On flight

I did, in fact survive my first aviation experience this week.  I know that a couple of you were probably a tad concerned at the thought of me operating an aircraft...  To be truthful, so was I.


But fly, I did.  My vessel was the Cirrus SR-22:

My mission? Not to die or kill my very sweet co-pilot/instructor, Mr C (who was probably nearing seventy.)


The day began with what I have experienced for the past two weeks consistently - death by powerpoint.  This is the favorite way of the Force to lull and disable their members into a stupor and submission (after which they show videos of stuff getting blown up to remind us that we have a reason for having sold our souls to the US government.   By the bye, the one second the clip of the 'heavy' (read: big girl) plane shooting off the "angel" flares - that's my new baby, the Hercules C130 - be ready to hear more about her for many moons.)  The slide production was punctuated with bursts of free powerade, diet pepsi, cheese cubes, and one subway sandwich.  (For once, good job to the Force for feeding and hydrating us appropriately.)  I then proceeded to the flight simulator where I crashed EVERY airplane I managed to get off of the ground (I also crashed the 2 the instructor had to take off for me.)  Needless to say, my career as a functional member of the flightline was looking grim and I was feeling more than nervous about operating a real plane.


I was nervously pawing though my attaché case for my water bottle when Mr. C, my flight instructor, cornered me and said it was time to go.  I nervously followed him onto the airpad.  I climbed and strapped into the plane.  I put on my head set.  I prayed that Mr. C could not hear how loud and fast my heart was beating.  We taxied around what seemed like the longest taxi-way on earth and were on the runway.  I followed my hand on the tandem controls as Mr C calmly accelerated, pulled back on the stick, and we were airborne.  


"The plane is yours."


"No, sir.  Not yet it isn't."  This was not the anticipated reply. (I was supposed to say, "The plane is mine", after which he would reiterate, "The plane is yours.")  But I was petrified, eyes like dinner plates, staring out the windows at the land of Ohio growing smaller below me.  It was both breathtaking and harrowing all at once.  A few moments later I regained some composure... and Mr C threw both hands off of the controls and into the air and suggested I had better fly the plane.  I grabbed my stick and flew for the next hour.


The scene and feel was near idyllic.  Cruising at 2-4 thousand feet over a vast green, rolling landscape.  A smooth touch-and-go landing on an airstrip 15 miles from our home airport was followed by a return following the graceful curves of highway 35.  I would lie to say the entire landing was my own doing, but about 85% was, with some tweaking from Mr C.  All in all, it was a successful and life-changing flight.  I was ecstatic upon taxing in to the gate:

Finally, I started to feel connected with my new job as the Squadron Medical Element for an airlift group of the Force.  This has not been an easy transition time for me, moving into this new job.  I have had a hard time bringing it up with everyone who is near and dear to me, and thus have been hiding many of the things I know that are coming changes in my life.  Once I am credentialed, I will be spending alternating 4 month periods of time in a "sandbox" very far from home.  This will be a continuing progression - 4 months there, 4 months home, 4 months there, 4 months home... you get the picture.  Needless to say, this adjustment has been a hard one - for me - for K - for my parents.  Few other people know what is going on (even still with the 4 of you included.)  


You who read this know me.  You know I will stand up to anyone, anytime, any place for what I believe in.  But for the first time in my life, standing up and doing my job scares me out of my wits.  I have a man I love more than life itself, a wonderful family, and so many wonderful friends who would love and support me to the end of time, and I am supposed to just up and leave these people at home?  Excuse my french, but 'Whisky tango foxtrot'?!?


But then I look at the faces of my airmen, my pilots, my clinic staff.  And I look at K, my family, and my dear friends, and I understand why I am doing this.  This is not going to be an easy 4 years.  I am not going to like a lot of it.  It is going to put heavy pressure on every relationship I hold dear.  It is going to push me to the bounds of my scope of ethics, sanity, and sanctity of life.  I am going to walk with my men/women onto a war zone and will support them there as one of their own.  In many ways, intern year has nothing on this.  Few things ever will.  But as I learned in my origianl Force training:


" I am an American fighting in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense."


