Apparently I Look Like a Drug Dealer

So, I am here in BC doing an orthopedics elective. But really, I am doing an everything elective. I've worked in this hospital before as a nurse and most of the doctors know me. I want to scrub for surgeries, stitch wounds in the ER, catch babies, intubate, whathaveyou. So I need a cell phone, otherwise no one can reach me when wounds / babies / femurs are presenting themselves.

I walked into the 7-eleven and looked for the cheapest phone. $39. Brilliant. I asked the attendant to please fetch me the $39 phone from behind the counter. He looked at me strangely and said, "Er....are you sure you don't want a nicer phone? These ones are only $100". I waffled for a moment but held strong. All I need this for is "baby coming" texts. Status symbol, status schmimbol. Give me the ridiculous one. 

I was quite proud of my new phone so during my next shift I whipped it out to show one of the murses. He burst out laughing, "Dude!! You've got a burner!!"


"Uh...what is a burner?"

"It's a phone that drug dealers use so that their calls can't be traced. They're disposable. Hilarious. You totally will look like a dealer every time you take that phone out."

Now I feel old, and crazy out of touch with slang.

The next day I get a text at the nurses station and I'm trying to thumb my way through a response when one of the other nurses starts pointing and laughing, "NICE BURNER!!!!"

Siiiiiiighhhhhh. Am I the only person that didn't know this term? Apparently if I watched The Wire or CSI I'd be well versed in these matters.

I sent a text to my orthopod to give him my number (since we were on call) saying "Here is my mobile number courtesy of 7-eleven" and the next day in theater he tells me that his wife saw the text and asked him who was sending him messages from a burner.

For the record, he's in his 50's.

It's no iphone 4, it's small, it is ridiculous. I look like a complete rube (and low-life, apparently) when I try to text from it. But you know what? It is almost so lame that it feels cool. In fact, I like that it is ghetto. It feels slightly rebellious and hip to not be showing off what apps I can get on it. I wear rubber boots to work and I own a burner. It is just how I roll these days.

The Blackbear Has Landed

It was an uneventful return voyage home to Ireland, overall.

The main thing that cast a long dark shadow on my layover in Heathrow was Aer Lingus (a.k.a Aer Pirates) charging me £260 for my 'excess' baggage weight. Yeah, apparently you are only allowed 20kg IN TOTAL on flights from the UK to Ireland. So naturally I was overweight (ahem!) because I had two 23kg suitcases. The strange thing is every single time I've taken this route that is how much luggage I've had, and this is the first time they've jerked me around and robbed me blind IN STERLING.

I called the baggage department today to plead my case and was informed that the complaints department can only be contacted by FAX or snail mail. Actually. It boggles the mind. So rather than getting in touch with Horatio and asking him to deliver my concerns post haste, I will just use my tiny blog to say

Aer Lingus is the worst airline in the world. Never fly Aer Lingus. Ever. Unless you like being robbed by a woman in a bad green suit with too much makeup on. 


When I arrived in Limerick I bumped into a mother /daughter duo from California at the airport who were heading to my neck of the woods, so I offered them a lift. They were great company for the long drive and kept me awake for the duration despite my lack of sleep for >30 hours.

And now I am here, sorting and unpacking, assembling and organizing.

When I went to buy some breakfast staples I caught myself frozen with a vacant stare directed towards the milk aisle, remembering the weekly argument that Tobie and I would have over whether to get low fat or regular coffee cream. Loneliness comes crashing down hard when you least expect it.

OK OK OK I promise not to make this blog an homage to Tobie and a constant whine about how much I miss him. I am back in the hospital in 3 days which means I'll have plenty to whine about soon enough.

I am actually getting a little scared. What should I wear? Who will my consultant be? Where will I park? Is the cafeteria food edible? A tiny tiny part of me is also excited. But I really have no idea what being a medical student on clerkships in Ireland is all about. So I am mostly scared.

It's going to be an interesting ride*, that I am certain of.

Tomorrow I am driving back to Old Town Where The University Is to say hello and goodbye to some of my classmates who are now scattered around the Eire, also getting ready to start placements.

Hello 3rd year.

*I really need to drop that word entirely from my lexicon.

Take THAT, All Work and No Play

I am getting oh so very excited. Cathy and her husband Nate are arriving from Wisconsin tomorrow!!!

