I've got your number

Dating's a harsh harsh game. Especially in our medical school bubble of a neighborhood.

The other day, a couple of friends and I were celebrating a golden weekend, so we hit up a local bar to just hang out. As we nursed a couple of beers, chatting up our most memorable (read: craziest) patients, a guy probably in his late 30s - balding and pot-bellied - came over to us.

He addressed my two guy friends first. "Hey guys - are you working this angle?" as he gestured at me. "No no! Not at all! We're just friends!" They sputtered, tripping over their words, as their denials couldn't come out fast enough.

Now, I'm not a bar regular. I don't know bar etiquette. Do I tell the guy upfront that I have a boyfriend? Is that presumptuous? I didn't quite know what to do, but luckily, I didn't have time to get a word in edgewise, as the guy kept going, full steam ahead.

He gestured at me, his hands straight out, as though I were assessing for asterixis. "Well then, I just wanted to tell you, that I love this outfit that you've got going on..."

I looked down at my ratty tank and jeans, as he did a little wax-on, wax-off move.

"But you know what? I have something for you that would make it even better," he said, as he did a poorly executed magic trick and pulled out a flower made from one of the bar napkins.

He held it out to me. I blinked at him.

My guy friends, watching this whole time, swallowing their guffaws, nudged me and stage-whispered, "TAKE IT!"

I took it, awkwardly. "Um. Thanks!"

He blushed brightly, and I instantly felt bad for him. I wanted to tell him that I appreciated it, but I had a boyfriend. But before I could get out two words, he stopped me. "Just so you know, there's a special treat inside." He paused dramatically. "...my phone number."

My friends lost it. And they started cracking up, all while kicking each other under the bar, hoping that the pain would make them stop laughing.

I again, awkwardly thanked him. He smiled at me and then went back to his friends, sitting at the other end of the bar.

I put the flower back down on the bar, without opening it, as I could see him and his friends periodically glancing over to see how I would respond. My guys continued laughing, wiping tears from their eyes.

At that moment, Judy arrived at the bar. "Hey guys!" She called out to us brightly, making her way over to us. Then she saw the guy, and she stopped and smiled. "Oh hi! Dr. Lang!"

Dr. Lang?

We made our way over to Judy, as she engaged in a little bit of small talk.

Dr. Lang looked at us. And then gestured at Judy. "Are you all friends?" We nodded. He hesitated. "Are you all med students?" We nodded again. "Fourth years," we told him. At that point, Dr. Lang's posse of friends started laughing.

Judy smiled brightly, unaware of everything that had gone down in the past thirty minutes, and said, "Oh did you already meet? Dr. Lang was my RIC attending!"

He smiled awkwardly back. "So, are you all rotating through RIC this year?" "Next month, actually!" one of my guy friends said.

"You too?" he gestured at me, sounding a little bit aghast.

"No, I'll see you in March!" I told him.

"Ah. Looking forward to it...nice meeting you guys," he replied, but he could not sound any less enthused.

We walked back over to our post at the bar, where we promptly dissolved into fits of giggles, as Judy kept asking what exactly was so funny.

My friends suggested that I keep the flower and wear it in my white coat for my rotation. I found out the next day that one of the guys actually took it. Just in case he needed it for blackmail. Even though grades no longer matter.

Love the way you lie

I haven't talked to J in more than 4 weeks.

But today I had a really stressful day, so I called him up. And even though he normally lets all of his calls go to voicemail, today, he surprisingly picked up right away. It's like he knew.

And the moment he said, hey, what's up?, I started bawling as I poured out everything that has gone wrong these past couple of days. All my self-esteem issues that are ridiculously amplified by the whole application process.

And instead of making fun of me and my hiccup-ridden conversation as he normally would have, he just reassured me. Told me that I would match. And that I would get great training no matter where I ended up - even if it was in Sarah Palin's Alaska.

Because even though I probably have had this exact same conversation more times than I can count, I just want to be reassured. Because there are times when the self-doubt and the what-if's overwhelm, and I drown in my worries. And that's when I need someone like J to pull me out of my pool of negativism, with a reassuring line or two.

Sigh. I miss my J&L dinners.

Three coins in the fountain

ME

Oh my goodness, this is the cutest coin bank I've ever seen.

MARTIN

It's for a child.

ME

It's so cute.

MARTIN

And really, who's going to put in one coin at a time? Who has the patience to wait for each coin to be taken??

ME

[replaying video for 4th time since starting this conversation]

I would.

Make you feel my love

When I was in high school, I was on the journalism team. I loved writing. Whether it was a profile on the school's first girl football player or an expose on pyramid schemes, it never took me more than thirty minutes to knock an article out. And people enjoyed what I wrote. It got to the point where I was given my own column - michillaneous musings - and a monthly stipend. Sure, it was only $10, but it made paying for museum tickets and coffees more accessible.

