I took a chance on the Dallas Stars, not a natural pick for me. Now I must live with the consequences of having to lose 2 players in the first round. God bless Texas my ass!

T

I took your stupid colour test…

Free personality analysis from ColorQuiz.com.
(better put on some protective armour before you hit this website…)

Your Existing Situation

Acts calmly, with the minimum of upset, in order to handle existing relationships. Likes to feel relaxed and at ease with her associates and those close to him.

Fair enough

Your Stress Sources

The existing situation is disagreeable. Feels lonely and uncertain as she has an unsatisfied need to ally herself with others whose standards are as high as her own, and wants to stand out from the rank and file. This sense of isolation magnifies the need into a compelling urge, all the more upsetting to her self-sufficiency because of the restraint she normally imposes on herself. Since she wants to demonstrate the unique quality of her own character, she tries to suppress this need for others and affects an attitude of unconcerned self-reliance to conceal her fear of inadequacy, treating those who criticize her behavior with contempt. However, beneath this assumption of indifference she really longs for the approval and esteem of others.

Get Bent. Just because I like grey…?

Your Restrained Characteristics

The situation is preventing her from establishing herself, but she feels she must make the best of things as they are. Circumstances are restrictive and hampering, forcing her to forgo all joys and pleasures for the time being.

Hi, welcome to medical school.

Your Desired Objective

Longs for sensitive and sympathetic understanding and wants to protect herself against argument, conflict, or any exhausting stresses.

Isn’t that what we all want?

Your Actual Problem

Greatly impressed by the unique, by originality, and by individuals of outstanding characteristics. Tries to emulate the characteristics she admires and to display originality in her own personality.

How is this a problem?

Your Actual Problem #2 (at least I only have 2)

Disappointment and the fear that there is no point in formulating fresh goals have led to anxiety, and she is distressed by the lack of any close and understanding relationship. She attempts to escape into a substitute world in which things are more nearly as she desires them to be.

Whatever Trevor. Who wouldn’t be happier in fantasyland?

Thank you for using http://www.ColorQuiz.com/
Please recommend us to your friends. (at your own risk my friends)

little update

So I worked with Dr. X. a couple of nights ago. Despite being on the mend from a bad cold and nearly having a full-on panic attack just prior to the shift, it actually went reasonably well. I’m not saying that I saved any lives or anything, but at least I did not want to run out of the emergency department crying. So that’s progress.

I’m working with him again this evening, probably for the last time. Tanks God (as my mum would say). It occurred to me during our last shift that I don’t think we operate at all on the same plane of existence. For example, our senses of humour could not be more discordant, and I think this man has a difficult time laughing at himself or accepting criticism (the latter characteristic can be attributed to most of us I suppose).

At one point in the shift, he referred to a situation as “gay”, as in “I know. It’s pretty gay”. I (who just can’t keep my mouth shut when I sometimes should), replied by saying “I can’t believe you just said that”.

He said “what?”

I said, “did you really just refer to an uncomfortable situation as ‘gay’? I would not expect that from you”. If looks could kill my friends, I would’ve been decapitated. Why did I have to choose this moment to educate my superior about appropriate/sensitive use of language?

He exacted his revenge at the end of our shift when he told me that he had Habs tickets for last night’s game that he was likely not going to use. My eyes popped out of my head and I told him that was a shame. He asked me if I wanted them, and I excited replied “Yes! Really?”

He turned away, laughed in a sinister fashion and said “no, not really”. I resisted the urge to swat him across the back of the head.

I think he was disappointed that I had not been horrified when he asked me to see a 24 year old male with possible testicular torsion. As if I would freak out about examining some guy’s nads. Funnily enough my preceptor from Ob\Gyn was in emerg for a consult and we were able to share some laughs at expense of peni.

The truck is in the shop getting a new transmission. When I pulled up to the garage yesterday, Pat (my mechanic) said "it sounds like the clutch is going on your standard transmission". He did not believe me when I assured him it was automatic. He said the gears were in pieces. So was my heart.

