worrisome amount of his bone dust in my lungs.

LONG day today -- even longer than my work-plus-business-school days
last year! It's really hard to get home at the time you should be
heading to bed. I always have to stay up and unwind a little bit. But
then, here we are, hours past bedtime. I'll give you the hours worked
tally at the end of the week. I bet it doesn't sound as impressive as
it feels.

Good night!

13 hours today.
The weird thing is that it didn't even feel long... I don't know if
I'm acclimated or if it's just being in the OR that makes it go fast.
The worst part is looking at the clock and actively thinking about the
time... things like "I left my house 12 hours ago" and "I thought I
would be cooking a nice dinner by now."
I think if there were no clock in the OR I could go all day and night
and be perfectly happy. Ignorance would be bliss.

The skyline from the skybridge:

oops... I missed November.

It was a good month, filled with Anesthesia. I semi-took the week of Thanksgiving off. I studied and cleaned and did laundry, very exciting.

I'm pretty excited it's finally December. It makes it feel like the year is over, and vacation is only a few moments away. Also, that means the whole school year is so much closer to over, and we can get this med school thing one step closer to done with.

I started a new rotation today. I thought idepts were supposed to be light. I worked 11 hours today with coming in later than will be usual. I'm beginning to hate the hospital. I'm coming up with a nice list of careers I could do with my degree that don't involve treating patients. I think consultants get paid pretty well.

Also, I hate neck anatomy. And all of anatomy.