Cathy and I met on our Himalayan Health Exchange volunteer trip in 2008. You know when you meet someone and instantly know they will always be a part of your life from that point on? I have to say I was lucky enough to have that feeling about several of the folks on that trip, Cathy was no exception. There is also something about seeing your colleague's underwear drying on the line day after day, for a month, that really causes all pretense to fall.  It is pretty hard to put-on-airs and be aloof when no one has had access to running water for 3 weeks. Ok, one girl was aloof but we won't go there (who brings a white felt pea-coat as their jacket on a backpacking trip??) Bottom line, you bond with people when you are living and working together in the midst of controlled chaos and pit toilets.

Just chillin' (literally) at 14 000ft.

On the trip, Cathy was a 4th year medical student waiting to find out about residencies, and I was a nurse waiting to find out about medical school interviews.

Needless to say our lives have changed a little since then! She's now an old married woman and 2nd year peds resident.

I haven't actually seen her since our goodbye in Delhi, but we've kept in touch via email and random gift packages.

I've worked like a mad-woman all week in the hopes of taking next week off. I even managed to finish my paper early, and most of my homework for the next case is done. Now it is time to enjoy some Irish adventures and shenanigans. I don't feel a lick of guilt for my planned truancy. Besides, Cathy is like some kind of brilliantly-hilarious-Asian-American-Halley's-Comet that only comes around a few times in one's lifetime. I've got to enjoy the downtime when I can get it, after all, the hospital will be making me it's bi*ch soon enough.

Speaking of which, I GOT MED/SURG for the summer! STOKED!! Too many people wanted to do med/surg as their first placement (instead of GP) so the school had to do a lottery. The big issue is many of my Canadian classmates (myself included) are trying to arrange electives in North America in the hopes of getting some residency connections and local letters of recommendation. As you can imagine, the hoops to get back into a North American residency are many--but one step that many people have advised is DO AS MUCH IN CANADA AND THE US AS POSSIBLE* when you are a medical student. Many of these electives require that you have completed your 3rd year med/surg rotation. Needless to say there are quite a few unhappy Canadians right now in my class. I am hoping it will work out for them, the school has said they will try very hard to give them the preparation and skills required. Still, it's a gamble. Anyway, I am so excited as I cannot wait to get back into the O.R and back in the hospital in general. The small flickering light at the end of the basic science years is starting to show itself!

But now I must get cracking and get ready for the arrival of my esteemed guests. It's going to be so great to re-connect with this formidable woman!

*Any of you want to provide the ultimate clerkship experience for me in years 3 and 4? G'head and email me!

Words of The Day

I had never experienced a "night terror" before traveling to Asia. Well, I thought that was what they were called. I'd wake up in the middle of the night and be: completely paralyzed, seeing someone standing in the door to my room, hearing someone saying my name loudly, or all three.

Then I'd really wake up.

It was extremely frightening, especially since I was mostly traveling alone and staying in, er, less than reputable places. Some of my accommodations were literally mud huts with bamboo doors on them.

Today as I was bumbling through practice USMLE questions I came upon this answer to a question:

So THAT is what they were!!

Hypnopompic and hypnagogic hallucinations.

Ok, so aside from the fact that they are seriously cool words to add to one's vocabulary, I was intrigued by the transient nature of my former "classic symptoms of narcolepsy".

I stopped taking chloroquine about 5 months into my trip and the symptoms stopped. Of course I have heard that 'vivid dreams' are a common side effect of the prophylaxis...but now I can't help but think they should add hypnopompic and hypnagogic hallucinations to the list!
 

Ghost of Christmas Past

I was reading through posts about the holiday season on my old blog and I found this one from 3 years ago. It made me realise that it's been a long, long time since I've been home for Christmas. The theme of being away seems to keep coming up, which was a big part of why I started blogging. It was an easy/exhibitionist way of keeping a diary, an account of things.

I will post soon about my most recent Christmas, but in the meantime...a little trip down memory lane.

---

A marker in time. Christmas.

When I was a kid I was allowed to sleep in the living room, next to the tree. I always loved falling asleep to the blinking lights and the sounds of cards and laughter coming through the glass door that separated our living room from the kitchen. Even now, sometimes when I can't sleep I try and imagine myself back in time feeling that sense of anticipation and security as Christmas danced on the horizon and family were every where I turned.

Last Christmas John and I were in Morocco and it was less than ideal, though we did try to make the best of it. It was cold at night and the Riad we were staying at had no central heating (which was the norm) so at night the owners would bring a smoking stove with virtually no ventilation into the common room where we'd oscillate between freezing outside breathing fresh air and smoke inhalation in the warm-ish common room. I was homesick and calling home made it no better, listening to my families enjoyment of their rented cabin in Fernie and freshies on the mountain each day.

Photo booth near Todra Gorge where we were staying.

