Hey, it's been awhile!

"I recently read the book When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalinithi. If you haven't already heard of it (or seen my many Instagram story posts), the premise of this book is a neurosurgery resident accounting on his life and experiences after he realizes that he has been diagnosed with metastatic (terminal) lung cancer. I am by no means a crier. I think I've cried in maybe one or two movies and a book or two. This book was tough. Having just finished MICU with many tragic cancer patients and the emotional and physical wear of working so much, all the topics really hit home for me. "

I sit here giggling a little reading the above paragraph. I started that post on May 20, 2018. It's July 30th. I clearly haven't blogged in forever. While that makes me a bit sad as it means I'm not quite keeping up with my life record like I'd hoped, it's pretty satisfying to look back and realize that it also means I've been so busy living life I haven't had a few moments to mull over my thoughts on the computer. That being said, consider this the first catch up post of many to come (since I'm on vacation this week).

I think it's still a legitimate time to reflect on at least 2 big lessons that were learned during the…we'll say experience that is intern year. This is probably especially relevant as I have made several new friends who are now interns trying to navigate their ways through this craziness.

1. You can do anything for 8 weeks.

Ok, I didn't really do any one thing for 8 weeks. But still. I was told this phrase by the course director of our third year surgery rotation. I had 8 weeks of surgery with 28 hour call every fourth day as a med student. At this point, I am so grateful for that experience for many reasons. For one, I already knew how it felt to be horrifically tired on your post call day (the day after you are "on call"). I was already primed for how grumpy, intentionally or not, people can get when they, too, have been awake for 28 hours. This was useful because I knew that it made a difference if I the resident being paged by nursing at 3 am was less grumpy on the phone. It also gave me a thick enough skin for when people were mean, and it was always a pleasant surprise when people were nice (yes even surgery people are very nice here).  The point here being; this too shall pass. Everyone survives intern year (the hours, the scary learning curve, the finding the bathroom on your first day).

2. Friends are everything.

I think I previously wrote about how hard it had been moving out here. For the most part, I'm too busy to notice. But I think in the down time, or the time when I realize that social interaction can be more energizing than actually getting the sleep I missed, I realized a few months ago that it didn't feel like we'd made very many friends here. Almost as soon as I said that, I actually started spending time with people outside of the hospital (I know, right, I can't believe we all were actually out at the same time – it's like Grey's Anatomy or something).  And now, at the start of second year I'm feeling more and more that we've really established a life here and are surrounded by so many high-quality people. My point here is that loneliness is real. Moving somewhere far away is hard (even if you're as extroverted as Parker and I are). At the end of the day, though, if you keep being open-minded, friendly, and intentional the right people will settle into your life. The next thing you know you'll start having weekly family dinners, fake weekly book clubs (aka girls' night), and weekend taco traditions.

More to come…

(But seriously, I have a lot to catch up on haha)