Anyway, those are the highlights.

t

Dream Analysis

I had this dream during my last night in Mexico. It was one of those dreams I have about once a year where I am crying so hard in my sleep that I wake up with tears rolling down my face and a damp pillow. Usually I can make some sense of these dreams, but this one just came right out of left field.

In the dream I was hanging out somewhere with my friends, only my friends in the dream were not my friends in real life. They were strangers (and I’m happy to report that they were a racially diverse lot!). These pseudo-friends and I were just dinking around one afternoon when one of them mentioned that she’d heard some bad news. Apparently, one of my “friends” had heard that my old basketball coach and math teacher from high school’s two daughters had died within a couple of weeks of each other. It was sad news to be sure, but in the dream I was absolutely devastated (disproportionately) and hell bent on getting to the funeral, which was happening that afternoon.

The rest of the dream played out in that frantic way that anxiety dreams do, where you can’t seem to get where you’re going fast enough, and everything is going in slow motion. My friends were lollygagging and I didn’t have an appropriate outfit on and we were held up in traffic. When we finally got there the funeral was over, but I sought out this man (with whom I always had a somewhat difficult relationship) and told him how terribly sorry I was about his loss. He shrugged and said to me “you could die too y’know.” I was terribly hurt but attributed his nasty attitude to his grief and began to walk away.

Then, out of the blue, he came running after me arms wide open. We stood in place and hugged each other and cried. Dude, it was fuckkin’ bizarre. I didn’t particularly care for this man when I was in grade 9. Over the years we managed to get to a place of mutual respect and understanding. But seriously, I haven’t given him all that much thought since, and I don’t know where in God’s name he is parked in my subconscious mind.

Any ideas what the frick this means? While you’re at it, any ideas about what I should do with my life? I am about to have a complete meltdown over the Obs\Gyn situation and am soliciting well thought out suggestions, or ideas on how to make good choices when life-altering consequences hang in the balance.

tabby cat

I know a little kitty who’s going to Africa this fall.

Hooray!

home

Hey Friends,

Tabby here. I made it home from Tulum in the middle of the night Saturday and spent yesterday in the Tdot playing with ET-cat and Coop. This morning I woke up to catch my flight back here and realized that I have a cold. My throat feels like it is full of nails, and my right nostril is a leaky faucet. I am confident that this will pass in the next day or two.

Tulum was beautiful. The beach there is incredible. I recommend it to anyone looking for a laid back, eco-friendly vacation. I do not recommend it to those afraid of bugs, or seeking a five-star all-inclusive holiday.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any wild adventures to report from this vacation. Pretty much played tonnes of cribbage and went to bed at 9pm every night. Had the occasional Pina Colada too.

It’s good to be home.
t

spring rolls

On several occasions over the past weeks, I have noticed a cute, fat-breasted robin playing in my backyard with a svelte, sexy-looking cardinal. These two can’t seem to get enough of each other. Is this an example of inter-racial dating in the animal kingdom? If it is, I am both overjoyed and curious to see what colour of egg pops out of big momma’s giant red breast.

T!

Cantankerous Cat Tails

….Yesterday I was set to meet Pesto for a beer after work. She was late, which meant that I had to mill about on Elgin Street where, unfortunately, I ran into one of my ex-boyfriends – the only person from my past that I truly regret sleeping with. I hadn’t seen him in about two years, but this time (as with the last time) he was very quick to tell me how well he is doing, how happy he is, how is life is right on track. Good for you dude. I wish you the best. Go get bent for all I care. You were an unbalanced, hypocritical, religious zealot with issues beyond my threshold of tolerance.

He proceeded to tell me that he lives in my neighbourhood and sees me out running sometimes. I vomited in my mouth and then came close to vasovagal syncopal episode. Fuuuuk.

