hey all
a few topics to touch on..i realize my last few posts have been kinda boring/preachy so let me try to excite you guys with stories of my personal life.

the last two weeks i have been dating this guy i met off scruff. i think he may actually been the only successful real life contact i've had from that app. our first date we went out for dinner which went well enough as far as conversation, and we went so far as to migrate to another place for a drink. i was really getting more of a friend vibe from him so i was a little surprised when he went in for the kiss when we were parting ways. well he was a good kisser so we had a few kisses and that was that.

we had a second date a few nights later. we decided to go for a quick dinner then watch 'silver linings playbook'. (side note: bradley cooper is a fucking stud. why were there no gratuitous shirtless scenes of him in that movie?) again, mostly tame throughout the movie, then somewhere about 3/4 in we started holding hands...interesting. we went back to my place after the movie under the pretense of hanging out/having a drink and well...things got busy. just made out for a bit first and the guy was pretty aggressively grinding on me which i thought was pretty hot. in the middle of it though he said he doesn't have sex unless he's dating someone which i said ok that's fine we don't have to have sex. so we continued the pg/pg 13 stuff on the couch for a bit then he suggested moving it to to my bed which i agreed to. interestingly he started peeling off the clothes and given what he said earlier, i asked 'are we gonna get naked?' which he said yes to. so..there was that, we had some fun, and......he slept over. there goes the friend thing.

after that night i thought about what i wanted with this guy. he's very nice, we get along well enough, and obviously i like him physically enough to have some naughty fun. but at this point, i'm really looking for THE ONE. i truly want to find the guy who i'm gonna spend the rest of my life with. and unfortunately with this guy i don't think he has the things i'm looking for in a future husband. maybe a me in the past would just keep hanging out with this guy for the fun, but to be fair to both of us i thought it best that we just be friends.

that was my mindset going into our third 'date'. we met up for a dinner last week in his neighborhood and i had all intentions of explaining to him what i'm looking for and why i didn't think we should keep dating. unfortunately dinner was so pleasant, and we ended up going back to his place to watch some tv, which led to cuddling, which led to the bedroom, which led to us waking up naked together the next morning...you get the picture. easier said than done obviously to break things up.

anyway i'm supposed to meet him tomorrow for happy hour and i have all intentions to really break things off. it's really not fair to him for me to keep this up. i don't even know what he's looking for in a relationship, but my path is set. i hope he still wants to be friends though. i know that's kind of a weird statement since we've already slept together, but i think it can happen.

in other news, is it weird that i find daniel day lewis kinda hot? the characters he plays are creepy but when he's all cleaned up he looks pretty good for an older guy...

i'm starting this post in the middle of the night and it's funny because i can hear the neighbor below me snoring. i only hear it occasionally and i don't really hear much from my neighbors' apartments so this guy must be a loud ass snorer. maybe i should drop an anonymous note saying he should get screened for obstructive sleep apnea. also, i wonder if my neighbors ever hear unsavory things coming from my apartment. as much as i want to blast my speaker volume when i'm watching porn, i keep it at medium for that reason, but i'm sure they've heard a few moans travel from my computer to their ears...

ok random tangent but that's where my brain is at in the middle of the night. now on to what i really wanted to discuss. does anyone remember growing up in school seeing one of those posters that said something like "life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it."? you know, the kind of inspirational posters teachers like to use to decorate their classroom, along with pictures of the solar system and the human body and so forth. well at the time i thought those inspirational posters were pretty lame, but now i see how true they were.

i came off a tough month of service in january. very busy, long hours, lots of patients and work to do. as much as i wanted to die and crawl into a hole some days, i still managed to have a decent month because the other residents and i just laughed a lot, shrugged our shoulders, rolled our eyes maybe, and got through the work. and that's where that mantra kept running through my head, it's not about what happens to you, but how you react to it. when you get that 5th consult in an hour you can scream, you can be furious, you can rage at the idiots who are asking a consult for the dumbest thing, or you can smile and go see the patient. i would say the majority of doctors are not very thrilled to get a new consult, but i've been trying to transform my attitude to look at it as an opportunity to help the patient, add something their care, and maybe find a learning opportunity, even if you are seeing them for a dumb reason.

in one of my favorite blogs, the author writes a post or maybe it was just a comment, i can't recall, about how people seem to be more focused on negativity as opposed to reaching for a place of compassion and kindness. i don't know if it's human nature or what, but in this era you just kinda expect people to react poorly to something. think about what would happen if you spilled your drink on someone. how refreshing would it be if you could count that the poor recipient would just as likely burst out laughing at the mistake as they would be fuming that you just ruined their outfit or whatever. but really, when something bad happens, what can you do other than laugh and roll with the punches? i personally feel so much better about myself when i try to be positive rather than sulk and wallow (although i will sulk from time to time).



i saw a young woman in her late 20s last month in the ED. she had a known history of a very aggressive cancer and i knew the top things on her mind when i saw her would be whether 1. was this her cancer 2. was this her cancer and 3. was this her cancer? so i came in to see her and had barely introduced myself to her and her husband when i knocked over her urine sample that was sitting on the counter.  i had just ruined any semblance of professionalism i had and was pretty embarrassed, but this young lady just burst out laughing like she hadn't laughed in years. and then there we all were just laughing our heads off as i crawled down to fetch her luckily intact urine bottle off the floor.

unfortunately, she ended up having new metastases to the brain. i suspect she'll be dead in a year from her cancer, but i hope she'll remember that the day she was told she had cancer in her brain, she also got to laugh at a doctor spilling her piss all over the floor.

