One Hundred and Eighty-one, Everyday Doctoring Stuff

Last week Wednesday I received an email from the Beatnik.  He'd recently done 129 questions to see what Dungeons and Dragons character build he would be and was curious what our friend circle would get.  This was in the morning.  I set aside this task since I was heading into the hospital and decided to confront this monster of a quiz later on that day.

Wednesday continued and I learned that I would be participating in a big surgery starting at 2 PM called a "free fibula flap" surgery.  If you Google it, the second hit that comes up does a good succint job of describing it.  I describe it below in brief.  Anyway, we didn't finish the surgery and I didn't get back to the apartment until 1:00 AM Thursday morning from the hospital.  I had a pounding headache from lack of food and liquids but I had just seen an amazing surgery.  I saw a slew of emails from all of my friends who had replied their character builds throughout the day as they completed the 129 question quiz.  The last one was from the Beatnik again, addressing all of us.  Here it is, and pardon any language that might be offensive to you.

The Beatnik's question to the world:

"Well our party is pretty varied.  We have Drock as the all powerful wizard.  I'm the tree hugging hippy druid.  Crazy Blonde is the know it all Wizard.  Woodwind is the touchy feely Cleric and Lord Chaos is our soul devouring Fighter/sorcerer.  The Engineer is our totally not gay Bard.  And I know you are all wondering the same question I am,

 

WHAT THE FUCK IS DAVE!?!? TAKE THE GOD DAMN TEST!

 

Our group make up would put Lord Chaos in the front.  Me and Woodwind in the middle with the Engineer close behind (Dancing or doing whatever the fuck bards do), Crazy Blonde and Drock as our artillery in the rear (tee hee).  And I know you are all curious about one thing,

 

WHERE THE FUCK IS DAVE?

 

I know me too.  Kinda fun, maybe we should all cosplay sometime (shudder) 

love,

The Beatnik 

p.s.  TAKING THE FUCKING TEST DAVE! "

Reading this at 1:00 AM, I quickly sent out a reply to everyone:

"I just saw a guy’s left jaw taken out, then a bone from his leg taken and put in with a metal bracket to work as a jaw, then his pec from his left chest pasted over the bone, and then multiple skin grafts.  This morning I briefly read your email at 6:00 AM before running off to the hospital.  There I have been until 1 AM right now.  I don’t think I need a test to tell everyone that I’m some type of good cleric

I’ll take it one day. 

-Dave"

I felt that while this might be harsh, it helped explain why I hadn't replied and that I'd get to it when I had a chance.  Little did I realize but in the couple of hours of sleep I got, the Beatnik had responded:

"Lol, now was that so hard?  I kind of realized your crazy schedule after a little while.  You're doing something right now that I could never do.  I know that you're in a world of doctors and people who do this shit all the time.  But, those of us who don't have MD in front of our names are pretty impressed by what you're doing right now.  Just thought you should know. 

Keep up the good work Cleric Dave,

The Beatnik"

This was 6 AM Thursday morning after a 4 hour nap.  I paused.  

and continued to pause.

I have become so inundated with cholecystectomies (gallbladder removals) and hernia repairs (fixing weak areas of bellies and groins) and other surgical terms that I was missing out on the simple fact that the majority of humanity never sees the things surgeons and the OR staff do.  Yeah, during the surgery I wondered who the hell thought up taking someone's bone from a leg to rebuild a jaw, but the actual procedure never amazed me because it made sense.  To laypeople though, it's practically magic.  The patient sees the difference between what they used to look and feel like compared to how everything is after a surgery and it's amazing.  

That's what my two months on Surgery have boiled down to: Amazing.

One Hundred and Sixty, Contra

Dancing something called the Contra - Free on first go, $3 for each subsequent visit.

Seeing one of the Kids - whatever a tank of gasoline costs to drive an hour and half.

Wearing yourself out and then getting only three hours of sleep before your 7:30 surgery the following day? Priceless

One Hundred and Fifty-four, Mind Stew

The past few weeks have been quite a rough road for me and others around the country. The part I keep trying to wrap my head around is that Life and Time don't stop. Every now and then you get into this point where you're having fun and enjoying yourself but it's hard to stay right in that position without something throwing a monkey wrench into your fun. I did spend some of my days off playing Warcraft like an addict and it felt great compared to the grind of the questions and study materials. But inevitably, I'd notice the time was 2 or 3 AM or my lids would automatically droop and I'd know that when I woke up, it would all be gone again traded in exchange for another set of grueling study hours. The Engineer just bought himself a house and is in the process of moving over there. He's had many points where he had decisions to make and time would force his hand when he would have rather had the chance to make carefully reviewed, forward-looking plans. Many of my friends are looking to the next few months and wondering how their life will look and where it will be. And for them it's probably the scariest. But that's what the rest of us are for and willing to help them cope with. Their minds are all in a jumble wondering what progress they're making on their goals and if they're going down the right road or just a screwed up one. Sometimes they can't even sleep well at night because of the cacophony of thoughts with them.

