Breaking news (3 days late)

Breaking my blog moratorium to share this important news:

9 artists are making a 30 second video every day for the month of February.

Geoffrey James is one of those artists. He is very good. I am also enjoying the films by Aaron.

It's a daily treat to remind one that, no matter how uncertain the future, you can always enjoy the sight of a man being hit with a Swiss ball.

www.vcam2.com

Good times.

Me & Bobby McGee

Sitting in LAX with a film of fatigue & sweat coating my skin, I feel strangely at peace.

Perhaps it was the All Blacks doing the safety demonstration on my flight. Perhaps it's the way the barista didn't sneer at my request for a skinny latte (in Melbourne, this is a deportable offence; skinny milk doesn't enhance the roast correctly). Perhaps my 30-hour stench is warding off stress and ennui. It's certainly cleared me a space at the departure lounge.

My intern year is done. I am a fully accredited, licensed doctor.

I have absolutely no idea where this year will take me. I've got plans for every continent. Jobs in every hemisphere. Reefs to dive, sun to catch, canals to skate, exams to write.

For the first time in 5 years, I have no idea where I'll be in 6 months. It's so exciting that I almost don't need a third latte. Then again, I'm turning 30, unemployed and contemplating moving into my parent's basement. Extra strong, please.

I owe a massive thank you to Ian who made an "airports and trips home" mix a few months back. I'm spending the next three weeks with it on permanent rotation. Decisions will be made with an excellent soundtrack.

And to my regular readers, thank you for following me all through the year; I'm out until I've got another job (doctor or dive instructor, either one) or until I move to Christchurch.

Kia Ora!

goodnight and good luck

Dear Cardiothoracics,

As we enter our last week together, I can't help feeling bittersweet about the last 3 months.

You, frankly, were awful to me. You took my sleep, my social life, my self-esteem and my ass (no food = no booty). You broke me down to almost nothing. I dreamt about you, horrible nightmares where people never stopped bleeding. I would wake up gasping, then count down the days until I was free.

But now that I'm almost there, I find that I'm not ready to leave. Perhaps I've been institutionalised. Perhaps it's the Stockholm syndrome talking. Or perhaps I can see that while you may have been the breaking of me, you have also been the making. Cos I can handle you.

I can work these hours. I can manage these patients. I can stitch these wounds. I can put in these chest tubes. I can run with the alpha males and keep up. I can do this.

(You have also messed with my head in serious ways; I'm pretty sure my desire to stay means there's a disturbing masochistic streak in me. My boss verbally abused me the other day and I thanked him. He laughed, "Hit me again, sir". Creepy.)

Still, at the end, I must thank you. If I can survive you, I can survive anything. Which means I have unlimited options for the future.

What are these plans? I don't know. I have 4.5 more days with you, then the world is my oyster.

So, thank you for all that you've done for me. Best of luck with your future endeavours (growing grafts in test tubes! endoscopic vein harvests!). Perhaps we'll run into each other in a hospital in Canada. I'd like that.

All the best. Truly.

Sam

Cold cold feet

Sooo, Canada's East coast is without power due to an ice storm. The family medicine program in Ontario only includes one (optional) week of ICU time. Ontario has a strict Return-of-Service contract. In summer, they have West Nile Virus. I've fled the province once before. I have good friends who live there. I miss Canada. I miss my family.

Christchurch is surrounded by mountains. Christchurch hospital would love me to do a mixed surgical/medical year next year that includes Emergency, ICU and anaesthetics. It is currently 26 degrees and sunny there. In winter, you can buy a season's pass to amazing snow for roughly 300 bucks. The population is only slightly larger than Guelph's.

I have a meeting with the St V's heads of ED training tomorrow. They would like me to train at St V's, and even if I'm only around for half of next year, they'd like to offer me a job. It was sunny, 27 degrees and breezy today. I spent yesterday at a local beach. I eat sandwiches with beetroot. I love my friends and family here.

No specific points here. Just musings. Just sayin'...

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas...

I have returned from the wards where we assaulted very sick people with a relentless cacophony of off-key carols. I have made Eggs Benedict with Dave and we're preparing fruit salad to take to Gran & Pa's. It's a beautiful day. I am only slightly home-sick.

I think Tim Minchin says it best.

We'll be drinking white wine in the sun.

Merry Christmas.

Bliss!

I have peaked. My life will never get better than it did this morning.

I was putting the final stitch in a half-meter long leg wound (saphenous vein graft site, if you're interested) when two spotlights suddenly hit the needle. My senior boss and registrar had both turned to look at my work.

(They wear headlamps for surgery, hence the lighting. It's a lot like I'm a rabbit in the headlights, frozen and waiting for imminent death. But I digress.)

"Sam, that looks beautiful", my Senior Boss said.

"Sam, I never thought this day would come, but you're not embarrassing me", Registrar said.

I realise that this may be an indication of my low expectations, but this might be the best day of my year. Definitely the best day of my surgical rotation. My Reg let me close the chest alone, and as we were applying the dressings, we were both singing along with Elvis, "Dreaming of a White Christmas". A rare moment of harmony.

Combine that with a sunny half-day (I'm not wearing pants!) and buying flights (MEL-YVR-YOL-YVZ-DCA-YVR-MEL, phew...) I am flying high. And I get to go meet my lovely girls for burgers and gossip.

Happiness, thy name is Sam.

Sloth & God

I don't want to get up. I'm blogging from the softness of my crisp cotton sheets. I've just had nine and a half hours of unbroken sleep and I feel re-born.

Gone is the pain of hearing my boss say, "No matter how you do your hair, you're still the same shitty intern". Gone is the tension from seeing my supreme boss roll his eyes during my ward audit. Fatigue and ennui? Washed away. Hunger and rage? Melted into happiness.

Sleep has knitted my ravelled sleeve of care, and just in time; I have to go Christmas shopping today.

The thing about being in Australia for Christmas is that it doesn't feel right. Sure, the shops have decorations up and people are singing carols, but it's bright. Sunny. The days are long and hot. According to my internal clock, Christmas is a time of dark, cold and wearing soft sweaters. Hence, it's not Christmas.

Yesterday, as I was bent over a patient trying to coax a drip into his arm, I heard a choir singing carols. St V's being a Catholic hospital, they go all out; our ward is decorated, our website says "Merry Christmas" and all the Jews are working Christmas day. My patient, who has air bubbles collecting under his skin from a previous lung rupture, started singing along to "Silent Night" as I finally got blood. That was the moment I thought, "Oh it's Christmas."

And then immediately thought, "Shit, I have to go shopping".

Anyways, I suppose there are two points to this:

1. I have to readjust my perception of what Christmas is.

2. I really really love my sleep.

From the land down under, where presents are delivered by Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, Happy Christmas.