Fresh start

I haven't posted in a while. The long story short is that due to some weird circumstances a lot of communication issues started rearing their head in my relationship. True to stereotype, it fell apart. When push came to shove, med school won out. I'll just leave it at that. He's a damn good person, otherwise I wouldn't have dated him for over three years. We were simply less compatible than we thought.

So with that on the side, I've been dedicating the rest of my free time to keeping afloat in class. Hence the not writing. Today was a blur of four exams, and there's a straggler that's coming up tomorrow in a class focused around statistics and evaluating the scientific literature. Evidence based medicine is the buzz word.

Of course when you're cramming for pathology, radiology, oncology, and clinical diagnosis the day before...you just figure that stats can be figured out the night before. So some students and I met up randomly to start teaching the material to each other and that's what we've been at for the last five hours. It actually went really well, considering how puzzled we all were previously.

And I have to say this, tonight was a night where I felt incredibly proud to be a part of these people. It's probably the first time I've felt proud to be a part of medicine. I wasn't even proud when I originally got accepted to medical school in the past, just relieved. I have some theories why, mainly that a lot of the people I knew really resented physicians regardless of whatever prestige they associated with them. Or there's the constant talk of pathological competitiveness, neuroticism, and just plain old self absorption you hear infecting the entire gestation of the physician from pre-med to attending. I bought into that fear before I got into medicine, and I've been carrying the guilt of being associated with those opinions ever since. Not tonight.

I'm surrounded by the hardest working people I know. We build each other. I just felt a great sense of calm working through this material that I wouldn't have felt if I was working through it on my own. The communication was easy, free flowing, non judging. Everyone was going to get to where they needed to be, the common goal. I profoundly respect my classmates.

And really, that's what I needed to respect the field. So, I'd like to clarify. I'm not proud to be getting a job. I'm not proud I was picked by admissions. I'm not proud of the "profession". Fuck all of that. It really doesn't move me.

I am proud that I know good people. Respect an unflappable truth.  The oil in your feathers. It doesn't really matter what anti-doctor, anti-medical system, anti-faith-in-humanity comments get thrown at you. You respect the people around you. Sheets of stinging rain roll smoothly off what only shared experience brings. You can't bring me down with what builds me up. I know better.

While I was smiling quietly to myself, this realization has been a long, slow process. I think it's made  me more willing to be a patient because I'm finally willing to trust my provider. I also feel a little more stable on my feet, which I'm going to need now that I'm out of a relationship which I put so much of myself into. Truthfully, dating again sort of terrifies me because it's been so long. And I'm in no rush. Which is good, because my track record is to hop into new relationships too quickly, never being single, and in a sense, never really figuring out exactly where my identity settles when I don't have an outside source of influence.

I am dusting myself off, in a slow, methodical fashion. Yesterday I went in to get an HPV vaccine and got my standard well woman's exam while I was at it. Offices need to stock themselves with blankets, because those paper smocks are SO DAMN FRIGID. Nothing like being naked and cold to make you feel dehumanized at worst and as "one with the freezie pops" at best. My NP asked me if I'd like STD testing as well, and I figured, sure why the hell not. Seems like a honest way to enter the dating field again. And then I was told that the billing is different on a new system and this would now cost me a few hundred dollars. So....it's health department time!

Luckily there's no rush. I'll get that appointment set after the exam tomorrow and the following one on Monday. Some weeks are just a little more smooshed in than others. Life, right?

That's all I can reasonably write for now. Hope life is going well on your end too. Wherever you might be.