Old Lang Sine

I've not been known to keep dates or deadlines in my head so I guess this farewell to the year past is a little past its due date. Like good wine or aged brandy, it only gets better when it is later, especially some 60 days after the fact. However, I celebrate Chinese New Year, which was just some weeks ago. So, I am not too far off.

My my how time flies. As I reflect on the year and all its accomplishments or non-accomplishments, I think of hot chocolate fudge cake and Roger Rabbit. There were bits that were so delectably enjoyable, like hot chocolate fudge cake, and some other bits that were too cartoon to be real life but happened like it was real life.

I guess the year started with my trip to London that I almost did not get to enter because of 1) crap battery life of Apple's lithium batteries, 2) my big gigantic mouth that can't help but spew forth before my brain can stop it, and 3) no compassion for fat people. I was punished duly because this has indirectly or directly (I have yet to tell and may never tell) cost me the friendship of, one of the few, true friends. I am now down to one true friend. And if I manage to jack this one up, I will probably be the saddest human being alive. No hot chocolate fudge cake.

I did get to visit Florence and took day trips to Rome and Venice, practice some of my Italian, which is limited to ordering food, and asking where is the bathroom. And of course, I am supposed to say I learned a little about UK style cardio thoracic surgery. Woo wee. (There is a thick layer of sarcasm here).

I came back to New York homeless because another "friend" who promised me a place to stay gave me the "I'm real sorry but" speech with short notice, ended up stranded at La Guardia on Valentine's Day because I was going to crawl back home to the warmth and love of the Arizona desert and also for some unmentionables I cannot write online. That gratification was delayed.

I shouldn't have called the woman 'fat' on the British Airways flight.

Miserable and feeling all sorry for myself, I entered my last several months of medical school with dolor, a little bit of rubor felt on my ego, and a tumor growing inside that grew up to be an utter dislike and abhorrence for little humans and their parents and New York City.

This was my introduction into Pediatrics at a Community Hospital in inner Brooklyn where parents bring in their kids to the ER for the common cold and a slight fever and where the kids, who have been to the ER 50 times in the past 3 months, are so terrified of the doctors and nurses that they piss in their pants because their mothers insist that their child is too ill to be sent home and demands an x-ray, IV fluids, IV antibiotics and a night's stay at Hotel De Wycoff at taxpayer's expense and no out of pocket costs. I had to strap the 5 year old down to the examining table while the PA set an IV catheter, meanwhile enduring the child screaming, "I'm better now! I'm not sick!" who has now soiled himself. For the child's sake, I say to the mother that we don't have to put the child through so much trauma and the woman gets mad at me and tells me to fuck off in her Hispanic, melodramatic, down in the Brooklyn hood attitude that blows me away. It is her opinion that her five years of motherhood gives her more medical knowledge then my 10 years of education. And we bend backwards for this woman because this is the way we do medicine.

So my punishment endures through half of the year and I am immensely glad to return to civility where no one lives on top of each other like a tin of sardines and children don't piss in their pants when they see their pediatricians because their pediatricians are treating the psychosis of their mothers.

Warm chocolate fudge cake.

I end the year in Georgia, playing Secret Agent at the CDC, learning how government agencies function, how we are actually paying people to study mold, air pollution and accidental death, how some of them end up with God complexes and think they are the world's solution to poverty, hunger and disease when they are convinced that reservation casinos do not make any money and that the solution to prevent narcotic deaths due to overdoses is to put out an all points bulletin in every ER for snoring, somnolent individuals . So much for smarts.

Roger Rabbit is in the sidelines cheering on the MDieties and PhDieties of the Government who want to institute guidelines and laws on how we should live our lives. (This means: no hunting because you can get accidentally shot and killed, no ATV riding because it can over turn on the sand dunes and kill you, no narcotics prescriptions because they would rather you suffer in pain than to die of an overdose, no coughing, no breathing, no cars, no factories...). No hot chocolate fudge cake.

In between, I took my last few doctor tests as a medical student. My second board exam, I thought, was a disaster. I planned and studied and when it came time to take it, I decided on a hare brained idea to rent a hotel room next to the test center so I can guarantee myself a good night's rest. Instead, I was up until midnight, tossing and turning, decided to go home to the comfort of my bed but didn't sleep until 3 am. By early afternoon the next day, when the adrenalin wore off, I was answering questions with the first thing that came into my head, which luckily for me, was not food. I surprised myself by doing better than the first test. I made Mitch open the results envelope and he was putting on a show and telling me that I had to retake the damn thing, which almost got him killed.

My last doctor test was a practicum. I actually had to pretend I was a doctor and see patients who were paid actors. Yes, it's like that episode of Seinfeld when Kramer had alcoholic cirrhosis or some STD. I remember a nice little old lady who was supposed to have uncontrolled diabetes and has developed neuropathy. In other words, her nerves were whacked up. I had to explain a test I wanted to run, which was an EMG. Being the sophisticated person that I am and always speaking before my brain has had a chance to process the garbage, I tried to spell out the acronym, except that I couldn't remember what it was. It started out with "electro" which was right and then I said "magnetic" for the 'M' and then couldn't figure out what goes with the 'G'. In fact, it wasn't electromagnetic anything! It was a nerve conduction study and I spent so much time trying to figure out what 'EMG' meant that the bell for time's up rang. I had to say to the little old lady that I can't remember what it means but the test was done to test her nerves, at which time, she smiled and almost laughed at me. Roger Rabbit in my brain.

I ended the year by doing another world wind tour of the US, going to different places for interviews (been to Cleveland THREE times) so that I can get a real job this summer. This is the in between time of after school and before you make the big bucks where my further education is being paid for by the American public.

Somewhere in the middle of all of this, I managed to graduate.

Now, in just three short days, I will have to offer up my list of most desired programs to be at where I will spend the next 3 years of my life. I'm insane, but it is looking like Cleveland may be it.

Don't forget to pause and click on the advertisements so I can support my Starbucks habit while I am in this "in between" space in my life, surrounded by dog pooping in the kennel and cleaning the pooped kennel and a tight feeding and excrement schedule, a minute deviation from which results in soilage I have to clean up. Every penny counts as I welcome in the new and exciting year.