Today I saw him again on my way to yoga. I figure now I will probably see him about three times per week for the rest of my life. Is this an omen that I need to leave this city?

…..Why does obstetrics and gynecology have to be so fun? I’m dying inside. I want to deliver babies and talk about uteri and vaginas for the rest of my life. The penis appears to be overrated (something I will likely be able to confirm after my urology rotation in May). The point of reckoning will have to take place after my vacation next week. For the time being, I will just take it to standing tree and reflect on the fact that if I choose to pursue a career in obs/gyn I will likely never wed. At age 45, in the midst of a booming career I will probably lose my mind and end up getting arrested for stealing some super cute baby from the nursery when no one is looking.

I tried on my bathing suit after yoga tonight. It was a sight to behold. My bum doesn’t fit into the bottoms and giant love handles seem to spill endlessly over the sides. My boobs are the same size as always though. Boo.

I don’t think I’m gonna get picked for the Africa trip. My interview was suboptimal.

I’m going to bed.
t

Placenta Brevia

Well, my protected baby-catching time is coming to an end and it has truly been great fun. I feel like I scored the jackpot because my call shifts were always relatively busy, and I actually saw some pretty crazy shit.

Though not well organized, or grammatically intact, here are some of my highlights from last week:

1. Woman births baby in ED, completely denies having been pregnant. Despite having been exposed to alcohol, tobacco and marijuana, and having had 2 doses of Morphine, baby is alert and cute as a button.

2. Another woman chooses to repeatedly have unprotected sex with a guy who gave her Chlamydia, which became PID, and has likely impacted her future fertility.

3. Treated to St. Hubert’s take out for dinner on Tuesday – chicken fingers (with honey for dipping), fries, coleslaw, special sauce. Unbelievably delicious!

4. Morbidly obese pre-eclamptic woman awaiting air ambulance transfer to Toronto for critical care of self and baby, requests to go out for cigarette (is irritated when told that smoking in her condition carries not only the usual risks, but also additional risk of placenta detaching prematurely causing fetus (and maybe mom) to quietly exsanguinate).

5. Third true cord knot of my medical career (statistically, I am way ahead of the game here).

6. I now feel I could fairly comfortably deliver a baby in a field, taxi cab, or executive class section of an airplane (ideally, I would be wearing shoelaces to tie off the placenta, and have access to 10units of Oxytocin to administer IM post placental delivery).

7. When Philadelphia Flyers lose, drunken husband becomes agitated with pregnant wife, busts shit up and smears pizza on walls of hospital room. Hospital security and police are implicated.

8. Hung over husband eats crow the following day as wife quietly delivers his 9lb baby.

9. Midwives vs Ob/Gyn – two solitudes (watch for diatribe on this topic in future post).

10. Tarzan and Jane, outdated Palm technology, unleavened bread follies, new friend.

11. Mid forceps delivery executed with style and panache despite Team Midwife's attempt to box out hospital staff.

12. Urban living dinners with Pesto, my bipolar best friend (and Proscuitto and a Russian cat named Vladimira). Special guests this week - Moses, Jesus, Aldo.

Vacation is now imminent. Sleep is even more imminent. Clean flannel bedsheets are the spice of life.

Goodnight dear friends.

tabs

Potato Head

For five grueling years from the ages of 13-17, I spent the lion’s share of my summer vacation working in the trenches of several large cafeterias. O-town is a government town and there is no shortage of public servants who buy their breakfast and lunch everyday.

My location and job varied somewhat from week to week and year to year. Basically, I did what they asked, which often entailed making 1000 club sandwiches in the span of 90 minutes, or making enough toast to supply my colleague making the clubs, or cooking French fries, which was extremely painful at times, but not as painful as having my searing flesh stuck to the giant toaster after having daringly reached in to rescue a piece of burning toast. I also racked tones of bacon, fried a million eggs, made thousands of muffins….you get the idea.

