serendipti's Diaryland
Diary
12:16 p.m. - Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2005
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this is Day 3 of Internal Medicine. I am on outpatient, which means life is good and no call and I have to show up to work at 9:30 (yaaaay!) and given that I spent the majority of Sunday night pleading with Amy...please don't make me go.....to which she would reply, I am not making you do anything.....given that I have been dreading this rotation the way I have been dreading getting my cavity infested wisdom teeth pulled.....it hasn't been half bad.
The worst part has been the fact that I am on the rotation with the boy from the class below me, who 2 years ago, gave a racist/sexist/gay bashing 'stand up' show at our talent show, which I publicly reamed him for, after which many of his women colleagues told me he had a tendency to sexually harrass them.....long story short, this guy hates me and gives me looks of death and ignores me, and guess who, out of 180 students in his class, during my LONGEST rotation of med school, guess who happens to be at Illinois Masonic with me? Yeah, so that has been a deliciously ironic aspect of starting a rotation that I have already dreaded anyway, since I am no longer with any of my classmates, and now I am with the class below me.
Yesterday in clinc, as I am prone to do at least once a month, I almost passed out. It was my first time in clinic, I am in a patient room with both the attending and the resident, and I start getting hot under the collar and the flushing perspiration feeling comes over and I am like, no no no universe please no, not now, wait till I am out of the room, and so I don't leave right when I should, and try and push it and will the dr. to talk faster so we can exit without me passing out, but of course, he rambled, and soon his voice started to sound very far away, like far away voices when you are falling asleep on the beach, and so I tapped my resident on the shoulder and was like, umm....I feel a little light headed, I am going to step out, and I step out of the room, reeling, and since I am unfamiliar with this clinic, I waste a few precious blood-to-my-brain moments and I stumble towards the kitchen area (what I should have done is squat in the hall as soon as I staggered out of the room, but it being the first day and my not wanting to draw attention to myself and my not wanting zealous residents to start taking my vitals and have me lie down in a patient room and rush around to get me water and ask my questions about possible pregnancy and what I ate for lunch----my not wanting to deal with that on MY FIRST DAY.....I instead tried to make it to the room with a microwave where I could squat, discreetly, for a few moments.) So BOOM, I end up walking into the wall right NEXT to the door to the room, because by then all I could see was black and I missed the door by about a foot. I then decided it was time to squat and emabrrassment be damned, because I was about to fall over anyway, and squatting in a clinic hallway is far less embarrassing that falling flat, unconscious.
Anyway, this event was unnoticed and I finished off the clinic day, and yeah, that was day 1 in clinic, hopefully not a sign of things to come.
My lovely friend Nicole Jones came by ayer and she brought me chocolate and apples and herbal tea because I wasn't feeling well and rubbed my back and my head and we talked about life and medicine and love and I am constantly amazed at the depth of womanlove that can flow between women friends. It is a gift.
I have two white hairs that people have seen. Mom and Sheila and Amy and Stephanie. And I was thinking about age and growth and what a privilege to have people in your life who can track your growth. Who know you well enough to know how who you are now is different from who you were yesterday. because these people are your best markers for whether you are headed towards where you want to go. And then there is something so amazing about seeing each other age and go through the various stages of life. And how happy a life do I have that my head can be on stephanies lap on a beach and she can be braiding my hair in little braids and rubbing my head lovingly and putting me to sleep and you have to be very close to someone, emotionally and physically, to discover their first white hairs. I mean, mine are on the back of my head, so fingers need to burrow and dig to find mine. And I love that I have people in my life to track my age, and witness the way time passes and manifests itself on my body.
It will be only a matter of a few more years when the whole 'beauty of aging' tone is replace by a 'damn growing old' tone, so don't get too attached to this current perspective on my white hairs.
I think that it is time for me to hit up afternoon clinic.
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