I'm not sure this actually meant what it was supposed to in my life until now, and I have a feeling it will mean far more to me before this phase of my life has come to an end.  


 Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
 And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
 Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
 of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
 You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
 High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
 I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
 My eager craft through footless halls of air....

 Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
 I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.
 Where never lark, or even eagle flew —
 And, while with silent lifting mind I have trod
 The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
 - Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.


~High Flight, J.G. Magee, Jr

St. Abilene

Greetings to all four of you (my devoted fans)!  I am not, in fact, dead - as many of you might have, thought.  Yes, I know I have not posted in an embarrassingly lengthy length of time.

As you might imagine, I did finally arrive in Abilene, despite that it will be a little out of order, the travel saga may need to wait until a later date.  (There will be laughable stories to be had, I assure you!)

But yes, on the 1st of July, K and I pulled into Abilene and drove for the first of (hopefully) millions of times up to our first home.

The first walking though it was a truly strange experience.  I was both in love with the place and petrified.  Luckily, we stayed in a hotel for the next 2 nights until I adjusted to the place.   K was amazing though it all and bent over backwards to make sure i was comfortable as possible in the place.  We spent our first 4th of July together cleaning up the jungle-like yard (I only wish I had pictures of him hand-cutting the front yard with a sickle.)  In summation, we cooked an amazing burger dinner on our new grill.  It finally was starting to feel like home.  K then left to go back to work.

After 4 nights of the air mattress, the AF decided to let me now that while my household goods had arrived in TX, there would not a be a crew available for over TWO WEEKS to actually deliver said goods from a warehouse in Abilene to my home.  Since those of you that read this tend to know me better than most, you can imagine the fit I pitched in my SUV after getting off of that phone call.  I promptly then went home to Houston and proceeded to stay there for 10 days enjoying family, friends, and my darling man.

I drove back to Abilene alone.  As soon as I left Houston, it began to rain.  As soon as I hit Washington county, I hit deadlock traffic.  Thirty minutes later, my dad calls to tell me that he and my mother will not be coming to help me move in because the dog died.  This was, needless to say, one of the lower points of the moving experience.

The movers arrived the next day, as did the parents, who decided that the grief of canine death should not, perhaps, preclude the moving of their eldest daughter into her first real house.  Things were finally starting to fall somewhat into place.

Sears was supposed to deliver the washer and dryer we bought the next day.  I never received my confirmation delivery call.  (Let's just mention now that Sears is my new archenemy of retail.)  I spent the next 24 hours fighting on the phone with various Sears personnel in my master bathroom (out of earshot of my very conservative parents, should worse come to worst and i have to use my surgeon words).  After verbally expressing extreme disappointment in them ("I expected better than this - you are freaking Sears-Roebuck, for crying out loud!") and threatening to completely cancel my order ("You can just take off the washer, dryer, two pedestals, and the dryer connection from my bill, and I will be coming in to pay off the balance and cancel my card in your store tomorrow"), they finally decided to find a truck and deliver to me the following morning.  My washer and dryer arrived in a red pickup truck, but I didn't care.  I beat the corporate beast (and without using my surgeon words!)

Speaking of surgeon words and surgery, every day I get further from the profession, I become happier and more myself again than I have been in a very, very long time.  I don't have a real answer right now as to my future in medicine, however I can tell you all, it is unlikely to be surgery.

As of now, I am up in Ohio, getting my flight surgeon training done.  Tomorrow I will fly an airplane for the first time - as in, the stick will be in my tiny little hands.  It's going to be interesting,  Avoid the friendly skies.  If I survive, you will hear more stories to come soon.

St. Abilene, watch over me
Keep me safe, make me strong, help me see
May you keep me company when company I need
Watch over me, St. Abilene
~Drew Kennedy

Pulling up roots

Hard to believe I officially moved to CA a year ago, nearly to the week.  It has truly been quite the year.

