Calling Dr. Phil.....

I’m homesick. Like....super homesick. I thought I was this open-minded, tough, cool, independent-type chick that would thrive in the big city. All this about me being a big timer stifled by small city living. What to the ev-er. I want to go home. And by “home,” I mean Columbia, South Carolina. Maybe it’s because I have no job. Which means I sit around all day worrying about when I will start working and then when I do start working, what is it going to be like. Or maybe its because I have no place to live. Which means I am stuck in this postage stamp of apartment surrounded by things that aren’t mine and wishing that I was back in my 1400 sq foot house with modern technologies and a showerhead that is high enough that I don’t have to take a shower on my knees. Or maybe, just maybe its because I have no friends. I miss friends. Friends are good. Speaking of having no friends....Yesterday I did something I have never done before. I went to the movie theater by myself. I have thought about doing it before but always chickened out. Once I even drove all the way to the theater and then turned right back around when I saw a line of like 20 people and became horrified at the thought of standing in line for 15 minutes by myself. Anywhoo, this time I made it all the way to the theater and actually got out of the car. I planned it so that I would get there after the previews had started so that I could inconspicuously slip in and sit at the end of a row. Well, somehow this ingenious plan totally backfired because by the time I got in theater, it was so incredibly packed that I had to crawl over 10 people in the dark to make it to the one seat still open for the loser that comes to the movies by themselves. I don’t even know what happened in the first 20 minutes of the movie because I couldn’t stop thinking about what a big loser the people around must have thought I was. Then I spent the rest of the movie being depressed because I chose to see the most depressing movie ever created. Note to blog-fans: Do not ever attempt to see “Atonement” on your first solo outing. Ugh. Anyways, after the movie was over I basically knocked over an old lady in order to get out there as fast as possible so I wouldn’t be recognized as the girl with no friends.

Well, whatever the reason, the fact still remains. I’m homesick. On a better note....as you all know I have no TV right now so I have been single-handedly keeping the “TV on DVD” section of Blockbuster out of stock. I recently became addicted to a fabulous new TV show – WEEDS!! It’s great – check it out (unless you live in Dallas because if you do, then your local Blockbuster is fresh out. But then again, if you do, why the hell aren’t you hanging out with me instead of trying to watch Weeds?!?!).


I’ve attached a picture reminding me of a great time in my life when I did have friends. I’m lonely. Send me some love.

My New Life in Pics

Ok guys, I realize that I am behind on the blogging but it is not for lack of wanting to blog. My Texas medical license has not cleared yet so I can't start working until that happens. I was told to get out here as fast as possible because the powers that be thought that my license would go through quickly since I dont have a record and I didn't go to medical school in the Caribbean. Soooo...I drop everything and rush out here to sit on a couch in box of an apartment that belongs to someone else with no cable or internet. Sweet. Anyways, all this to say that I have absolutely nothing to blog about.


So, I decided to drive around this morning and take pics of some of my fave places so far in Dallas. By the by, I don't suggest driving around a big city at 8:30 AM (morning rush hour) trying to take pictures out the window of your car. At one point I pulled a Nicole Richie and didn't realize I was going the wrong way on a one way street.




Here is where I am currently residing. 600 sq feet, no internet, and one fuzzy TV station. I've never seen so many news shows in my life. I mean, who watches the news from 4 - 8 PM???Local news, national news, world news, local news, national news......









Here is where I want to live. Directly across the street from I'm living.













Hard to see, but this is the Katy Trail. It's a 3.5 mile path that runs through Uptown Dallas so that all the young professionals can have somewhere to get their jog on and walk their dogs. A lot of apartments back up to the Katy trail so you can walk out your back door and be ready to run. I've looked at a few and you can pretty much add $500 a month for the convenience.

BEST food place on earth - and only one in existence. Think - the prepared food section of Whole Foods /Fresh Market/Dean and Delucca all in a cool, dark atmosphere with loud music playing. I had a salad there the other day and I was expecting a run of the mill yada yada yada salad. But NO! This salad was something else. It mean, it was so good it didn't leave me with the usual "I wish I had had that sandwich" feeling. Yum.

Cute little restaurant around the corner from my apartment. Half priced bottles of wine and the best sparkling Sangria I've ever had.









Hope this is OK for now. I promise to blog the minute something happens in my life.

Cheers!

