it's not such a psych-ation anymore...

i've been doing outpatient psychiatry exclusively for the past 3 months now, which is a surprisingly refreshing change from switching rotations every month. i have my own office, that i decked out in ikea-esque decor in shades of blue and gray. i have a regular 8-5pm schedule. i'm able to dash out for a leisurely lunch on the town from time to time, with friends/co-residents who AREN'T EVEN ON THE SAME ROTATION. which is, as you may infer from the caps, shocking... in that somehow we can coordinate the same amount of time to go out and eat lunch together, despite the fact that we are technically still slave laborers aka residents. perhaps most shockingly, i know what my schedule will be > 1 month in advance. though i thought this year might be unbearably boring and humdrum, given my supposed 3 week attention span for any given rotation, i'm finding that to my surprise... i really like it. turns out, i am a creature of habit and the slower pace of outpatient psych suits me quite well. i like being able to flat-iron my hair in the morning, and maybe try on an outfit or two prior to picking one for the day. i like coming home and sometimes (though still not always) having the energy and ambition to cook something for dinner. i even like the camaraderie of sorts that i find in driving during rush hour- at least i'm not driving the deserted freeways found late at night or way too unbearably early in the morning. i get to go to work, and go home when most everyone else does. there's a lot to like. typically when we switch over to psych, it's like a vacation- thus, psych-ation.

however... it's also in some ways the hardest rotation i've ever had. i'm learning how to do therapy, and therapy is... interesting, challenging, exhausting, humbling, enlightening, infuriating... all of those things and more. along the way, i'm learning much more about myself... which in itself is proving to be occasionally painful. not to mention the burden of all that psychic pain that sits in my office every day. it's funny... i didn't know this is what it would be like when i chose this field, so i guess i'm lucky that i'm enjoying it overall... but i'm definitely also feeling the strain of having to think so hard all the time. ;)

my mom was afraid that i'd get weird(er) by going into psychiatry. i do wonder sometimes if this part of the training is testing the bounds of my mental wellness and personality. i'm quite grateful for a partner who, among other things, is there to anchor me while at work i explore very strange, new lands.

wishes

i wish i could do therapy... or do... anything, the way these dancers dance.

i wish my hubs had more time with his dad.

i wish i could find a way to avoid eating my feelings. or to stop avoiding the gym.

i wish our health care system wasn't rationed based on income/employment status.

oh, and i also wish for world peace.

in loving memory

in memoriam

11/17/46 - 3/6/10

life goes on

a brief pictorial mash-up of the past few months... like the christmas decorations lingering about our house, which i'm only now starting to slowly pack away again, there were a bunch of pics i needed to post- so, let's take it back to... the holidays :)

thanksgiving and christmas dinners were made for two at home. roasted my first turkey, ate our first turducken (from nugget). good times, even if we couldn't spend it with the rest of our families.

new year's was the one holiday spent with family. we wiled away the last few hours of 2009 with my folks at home, accompanied by alice & her significant other. we were also able to meet up with some friends, erica and jennyfur pictured below.

is it really that time already? the 3rd annual combined resident rank-list meeting, potluck-style, as pictured below.

now that i'm in outpatient psych clinic for the year, with "regular" office hours, i'm much more likely to actually get three day weekends. we were lucky enough to have MLK Jr weekend off, so headed off to SF and Napa. ate at fabulous places, like Vitrine at the St Regis, Chez Papa Resto, and Bouchon. also ate some street food, awesome cheese, and many... many yummy Bouchon bakery goodies. wandered through SFMOMA, found (appropriately enough) the MLK Jr. memorial waterfall, and generally lolled around like well-kept yuppies.

we had a vacation week earlier this month, which was spent in michigan with andy's family. we were around for andy's dad's first chemo treatment, and i'm happy to report that he's doing well. also reaffirmed andy's belief that i couldn't survive in harsh weather conditions when i tried to help shovel/snow-blow out the driveway and got exhausted after moving the snow around ineffectually for a few minutes. how do people live like this?!