Sitting here with less than 2 weeks of actual intern year remaining, I'm musing into my wine and perusing the memories the past year has brought.  I'm thinking of all of the great food I have tasted, the wines I have savored, the hands I have held, the incisions I've made, the beds I have stood/paced/slept beside, the necks I have hugged, the nights that I've cried alone, the sinks full of dirty dishes, the road trips, the laughter, the long walks, the moments of complete bliss, the moments when I doubted everything, the lectures, the pats on the back, the fights, the apologies, the blessings, the love, the fears, and the growth I have seen in both myself and others.  I'm not sure I could tell you that a single other year of my life has been more life-changing.

Here are some honest truths:

• I serve a God who is faithful and true.  That's the singular driving way I've actually survived this year, for certain.
• I may never be a surgeon again.  I might be okay with that, but am not completely sure.
• I love this house, but have never been so ready to leave a place when my time to move had come
• There are a few distinct things and a handful of people that I will truly miss when I leave CA, bot otherwise, I am fairly ready to return to the best county (er.. state) in the union.
• No matter what field I choose, I will be a better doctor because of this year.
• I have found and am loved deeply by my soul's mate.  
• Life is too short for fair-weather friends, bad wine, or floppy bacon.

Here are a few things NOT to take at face value:

• Surgeons are all type-A machines with no feelings or family lives.  (That said, they do not get this rap for no reason. But there are many, many exceptions to this norm.)
• California is full of liberal hippies.  (While I haven't found a ton of Bush fans out here, I've been pleased with a level of conservatism and realism that I otherwise would not have expected.)
• If you don't conduct a relationship, or love, or marriage the exact same way as everyone else in the Western world, there is something horribly wrong.  (This is not as easy to figure out or convey to others as one might think.)
• A true best friend always finds time to call.  (If this is true, I have no friends entirely.  Thank Christ they few truly kindred friends I have know I'm just not going to call for a possibly long time, and that's okay because I still love them.)

Today I have been tidying up my house so that my landlord could show it to potential renters.  It's an odd feeling, but a strangely good one.  Within a few days, I should have plans for the military-contracted movers to come and take all of my things.  Then it is just me, the car full of necessities (and things the movers won't touch like wine and windex), and the lonely hotel room on base until K arrives to drive with me to our new "home".  

Yes, I am moving to Abilene, TX.  The return to the "promised land is a favorable one, however Abilene is about as remote and isolated as we could have chosen.  (Needless to say, the choice for Abilene stemmed from a selection list with such winners as: Montana, northeastern Washington, New Jersey, Nebraska, Arkansas, small island south of Japan, and Guam.  Yeah, so Abilene.)  Strangely, I have adjusted to the idea and am fairly pleased with this.  We have a rent home lined up, and I am looking forward to a job where I can come home and sleep in my bed every night - most of which being without a pager at my side.  True, K has yet to find a job there, so for the time being he will stay put in the big H and only fly in for alternating weekends (we hope.)  True, I will be working in a clinic every day.  True, there is no massage envy in a 30 mile radius.  Nonetheless, I have faith that this new step, like all the rest, will be a fruitful one, full of adventures and stories to share.  

Knowing how I blog, you can bet the next post will be from Abilene ;-)

Twenty-seven

It's that time of year again... time to celebrate my entry into the world as we know it.  I am swirling a glass of cabernet and blankly staring at my laptop trying to think of something clever or wise to say about the whole mess, but nothing comes to mind.

Yarf.

I'm turning 27 years old the day after tomorrow.  27.  that's starting to look like a large number.  It looks like a number for a person who has started to figure things out.  I'm not sure that's really happening to me yet, but maybe it's one of those things you don't really notice coming on until it's full-blown - like PMS or something.

I'd say I feel old, but most people I work with are already in their thirties or beyond, so I still feel like a kid all of the time.  I have a doctorate and am working as a surgeon in one of the larger hospitals in California.  I own my own car.  I pay my own rent and all of my bills.  I am becoming a bit of a wine connoisseur.  One of my best friends is getting married next month, one of the others is undoubtedly to have a ring creeping her direction in the coming year, and even I've got serious plans brewing in the name of matrimony.  We ARE actually grown-ups, I just don't feel like I'm there.

Anytime I do something blatantly stupid and then have to go through the awkward "Gosh-that-was-stupid" moments afterward, K always asks the same question:

What'd ya learn?

