I'll Bring the Strobe Light

That was my remark following the suggestion that we should throw a "block party" or rave for the new offices that my brigade's PA's as well as myself moved to this week. The three other providers and I moved next door to the same building that houses the lab, behavioral health offices, dental clinic, and pharmacy, so we claim the little nook or hallway that makes up our four offices and the three medic screening rooms. So far, I've noticed a couple things that I have to get used to: 1. I'm feeling a little more claustrophobic and can't get my usual laps around the building as I talk with other providers. 2. Since the other PA's offices next door, our evening "documentation-music" can be heard very easily and might even clash. My singing might be heard as well, but it's okay. My neighbor and I sang along to the same song the other night. We'll have to do some karaoke for our "block party." On the plus side, I do FINALLY have a working telephone IN my office!! This makes life so much easier now. A couple weeks ago I finally got my printer again and will never have to hand-write a profile again, woohoo! Oh, and my Outlook email account got fixed, and I found out that I had over 300 messages.

I guess this was a highlight of the past few weeks. The first two weeks after the break were especially hard. They say that the day/week coming back from vacation is always hard, but these last two weeks were the type of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot weeks where I thought, "C'mon now, REALLY??" My first week back we were down two of our providers who were on leave, so that left me and another PA to handle sick call. Some of the patients had things that had been going since before or during the holidays and were just NOW getting it checked out, like guy with shoulder pain for three weeks (he actually fractured his humerus) and another guy who broke his hand over a week before. I got to know about the fracture clinic real well. And then there were the "incidental findings" of x-rays from lungs that didn't quite sound right. One had a hietal hernia (stomach pooches through diaphragm - which was actually great, because I had been working this guy up for chest pain), and the other was a young guy who had some weird calcifications and a 7mm nodule in his left lung. And then there was this awkward kid who I had seen for a couple of other things before who was complaining of headaches and turns out that on an MRI he has a brain mass. I referred him to neurosurgery, and the same day after his appointment he calls to complain that he knows more than the neurosurgeon handling his case. So what am I suppose to do?? Oh, and then there was the very brief phone conversation I had with a commander when I was trying to explain why I sent a suicidal patient (his soldier, who had 2 previous attempts before) to the ER and the only thing he asked me was, "Didn't you ?know he was being seen by behavioral health?" Uggg, that 's a whole other story, but if I had a little more rank I would really have told him what I wanted to say. These two weeks were finished off with me giving a lecture that I had spent hours on preparing and with little sleep, for which I only had 5 medics in attendance. Yeah. Thank goodness I had a four day weekend after that. It was much needed.
My fifteen mile ruck march for the Bataan raining was also very therapeutic, despite a couple of blisters. I am actually training heavy now (35 pound rucksack (backpack)) but unless I find another soldier to take my place, I may have to go back and support the light team. Our practice was cancelled this weekend due to predicted showers ("I'll bring a poncho!!" ) and I was a bit bummed because it turned out to be a very sunny, although cold and windy, day.

Still living the dream...

This was a first...

It happened. It was only a moment, but I cannot take back a thought. I could have quickly replaced this thought with a song, a recent joke, name off cardio drugs, or recite the alphabet... but I didn't. It was out of frustration and impatience that this thought was born from. It was this:
"Why did today have to be a national holiday?"
Now don't get me wrong, I have nothing against MLK Day and I have NEVER once in my life took a holiday for granted. True, the post office would be closed and I could not mail off my bills as soon as I wanted to meet their deadlines. And the library was closed, so I had to go 36 hours without internet access. But it was when I thought another day would go by without hearing any progress from potential employers. The answer to whether I would be offered a certain job or not (the same job that I have gone through a 5 week+ application/wait/interview/wait/call to check on status/and wait another week). And there were those last (I really mean last) resumes that I sent out on Friday that I know would have no hope of being looked over until at least Tuesday. More waiting... I could also add the fact that some people may be in a post-innauguration day daze and may even find today to be an extended holiday and an excuse to not get anything done. Blast.

After this silent, mental rant I went on with my less-than productive day...

