October

Wow I can hardly believe that October is almost over! In just a few short days I will be finished with my General Surgery rotation and one of the busiest portions of my residency. The past four months have gone by quickly. I guess I’m making good progress!

This month has been an interesting one for us.

Abraham is finalizing his applications for residency. We have spent long hours and late nights agonizing over the decision of which specialty to choose and working on his application and essays. Applications are due Mon/Tuesday so we are down to the wire. I’ll keep you posted on what he chooses.

I have been sick the entire month of October and the end of September. My goal is to be sick the entire month so my current team will only know me as someone with a cough. It has been pretty nasty and my physician confirmed that I do likely have a fractured rib from coughing. I guess that can happen—maybe I’m frail, I don’t quite understand it myself. I’m amazed at how much it hurts. I am lucky the cough is slowly going away because it is agonizing to cough, laugh, deep breathe, sit up from bed, etc. I am taking codeine and wearing a tight sports bra but there isn’t anything else I can do.

I got a new pager. This doesn’t seem like a big deal but I miss my old one. This one is very loud. The menu is inconsistent, I can’t keep it on silent without it still beeping sometimes, and I miss the simplicity of my old one. The 100 hospital employees who receive the most pages received new pagers due to an overload on the other pager frequency. I evidently made the cut, and was “Actually one of the very only ones to receive one in your whole department.” I guess this could mean two things, “I work harder than everyone else in my whole department” or “I should feel relieved to be back on Oral Surgery in a few short days.” Maybe I’ll keep thinking both!

Another reason to like Oral Surgery, we have had three patients pass away this month, two more since my last post. Luckily that doesn’t happen much in the dental world. The last one was a surprise, I just sent him home 2 days ago and he was well enough to go home. Wow.

Happy Halloween!