Did I Just Have an Epiphany?

I might have had a break-through.  In school we learned about these men who would starve themselves so their brains would use ketone bodies for energy instead of the usual glucose.  Supposedly these men experienced enlightenment and heightened clarity.  Maybe they just went crazy from lack of food.  I might have experienced something similar, extreme work conditions in the ER are kind of like starvation...right?  Anyways, I realized that work cannot/should not/most likely will not be the love of my life, and I need to accept that.  For the first time it really sunk in that I have to support myself one way or another, and that being able to support myself and feed myself and have a roof over my head is actually more important than being happy or loving my job.  I need to accept the fact that my job does not define me and it is simply a means to an end.  In order to have the things that I deem necessary (unfortunately they include AC, my own place and a nearby beach at this time in my life), certain sacrifices have to be made in other areas.  I don't know why but this has been a very difficult lesson for me to learn.  I feel that in today's American society, there is so much pressure on young people to pursue their dreams and find something they love to do ("If you love your job, you'll never have to work a day in your life!"), we lose sight of the plain fact that in the end, we all just need a paycheck. I don't know why, but I have always felt guilty, like I am cheating myself out of something, if I don't love my job, and I really need to get over that.  We define people so often by their occupation, when we really shouldn't, and that includes  defining ourselves.  This is one of the few experiences I have had that make me feel (and then realize) I am getting older.  I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing....but it is definitely something new and different.

Surf Hobbit Bake

I decided what my own Eat Pray Love story would be if I had the means to do it: Surf Hobbit Bake.  I would start out in Central America, maybe Costa Rica, and would just live the simple life...no tv, movies, etc, lots of quiet time, reading, writing and most importantly, learning how to surf and working on my Spanish.  After that, I would travel to New Zealand and get a job working on the set of The Hobbit, which I think might be the coolest thing ever.  I loooooove the Lord of the Rings movies and just being around the action would be fantastic.  I would get a menial job and submerge myself in the world of Peter Jackson's take on Middle Earth and J.R.R. Tolkien.  Who knows, maybe I would even get a part as an extra hobbit or goblin!  Or I could clean the toilets.  Whatever.  After that, I would fly to France and get a job in a little bakery outside Paris somewhere, doing dishes, cleaning, whatever, until hopefully the baker/owner would decide to let me help in the baking part of it and I would learn all about pastries, cream puffs, breads, cup cakes, petit fours, etc. etc and I would finish out my year surrounded by beautiful food.  I planned it all yesterday morning when I was laying in bed trying to fall asleep, listening to the rain after a chaotic night. When I finally fell asleep, I had weird dreams about self-propelled surf boards.  Maybe today I will dream of hobbits....

Unexpected Kindness

Last night I was the lucky recipient of some unexpected kindness, and it kind of made my night.  It was something little to say the least, but just the idea that someone out there would be kind to a stranger was so crazy to me and that I would be the recipient was even crazier.  I went down to the cafeteria to get something to eat because I was staaaaaaarrrrrrrrvvvvvvviiiiinnnnnng, and nothing looked good so I decided on a salad.  The salads in the cafeteria are pathetic and over-priced, a plastic box with lettuce and powdered parmesan cheese makes up their Caesar salad...but I was so hungry anything sounded good.  I went up to pay at the register and the cashier said "How much is that salad?".  "$5.00" I replied. "Bull shit, I ain't charging you but $2.50 for that, that salad is just sad!"  The cashier yelled.  "We jus' gonna keep this between you an me" she said as she finished ringing me up.  After thanking her and paying, I just felt so good that someone was nice to me that didn't even know me!  It wasn't a big deal, and I am sure she probably doesn't even remember me with all the meals she rung up last night, but it totally put a smile on my face. So, thank you, cafeteria lady, for the little random act of kindness, it was so good to see some goodness in someone! 

