Monday, October 23, 2006

Why I like being a doctor

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I get to get "mars bars" for a man from Mexico who has a newly discovered brain metastases from his lung cancer. After he came back after he left to make sure his wife in Mexico was okay.

I get to learn how to say "good morning" in Russian: Dovre utro (sp?) from patients whose response to my saying, "I'll see you later," is "good, something to look forward to!"

I get to teach medical students like K. and hear how much she learned from her boyfriend. "She said you were the best intern. She loved working with you. She said I'd be really lucky if I got to work with you, too." I get to be a role model and act the way I believe to be right.

I get to make sure a dying man with esophageal cancer gets his cup of morning coffee even though he can't swallow more than a couple drops. He spend the days worrying about his chemotherapy and writing letters and poems to his family. He doesn't have long to live and he's worried that he will be in pain. "I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid of being in pain and of being a burden." What he wants is about 15 peanut butter sandwiches. He hasn't had anything to eat in two months. Three meals a day of liquid food into a hole in his stomach. When he asked me for the coffee, he reached for my coat sleeve, "There is something you can do for me, Doc." "Sure." "Can I get a cup of coffee. With lots of cream and sugar. Could you grant a dying man his last wish?" Of course I can. Of course I did.

My rash patient thanks me for being there "through everything."

Even my grumpy one-legged ascites end stage heart failure patient has his good moments...though most of the time I find him ruminating, sitting on his bedside commode asleep, or eating eggs slathered in ketchup.

Basically, I get to make a difference in people's lives...and in their deaths...and in their passing.

It's hard sometimes. My patient who has been in a persistant vegetative state for two years is a sad story. He died and the team brought him back with heroic measures (a "successful" code blue) but his brain didn't have oxygen for too long and he's never woken up since. The rumor is that his family is keeping him alive in order to get his monthly check from the government. My first reaction was that this was cold, but who am I to judge? Perhaps it's their only mode of income. Perhaps this is what he would have wanted, since it is the only thing his swollen contracted body can do for them? I don't know. All I can do is my best...with whatever I do know.

Maybe enjoying being a doctor is selfish in a way...because it makes me feel useful and happy to be able to touch lives like that. I've put myself in a profession and a position where I become a part of the most intimate pivotal details of people's lives. But hopefully, somewhere along the way, while I'm feeling good about being useful and appreciated, my patients are feeling good, too. I hope so.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Strawberry Cake

I was on call on my birthday. Didn't have to go in until 11am so it wasn't that bad...plus the VA here is sort of slower (knock on wood) than in Nati. I only got one patient on call...and we only had to admit until midnight. Wierd.

I took in the cookies that mom sent so I told people it was my birthday. We have a great team. The resident is from St Louis and she's very real and fun. My co intern is the social organizer of our intern class and the three male med students are very sweet and take care of us just because (like get us sandwiches and see if we need anything just because and without asking).

Before they left last night, they all came down the hall singing "Happy Birthday" to me! I was very touched. I turned bright red and didn't even know how to thank them enough. One of them had gone out to get a strawberry velvet ice cream cake and then looked (in vain) for candles at three stores.

I just met these people for the first time the day before. Talk about random acts of kindness. It warms my heart. And it needed some warming...

Thank you to all for the birthday wishes. It really does mean more than I can say. I would have like to see you all in person, but the "virtual party" will have to do.

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Birthday Showers

I have been sent rain for my birthday. It is cleansing pouring rain. I went out to play in it and smell it (and roll up my car windows!). I'm now on the porch savoring my soaking wet clothes and the clean air and drip drops from the roof.

It's a lovely rain. It is just what I needed.

Yesterday Dad texted me that it was "Shawna Eve. The first day of the rest of your life." Indeed. And that sort of scares me.

Birthday's when I was growing up were always full of family and fun and surprises and possibilities. It seemed like the day when everything would be wonderful. Miracles would happen and you had super powers. It was probably the love that everyone gave me.

Of late, far away from home, they've been more mellow. I didn't feel like making a fuss. But in my heart I missed the fuss made over me. It's tough to grow up.

Maybe miracles will happen today. "Where there is Great Love, there are always miracles."

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Tagged...fluid joy and cockles

Molecular Turtle must have known that I needed something random and light to do with this evening before I start work again (tomorrow! at the VA; I have five patients; one of whom is in a persistant vegetative state for the past two years). But enough about me. Well, here's more about me...

1) Would you bungee jump?
Nope. Wouldn't sky dive either. I don't even like those free-fall things at the amusement parks. What I would do, however, is hang glide. I think it may be the closest to flying I will ever get in this life...outside of my dreams.