I still wish my mind would quiet.

One Hundred and Thirty-eight, Unconscious

It's been a while since I've awakened from a deep sleep with some random letters typed into an IM window leaving that person to wonder what text I've "entered." Tonight I had fkdjcxm. Oh yeah...

One Hundred and Thirty-three, The Antigloaming

I went to bed at a reasonable time last night and while I had some trouble getting up, it was nothing like what I've had to deal with when I'm running on less than two hours of sleep. Today I ended up snoozing for only 45 minutes and then was functioning properly. I even noticed the water deposited overnight on the window next to my bed.

As I pulled out of the parking lot, the sky had that look of starting to brighten. I noticed a junkyard's electromagnet crane which looked like it was illuminated with sunshine but in reality it was a set of bright lights set upon it (so the operators could see the junk they were moving easily?). The drive in was to Wax Fang's "At Sea" and I just floated into the parking lot. The walk to school was to the start of the Nurse Duckett chapter of Catch-22 (and me humming "At Sea"). I put my jacket away in my locker trying to recall which lecture I had this morning at 8:00 AM. If I recall correctly, it was CNS - Reading Time. Oh... I guess I don't have class for an hour. My head's personal April Fool's joke.

To Blog!

One Hundred and Twenty-eight, The Beauty of Rest

This morning I helped with the physical conundrums of throwing a fundraising 5k run/walk. I had to be there at six in the morn...Yeah, it was tough. The adrenaline from being standing kept most of us going strong but towards the end, it began hitting a lot of us. Not that we looked like sleeping idiots during it, but we could tell our energies were flagging more than they should. Over lunch Amish Girl was getting sleepy-eyed and when I returned during Warcraft, my head would nod off. So I headed off to bed promptly fell asleep for four hours. I'm curious how this will mess with my sleeping schedule, if at all. We'll see!

One Hundred and Nine, My Snoring Schedule

I slept in today. I'm finding that this schedule is becoming the norm these days. I get 4-6 hours of sleep per night during weeknights and then I find at least one day on the weekend to sleep in as late as my body allows me to. I don't necessarily enjoy my lack of sleep during the week, but I work to get enough to stay healthy over a week. Plus I just get incoherent without sleep (see previous entry). I've got some big things up on the horizon now. First is my next Block Exam. I know I can knock it out of the park if I put in even half of the time I put in on previous exams. And next is Spring Break. I need the time to catch up on sleep and relax. I can't wait!

One Hundred and Eight, Random Incoherencies

I'm sleepy enough that I'm fall......zzzzzzzzzzz..........ing asleep eyes are useless and a han...........zzzzzzz..........dicap to my teaching methology. You've taugh previsou students and even they can't see what's going on in my head.

[glances at what I just wrote]

I get really goofy when I'm sleepy. So I'm just going to stop.

Eighty-four, Pushing Hard

Every so often, I get these urges to perform well. Which usually means sleep loses. It's 1:03 AM and I'm done with my assigned set of "Learning Objectives" (fancy words for testable material). I'm about to go to bed and sleep (by 1:30 at the latest). I'm going to hope to get up by 5 AM so I can get ready and then start studying for today's quiz. Off I go for a couple hours to nap.

Sixty-seven, Flop-flip

Glancing at the clock I realize that it's almost 3:30 in the morning. How times have changed where I'm the one going to bed and wake up really late while my good friends go to bed early and wake up earlier than myself. I used to take a book with me on sleepovers so that I'd have something quiet to do during the morning hours that I'd be awake while the others slumbered. Lately I just collapse into bed and awaken when someone else's alarm goes off or someone shakes me awake. Yup, things are different.

Goodnight!

Fourty-four, Observances

I skipped a day! Well sort of. It's still "Thursday" for me despite the clock having gone over to after midnight. So I will make these brief notes for you before heading off to sleep:

Wear shoes outside when it's cold.
Remember your Death Star-adorned pizza.
Always pet a kitty once.
Remember to toast the cook.
Four hours of sleep can last you 18 hours of wakefulness.
People in Alaska are crazy.
People in Texas are crazier.
People in Kentucky are wonderful.
And folks in New Orleans suburbs are eagerly awaited.

I did not post on the 6th of the month, HA!

Thirty-three, Chin

Our Nutrition lecturer in one of our courses has this strong chin. Sort of like this one, but a slightly younger fellow. I don't know why I notice this but I do.

*sigh*

Let me sleep...
Let me read...
Let me play...
Let me see my friends...

If you can't tell, I am tired. I thought I was tired sometimes back in undergrad. I think there was only one time where I got even close to being this worn out and it sure wasn't my final year in school. There's a golden light at the end of it; that's what keeps me going...

Thirty-one, Something Funny

I cannot recall something today that was uproariously funny...that's dangerous. I'll work on that for tomorrow, see if I can't scrounge something up. Oh! I fell asleep while reading a book during lunch and apparently two classmates who were in the room with me thought I was engrossed in my book. At least until one of them poked me and I jerked awake. How's that? Huzzah!