aka What I'm Almost Sure in the Blogosphere is Known as a Cheater Post

But hey.  At least I'm persevering, right?

Today's song, while not particularly esoteric or profound, is fun, energetic, and has been not only "that song" that I end up playing on repeat beyond the auditory saturation point, but is the song I use to pump myself up before I step onto the Labor and Delivery floor.

That means this is a Big. Deal.

I was introduced to it a week ago at the Move DC march on Washington, held by Invisible Children, a group mostly known for viral video Kony 2012 and, unfortunately, its founder's viral nervous breakdown.  It should be better known for its stand against children soldiers and sex trafficking, which is being perpetrated by the IRA and its leader, Joseph Kony.  Regardless of criticism leveled against the founder and foundation, it is a great cause, and it was a great rally, which will be the subject of another post.

BUT, even better, it introduced me to "I Knew You Were Trouble" by T Swift.

I know.  I know.  But it's good.  Give it a listen.  Or two.  Or three...

(Final thoughts:  This version is pitched--the semi-'dub step' is more pronounced in the original.  I am a not-so-closet Taylor Swift fan--can't help it.  I think it's about John Mayer.  Next Tuesday, there might be some pretentiousness and "some indie record that is much cooler than mine," to quote Ms. Swift herself.)

Yes/no?

Foreword:
Persistence was never my strong point.  If it didn't come easily, or quickly, it usually just didn't get done.  So many half-finished knitting projects are languishing around the house as a result.

But it doesn't mean that I can't strengthen that frail muscle of perseverance.  So here's to re-newed beginnings, a re-restart, another grand re-openin', another show.

Here's to another blog entry, and hopefully, more to come.
- - - - - - -

In the past, when I would declare with melodramatic sorrow that I was on call on the next day, many friends would look askance at me and hesitantly ask, "But...that means you can still come out tomorrow for a little bit, right?"  At which point I would return their confused look, because it seemed clear to me that it meant I would be in the hospital for the next 24 hours.

Reflecting on the confusion of what constitutes 'being on call' made me finally realize that people in medicine have their own weird little languages and kingdoms and phyla that years of 'House' and 'ER' still have not elucidated to the general public.  I mean, what other people still use pagers?  The last time I spotted them actually being used in pop culture was in Clueless, the movie from 1995.  Last referenced in modern times by 30 Rock in the form of Dennis Duffy, the Pager King, who with his mullet and hockey-and-classic-rock loving ways, is a living tribute to the late 80s/early 90s.

But a little illumination:  there are, in fact, different types of call - at-home call and in-house call.

Some residents, such as senior medicine residents or very specialized doctors like dermatologists or oral maxillofacial surgeons, take call - that is, caring of patients or taking consults on patients related to your specialty - from home (AKA at-home call or pager call).  They only come to the hospital when their ancient bulky pager beeps, and only when the person paging them lays out their case insistently and fairly begs them to come in, i.e. patient is practically dying, or at the least, very, very sick. Thanks to smart phones, most of the time dermatologists don't even have to come in:  take a pic, click send, and they'll call you back with a diagnosis.

On the other hand, OBGYN residents, regardless of seniority, most always take call from inside the hospital (AKA in-house call).  We live for 12-24 hours inside the hospital, without contact with the outside world.  (One of my residents truly thought that the hurricane devastating our area was called Hurricane Sally.  SALLY.  Not much better:  when I'm on call, I only know if it is raining or sleeting or snowing when I'm actually being soaked on my walk back home after call, because we have no windows nearby on Labor and Delivery, and thus never see what's happening outside.  For me, weather is something you experience, not something you look outside and prepare for.)  We are working most of that time, taking care of the post-surgical patients, sorting the pregnant women who are actually in labor/having actual problems from those who are not, trying to get babies delivered, and arguing extensively with the ER, for whom we are basically the female organ examination-and-ultrasound service.  We still, unfortunately, must carry our shrieking, bulky pagers.  

Things we do on call:  slap things on unsuspecting residents' backs

 Why must we be in the hospital?  There usually are not that many OBGYN residents in each program (unlike the armies that constitute Surgery and Medicine), and because of restrictions on duty hours, we already have the minimum possible number of residents on call.  The attendings at our program are usually not that active in managing the course of their patients' labor; that falls to us.  Emergencies and labor can pop up at any time, usually truckloads at a time.

Things we do on call 2:  model the latest in recyclable scrub coat fashions - note the hand-torn fringe

In any case, I guess it would be hard to deliver babies or rush ectopic pregnancies to the OR from the screen of my iPhone.  (Darn.  Work on that, you geniuses at Apple or Google).  And I, for one, have never been on an empty Labor and Delivery.  An axiom of the universe:  THERE WILL ALWAYS BE SOMEONE IN LABOR AT ANY GIVEN TIME OF DAY.

