Another Year Down

Things are moving pretty fast around here. During the month of November I knocked out two short rotations: anesthesia and radiology. I'm currently manning the crazy people (or the ones that don't know where they're at) on psychiatry with only two weeks to go. This rotation has been pretty quiet. I am only allowed to really see the patients we are consulted on in the hospital since most of the patients seen in the clinic are employees at the hospital and don't want us in the room. So I mainly just sit around the library doing some online shopping and working on assignments my attending gives me. Of course on my birthday this would all get thrown out the window and become a super insane day. We had two code blues, two new consults, a degloving of a shin in the ER that required 22 stitches, and I was able to sit in on two kiddos with ADHD. And it culminated in me going home work on an article review which I had to give the next morning. The highlight of the whole day was when I poked my head out of the triage room in the ER to let the family know I was about to put the last stitch in and as I was closing the door I heard the daughter on the phone telling someone that "the doctor just let them know that she was about done with the stitches". I got "thank you doctor" from the patient and her kids when I was done too. The excitement of that is not lost on this girl.

I made the whirlwind trip back home for Thanksgiving and was able to see family I haven't seen for a whole year and meet new little ones. There was the traditional soccer game, noodle and Grandma Hill's roll making, and going in to Seattle for dessert and putting up the Christmas tree. This of course was followed by (successful!) Black Friday shopping to knock out all the cousins. It is always nice to spend time with family but with recent family stress, it was that much more important. There have been a great deal of changes at the hospital my mom works at with new management stepping in who are implementing a lot of changes. One of these changes is asking my mom to step down from the manager position she has held for the past five years. With hospitals on the West coast still recovering from the recession, there aren't many open positions in management and with the extensive neuropathy my mom has from chemo, she is fearful of taking a position back at the bedside. With her ongoing surveillance for cancer, there is also a lot of anxiety when it comes to losing insurance since she carries both of my parents' insurance. Needless to say, there is a lot of stress at home.

Hope everyone had a very Happy Thanksgiving and you are enjoying the holiday season!