Good

I watched 2 really good movies last night...Management with Jennifer Aniston and Steve Zahn, which I have seen before, and a new one called Monsters, a film from the UK that I think rivals District 9.  It was excellent.  When you have Netflix you take a gamble deciding which movie to watch sometime, but last night it was the perfect movie for my mood and the time and it was a home run.  I love it when you can find movies to match your moods! 

A Good Day for Sleeping

Today is rainy, gray and cloudy...overall a good day for sleeping.  Last night, one of the hospital employee's boyfriend, who owns a local bakery, brought us roughly 40 pounds carbs, (ie muffins, donuts, eclairs,  bagels and bread)  Awesome.  I was so glad I went off of my Brazilian-Bottom-Bikini diet in exchange for the Life-is-too-short-so-just-eat-whatever-in-moderation diet a few months ago.  

That reminds me...here is a game I created last summer and sent to my friends.  See if you can guess which one is false...sadly the rest are 100% true...those were some crazy 3-nights.  Here is my email:

"Let's play a game called "Which patient did La NOT have in the last 36 hours". I will give you some choices and you have to choose which patient scenario is false, and there will be only one. The other patient scenarios are 100% true! Here we go:

A) The belligerent bounty hunter who was so threatening to the staff that the police were called to keep him under control. His girlfriend, who had a shirt on that said "I eat pussy", was the unsuccessful mediator who attempted to keep him quiet even though he spent most of his stay screaming racial slurs and profanities.
B) The 3-year old whose mother tied him to the front porch with some string to "keep him in the yard" who ended up getting bitten by a possum that had been living under the porch
C) The black woman who stated that she had been sunburnt a week ago...and wanted to be treated for it this morning
D) The psychotic 18-year-old black dwarf who was found walking naked on the beach in Georgia with a 4-year old in tow...no one knows where the 4-year old came from...who sang me Whitney Houston and Kelly Clarkson songs
E) The 20-something, ambulatory, otherwise healthy female patient who requested to urinate in her non-private room, seperated from the main ER only by a curtain, in, specifically, a "small, styrofoam cup"
F) The 23-year old black woman who came in at 6am because she got in the shower this morning and realized that sometime previously in the night she had been stabbed 3 times in the back, breast and arm
G) The healthy, ambulatory 40-year old woman who came in via EMS for chest pain who pooped in her bed and then threw it in the hallway

So...ONE and ONLY ONE of the above patient scenarios are false...can you guess which one I made up and which 6 I dealt with?"

Amazing.

Nada...zip...zilch

I have nothing.  I keep trying to tell myself that work tonight will be better, but then the more logical side of my brain (which now outweighs the optimistic part) says "why would it be any better?".  Then I can't think of a reason it would be better and it continues my bad mood.  I am going to make a list of fantastic things, then fall asleep really fast, thinking of those good things.  Yesterday I woke up around 2pm by an idiot with a hedge-trimmer right outside my window.  Sometimes first floor apartments are a pain.  The noise just went on and on and after I checked to make sure he wasn't carving an elephant in a circus-themed topiary, I just laid in bed with my ear plugs willing him to trim faster/cursing him.  Since the shrubs were trimmed yesterday, they can't be trimmed again today, right?  That is a good thing.  Ok, so on to that list...

1) healthy babies that smell good
2) the beach
3) family and friends
4) my dream house in Greece...look at pics here: La's Greek Dream Villa

Ok, that is good.  Pretty much all I need to picture is my dream house in Greece with the blue tiles and white-washed walls and I feel better.  Maybe I will get a gyro tonight before work and imagine I am sitting on the porch at sunset, overlooking the Aegean in that little egg-shaped wicker chair enjoying it....

Routinely Bizarre

Last night was my first night back to work in awhile.  I got right back in the swing of things with some weird patients and situations.  My patients and their circumstances included a shady and nearly deadly fireworks explosion/accident (in March...really?), an unsuccessful neigborhood exorcism, dog poop, crack heads, handcuffs and projectile vomiting.  And that was all after midnight. Yep...things are back to normal.