Big Day

Tomorrow feels like a big day. It’s Amber’s birthday for one (and if you don’t know Amber I guess I should confess that it is mine as well). I decided today that I should celebrate my last day as a young 27 year old. I even ate birthday cake (although it was someone else’s). It feels like a new beginning, partly because…

It is also my last day of my (second) first year of residency! I made it. What a crazy couple of years with some funny stories. Maybe I will have to tell some more when I remember them. Anyway, I am definitely celebrating my time on my own oral surgery team (one more day) before I enter the scary and busy world of general surgery. I have so much to learn! including how much sleep I really need.

---and I cleaned the bathroom! I feel ready. Bring on the appendix removals, the thyroids, colon resections, and gallbladders. My bathroom is sparkly and disinfected. except for the floor. didn’t get that far.

Okay…I realize you are thinking, “Wait a minute. Is she getting excited about cleaning the bathroom? Aren’t you supposed to do that often enough that it isn’t a big deal?”

Yes, you are probably right. But for me, it just doesn’t happen nearly enough. If this bothers you, like I said in my last post, I am taking volunteers for latrine duty.

And we’ll see how clean I can keep it and when I am able to post my next post!

2.2.2.2.2.2.2.2.2.2.2.2.2.2.2.2.2.2.2.2.2.2.2.2

This has been my second year as a “first year resident” because of my intern year that I completed last year. It is strange to think that in a few more days I will finally be a second year (for the first time). It is strange that our new first year residents are here, eager and probably a little nervous to begin. Suddenly, after two years, I’m not the lowest one on the rung. That will be a very strange change.

This next year will probably prove to be my most challenging. Starting on Friday I will begin my first of four months on General Surgery. My schedule in July already looks a little daunting. I may not have the cleanest house or be in the best shape, but I think I overall manage to find a decent level of balance. Come Friday, I am seriously concerned about my ability to do anything besides work and sleep as I will be on call (days only due to new medical resident duty hour rules) 14-16 hours per day every other day (alternated with probably 10 hour days), with only 8 or 10 hours in between shifts. As that is about the amount of sleep I need each night, I am taking volunteers for bathroom duty and meals! Abraham will also be busy on his General Surgery rotation during this time so we really will be running ragged.

Once I finish in General Surgery, I will head back to my own team for a few months until I do Neurosurgery in March. That will be another busy time with 4 am morning start times. Yawn. I am feeling more sleepy by the minute.

It should be an exciting year. I am excited to increase my surgical skills and to see some new things (I’m actually hoping I get to do an amputation—see how warped my world is becoming?). I have also turned over a new leaf and am studying much more. I only have three more years to learn everything (not really, but it feels that way) so I better get to it. I did finally teach myself the one-handed surgical knot. Just in time.

I better get going! I feel like I have a lot of sleep, cooking, cleaning, etc to catch up on before the end of the week!

Plastics

I think the buzz has mostly died down, but there have been some rumors that BP recently had “plastic surgery,” which she calls “corrective jaw surgery.”
I have been interested to read the comments made by the general public in regard to her surgery. Many have been very unsupportive and have even made accusations that she is a liar and a bad person mostly because they believe she had merely cosmetic surgery and not a correction of any functional problem. Some of the comments are quite vicious, actually!
Check the link below for her explanation and some before and after pics:
http://www.usmagazine.com/healthylifestyle/news/bristol-palin-tells-us-i-had-corrective-jaw-surgery-2011115
I wanted to set the record straight. While I cannot comment on what she had done (I can speculate), “corrective jaw surgery,” or orthognathic surgery, is actually a real group of procedures and something my residency program does for hundred of patients each year. While it can cause hugely positive esthetic/cosmetic changes, it is performed primarily to help in alignment of the teeth and jaws which can be important not just for looks but also for chewing (eating!), speech, breathing, to prevent TMJ problems and tooth wear, etc. Odds are, you know someone who has undergone this procedure in the past.
What do you think? Do you think she looks better now?

Dreams and visions

I am a very vivid and wacky dreamer. I wake up almost every day telling Abe, “I had the STRANGEST dream last night.”

Last night I dreamed I was on some kind of reunion trip on an airplane on our way to a summer camp type place. I was excited to meet up with an old friend who basically told me that she would tolerate me talking to her, but really, she had already kept in touch with all of the people from her past that she was interested in being friends with and didn’t want to be my friend. I felt really bad and embarassed.

I was feeling very lonely once we arrived at my bunk and started to cry. My sister came up to me and asked what was wrong. I told about the incident and my general lack of friends. “All of my dental school friends moved away, I don’t really talk to anyone from high school or college, I’m the only girl at work, all of my church friends have or are moving away.” She asked me why I blog so much (this was a logical flow of conversation in dream world). I told her, bursting into tears, because I know I have no REAL friends so I have to pretend I do through my blog.

So there you have it. My brain pulled together all the pieces and made sense of my crazy world. I guess I don’t have any friends so if you could pretend every once and awhile by making a comment my subconcious might feel a little better.