like a lot of life, we do our best to react to the situation and make the most of it. i personally think it feels so much better to react to things in as positive a way as possible. negativity just saps all your energy away, and heck if i barely have enough of that.

obesity

i have a post i started last night but i felt so strongly about a subject i saw today that i'm putting it on the back burner, although it will tie in well with today's post.

today, i watched a news story about new jersey governor chris christie, a self-admitted overweight gentleman who was even recently on david letterman to poke fun at his own weight and brought out a donut to eat as a gag. christie is also an aspiring 2016 presidential candidate. there was a piece on him on CNN and they asked the opinion of a former white house doctor on his health, to which this doctor responded she was afraid he would die in office because of his obesity.

governor christie responded today to her remarks with a few choice words, some of which included that she "should shut up" and she was "completely irresponsible".

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/06/chris-christie-connie-mariano_n_2631944.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_t2#/video/politics/2013/02/06/sot-christie-tells-doc-to-shut-up.news-12-new-jersey

i heard the first part of the news story as i was cleaning up my apartment and i knew by the build up the doctor would make some remark about how bad his weight is for his health. any physician would say the same thing, white house doc or not.

i was disappointed then by governor christie's response.

i was expecting him to have a positive response to these doctor's remarks, perhaps for him to acknowledge his longstanding problem with obesity and his plan to take steps to improve his health today. there was none of that. instead, there was uncalled for vitriol directed against this very reasonable professional, who really was showing genuine concern for christie.

i was disappointed that christie threw away this opportunity to address the huge problem this country has with obesity and set a positive example for millions of america struggling with the same weight problem, as might be expected of a future presidential candidate.

i was disappointed by his negativity and his stunning denial about the real issue, his obesity. he says in his response that dr. mariano has never examined him to render a professional opinion, but governor christie should know that the physical exam starts with simple observation. if a patient of his size walks in the room, any doctor begins thinking about all the health problems that are in store for a morbidly obese gentleman such as himself. even any medical student can rattle off at least 10 conditions associated with obesity. let's try:

1. hypertension
2. hyperlipidemia
3. diabetes mellitus
4. coronary artery disease
5. stroke
6. peripheral vascular disease
7. liver disease
8. obstructive sleep apnea
9. cancer (breast, endometrial, or colon, to name a few)
10. arthritis

this story really resonated with me, i guess because i was hoping for more. i was expecting something uplifting. i wanted so much for governor christie to be a role model for our nation to tackle our obesity epidemic. this may be hard to understand, but it truly makes me sad when i see an obese patient because i can only imagine all the complications that will eventually ruin, or end, their life. and then to see a politician attack my profession, to cast doubt on our intentions in voicing our opinions? i commend dr. mariano for having the candor to speak in a constructive manner about governor christie's health and weight. i wish that he had thought the same.

i came out to my closest guy friend in residency last night. i've been meaning to tell him for a few months but with our busy work schedules hadn't had the right opportunity of drinks and alone time away from his wife (not that i don't love his wife but i wanted to make this a one on one thing). anyway after we had gone out with a few other friends and come back to his place there was an opportune lull in the conversation to drop the bomb. turns out he had had a strong suspicion 'cuz a few weekends ago i had conveniently ditched the group because i had to meet up with hook up guy instead and my friend had seen the guy's picture on my phone when i was calling him in my drunken stupor. guess i haven't been doing a good job being discreet about my booty calls.

my friend took it fine as i expected he would. it was just weird, in a good way, to finally have it out in the open.  interestingly he and his wife had already speculated i was homo, mostly on the sole reasoning that i haven't been actively slaying bitches throughout residency as they would expect someone like me too if i were a straight-blooded male. i thought that was kind of funny. i guess they (rightly) haven't taken me for someone to be a sexual prude, so they thought it was weird that i've never made mention of any sexual conquests. which i said in response to him, is there no room in this world any more for decency and a hookup free life? i guess not...they had also apparently "tested" me by introducing me to one of their single neighbors, and my lack of interest in this woman also added to their circumstantial evidence, never mind the fact that even if were straight i would have had no interest in this female.

(side note: i've been a fan of "the new normal" and while it plays into a lot of gay stereotypes i think it's still pretty funny. check out this episode regarding "gaydar" and "gay testing". http://www.hulu.com/watch/448320)

anyway we had a nice conversation about me being a fan of dick. as has been some guys' experience with coming out to straight people, he was far more curious about my gay life than i thought he would be. a little more than i was comfortable telling him about to be honest, and this is coming from one of the craziest sexual deviants in the medical world. i guess it is just weird for me to talk about gay stuff with another straight male 'cuz i can't imagine why they would have any interest in our sexual practices. but overall we had a pretty good and interesting conversation and maybe each opened up about personal things we shouldn't have haha.

in all i'm glad it finally happened and most important to me it's not gonna change the dynamic i have with him. one of his college roommates was gay and he has been a dutiful friend in the past and played straight wingman at a few gay bars, but i am politely declining any offers for him to do the same for me now haha. i'm sure his wedding ring would make him a popular target too!

what up all
i've been working nights lately which if you've never had to work nights before, feels like your soul is slowly getting sucked out of you. luckily i only have one night left before i return to the land of the living. anyway i found this quiz off someone on facebook as i was trying to kill some time. i know everyone's done about a zillion of these at some point but it's always fun to do them and be analyzed. here's the link and my results below.

https://www.archetypeme.com/