It reminded me of when I called my father on Boxing Day from the west coast of India in 1999. I felt a million miles away from everything and everyone standing there in the suffocating phone booth, sweating, rings of dirt around my neck. I was crying and he just said, "why the hell don't you come home then?". It makes me laugh now...you can't call your parents crying on the other side of the world and not expect them to say such a thing. But at the time it was as ludicrous a suggestion as "why the hell don't you join the Spice Girls and go on tour with them?"

I searched online for some way to get home from Morocco but of course it was Christmas and it would have been impossible to change flight and go home without losing my money on the return ticket and likely losing my boyfriend in the process. So I stayed and we spent a shivering, coughing, Christmas eating tagine and scrambled eggs with the chain smoking Czechs, the hilarious Germans, and the hospitable Moroccans.

So a year passed and it seems that life again had it's own plans for me this Christmas.

After successfully finishing a semester in Kelowna I was excited to return to Revelstoke to see friends and then be on my merry way to Red Deer to see my brothers, sister, nieces, nephews, brother-in-law, sisters-in-law, mother. It rarely happens that all four of us kids are in the same country at once.

I made smoky sweet potato soup, bought all kinds of organic veggies for a roasted winter vegetable pasta (with fresh pasta from the Italian deli in Kelowna). I had to make several trips to the car to pack the Petit Syrah, the Champagne, the food, the mandolin, clothes, ski gear, and camera.

Got about 50 km down the highway and after being tailgated by an asshole in an SUV on the black ice I decided to turn around.

Now I was trying to negotiate the black ice while sobbing and snotting all over my steering wheel. Okay enough with Christmas and crying I say!!! I unpacked all the food, the drinks, the instrument, the clothes, the books, etc. and put on my snow pants. Tobogganing in the alley with Carlos, Ruby, Polly, Nelson, and Sophie cheered me up.

And thus the Revy Christmas whirlwind began.

You Know You Are in the Arctic When...

So picture Saskatchewan. Now go straight up, through Nunavut. Over all the rocks and trees and tundra. Over the caribou, lichen, streams, and ravens. Drop off the top of Canada's mainland, cross the frigid waters that will turn you to ice in minutes, then stiffly climb onto the shores of Victoria Island. There you are. In Cambridge Bay.

Imagine a flat, white, landscape. Depending on the day that white will be cut in half on the horizon with blue-bird sky that surrounds you 180 degrees or with a matching shade of blowing white which makes you feel like you are in one of those snow globes someone is shaking vigorously.

Welcome to the North.

It has been cold up here. Not just "oh I think I'll wear a coat today" cold but more like "oh, I think I have to bring my blowdryer and an extension cord to work today so I can de-ice my lock when I get home" cold.

My walk to work is approximately 5 mins (or 1.5 Lucinda Williams songs I've discovered). And in that time all kinds of fun and interesting things can happen to you when it is -50 with the windchill.

Things like:
-your face freezing to the inside of your coat from the moisture in your breath. As if you licked the entire front of your face then stuck it to the side of a metal door.
-your eyelashes freezing shut
-a trail of snotcicles (icicles made of snot) clinging to your upper lip
-a pain, burning, immobility of movement in the fingers which leads you to believe that your fingers are actually freezing. It is not just an expression any more.
-your earphone cord seizing up to a taught, brittle, wire instead of the normally flexible plastic handing loosely by your side.
-tendrils of hair coated by breath moisture turning into wisps of ice hair framing your face, which then melts and plasters to your forehead imediately after stepping indoors.

It's fun. It's something different all the time.  Today it is only -37 with the windchill so people are outside snow kiting in the bay to celebrate the chinook like change in weather.

Got to love those hearty northeners, hey?

Interweb Machine Connection Again

Hello Blog-land.

How I have missed you so.

It has been a wonderful whirlwind, travelling from the vibrant Gatineau area to the familiar prairies of Alberta. Too short of a holiday with Tobie and too many people to see out West. I had to compromise for quality not quantity.

Now I am in my new digs in Northern BC. Staring at the ocean from my wood and brick bungalow, decorated with circa 1970's teal couches and ivory appliances.

My luggage, however, is in Nanaimo, BC.

I realized that things were not good when I was waiting for my connecting flight out of Vancouver and noticed my baggage tags were marked with the wrong last name to the wrong destination. The initial flight customer service agent threw out my bag tags and told me there was no record of my luggage in the system and that there was nothing he could do.

Um. No. Unacceptable.

I had to politely ask him to remove my bag tags from the garbage and return them to me. Thankfully a competent agent came to my rescue and actually made phone calls and tacked away on his keyboard for a while.