Road Trip

Oh dear lord. I finally made it to Dallas late Sunday night after what seemed like an eternity of driving. Mapquest told me that the drive (1000 miles) was going to take 15.5 hours so I figured that it would take me around 13 or maaaaybe 14 hours knowing that Mapquest always calculates the trip time for someone traveling at the pace of a grandmother. Well, between the four thousand bathroom breaks, food stops, and pullovers to make sure my cat was still alive, it took me every minute of 15 hours. Boo.

I had called the vet before I left to find out about how to travel with Doc because I knew it was going to be an issue. The only traveling Doc has ever done is the 5 minute trips from my house to the vet's office and he meows the entire time. And not a normal meow, its like a dying meow. She told me that all I had to do was put him in a carrier in the back of my car, cover it up with a towel, and he would be fine. Well, the night before I left I made the huge mistake of looking up "traveling with a cat" on Google. Of course, there were all these horror stories about how cats get motion sick easily and barf all in the car, or meow the whole time or die or whatever. So I freak out and call my friend Julie who also has cats and travels a lot. She told me not to worry because she has some kitty Valium she can give me and all I have to do is give it to Doc before the trip and he will sleep through the whole thing. The next morning I wake up and crush up the pill and put it in some wet cat food. Normal, wet food is a treat and big fat fatty wolfs it down before I can even get it out of the can. Well, two hours pass and he hasn't touched the food because he has clearly figured out that I am trying to be sneaky and drug him. Well I have one more pill so I get my mom to strap him down with a towel so I can food it down his throat. After almost losing an eyeball and an ear, I give up on giving him the drugs and throw my unsedated (and now pissed off) cat in the back of the car.

He meowed for the first 20 minutes straight. He finally settled down and then didn't start meowing again until I got my first speeding ticket. He meowed again for about 20 minutes and then settled down. I drove for a few more hours and then stopped at Subway for lunch. I picked up a sammich, hopped back in the car, and bliss - didn't hear any meowing. Well, several more hours pass and I start to realized that I haven't heard a peep out of Doc for like 5 hours. Well, I get super stressed and start thinking all these morbid thoughts like how I could have put the towel too tight over the airholes and my cat has suffocated in the back of my car so I pull off the side of the road. With my heart beating like 200 times a minute, I lift the cover off the carrier and hear a little meow. Thank god I haven't killed the cat. Several more hours pass while I'm listening to my God awful book on tape when I start to smell a horrible stench in Monroe, Louisiana. They must have a paper mill or something in town but I once again start having all these morbid thoughts and convince myself that my cat has died in the back and this smell is him decomposing. Sooooo....I pull off the side of the road, lift up the cover heart-racing, and hear a little meow. Thank god, still haven't killed the cat.

Anywho, Doc and I made it to Dallas alive at around 11PM. Right now I am staying at a friend's 700 sq foot apt with no TV and no internet. So pretty much, I am living in a box. I am currently sitting in a Starbucks downt he street typing up this blog. Which, by the way, I have typed twice because I didn't realize that my internet connection had died and once I hit "post" it sent me to a screen to sign on to the internet and I freaked out when I realized all my blog was gone. Ugh.

So, I am loving Dallas so far. There are cute little wine shops and eateries on every corner and all the shopping I could ever imagine. I am scheduled to start work on Monday but I don't know if that is going to happen because my Texas medical license has not cleared yet. And after last ngiht I am not sure I ever want to start. Me and some of the other interns met up for happy and I found out that they are southpaw haters here and make everyone operate right-handed. Little do they know my right hand is so non-functional that I could have lived my entire life without a right arm and would be none the wiser. If they make me operate right-handed I can guarantee you some poor pregnant lady is going to end up with a baby still inside her and minus some other important body part.

Til next time....

Blog REVIVAL!!

Ok, I'm not usually one to make New Year's Resolutions but this year I am resolving to revive the blog. I just happened upon the blog yesterday while I was wasting my life away facebooking and remembered how much I loved the blog and how much joy it brought me (and others, I suppose). I had some awesome blog-fans who left super witty comments that made me laugh even while re-reading them 6 months later. Soooo...I am hereby resolving to post a new blog weekly, or at least every other week. Like most other Americans I have a pretty poor track record with the ole New Year's Resolutions, but by God I am going to make this one work. I think I have only made 2 of them in the past 8-10 years. My most recent one was about 3 years ago. While Susanj, Jodie, Melissa, and I were having a post New Year's Eve hangover lunch at Harper's I confidently stated that was going to be less critical towards others, you know, like a nicer person. Well wouldn't you know it, right as we were leaving the restaurant I spotted a girl crossing the street who had made the poorest choice in sunglasses that it would have been a crime against fashion for me not to have commented on them. And that was the end of that resolution. The only other resolution that comes to mind was while I was in college and I made a resolution to learn more about sports. I'm pretty sure everyone who reads (or used to read) this blog knows that I am extremely sports knowledge challenged. So, I had my friends start giving me a sports fact of the day. You know, the easy stuff, like...the Dallas Cowboys are a football team and Babe Ruth played baseball. Well, that lasted for all of a week before I got annoyed with people quizzing me about my stupid sports facts and I went back to just appreciating sporting events for the beer and hot dogs. All this to say that while I have not made good on my past resolutions, I am going to make a concerted effort this year to stick to this one. So all of you can go ahead and have the blog streamed back in to your PDAs.

