Home

I don't know what to write, so I'll simply write the truth.

My grandfather passed away. He was simply one of the single best people I've ever known, and watching as his ravaged body began to breathe more and more slowly and finally just stopped has left me with a hole in my heart that only he can really fill. The good part is that my entire family--all of his children, their spouses, my grandmother, and me--was there with him to the end, cheering him on.

The infection had just spread too much--there was simply nothing more to do. We all felt it was best to just remove the medications except for pain control. He was more peaceful throughout the entire day than he has been in the past few, and looked comfortable even as he passed. Yet still, when it came down to it, my grandmother--the strongest woman I have ever seen, who spoke to him throughout the day to tell him it would all be fine, whose voice didn't even crack until the very end--broke down and wept. She broke my heart more than anything else. She is bereft--her best friend and husband of almost sixty years, gone after this incredibly exhausting struggle.

The most painful thing was knowing that just a week ago, when the infection came back after a few weeks of relief, he looked at my mom and told her, "I was almost there." He was so close to being able to just go home. That was everyone's greatest regret. He hadn't been home in three months, had been bounced around from hospital to rehab to hospital to rehab and back, and it was his single greatest wish. All he wanted was to be able to go home, and he never got to.

And yet. Yesterday, when it was finally over, I texted D to let him know. My phone has T9 and predicts what word you're wanting to write--the message I typed was, "He's gone." The numbers that spell the word "gone" are 4663. Incidentally, the first word that the phone recognized--spelled with the same numbers in the same order--was "home." He's home. He's finally home, free of all this pain and disease and fear and frustration, and I truly believe (as he did, so simply and passionately) that he is in a much, much better place, and that he is finally truly happy.

That's what gets me through, but it still hurts like hell.

Year 2, Week 1

I don't have much to post about the first week thus far, because the first week of school is ICM week (as I may have noted before), in which we have lectures that are very important to our careers as honest-to-god doctors (as opposed to studying drones, which seems to be our current job path), but require very little studying and outside work. Thus far this week, I have sat through lectures regarding patient notes and documentation, performing a knee and shoulder exam, and taking a history on a geriatric patient. I have gotten dressed up in my shiny white coat and brand new clothes (There may have been a shopping spree at the Limited involved. Oops.) and discussed a "patient's" substance abuse problems and come up with a differential diagnosis for a woman with "fainting spells." I got drenched this morning running in heels to get to the door after forgetting my umbrella.

But all of this pales in comparison to the fabulous experience of the video we were forced to endure in an effort to teach us the intricacies of the dreaded Male Genital and Rectal exam.

That's right, folks. We got to watch a video for almost 20 minutes describing in detail how to a) grope and b) insert our fingers into butts of men across America. The inherent embarrassing giggles and stunned faces were compounded by the fact that the professor giving the lecture was an incredibly old man who talked very slowly and left for lots of awkward silences. I tell you, it was scarring.

The worst part is I get the pleasure of actually practicing this fabulous experience on a real live person (who has volunteered his time to the tune of several hundreds of dollars) coming up in a few weeks. The excitement is palpable. Really.

Here we go again

Second year starts tomorrow. Weird. It still doesn't feel real.

The whole first week for us consists of our ICM class, which is essentially a class that teaches you things you actually need to know to be a doctor. Not that pathology and microbiology aren't important, but examples of my first week of lectures include: taking a abuse history, how to perform a male genital/rectal exam and a female breast/pelvic exam, developing a differential diagnosis, and strategies for breaking bad news to patients. For almost every lecture, there is an accompanying lab in which we have to dress up, wear our white coats, and perform said procedure/history/experience with a Standardized Patient (an actor who has been trained to act the way a patient might). Over the course of the next week, I'll take a substance abuse history, come up with a differential diagnosis (ideas of what all could be wrong with someone given a particular set of symptoms, and how you might go about narrowing down the options for a diagnosis), perform a knee and shoulder exam, and break the bad news.

Luckily, I went shopping yesterday and managed to get two three new dress shirts and two skirts, so I'll look fabulously professional doing it.

The other nice thing is that our entire first week, we have no days with class for more than a few hours, so it's a nice way to ease back into the schedule. Next Wednesday, however, the crap will hit the proverbial fan and I'll probably become a hermit again for a while. I promise to update, though--not least to save my own sanity.

Orientating and Dentistry

This week is orientation week at school, and while I don't have to orient myself, I'm acting as a unit lab advocate and helping out with some of the new first years.  For the past 3 days, I've gotten to go have a free lunch in exchange for answering questions and pointing people in the right direction.  The lab that I (and two of my classmates) are working with has been surprisingly quiet the past couple of days, but today we took a more informal approach and just hung out while everyone ate, and I think it went better--at least, I was actually more involved in advice-giving than I was when things were all official and "Any Questions?"

This morning, I had to go to the periodontist and have a gum graft done--a procedure where they took a piece of tissue from my palate and put it on my lower gums to keep them from exposing too much tooth (it's apparently a genetic thing).  The guy who did the procedure was very good--I didn't feel a thing as he was working--but the inability to move my mouth very well has become insanely tiresome already.  Seriously, I just took almost an hour to consume a plate of tater tots.  The quandry, of course, is that I'm hungry, but the idea of eating is unappealing.  Hopefully tomorrow will be better, because that's the day of the student activities fair--I have to run the pediatrics club table and we have cookies, which I would really love to have.