Things we do on call 3:  print out prescriptions for the patients leaving the next day

I've heard rumors of other programs in the Midwest where senior residents stay at home and just come in for emergencies or surgeries like cesarean sections.  When someone at the end of their third year of residency blithely posted on their Facebook wall , "Last night call ever!", I seethed in jealousy AND confusion for a few minutes, and then had the courtesy to click LIKE.  Even though I suppose this would be feasible since I live half a block away from the hospital (the view from my 9th floor apartment looks squarely on the hospital facade), which is both convenient and depressing, with the volume of deliveries at my hospital, I would be woken up at least three times a night to run back over for a c-section, and would likely spend the rest of the time sleepless, dreading the shrill call telling me to run back to the hospital again.

Things we do on call 4:  take care of babies (only while inside the mother)

Plus, years of residency have made me neurotic.  Whatever little I can control on Labor and Delivery, I MUST control it; this means doggedly going between the intern and the second year and the third year resident, making sure everything is taken care of, and at the minimum, okay.

Also, sidebar, call rooms:  NOT glamorous.  Not, at least the ones on my Labor and Delivery, used for any type of 'Grey's Anatomy' extracurricular activities.  Not even used for more than two hours at a time, usually.  They are small and cramped.  They are really, really cold.  There are rumors of bedbugs in the past.  The sheets are changed, sometimes, I think (though, to be honest, we're usually so tired that we don't really care.)  There is this giant conical thing protruding from the ceiling with a giant hole in it, which I refuse to examine closely in fear of what it might be, though I hope it's from some sort of flooding from the floor above that resulted in blistering of the ceiling?  I don't know, and I don't want to.  I also once had a new pair of pretty running shoes stolen from the call rooms, which makes me resent the call room AND my attempt at betterment and exercise at the same time.

Things we do on call 5: bring a dash of the holiday spirit, in a culturally open, comprehensive, and medical way.

In summary:
1)  Being 'on call' means that you are taking care of patients in the hospital, taking calls from patients who think they may need to be the hospital, and seeing patients of other specialties that may need your expertise.
2)  In house call = in hospital, AKA that resident can't (or at least probably shouldn't) hang out with friends outside the hospital that entire day.  Pager call, or home call = close to hospital, AKA that resident can hang out with you until the ancient beeper calls.
3)  Some specialties do not need to be in the hospital when they are on call; some specialities always need to be.  The type of call and the amount are residency program dependent.  (Some food for thought for those of you in medical school still considering which field to go into.)
4)  Call rooms are nothing like TV would prepare you for.  They are mostly unpleasant.

'Til next lesson.

Disclaimer:  Take everything I say with a grain of salt.  I tend towards the sarcastic (clearly).  ER, dermatologists, and senior medicine residents work very hard, and pager call can be equally as stressful as in-house call if there are many emergencies that you have to come into the hospital for.  Being a resident in general means hard work.  And OBGYN calls are busy, but manageable.  But generally, I think what I've said is true.  

On memorable last lines

(Every day is New Year's day, because I will not give up on my resolution to publish some bit of writing, everyday, until I actually publish something, everyday.  Think of it as a sort of mental Groundhog's Day/New Year's Day mashup that allows me to "never give up, never surrender!"  Because God knows I've done enough of that in the past.)


New York is a great city, yes.

It is a great, big city of 8 million people where even when you are pressed in on all sides by a shifting crowd of faces, you can feel more stripped of identity, invisible, and alone, than you've ever felt in any other time or place.

Where row after row of hulking, tall, grey, blocks of buildings offer no respite of beauty or nature or air.

Where you feel physically, spiritually, and mentally compelled to stride/shuffle/trot through the streets, fast, rolling your eyes at the tourist obliviously trolling along in front of you, snaking your way through crowds and pushing past people just to get ahead of others--both literally and metaphorically.

In short, it can be a great, grey, overwhelming city that grates on your soul and mind until all you have left is a tiny pile made up of the shreds of your remaining humanity.

Being on night shifts in the middle of winter doesn't help either.  Having recently come back from a trip to Vienna and Prague.  Being a wanderlust girl who dreams about living in early 20th century 'Par-ee,' Regency England, present-day Rome (basically, anywhere-but-here) definitely does not help.

So you can imagine that after daily being served elegant porcelain cups of coffee--always, always, on little trays of silver--in Vienna, and coming back to all this, I have been feeling a little low in the soul, beleagured, and altogether a shadow of myself.