There must be some kind of penance for having a vile thought as this... I know it will come in the future when I do actually have to work a holiday. Forgive me, all ye employed readers who would give their left kidney for a day off!

Are you honkin' at me?

Dear girl in the silver sedan behind me at the In N' Out drive-thru,

I really don't know you, but I have to get this off my chest. You elicited a rare moment of anger in me today just by a simple act of rudeness. I know it is not entirely your fault. It seemed to me that you are quite young and on the cusp of adulthood; so may I, as one of your elders, proceed to give you a brief lesson in old fashioned civility.

So here was the setting: I was well aware that the line at In N' Out, just outside the parking lot of Walmart, at 5 pm on a Saturday night was not the most desired place to be. And I expected, as it did, to take 25 minutes of waiting before I could get my food and head back home. I went through all of this because I love my parents. And I love In N' Out...and I was hungry...but mostly because I love my parents and it was my last errand of the day. My previous errand was not a happy one, as I received some bad news as I looked at my bank account balance. Not too happy about it. You caught me at a very bad time. Nevertheless, I was keeping my cool about the whole drive-thru traffic issue. The line of cars inched forward and I held back a brief moment to let the customer in Jiffy Lube get out of their lot so they would not be trapped in by hungry fast food fanatics. It may not be known to some people outside of California, but the thought of In N' Out employs some weird mind control over hungry consumers that may make them totally oblivious to their surroundings as they focus on the sole thought of a Double-Double dripping with spread and caramelized onions. Perhaps you were under that same control. A nano-second after Jiffy Lube customer passed, you let out a few honks.
Were you about to hit me? Were you about to be car jacked? Was someone about to hit you? Did you pass out from hypoglycemia and hit your head on the steering wheel? I highly doubt it, as I saw you still bopping along with your friend and big smile on your face. May this be a lesson to you: Not only is unnecessary honking your horn rude, but it's dangerous also. It may startle a driver and either a. cause them to slam on their gas and hit the car in front of them, or b. give them a heart attack (a little exaggerated, but it could happen).
Anger is not something that happens much to me, but I think your impatience was the straw that almost broke the camels back. I actually did think about getting out of my car and confronting you personally (we were only nudging along every three or four minutes, I had time), but as quickly as my flash of boiled emotions came, they disappeared.

A while ago I heard the advice to treat everyone as if they were going through something traumatic in their life, and you would be right 50% of the time. I think if dealing with teenagers, you would be right 95% of the time. And while I don't consider my situation traumatic, you did just happen to be behind me during a bad moment of my day. And on the reverse, I could imagine that maybe you have only 6 hours left to live and, wanting your last meal on earth to be a double-double with animal style fries and a real-ice cream neopolitan shake, I would not blame you for being a little impatient. We all have our lives, our schedules, and our issues. Maybe we just need to give that benefit of the doubt to others who may annoy us or offend us. We haven't walked in their shoes, and I'm sure we wouldn't want to. And in the end, we will all get our food, head home, our fries will grow cold, and we will still enjoy it -- forgetting that long line and that extra 2 seconds of the car waiting ahead of us.

Your elder,
Jennettte

Still Waiting...

I had made the goal that by the end of this week I would know where my life would be going. All of my decisions will have been made. I would know whether I would stay in California or Washington or maybe some other random place. I would know if I would be doing family medicine, urgent care, or pediatrics. But that hasn't happen. My state of unemployment limbo continues... I am waiting to hear back from 3 clinics for possible interviews -- and I have called them, but it's more like 'Don't call us, we'll call you'. There's the fourth job that I did interview at and still have uncertain feelings over. I feel like the single girl (wait, that's me!) who's waiting for the call back after a first date.
::Begin rant:: "Why won't he call??" Are they "just not that into me?" (inside joke, that's for another post). I deserve a phone call, darn it, because I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me! ::end rant::

I try not to wait too much sitting around and waiting and use my time constructively. This week I played charades, caroled at a rehab center (not the drug kind), frosted a couple cookies, tried to keep warm without turning on the heat, paid a few bills, sent off a Christmas package, tried swing dancing for the first time at a college hangout, and checked out a couple of books at the library. But still no calls, other than the occasional one from my mom trying to get an update. I'm not sure with the holidays that I will be finding out much either, although I know some of the places will still be open. I remember being originally scheduled to have the 24th off because I told the office manager I would rather have my birthday off and keep up with tradition than taking the day after Thanksgiving off. I guess I could enjoy my "extended" Christmas vacation.

