with love and squalor

ah, gynecology. the domain of the most paranoid, hormonal residents in the hospital. what, the patient's bleeding??? get an h&h stat! reserve blood! get a line inserted! get the blood! wheres the blood? wheres the blood? did you get the blood?

i think i shall go for a haircut and brow threading tomorrow, then buy the thickest fashion magazine in the racks just to calm down from tonight's duty and prepare myself for the abounding radical hysterectomies.

blood and peanut butter

so i've been coughing and sniffling for about a week now, and i think it's time for me to wake up and smell the honey and lemon tea. i've tried stopping smoking, swapping coffee for tea, antihistamines. and then i woke up yesterday and could not swallow. hello antibiotic regimen x 1 week. cigarettes and coffee i miss you.

emergency room duty last night was a bitch. this emergency room physician calls us up and coordinates a transfer because of patient's preference and i'm all, okay, let's have the endorsements because i'd rather have it from you than the ambulance doctor. so he goes: patient is a 55 year old female brought in because of right sided weakness etc etc etc bp controlled, gcs 13 given mannitol and citicholine etc etc etc. a simple case of stroke.

lo and behold, as the patient is brought in, i realize that bp control means that the patient is very nearly hypotensive. compressible pulses. we do an ecg and it's STEMI. damn you emergency room doctor. damn you for not telling me about the 3day history of chest pain and your nSTEMI diagnosis in your provincial hospital. your patient would kill you for this if she were not in cardiogenic shock.

oh well. that's that. i'm going to go off and have crunchy peanut butter and orange juice for dinner as i haven't any other food in the apartment.

keep calm and carry on

i've been too desperately busy during the holidays to post -- a frenzy of social activity sliding suddenly and seamlessly to a week, two weeks of this punishing surgery rotation. and it would not be so difficult if the residents were not so, well, paranoid, obsessive-compulsive, full of themselves. there is this one resident in particular, (and i'm sorry for taking this quite personally), whose personality is as terrible as his face.

in a related note, i've been telling myself that it's past time to begin studying for the board exams; in fact, this would be the perfect time to panic. however, progress is still not being made as this girl is literally exhausted by 12 midnight exploratory laparotomies, 6 am hospital rounds, and the incessant sarcasm, bitchiness, and general powertripping of the superiors. i'm more and more certain that as much as i thrill to the sensation of surgical instruments in my hands, the training environment doesn't quite overcome it. trying to make myself feel better by shopping every time i get out of the hospital. however funds are so desperately depleted by the holidays
that i won't be able to keep it up for the next weeks to come. but. we must keep calm and carry on.

ALSO! and perhaps more importantly: im working on a chapbook, partly to address this personal financial crisis, partly to take my mind off work, partly to make something of the poetry i've been scribbling on and off for the past years. it's to be roughly 20 poems long. however, i want it to have a personal touch in the binding and so forth. any help or ideas about handmade binding for chapbooks would be greatly appreciated as i have a limited budget and cannot afford to send it off for professional finishing. i was thinking of hand-stitching it with gold thread but i've gotten multiple needle-stick injuries from my previous attempts. paper isn't quite as supple as skin, to say in the least. so currently, am considering just stapling it then hiding the staples with a satin ribbon and so forth but it seems too terribly slapdash. again, any ideas would be dearly appreciated.

a tally of materialism

my november acquisitions:

1) an enameled turquoise and tangerine floral bangle from hongkong
2) the bigger bottle of coco mademoiselle (gone are the days of skimping on scent)
3) regulation white shirt from agnes b
4) white lace camisole from aero

am currently undecided between getting these locally made electric blue satin flats with black velvet poufs at the toes vs a new zippo lighter. or perhaps forgoing both for the sake of wonderful christmas presents for all! (ive felt rather self-indulgent lately and with good cause--)

we'll see how tomorrow's duty goes (singularly alone in the hospital wards, at the mercy of any and all pediatric patients.)

a calendar of days

there are hours in this patchwork calendar when
thin-soled and restless
you feel you can walk across water

then there are days
doused thickly with aubergine
when suddenly you're drowning in your tears.