needless to say, very grateful to be living in norcal and humbled into NOT complaining about our drizzly weather. not, however, as happy to be going back to work. who says you have to retire in your old age... wouldn't it make much more sense to retire earlier on, say in your 20s, when you can enjoy the time? then maybe go back to work when you're bored of not working?? *sigh*

what goes up...

so it's not a little ironic that the next post after one entitled "happy times" should be about not-so-happy times. but such is life.

the end of 2009 was hard. i'm hoping that 2010 is better.

here's a brief summary of my travails, with a disclaimer that in the grand scheme of things, things could definitely be a lot worse... so please bear with my self-indulgent ranting for a bit.

after 2 straight months of inpatient medicine, plus 2 weeks of jeopardy over the holidays, i was/am about ready to call it a day and find a new calling. i had the worst personnel issues of my life, ran my first and hopefully only code blue ever (i'm still haunted by every single decision i made- he survived, only to be put on comfort care), jeopardized someone for the first time in my life, got jeopardized back to the VA for an overnight call which just cemented my self-diagnosis of PTSD, and decided that one of my academic departments seems to hate any possibility of change and therefore is doomed to mediocrity. i'm a little bitter. just a little. having free weekends and adequate sleep are helping with my recovery, but it's slow going.

but while my work life was imploding, something much more insidious was going on... there was a mass growing in my father-in-law's colon, and it finally decided to burst in the beginning of december. we flew out to michigan in haste, after being informed by my father-in-law's surgeon that he needed emergency surgery for a large colonic mass which has apparently perforated his bowel, such that he now had a large walled-off intraperitoneal abscess. in addition, there was evidence of multiple metastatic appearing lesions in his liver and lung. i think it is truly a miracle that he survived the perforation, given the stoicism/stubbornness that led to him waiting the several days it must have taken to wall that abscess off. we arrived perioperatively, and were able to stay a few days before flying back. i'm happy to say he's now recovering quite well and looking to start chemo in a few weeks. still, we'd appreciate your thoughts and prayers.

the new year has been a great occasion to appreciate all of my many blessings, so i feel very grateful for all that i have and the loved ones in my life... perhaps all the more because it becomes more and more clear that life is very short. my new year's resolution? living life day by day.

happy times

secrets capri riviera cancun
unlimited spa package. book it now, people. book it now.

so we spent a blissful week here in cancun, mostly at the spa. it was muggy and hot, so we made good use of the unlimited virgin pina coladas (see below). i was a little suspicious of the all-inclusive stuff, since the quality of food tends to suffer... but really, how can you argue with unlimited food and ROOM SERVICE 24/7??? more than anything else, it was so relaxing not to worry about planning anything- no reservations needed, no research on restaurants, etc... and the unlimited spa part was ... awesome. so it's not really unlimited, but you can book 4 treatments a day and choose from massages, wraps, facials, hydrotherapy, etc... i think the best part was after our treatments, we'd wander out in our robes and be greeted by attendants with warm neck wraps and blankets, who subsequently tucked us into these chaise lounges by a little waterfall. ahh, i feel more relaxed just thinking about it...

twas lovely, despite the killer mosquitoes that definitely left their marks on my tender extremities. man do i love vacation.
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november is full of birthdays!
alvin had a bday celebration at cattlemen's, and won himself a celebratory picture that will live on in infamy at the restaurant after polishing off a ginormous amount of meat. before and after pics below.

the hubs celebrated the big 3-0 this past week. fittingly, we had 3 bday dinners. below, one of them- a romantic date night out at mulvaney's b&l.

and our bday present to ourselves?

there's just nothing like a musical...

the ecstasy... then the agony

i'm on vacaciones... and boy do i love my time off. the hubs and i spent the first week in cancun- pics and rave reviews of the spa to come... then this weekend flew back to socal, with big plans for meeting up with friends, eating good food, all that jazz. that was before i got a cold, which is kicking my butt right now.

i was talking to a co-resident about this after i heard he was sick during his vacation- he said it was like his immune system would go on vacation as well. i'd love to do a study on this... i wonder if people whose work is subjectively very stressful or tiring, or who can't afford to miss days of work because of whatever reason, get more SICK when they have time off. don't ask how this would be physiologically possible, i'm drugged up with cold and allergy meds. and probably couldn't give you a good answer anyway.