So without further prattling, here's a few nuggets of truth that I've learned over year twenty-seven:

• Cheap wine is not always bad, and expensive wine is not always good.  That being said, I have made the official move toward keeping $12-15 bottles around versus the $7-9 of yesteryear.
• True friends, though hard to come by, are worth their weight in gold.
• Love really does win.
• Steaks are really meant for grills, not ovens.
• Hotwings and beer will cover a multitude of sorrows. 
• Regular self care - including haircuts, pedicures, brow waxing, etc. - is actually really important.  When you know you look your best, you just pain function and present yourself better.
• The decision to marry the right person really is as easy as everybody says.
• You can tell a lot about the general health and well-being of a person by examining their toes and their teeth.  That can usually tell you 70% of what you need to know.
• "Yes sir", "no sir", yes, ma'am", no ma'am", "please", and "thank you" will get you really far in the world.  Mom wasn't kidding.
• Fresh flowers, however frivolous, are worth it and then some.
• Good bedding is a good investment.  You spend a good chunk of your life in bed.  Unless, of course you are a surgeon, and even then it's even more appreciated I think.
• Tip well.  People who should be tipped excessively well?  Hairdresser, manicurist, and a good bartender at a regular watering hole.
• Don't go to bed angry.
• Hold tight to the things you know to be true and real and important.  Let everything else slide.
• Nurses have two functions: making the resident look good or making the resident look like a complete idiot.  You want them the only do their first because they're reeeeally good at the second.
• Happiness has no price tag.  
• Don't leave for a 36 hour shift without taking out the kitchen trash - especially if it is full.
• Laughter really is the best medicine.
• Enjoy the little things daily.  
• Leave work at work.  Ruining your home life is easy when you don't.  It will also get you thumped upside the head with the broad side of a butter knife.
• Learn to love your body.  It may not be perfect, but it's the one you got and after some real looking around you, you might find you got a pretty good deal, love-handles and all.
• Be confident.  Be brave.  Go there.
• Leftover fish just really never works out well.  the exception?  Leftover shark.  This works.
• Take your vitamins or your hair will fall out.
• Call Momma at least once a week.  You need it - even if you are a grown-up.
• Don't be afraid to initiate hugs or grab a hand of someone who hurts.
• It's okay to have ice cream for breakfast sometimes.  Those days just happen.
• Always eat breakfast - there will inevitably be hell to pay if you don't.
• Nothing beats a good pair of boots
• You are not in charge.  Get over it.
• Make time to do the things you love.  
• Write love letters.  They're as good to write as they are to receive.
• Enjoy the past, dream for the future, but mostly, live in the moment.  Drink it in.

Cheers to you all.  Bring on year #28.

Reevaluation

I will admit to you now, this is going to be an annoyingly and inappropriately short post on what should be a lengthy and heavy subject of discussion.  My apologies up front.

I am sitting in the quiet solitude of my trauma call room, overlooking the lights of Sacramento, trying to wind down for a nap, and praying that the pager keeps silent.  I complete the half-way point of my intern year of general surgery with this shift.  I am not, at present, incredibly tired, incredibly stressed, hungry, sick, upset or worried about anything in particular, and yet - something inside of me feels misplaced.  For the first time in nearly 4 years of swearing that it could only be a surgeon's life for me, I am having real and serious second thoughts.  Having spent my entire life as a resolute, staunch Type-A, go-getter - clearly, this terrifies me.

It is not that I have had bad experiences this past 7 months, in fact, I feel that I have learned more in them than perhaps in my entire last 8 years of education combined in many ways.  I have not been mistreated or unnecessarily roughed by the faculty, staff, or other residents.  I know that surgeons (not to mention ICU nurses) can be a gruff breed, but I truly have loved and admired most of the people I have worked with here.  It's not that I do not love the surgeries.  I love getting my hands dirty and being in the thick of things - literally.  In so many ways, surgery just fits. 

Still, there is something in me saying that this is not where my life is headed.  I can't fully explain or put a finger on all of the reasoning or subconscious muck behind it, but I do know that the voice has been getting louder and more clear over the past couple months.  I might have been wrong. 

