Flowers by the road

Night call weeks put me in a foul mood. I hate working 7 nights in a row. I hate feeling isolated from my daily pursuits. I hate feeling tired everyday. I hate feeling so hateful. It hasn't helped that I've felt like a black cloud has followed me around at work since Monday.

Enter one very nice lady (VNL).

Thanks to a couple of boluses of patients which included a couple of very sick ones, last night found me scurrying from floor to floor trying to locate patients. I finally tracked down VNL shortly after her arrival from the ER. Pleasantries were exchanged, history and physical taken.

Somehow, it turned out to be a much longer encounter than originally planned. See, VNL is 70 years old and looks more like a handsome 50. Raised Catholic, she made the hard decision to divorce her husband because she realized their worlds were out of sync and there was no other solution. The decision was made even harder since she had 3 children (8 months to 6 years) and not a lot of support from her church or most of her family. She has remained friends with her ex-husband all these years, as she is the first to say that he's a good man, just not for her.

Her life story reflects a character that is optimistic, practical, and full of faith. She is a survivor of ovarian cancer. She is a woman with a good sense of humor. She is a woman who has read hundreds of books and remembers them like friends. She loves good meals, but has learned how to temper her diet for her health as well. Even in pain, she is able to laugh. She moved to the area to help her stepson's family, as their young son was born prematurely and needs lots of extra love.

We talked about the importance of setting boundaries in your life, and the importance of telling the people you love that, well, you love them. We ruminated on how the smallest things we do can make huge impacts, for better or worse, on the people around us. We discussed how something as simple as a genuine smile can shed warmth in our lives and day-to-day adventures.

Walking out of her room, I didn't feel so hateful anymore. My smile stopped feeling forced, and I was able to move onto my last patient of the evening without wincing. Thank you, VNL. You'll never read this, but thanks.

Hey Love, how've you been?

I don't know whether life has a great romantic love in store for me, but you know what it has given me? Plenty of love in many other forms. I woke up today feeling a major rush of it that left me feeling like I could get run through the worst the world has to offer and I would still be able to keep going with a smile.

It was a moment of invincibility, immunity from hurt, all from the strength of love. Not sure where it came from, but I'm not going to question it.

"I don't think we should be friends anymore."

Let me just say this now, so I can move on.

FUCK!!!! Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck!!!!!!!!!

For having such a great start to a day, what the hell?! I got pissed off, behaved like an ass, and managed to ruin my day thanks to an irrational burst of temper and what was essentially a tantrum. And I can't even lay blame on PMS, or really anything. All me.

6 miles of miserable heat helped sweat off any remaining rage and gave me the necessary time to think about it all and feel increasingly ashamed of myself. 3 hours later, and a friendship was formally dissolved. For the best? I hope so, and I think so.

Just Listen

I meant to write a deep, meaningful blog. Instead, I decided that youtube was missing something important, so I did a very hasty assembly job to get it there. Enjoy.

My gift is my song, and this one's for you

As wrong as my life feels sometimes, all I have to do is look a bit outside myself and I find so many reasons to have faith that true beauty exists in our world. When some of those moments/events/occurrences and how they came to be are examined, I can see where, maybe, there is a purpose for being here. And the more you sit back and examine the past few years, it becomes evident that even the worst episodes lead you to take leaps of faith that land you exactly where you needed to be.

After all, how did I end up sitting in my apartment this morning listening to the latest BTE album? Ultimately, the first major event was probably the closure of my original residency in Fort Worth. But several other, smaller key events took place around the same time. After all, had I stayed in family medicine, everything would have been shifted differently, and Fort Worth may have remained my site of education. However, mere days before that fateful meeting where we found out, no, things are not okay and we don't have jobs for you, have a nice day, I had made the final decision to go into internal medicine. Thanks to the conversations I had in later days with friends and peers, I took a chance and interviewed in Dallas. That day, I walked into what would end up being my new home for the following 3 years, and also happened to meet some of the women who would end up becoming friends. I walked away from that interview after saying thank you, let me consider, and called back 8 minutes later while still on the road to say, "Actually, sign me up right now, if you're serious about having me."

Further events (which included a very nasty wreck 1/2005), led to moving out of Arlington and into my own apartment in 4/2005.

I was introduced to BTE shortly after arriving to my new residency, and went to my first concert in 2005 in good company.

Which is a small part of how my current position (see above) came to be. However, other current events that got my mind going this AM are also part of a longer road.

Karaoke, something which I'd often been curious about but never tried, happened for the first time in a dive called the Maple Point, again in good company. A love for it took seed, but the smoky atmosphere leads something to be desired, and return visits are infrequent. Thanks to a habit of singing in the halls of the hospital, a reputation/impression is formed by many within its walls, and several mentions of an Irish pub called the Tipperary Inn are made, particularly it's Monday night karaoke. Duly noted, but no action is taken for many months. An introduction to the Tipperary Inn takes place sometime in 2005 under the influence of some hastily consumed Irish car bombs (not a karaoke night), and a few sporadic visits occur over the following year. It isn't until 2007, however, that Monday night karaoke becomes a fairly good place to look for me on any given week, often in good company.

In 2008, we met our future kickball captain on a Monday night that he came in to get a T-shirt from his bartending friend. Thanks to a remote resemblance to his celebrity crush, he makes conversation with me (again, in good company). Later that year, he takes command of the Tipp's team, and we are invited to take part.

So is there a point? Yes. Today's screw ups and actions can have amazing results years afterward. Also, just because we aren't privy to the game plan doesn't mean there isn't one. I have faith in that game plan.

Stupid is as stupid does

My behavior is leaving much to be desired.