I became the youngest person to oversee a newspaper section on my own, and was named the "Best Journalist of the Year" two years in a row.

Now, our newspaper wasn't all too shabby. We would go to competitions and sweep everything. We would have awards in every category, except for one thing.

My category.

I was always entered into the feature/human interest race. And I always lost.

Maybe it's because writing under pressure never appealed to me. The things I wrote about were fun, fluffy. There were never any consequences to my articles, except during competitions. Then, it was WRITE or DIE.

And so those articles were terrible. I would sit there for fifteen of my allotted 45 minutes, just writing and rewriting the first paragraph, because I knew how important it was that my sentences grab the reader and drag them into a world I would then create. A world that never completely materialized. A world that never won the prize.

Fast forward 10 years, and I'm still writing. Fluff pieces on my blog about patients and my life in medical school. Things just for fun. Things of no significance.

But now I have to write my personal statement. Something that DOES matter. Something that residencies will look at to determine if I'm a good fit for their school.

I've been trying to write the same thing for the last month, and every time I read it, I know it's not right. It doesn't have the right gravitas, the right tone, the right amount of yearning without turning sappy. It's not award-winning.

Bottom line? I have writer's block. But I must finish this personal statement today. I'm just worried because I know it's not going to be any good. And that stresses me out.

The heart of life

She started tearing up and reached over to clasp his hand.

"We're not going to leave you, Daddy," she said.

"Well, of course not. It's too hot to go outside!" he tried to joke, but the tremor in his voice gave him away, as his eyes started to well up as well.

My patient has small cell lung cancer. And even though he's currently getting palliative radiation, today we had the discussion about end-of-life goals of care. And today, we had to face the fact that our patient only has weeks to months to live.

Sure, we may have had numerous classes about difficult conversations. And this - this was probably the most difficult conversation of them all. Ask the patient what they know. Ask them how much they want to know. Be honest, and be compassionate. Allow them to ask questions. Don't rush. Be there. Offer tissues. Hold their hand, if appropriate.

But all the classes in the world couldn't prepare me for all the emotions that were in that room. All the emotions that made me start to tear up too.

Call your parents tonight and remind them you love them. Because, as my patient said, "tomorrow isn't a guarantee, it's a gift." Carpe diem, indeed.

Blow it all away

I love my days off. And with the recent switcheroo of senior residents, it's been eleven days since my last day off. When we start hitting the double digits, my body just gets so out of sorts, it doesn't know how to function.

Today's my day off. And I had big plans for it. Big giant do-everything-you-can-so-real-life-doesn't-get-in-the-way-of-Martin-visiting plans.

I was going to finally finish my study abroad application. I was going to fine-tune my personal statement and send it to all my letter of recommendation writers. I was going to clean my apartment and have people over for an actual sit-down dinner. I was going to study and do questions. I was going to finally tackle that molehill of laundry that has slowly evolved into a mountain. I was going to clean everything - my sheets, my blankets, and even my pillows, because I had just read on some do-it-yourself website that the more often you wash your pillows, the fluffier they are. My pillows had never been washed since I bought them a year ago. And my pillows were becoming flatter and flatter pancakes with each passing night.

So I woke up this morning, threw 2 pillows into the washing machine as instructed (to balance it, of course), and sat down at my computer to do a block of Step 2 questions.

Sixty minutes later, I finish my block of questions and answers, and go out to the kitchen to grab a Sunkist.

And the moment I open my bedroom door, my foot splashes into a puddle. Literally. Splashed. As in, my foot went down, and water came up and splattered around my ankles and calves.

Sometime while I was figuring out 44 questions, my washing machine overflowed. Leaving me with a giant lake in between my room, the kitchen, and the bathroom.

I threw down every single towel, rug, doohickey, and doodad I owned, hoping to absorb most of the water before it soaked down through the ceiling of my neighbors downstairs. But there seemed to be no end to it. My roommate had the good sense to call the maintenance people (not just for clogged drains, friends!), who finally came with this huge water vacuum. It was amazing. But not at all useful, unfortunately.

So now we're sitting here, with very damp carpet, and industry-sized fans blowing the crap out of it.

Per maintenance people, the fans need to stay on for 2 days straight. 2 days. 2 days of mindnumbingly loud whirring and shirring from this stupid fan, for this stupid lake.

Real life stuff really asserted itself on my day off. I just thought it was going to be real life application stuff. Not real real life. But I guess that's just how the cookie crumbles.

Angel tonight

Three days ago, we picked up a bounce-back patient. Three days ago, her family decided that they wanted to withdraw care. Yesterday night, her daughter from Florida arrived at the hospital.

Today, we held a family meeting.

And today, we started a fentanyl drip and took her off the machines. Two hours later, she was no longer with us.

I didn't know her personally, but it was still incredibly sad.