My current research month ends soon then I’m back in the hospital. I have been utterly and disgustingly lazy this month. It certainly doesn’t help that 2 of the 3 video games (Blood2 and Carmageddon2) that I’ve been waiting for have been released this month. Seriously, I have a problem. For some people it’s crack, for some it’s sex, for some it’s chocolate, four some … hey, this sounds like a pretty wild party! For me it’s video games. Yeah…. It’s probably just a symptom. I’m just running from my problems. Looking for some great answer in a polychromatic two-dimensional fantasy land like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.
The “Internist” job market isn’t looking good in this area. That means I’d probably have to move to a smaller town if I want to stay in-state, which I do. I plan on doing the Elvis thing and try to help out my mom once I make some money in the next few years. On the other hand, there is an opening for an in-hospital doc for next year. I would be working solely in my current hospital and not in an office like I had planned. There’s no 33 hour shifts and you go home everyday so it’s not so difficult. It’s easier than what I did last month or this upcoming month. I’m entertaining the idea of doing it since it’s actually less scary than joining some new hospital system that might screw me. It’s the easy way out. The future scares me. If only I had more courage like Dorothy’s friend, the Lion.
My practice test for the Last Great Medicine Boards test is in January so I’m stressing about that. I could have studied a great deal this month for it but my research projects have paralyzed me with procrastination. I have to prove to myself and the administration that I’m not a retard in January. Until then I’m just a Scarecrow without a brain.
I’ve barely exercised in the past 6 weeks. I feel like a stiff and rusty Tin Man. Speaking of which, last week I saw Terminal Girl in clinic. She was just released from the hospital again and the team taking care of her told her to get her affairs in order and stop taking half her medications. They said that there was nothing that could be done medically for her and she should consider hospice. Hospice is basically comfort care for people who will die in the next 6 months, usually terminal cancer patients. She asked me right in the office with her mom sitting next to her,
“Do you think I’m going to die in 6 months?”
That’s not an easy question in her case. I told her the problem is her drinking. Her liver is dying (cirrhotic) and every time she drinks her abdomen swells up with 4 to 6 liters of fluid which I have to drain every 1 to 2 weeks. Someday worse things will happen. I told her she will die of her drinking very soon if she doesn’t stop it. She refuses to go to AA meetings or programs. She got very angry and told me she was tired of hearing about “the drinking.” At least I think I got through her shiny armor of denial this time. I restarted her high-dose diuretics (”water pills”) and seizure meds, because despite the fact that I call her “Terminal Girl,” I’m pessimistically optimistic that she might help herself and stop the alcohol. Like Dorothy, she just needs to find her way back home.
For Thanksgiving, we ate with my mom on Wednesday. She senses my uncertainty about the future and “secretly” talked about it with Amy that night on the phone. Amy told me of course. On Thursday we ate at Amy’s relatives’ house. Afterwards we stayed the night at her parents’ house in Ann Arbor where her brother and his wife and 2 babies live. There is no sound more beautiful than a young mother and her baby laughing with each other. His wife is a charmingly innocent and very religious Korean woman. Whenever we rent or see a movie with them we have to consider if the content is suitable for her since we don’t want to spoil her Virgin Mary-ness. We usually end up seeing rated G animal movies. This week we saw “A Bug’s Life.” I guess all this would make her the Good Witch. So my mom would be the … um … the Other Good Witch, yeah.
In three days, I’ll be back in the Emerald City performing the usual sacrimonious and sacrilegious acts. I don’t believe in the Wizard though.
Oh … and last Monday, while Amy was at work I masturbated 7 times over the course of the day. That has got to be my personal record, at least since Amy. There’s no way I could have sex seven times on any day. I’m wondering why you can do one and not the other since the two essentially involve the same mechanics. Sex is definitely more satisfying and more energy-consuming though. I must admit near the last few times I was “running on empty” and pretty sore. The seventh time was really just to see if I could do it again. I was bored and horny and by myself … and looking for another distraction. Good thing I bought that video game instead. I’d probably have broken something important by now if I hadn’t.