2) If you could do anything in the world for a living what would it be?
Something different every year or so. Ceramic artist for a while. Then writer. Doctor, of course, but different kinds (pediatrician, family med, internist, rheumatology). The be a professional traveler like Rick Steves. Maybe work at Club Med for a while. Ride horses.

3) Your favorite fictional animal?
Aslan, from Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe is the first one that comes to mind.

4) One person who never fails to make you laugh?
Jason...he has a knack for that. Sometimes it takes more work than others. I can usually make myself laugh, too, eventually. I get a kick out of puns that usually only I think are hilarious. But then my friends laugh at me so it all ends up all right.

5) When you were 12 years old what did you want to be when you grew up?
Thanks for the respect, MT. It warms the cockles of my heart (cockle by the way is thought to be a corruption of the original latin word for ventricle, cochlea cordis, but the expression is one of happiness and contentment). I think at 12 I wanted to be an architect, though, for a while. A doctor by the end of my 12th year. A pediatrician more specifically. Teacher was always a back-up option for when adults would catch me off guard with the classic question.

6) What is the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning?
Usually try to shake the emotion left over from my crazy dreams. I had a particullarly odd one the other night. About a strange furry bodied, hard headed animal that was somehow my patient. It would come up to you if you got at eye level with it. They it would gently scratch your nose with its alligator-like teeth to greet you. And this was how I was supposed to do my physical exam on it. But then I couldn't find its glass cage again and the one I found had two snakes in it instead.

7) Have you ever gone to therapy?
Yep, yep, yep. Three times. First therapist was sort of boring. Didn't help much. Told me I was already doing everything I needed to be doing to cope with the current heart wrenching break-up. Next guy was a former Lutheran minister so I had a tough time opening up at all to him. He did do some role-playing with me which was sort of strange, but did work eventually to uncover some stuff. I had some hard stuff happen while I was seeing him, but didn't tell him about it. He "graduated" me when I told him I was confident enough to reassure myself with a wink to myself in the mirror sometimes. Last one was the most necessary and the best. I was actually really sad to leave him in Cincinnati. He helped me a lot in moments of very deep need. (If you want all the gorey details, I think they're on some of these past posts, starting with "A Snake's Nature.") And I'm in the market for another here. So, yep, yep, yep, yep.

8) If you could have one super power what would it be?
The power to give myself all the other super powers, of course. Teleport, x-ray vision, telepathy, change into anything, invisibility, etc.

9) Your favorite cartoon character?
Tweety bird. I don't really know why. Small happy one who always gets away from the cat.

10) Do you go to church?
Haven't since I left Davis (five years). I loved the congregation there but haven't really had time to get into it since.

11) What is your best childhood memory?
Sometimes when I would be riding my horse, I would be overcome with consuming love for her. It was pure and strong and totally untouchable. It was fluid joy.

12) Do you think marriage is an outdated ritual?
Completely not. Marriage should be the embodiment of my best childhood memory (see above) plus friendship and support and constancy and honesty.

13) Do you own a gun?
Not even the staple gun. The only thing I shoot with is my camera.

14) Have you ever hit someone of the opposite sex?
Well if my brothers count, then yeah, tons of times when we were kids. Teasingly occasionally now. In anger and pain only once.

15) Have you ever sung in front of a large number of people?
Karaoke once or twice, though I don't think there were a "large number of people" in the bars. I sing mostly to myself. Sometimes I sang to the babies in the newborn nursery. "When I Dream, I dream of you, maybe someday you will come true." And in the shower.

16) What is the first thing you notice about the opposite sex?
Face, especially eyes.

17) What is your biggest mistake?
I find it hard to be black and white about that. I guess it is repeating and not being able to love the men in my life who have loved me most and treated me best. I don't know how to fix that. The other "mistakes" led to unmistakes. Maybe not calling the California med schools the year I applied because then I found out too late that they wanted to interview me (it was the awful first online application year and everything went crazy wrong). But then I hear that they're sort of cut throat and Cincinnati was a great place to learn...and I met M. Course, now maybe that itself is the biggest mistake.

18) Say something totally random about yourself.
Sometimes I like to lay flat and try to balance my arm bones on each other to minimize the muscle correction needed. One arm at a time. I told my brother this once and found that he does it too. Does everyone?!?

19) Has anyone ever said that you looked like a celebrity?
Jane Seymour (see previous post, "Inappropriate Comments") by a crazy grandmother of a patient.