Apparently the bags are going to arrive this evening, fingers crossed. My first shift back in the ED wearing scrubs and heels would have been interesting.

Now I must forage for food, nap, and hope that my belongings arrive*.

A bald eagle just flew past my window. Actually. God I love this province.


*Update: Everything has arrived, intact and unmolested. The lady is pleased.

Death Be Not Proud

Enough of trying to pretend that I am coping well. I am not.

There are a few workplaces in this world where you might have the wonderful advantage of a colleague who is always willing to help you out. This is the person you can call in the middle of the night, when you are alone in the clinic and suddenly overwhelmed with a septic child and casualties from an ATV accident. This amazing colleague does not ask questions or complain that she's exhausted, she just gets down to it. Her experienced and gentle hands start the IV while her stern voice gets a room full of hysterical teenagers under control.

I was lucky enough to have this colleague become my friend. She taught me how to make blue cheese bread twists out of the limited groceries we had access to in the Arctic. She rented a boat with me so we could see the icebergs up close, feel the gravel of a glacier under our feet, and bob alongside seals for the afternoon. She taught me to fish and she taught me how to do a proper head-to-toe assessment on a neonate.

Fortune continued to smile upon me.  This woman generously invited me to her home in New Zealand, letting me use her place as a base while I travelled around exploring the beautiful landscape of the South Island. She introduced me to her friends and colleagues and they embraced me as an honored guest.

Eventually she became one of my wisest confidantes, and I was truly blessed for this. She listened to my dreams, and encouraged me relentlessly to pursue them. She would write to me, telling me to push on when she knew that my determination was faltering. She sent me gifts when she was far away reminding me of how proud she was. She was one of the few people on this earth truly in my corner, championing my successes and lamenting my failures. When the first round of medical school rejections came, she pushed me back into the ring to keep trying.

She never married or had children. Her spouse was adventure and her children were the thousands of sick babies she held in her arms. Her entire career as a nurse was devoted to the vulnerable and weak, the poor and the forgotten. She spent years volunteering in Zimbabwe , Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar. In New Zealand she worked in a special care babies unit and in Canada she took care of First Nations and Inuit communities.

She took me under her wing during my first contract as an outpost nurse in the Arctic and tirelessly answered my endless barrage of questions those first months. If it hadn't been for her I am sure I'd have left the North with my tail between my legs, succumbing to the crushing weight of inexperience and fear.

Mentors and kindred spirits do not come along very many times in ones life.

In Nancy I had both.

She died from cancer on Thursday April 8th, 2010. 

Now that she is gone there is an empty void left in this world and in my heart.

Death be not proud. You have taken a shining star, a selfless healer, a wise woman, a sister, a daughter, and a friend.

Nancy I pray that you may now see all of the hearts you've touched, the lives you've saved, and minds you've inspired. Rest in peace my dear friend. 

New Years, Now and Then

tMy Manfriend's parents are here for the holidays, and we've been doing the tourist-thang with them in Dublin and now back in our neck of the woods. Yesterday we walked around some castle ruins and a small hobby farm. There was a damp chill in the air and the low branches on the trees made the afternoon feel like a scene from Sleepy Hollow. I like this photo because you can see the duck just starting to take flight.

Whether I like it or not, January 1st brings with it the mark in time, the reflection on the year and years passed. Where was I last year? What was I doing for New Years Eve? Well this year I was in my living room eating filet mignon. Tobie and I capped the evening with some very bizarre UK television specials, including performances by Boy George and George Michael (maybe it was part of their community service obligations...)

A street in Dublin on St. Stevens Day

In 2007 I brought in the New Year with John in Morocco. I cannot pretend that I loved every minute of that trip as there were many bumps along the way---lost luggage for 6 days, colder than expected temperatures for climbing, sketchy rooms in Casablanca, roach infested train rides...but John put up with me nonetheless and we had some great times despite the surprises. I thought the contrast in color, cities, food, climate and company from 2 years ago until now was worth posting.

The only day the sooks are closed up and silent. The Feast of Abraham which also happened to fall on New Years Day.

The locals simply referred to it as "le fête" while simultaneously dragging their index finger across the throat. This was usually done with a large grin on the face (making the throat cutting mime that much more disconcerting). They'd excitedly ask us, "What are you doing for the fete???" *slash, slash, slash*.

The fête is a great celebration which often involves the slaughtering a sheep (or goat, etc.) to commemorate the willingness of Abraham to kill his son as it was God's will. Instead--by God's command--he killed a ram. We didn't follow the 'when in Rome' rule on that one but we did enjoy the fireworks and festivities.

A street in Morocco on St. Stevens day.