I should have a lot to blog about because if you haven't heard yet, I'm moving to DALLAS!!! Yes, the city of big hair and brass buckles. I think I should fit in well because I already like brass buckles, and if any of you have seen me right after I blow-dry my hair, you know I also already have big hair. I just tame it down a bit with a little gift from God I call the Chi. I'll be transferring to the University of Texas-Southwestern program at Parkland Hospital. Good new is, I won't be losing any time in my residency. Yippee! I think it is about time for a major change in my life, and if you will recall from a previous blog I think that for the past 27 years I have been a big city girl trapped in a small town (well, more like a medium sized city). So, the hizzy is for sale and now that I am a high roller and all I bought myself a super new tricked out phatty ride with all the trimmings. I'm gonna pack up the new ride with all my clothes and my puss and drive out to Texas on January 6th - holy crap that's only 5 days from now! Then once my house sells, my mom and aunt are gonna pack up everything, rent a U-haul, and Thelma and Louise it out to Dallas. I'm super excited and would love to have any of my blog-fans come visit me in the big city. Word on the street is the shopping in Dallas is second only to NYC. Ok, that's all for now. I promise to blog again before the week is up.

Cheers!

p.s. if anyone is looking for an awesome 3br house in the ecclectic Rosewood area of Columbia, I've got one in mind.

UPDATE 1/2/08 5:00 PM

Well, now I see how ANTM can be so difficult. I took approximately 25 pics to come up with this, my most model-y pose. Please note the orangetastic interior, in honor of my beloved alma mater.

Sweatin like a slave...

There are no words to describe how my life has changed in the past two months. I think the USC Department of OB/GYN is actually trying to kill me. I have never worked so much in my entire life, not to get into med school, not in med school, never. Here is my daily routine: wake up at 4:30, get to work by 5:15, work like a freakin slave until 7, come home and write notes on my patients from the day, go to bed at 8:30, wake up and do it again. Oh, and I forgot to mention the weekends during which I have the pleasure of staying up all night working like a slave. On the plus side, I've never had so much money in my bank account before because I never have time to spend any! Today is a good day though because I have the whole weekend off and I have a whole weekend of grocery shopping, lawn mowing, and house cleaning to look forward to!

Speaking of work, let me talk for a minute about how only certain people should be allowed to procreate. I have seen the craziest shizzle ever in the past 2 months. For those of you who don't know, the hospital I where I work is the Richland County hospital (which means people with no insurance) and has the only Level 4 nursery within a 100 mile radius (which means we get all the high risk deliveries). Believe it or not, the two kind of go hand in hand. The people with no insurance smoke crack their whole pregnancy and then proceed to have an extremely high risk delivery. Who'da thunk? And it's so funny to see the different thresholds that bring people in to the hospital. Some ladies will come in the minute they feel one contraction and think they are in labor and then some will wait to come in until the baby's head is hanging between their legs telling me to help get him out. I actually had one lady come in thinking she may be in labor so she put on a gown and sat down on a bed so I could examine her. The next thing I know she hiked up one leg and farted out a baby on me. How rude.

Anyways, enough about me. There is a way more important baby in my life who I did not deliver and his name is Alex Byars. I think in my last blog a month ago I mentioned that my sister was in labor. Well after doing everything right, not doing drugs, having routine prenatal care, taking prenatal vitamins, and giving up alcohol for 9 months, my sister ended up having an emergency c-section. Wouldn't you know? If she'da been a crackhead, she would have farted the baby out no problem. Anyways, everything turned out fine and they are settling nicely into parenthood. This is all secondhand information from my mom though because I actually haven't had a chance in the last month to sit down and talk to my sis on the phone. That is what this weekend is for though. My mom left this morning for Denver for a week to help out the new parents and I am so jealous that I don't get to go see him. Sorry the pic is so small, but isnt he too cute?