20) What is the most romantic thing someone of the opposite sex has done for you?
Lots actually, made me dinner, written me letters, scrape the thickest ice ever off my windshield at 5 am before I even got out of bed, made me a birthday cake, left flowers in my med school mail box, change my car battery at three am on a freezing cold (like 10 below) night and then say "I hope this prooves that I'd do anything for you," fill up one of those giant cards with everything that I meant to him and how special I was, fill a box with individually wrapped memories of our first year together, brush my hair, dry me off with a towell after I get out of the shower.

21) Do you actually read these when other people fill them out?
I do. And I usually don't have time to reciprocate, but now I did, so hopefully someone else reads them, too.

Tagging...I'm not sure I have regular readers, so anyone who wants to fill this out, please do...and let me know where I can find it to read! I'd like to see what my family and S. and J. and M. say.

Beware of Demons. They're tricky.

If you know me, or if you have done a lot of back reading here, then you know the past year has been very hard relationshiply for me. Very hard. Very very hard, in fact. Almost killed me at a few lowest of lows.

Well, my boyfriend (cause of much of the pain over the past year secondary to prolonged infidelity) just came to visit. And I find that the other woman (women?) is (are?) still in his life and think that he belongs just to her for the past year.

I'm not going to rant and cry about it here. I have another journal for that. I just wonder why it is so hard for some people to be faithful? What demons does he harbor that make him do this. He tells me he loves only me; that I know him better than anyone else and that he is confused and foolish and has made many many mistakes but wants to be with me and only me. I want to believe all that (especially the love only me part).

Is there some biologic basis for infidelity? Sure. But is there some biologic basis for the pain that it causes? Is there some purpose to this suffering? Is this the way to weed out the emotionally weak? Or the emotionally cold? Or does it just make the partner stick around and make sure the young are raised to a viable age?

I think sometimes that he is seeing how far he can push me before I leave. If I look at the facts I should have left long ago. But the love for him is like an addiction. I can't seem to get over it...or past it...or through it. I keep hoping he'll change.

But demons are tricky and they are hard to change. I have some of my own and have taken it upon myself to post signs around them. "Beware of Demons. They're tricky." Sometimes I still don't see the signs, though.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

"Beware of the fakeing crack smoker..."

"...he just got $1200 on the First"

That is the sign that M and I saw at one of the posh malls in town. It was put up by a panhandler about a block before another panhandler (presumably the "fakeing crack smoker"). He really had to go to a lot of effort to make this giant sign. We got a giggle out of it.

Today we went to Coranado; it was beautiful. We ate just by the beach at a very fancy restaurant and watched the ocean. Then played on the beach. He touched anemones for the fist time. They were even having a military air exhibit and we saw one of the GIANT carrier planes that I'd seen on the ground at the airshow in the air. It is like a flying elephant. Amazing just to see it get off the ground.

Maybe Disneyland tomorrow!

I love vacation.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Bright Landscaping Annual Triathalon, Etc.

I am in Nor-Cal now and have had some more interesting experiences on the farm. In no particular order:

1. I, too, have had the pleasure of being body-slammed by the llama. Knocked to the ground, barely getting up in time to get this putrid awful stomach contents sprayed all over me. It smelled like feces. It was disgusting (and scary). I yelled for Dad and he came running swining a rope around his head and Mom came running and throwing sticks at him with the fire of a mother protecting her young in her eyes. I survived...and rushed to the shower. The next time I went in Max's field, I took the cattle prod (long electicuting stick) and had to use it to keep him away.

2. I went to an airshow and saw the Canadian Snowbirds and got VIP treatment because by brother's company sponsors part of it. Pretty fly. Hee hee.

3. We had a birthday party at home for me in the fist time in years. Lasagna, carrot cake, presents, candles (sort of), friends, etc. A good time was had by all.

4. Did a mini triathalon sponsored by my brother's fiance's landscape design company (Bright Landscaping). It was lots of fun to do it all with my friends and not be hyper competitive at it like the previous triathlons I've done. And I came in second (behind the birthday girl, his fiance). (2 mile run, short swim, 12 mile bike ride)

5. Had an inpromtu wine-tasting at the B house. Very nice and fun.

6. Fiance, B, made my bridesmaid dress...and it's is incredibly beautiful...red lace over oarnge satin. I know it sounds crazy but it is very bold and striking. Plus it seems like she made it in about two minutes. Wow. She is planning on making her wedding dress, too.

7. And we had a velcro wall at my b-day party. I wanted the theme song to be "Stuck on You." Hah!

8. Watched the glass-blowers at Orient and Flume and loved it. They are incredible with the glass creations they make. I love to watch them come to life.

9. Ate at Sierra Nevada Brewery, one of my favorite restaurants of all time (particularly in this neck of the woods).

10. Get to see my friend, S, and have great Hungarian food and great company.

11. Get so see my family.

Having a good vacation...hope you're having fun, too.