Sometimes I had to work in the dishroom, which was my least favorite job. Even a decade later, I can’t bring myself to comment on what went on in that dishroom.

The overwhelming majority of my co-workers were first generation Canadian women – almost all Italian and Portuguese. Most of these women spoke very broken English, and had hirsutism and BMIs in the low 40s. They were very sweet - to my face.

I hated this job and admit freely that I was only in it for the money. Even back then, I had an insatiable thirst for independence, and a nasty little shopping habit. The job was unionized and I was able to bring in way more cash than I could’ve working at a drive-in. In retrospect, I should’ve just chilled out or mowed lawns or something.

Those of you who know me (even remotely) know that I am not the best morning person. This job entailed getting up every morning at 5:00 and driving 45 minutes from my parents' place. My dad drove me until the time I was old enough to have my license. God bless that man for all the driving (and psychological counseling) he did during my troubled teens.

I dreaded getting up so much that I would sleep in my pantyhose and slip and wake up in time to put on my white polyester dress uniform and blue polyester apron. I would adjust and fix my hairnet in the car.

Most days I could face my life with a positive attitude and stoic resolve, but about once a week, it would all become too much and I would have a major meltdown in the car, begging my dad to turn the car around and drive me home. He refused - told me I needed to honour my commitment, told me I was building character. I was dying inside.

As I was saying, the majority of my coworkers were Italian or Portuguese speaking women of peri-menopausal age. There was a small war going on between the two factions. I was a complete outsider and I kind of liked it that way. Even though I didn’t relate very well, I always made an effort to be friendly, despite choking down bitter bile almost every moment of every day. We hardly understood each other, beyond the basic “Maria Rosa maka da fries” “You maka da toast” and so on…They patronized the shit out of me at every opportunity.

So, my last summer was particularly painful. I was starting to feel like there might be better options for me, and frankly, I just didn’t want to butter toast and rack bacon for the rest of my life. If nothing else, this job solidified my decision to seek higher education.

One of my jobs that summer (in the afternoons) was to prepare the potatoes for hashbrowns the next morning. This involved pushing a large trolley into the walk-in fridge and loading it up with 10kg bags of potatoes. The potatoes arrived already washed and peeled. I would slit the bags open with a knife, and dump them into large bins, and then into the oven. After they were cooked, we’d cool them, cube them to hashbrown size, and finally season them and cast them aside.

Well on this one particular day, I was feeling especially desolate about my job. It was probably super sunny and hot out, and I was trapped below ground with no windows. As I slit the belly of maybe my 4th bag of potatoes and dumped them into the bin, one potato caught my eye. I don’t know why. Potatoes are not generally remarkable, but it must’ve landed funny, or been cut strangely. I can’t say exactly. It caught my attention enough that I reached down and grabbed it from the pile.

Imagine my surprise when I turned it over and found a perfectly symmetrical sad face etched into the surface of this potato.

At once I felt re-energized. I was not alone. Somewhere in Hull in some potato-bagging factory, someone else was dying inside. A kindred spirit with a similar plight – reaching out! I felt so connected to this anonymous beacon of hope.

Unable to contain myself, I called out to the head chef Carmen as she passed by. “Carmen, look at this. Someone has carved a face into this potato.” The look she gave me was perfectly demeaning.

“Ah, datsa nice. Maria Rosa maka da face in da patato.”

“No” I said. “I didn’t do it. The potato came like this.” I implored her with my eyes.

“Ya, you maka da face in da patato.” By now a few were gathered around speaking Italian and laughing at me.

How could these wankers be so obtuse? I felt rage boiling inside of me, but decided it wasn’t worth freaking out, and went back to my workstation.

I quietly dropped the potato into my pocket. My dad, God bless his kind disposition, swore he believed me when I told him the story on our drive home. He also claimed to understand the significance of this potato - that it had given me hope and bonded me in solidarity with another poor bastard. Sometimes knowing that you are not alone is all you need in order to go on.

t