Just call me Auntie Jessie.....well, almost.

Well, I hope someone actually reads this cuz I am pretty sure all my blog-fans have abandoned me for my horrible lack of blogging....maybe I can get an anonymous out there to chime in. So I had no idea that there were so many hours in a week...I mean, now that I am not wasting them away by doing things like sleeping. Please, note the sarcasm. I have never been so tired in my entire life. And it shows. I look worse and worse everyday at work. Every morning this week I shaved off one more minute of my morning routine in order to sleep that extra minute. Today, I shaved off the mascara. Yikes. By the end of this month, I am pretty sure I am going to unrecognizable as my former self. Anyways, enough about me....

While I type this blog, my sister is laboring away in a hospital in Denver. I got the call this morning while I was on rounds that she had started having contractions last night and went in to the hospital this morning. So I'm pretty sure that my 3 weeks now practicing the art of obstetrics has ruined the "miracle of birth" for me. My sister is a couple days early and all I could think of while we were on the phone was all the things that could be going wrong. I pretty sure I didn't even say something like "how exciting" or "I'm so happy for you." All I could think of was a differential diagnosis for preterm labor. Sorry Sis. Anyways, it looks like I will be Auntie Jessie to little Alex by the end of the day! My only guess as to why he is trying to make his appearance early is that he just wants his Momma to have a friggin glass of wine already. I have no doubts that my sister will be the first mother ever to pump and dump for the first feeding.

In other news, the HLM is leaving me. She has decided to make the move to the big city. And by the big city, I mean the one and only NEW YORK CITY. And she going to be doing it Dangerous Minds style since she took a job teaching at a school in Brooklyn. She's been on the fence for the past three years about whether she enjoys teaching or not, so I feel certain that this new undertaking will help her figure that out. This Saturday she is having a "yard/garage" sale (and I put this in quotes because she has neither a yard, nor a garage) and she is having people just come in to her apartment and buy anything they want. Then, she's gonna take whatever is left over, rent a car, and drive up there. My HLM's got balls. The only upside of this move that I can see is that I'll have somewhere great to visit if I ever have a day off in the next four years. I mean, it is all about me. So I think that the HLM and I are going to have a goodbye dinner at the place where we met. Well, kind of. The restaurant where we met (Rising High) has since closed down (undoubtedly because we aren't there anymore), but there is a new restaurant in that building. The HLM is the last of a long line of friends who have recently left me in Columbia, and my last touch stone with anything nonmedical so once she leaves I am officially going to have nothing to talk about except work.

Anyways, what's going on with my blog-fans? I haven't talked to anyone in forever....leave me some love.

Cheers!

Oh, the pic shown is of little Alex's nursery. How cute is

it????

A Penis Free Columbia

Hey guys! Time for a quick update.

So I have been orienting my ass off for 8 hours a day since last Friday. I dont start actual work until this coming Monday. Last Friday, Monday, and Tuesday were my OB/GYN orientation days and Wed, Thursday, and Friday are my hospital orientation days. The hospital orientation days are extra-painful for me since I went to school here and am already VERY acquainted with Palmetto Richland hospital. Anyways, during my OB/GYN orientation we got our rotation schedule for the next 12 months. We have 10 months on-service (OB, GYN, Night Float, or Ultrasound) and 2 months off-service (Family Practice). I had specifically requested months ago to start on-service because I wanted to jump right in and not feel left out. So what did I get assigned to first? Why, Family Practice, of course. That OK though because our family practice months are pretty chill. We are just assigned to work in the outpatient clinic everyday and take OB call every other weekend. So, I found out that because I am the resident on FP, I am also in charge of castrating (circumsizing) all the newborn boys in the hospital. I almost had a panic attack when I got this news. I got no problem operating on an old lady for 6 hours, but the thought of accidentally castrating a newborn is terrifying to me. The picture you see above is the torture device we use for removing the excess skinnage on the babies, called the gomco. I was so nervous when I found I had to start off doing this that I had one of the attendings take me over to the newborn nursery so I could practice a few rounds. Well, after the bleeding and screaming finally stopped, I noticed that I had actually created a very nice looking penis for Baby Boy X. I think he will make some lucky woman very happy one day. However, even after my success I am still extremely shaky about the whole thing, so a little word to the wise. If you are reading this blog and about to pop out a baby, you might want to avoid Palmetto Richland for about a month or so. That is, if you want to be guaranteed that your little boy will be able to have children someday. Just damn.