HOWEVER!  The other day I decided to take a detour to Central Park.  I hadn't been there in a while--something about, once you've seen it a few times, you've seen it all.

BUT:  Central Park really is more than just a tourist attraction.  There is something about this square plot of land, despite the tips of skyscrapers peering in just above the trees, that allows the city to fade away for a moment, and for the refreshment that is naturally inherent to all human beings at the sight of land, and trees, and great open air, that makes Central Park magical.  


It is an essential element of the city that makes it superb.  It elevates New York the level of those great, old cities of Europe.  It is something, I think, that really has no equivalent in any other city I've visited yet.

There are crowds, yes, but they are a little more dispersed.  And everywhere, if only a tiny bit, strides are slowed, and heads lifted to look around:

It has CULTURE:

Hear ye, Europe, ye of the enormous granite monuments to every author, politician, and musician alike.  We, too, pay our adoring tributes to (admittedly, your) romantic writers, to the prolific poets.  See there, Robert Burns, cutting a mysterious figure:

 And:  Fitzgreene Halleck?  

Oh, he's ours, an American! 

And other miscellaneous works of art!

Nothing quite like Americans and their relationships to their dogs

 We'll one up you with our striped hot dog stands, with startling ubiquity not found anywhere else in the world! (omnipresent crisped-skin greasy rolls of mystery meat rivaled only by the amazing quality and varieties of sausage and fried cheese sandwiches(!) found in Wenceslas Square.  I drool at the memory.) 

 

And our bisected, airy version of  the Pantheon interior in Rome!
And a democratic people free enough from self-consciousness to perform impromtu dances in front of such sites!  

I might add that one of the strongest memories I have of Rome, besides the trail of carbohydrates I inhaled along the way, was the recollection of an age-old fountain made of a ancient looking spigot set in a stone wall in one of the side streets, enticingly pouring out water onto the hot summer street, and an older man telling a tourist in shades, Birkenstocks, and a large cotton tunic trying to catching the liquid in a plastic bottle, "Oh that water's absolutely great for drinking.  It's been used for centuries."
(am I the only one who learned in high school World History that the Romans channeled in their water with aqueducts from lead, and they probably went senile from lead poisoning?)
But, Rome, we too have our ancient drinking fountains!  Probably equally as sketchy!

And as you ramble through, your faith in New York and its people slowly being restored step by step, you take the time to notice, once again, those little touches of humanity and grace that make up this city, present and past:

Children playing that old American pastime, baseball, in the park. 

And in the touching tributes, perhaps some inadvertently comical "unnecessary quotation marks."

      "My God...isn't this a great country altogether?"

      'Tis.     

~Frank McCourt

Because I promised myself that I would post every day, and I wasn't inspired by any remote memories today, I'm doing a cheater post about a short layover I had in Copenhagen.  The weather was that beautiful, clean, crisp grey, the kind you know comes with that perfect chill in the air.  From the airport windows, Copenhagen looked lovely, from the looks of the tourist attraction videos playing en loop throughout the airport, carefully curated with various works of art and that delightfully sparse Scandinavian architecture (aka IKEA-esque).  I would have gladly stepped out of the airport for a quick tour, had we not been waiting for our connecting flight, and had it not been four-freaking-o-clock in the morning, EST.
 

I also found out why the Danes are among the happiest in the world:

That's alcohol.  Casually offered with breakfast.  Seriously?

At the duty-free shop and the convenience stores, more portable potables for your convenience:

Not to bring the happy smoking Danes down a notch, but did they know that smoking kills? 
Either they don't, or they have vision issues, because these signs are gigantic.

No signs of any danishes in the airport, or in Venice for that matter, though a certain friend told me they originated in Denmark (it suddenly all clicked for me).  Ah well.  Next time, God willing.

A new year.  A new set of goals that don't always get achieved.

As we all say, it'll be different this year.

This is an attempt of a girl who so often lives in her hazy daydreams and vivid memories to:
a.  catalogue her memories of places, and lives, and people on 'paper' as time wears them thin, and work and life inches everything else slowly out of her limited brain.
b.  to harness her inner Shakespeare/Fitzgerald/etc and write more often. (2012 goal #1.)
c. to stop being afraid, hesitant, and regretful; to, as one friend terms it, "F- it!", and just do as Nike does, just do it.  (goal #2)
d.  to finish something that I started.  (goal #3)

So along with a knit blanket that I started in sudden enthusiasm, and stopped in equally sudden disinterest, and a needlepoint rabbit, which was supposed to be a present for my mother, and  was started in approximately elementary school, I intend to finish this blog.  Hopefully write in it everyday.

Let's do it.

~cc