Truly, I think that a large part of this comes with part of the growing up I have done this year.  I have finally really been on my own, thousands of miles away from everyone and everything I hold dear.  I have found the man I am going to marry and have a family with.  Suddenly, I have been stripped out of this self-centered (not in a bad way) universe of my own, and have started to think of things in a wider sense of just how they affect my goals for life.  In fact, I think my goals themselves have even shifted about. 

As I look at my future, I loathe the idea of being the wife and mother who is never home, or the daughter, granddaughter, and sister who isn't able to visit more than maybe once a year.  I don't want to continue life as the friend who is always to busy or too tired to call back.  I don't want to spend the next thirty years missing or sleeping through every birthday, holiday, weekend adventure, or just plain old Saturday.  I want to be an active and present participant in my marriage, my family, my church, my friendships, and my community.  All of this and more has risen to the forefront of my mind and can no longer be pushed to the back.

I don't know where this is going.  In 6 months I'm going to move to an unknown location and start working at the complete opposite end of medicine from surgery - clinical primary care.  I'm not sure what to expect, and in fact, I like that prospect rather well at present.  What I do know is that changes are a'comin'.

The goose is getting fat

Christmas is coming.  Like soon.  Like Saturday.  Good grief.

Funny how it feels so different this year.  True, I have been playing Christmas records for 5 weeks now, and the tree has been up and trimmed for nearly 3, but somehow it just doesn't really feel like Christmas always has.  For all of my usual holiday cheer, somehow it still feels like another work week, except that now I just have a really large, lighted houseplant to remember to water.

I guess I never realized how much I associated Christmas with being home with my family.  I think that's why everything feels so foreign and unreal.  It can't be Christmas because I am here and not in The Swamp (where it was a balmy 84 today, I hear) trying not to pick fights with Momma and helping Dad fry a turkey. 

It really has set in that Christmas morning will come, and they will all go to the living room, drink their coffee, and have Christmas without me.  It's not that I am so self-centered that I feel that the world stops turning when I'm not there (well, mostly), I think more it's a worry that I might be in some way forgotten among the presents and the crazy family antics.  I know in my heart that these fears are totally unfounded, but it's a strange ache all the same.

However, this year is the beginning for new Christmas traditions.  For the first time, I cut down and then decorated my very own live tree (a Herculean task to be sure - 5 foot woman vs 9.5 foot tree)

I am officially done with fake trees from now on, though next year I will be looking for a little help when I go head to trunk with nature!

This was the first year of a non-photo Christmas card.  I am vastly unsatisfied with this tradition and will be not upholding it in coming years.  Waaaay less fun.

While I may still be working though the holiday season (hello trauma team Christmas day!), what is truly wonderful is that K is going to be here though the whole thing.  It is our first real Christmas together where we can start some of our own traditions that we will carry for years with our own family.  For this I am very, very excited. 

One of said traditions to be formed is our Christmas dinner.  As I will be working 0600-1800, the meal preparation is being left entirely to K ( danger, Will Robinson!) This makes the control freak in me twitch a little.  However, he has promised me that he will make anything that I want.  I've actually put a lot of thought into this.  I do love the traditional turkey dinner that my family has generally enjoyed through the years, but I'm not sold on it (especially since I can't deep fry one.)  K's family has always done Mexican food on Christmas eve, and while I think this idea sounds amazing (see last post re: fajitas), I have yet to find a quality margarita and Mexican food place in this town.  Chinese food is a little too A Christmas Story for me.  So after much deliberation, I have decided that nothing in the world could be better than (at least one of my readers (S) has probably already said it) - STEAK.  Christmas dinner with our family is going to be steak.  I just hope none of out future kids decide to become vegetarians!

As to other traditions to come, well, we'll have to see what comes to us over the next week (did I mention that K will be here in 24 hours?!  Who has two thumbs and is excited? This girl!) While I am not in TX, and am not doing the things I have done for 26 years worth of Christmases so far, I do have hope that this one will be truly joyous, merry, and one that I will remember for the rest of my life.

Merry Christmas to you and yours, y'all.