anyhoo, i can't even really complain because i'm at HOME. which means home-cooked meals, and a life of leisure including lounging in a feverish state on the couch all day watching a marathon of "the rachel zoe project". yes i know, hours of my life that i will never, ever get back... but the sheer WASTE of time is like a luxury. i'm luxuriating in brain-numbing Bravo reality tv shows. did i mention that i'm feverish?

i do feel horrible about how this illness is affecting the hubby's vacation as well. makes me realize that "in sickness and in health" was quite a serious vow. though i guess i shoulda known that any vow that ends with "til death do us part" is pretty darn serious. ;)

Victor's Tacos

these are Victor's tacos. he only makes them on the night shift at my hospital cafeteria, and only on special nights. he does this with no discernable predictability, which elevates these very tasty carne asada tacos to a near-mythological status. these tacos have a cult following- any time there's a line of 8+ people at the grill, you can bet that Victor's making the tacos. seriously, people page each other about this in the middle of the night.

while i do love me my tacos, they remind me in many ways of night float... both cause heartburn, both are generally bad for my health, both can hold unexpected bits of piquancy/spicyness... oh what am i saying, night float is nothing like tacos. tacos make me happy, at least transiently, whereas night float certainly does NOT. i have 3 more nights left, and counting down the hours. last night i had an unexpected treat- tara came in to keep my company while her patient was being induced, so i didn't spend too much time bumming around the call room in a lonely funk. not that i've spent much time bumming around anywhere this past week... it's been busy.

blurgh. can't wait to be done. i feel like a big lumbering bear in hibernation mode- when i go home, i'm either eating, sleeping, or slumped on my couch trying to catch up on my recorded shows. at work, i'm a big lumbering bear in survival mode- half-panicked and desperately hoping to go back to my cave and sleep. some people just aren't meant to work at night. i'm one of them.

late summer festivities

so i feel like i've been on OB forever, which is my excuse for not updating more often... or rather, for not going out and having a life, which would prompt more frequent and exciting updates. however, as the summer draws to a close (though you'd think someone would have told the sacramento weather system that it should be getting COOLER), i've definitely been able to spend some time on Park Family Traditions. now that we've lived here for 2+ years, there are at least 2 things we MUST do in August/September-
#1 - go to the fair!! which was dehydrating and artery-clogging as usual, though at least this year they decided to pull the fried White Castle burgers from the menu... i know because the hubby went looking for them. *sigh*

#2 - visit apple hill!

this year we were fortunate enough to have alice, my sister-in-law, around for the trip. we've essentially given up all pretenses of actually picking fruit by this point, and simply drive up to taste the baked goods and fresh apple cider. there's really nothing like fresh apple pie a la mode, or moist apple cider doughnuts hot from the fryer. pleasant discovery of the year- chocolate apple cookies... surprisingly tasty!

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i'm about to start 2 weeks of night float, which is a teensy bit terrifying as i generally dislike not having the comfort of a team around me. it's also the most overwhelming feeling in the world when the pagers start going off like crazy with admissions and triage and laboring patients, and there's just little ole me to take care of it all- i had a call night recently which very nearly provoked me into shedding tears at work, which i just do not do. i save them for the drive home. i had 3 laboring patients (who require q2 notes), 2 of which had crappy looking strips (fetal monitoring), several OB triage pts sprinkled in, phone triages every other hour, and 3 medicine admissions (one of which i blocked by going down and essentially taking a H&P) over a 12 hour call. i really hope i don't have too many nights like that... the upside? andy's on night float these next 2 weeks as well, so i have a chance of actually seeing my husband during the week... also, the light at the end of the tunnel- an all inclusive SPA vacation to cancun after night float concludes... only 14 more days...

random bit

Here's my 15 seconds of fame in Sacramento. A surprising number of people still read the newspaper, y'all.

Overhauling Health Care: Med school grads spurn family practice September 07, 2009 Bobby Caina Calvan
"You can make a lot more money with less pain, suffering and sleep deprivation,'' said Park, a third-year resident in family practice and psychiatry at UC Davis Medical Center...