Stay tuned.

Mind Decompression Part 1: That killed it.

So now I can resume my normal blogging. There's way too much going on in my head right now and I have to let some things out. Between a whole lot of medical information, exam questions that persist in giving me anxiety and seek to destroy my peace and happiness of the fact my exam is over, trip planning, weekend planning, job searching and decision making, social deficiency, and a few blog ideas that have been sitting in the back of my mind for days...my mind needs some kind of release. So I shall proceed with one of my recent experiences...

I have spent quite a lot of time in bookstores lately (mainly Barnes andNoble - Borders is freezing cold and doesn't have all of the books I was looking for) because I am too cheap to pay $50 for a review book that has some wrong information. Last Saturday night I settled into one of the big, comfy brown chairs (B&N has larger chairs than Borders, btw) to continue with another multi-hour run of studying. During that time a welcomed distraction came. I usually don't notice guys out in public very often (reason #9 of why I am still single) but there is some unseen power in bookstores and art stores and galleries that heightens my attention just a little more. He was actually quite good-looking, tall, and wearing a white buttoned up shirt with jeans (willing to wear long sleeves in 100 degree heat in the name of style.) He sat in a chair in a location that allowed me to subtly make occasional glances at him from the corner of my eye. He was reading a few magazines, of what type I could not tell. I know that could have been an important clue in finding out more about this stranger. I may have felt more confident to approach him and start a conversation if I was not wearing my Saturday-just-planning-on-studying-all-day old jeans and t-shirt and hardly any makeup. Maybe it's just a subconscious warning sign of "Don't bug me, I'm studying ." Anyway, he eventually got up and left the store and it wasn't until later that I saw it: a pile of magazine cards next to the chair he was in. Not just one card that innocently slips out, but a whole pile! How lame was this guy!?! Lame!! I had just uncovered a pet peeve. Why couldn't he pick up after himself? Even if he just shoved the whole pile into one, magazine, I wouldn't have cared. But he just left it!! So lame...

That's when I began noticing a widespread problem at bookstores: people just don't pick up after themselves or return their books when they're done. I've seen them stacked on endtables and even worse, scattered across the floor. I've heard more than one comment from bookstore clerk and owners about people leaving them out. I know that it's been a long time since I've been in a public library, but generally there's a cart or table to put books back once you use them. Bookstores are slightly different than libraries because they operate on the thought that you intend to purchase a book after reading through it a little (supposedly you can't just stop after the first chapter, right?) So, with all the power that my blog has to influence my readers, can I start a resolution to bring back etiquette by ensuring the books and magazines that we look at are placed back on the shelf neatly and that we clean up after ourselves (I've seen cups and other trash left behind too.) This is a courtesy to all the bookstore clerks, managers, and librarians who spend enough time bending, searching, stooping, squatting, lifting, and carrying.


Thank you, and I might see you in the bookstore/library soon -- now that I can read real books again. And if you don't clean up after yourself...

Angry Dance

This past week I had a moment of anger. For those of you who know me, this is a pretty rare event. A house that my family owns in Utah was broken into. Quite a few appliances, including my future appliances, if my sis doesn't need them, were taken: the washer and dryer, the microwave, curtains, lamps, heavy tv, the garage door opener, and some other things. They were going to take a bathroom sink (at least not the kitchen sink) but we found it in the garage. To add one more insult, they didn't flush the toilet! My other disappointment of the week was the new car air freshener I bought. I, being a lover of all things coconut, was disappointed that it made my car smell bad, prompting another trip to the store and settling on a tangerine/grapefruit scent. I will never buy a "California" brand air freshener again. Just needed to vent. My moment of anger did pass, but I'm sure if I was more experienced with this feeling, I would have learned to channel the energy into something creative, like the funky dance as seen below...