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| When I first wrote
this list, everyone said I was being ridiculously impossible.
That may be true, BUT in my defense, I use it as a guideline,
definitely not a checklist. Using this as a checklist would be
crude and unfair. Plus, these aren't superficial qualities!
It's not as if I am saying: "You must be a professional comedian, have
brown hair, wear glasses, and host your own political satire show on
Comedy Central at 11:30pm PST...Everyone else? Dead to me."
what ladomivita would like from a nice boy (born between 1970 - August 1980)
1. Kind. Everyone can be nice
and polite, but it takes a real man to be kind, patient, and empathetic
with those around him. Someone warm and brimming with compassion.
2. Honesty. Honest with me, honest with himself.
3. Open-minded.
Strong opinions always welcome, but be flexible enough to see matters
from different perspectives.
4. A keen intelligence.
Someone brilliant in some area. (Note: not synonymous with being overly
educated). You don't have to attend a fancy-schmancy school to engage
me intellectually.
5. Self-aware and confident while being modest and humble. No matter how accomplished you are, if you're arrogant, yuck! Arrogance is my biggest turn-off.
6. Funny, witty.
Someone who makes me
laugh until my tummy hurts and who is unafraid to be silly at times.
7. Thoughtful and giving.
Someone who thinks of ways to brighten my day or to do something nice
just because. I'm not looking for material gifts. I'd be a happy clam
if it's something like a sweet one-line email "hey how are you?
thinking of you." Or maybe you know I'm having a super busy day and
surprise me with lunch or a snack or coffee or tea. Yes, the way to my heart is through
my stomach. Hee.
8. Cute (to me) in a kissable and jumpable way. Someone who finds me kissable and jumpable, too. There, I said it.
9. Passionate, curious, and inquisitive
about the world and his interests. Someone who sees life for its
possibilities and is excited about living.
10. Good and effective at communication and emotionally expressive.
I am tired of inferring feelings based on facial expressions and small
verbal cues. I know I need to cultivate faith and trust, but I
need evidence-based reasons to believe and to have said faith and
trust.
11. Ambitious but understands that his work is not his entire identity.
12. Strong - emotionally and physically.
13. WARM and affectionate. Enjoys hugging and kissing me and is good at it. An infectious smile.
14. Loves and adores me for me.
(And lets me love and adore him back). And by me, I mean me in my
silliness, for how I see the world, for the way I treat those
around me, for the way I laugh, for the way I live. For reasons
that you don't even know yourself. Not for objectifiable reasons
(beauty, brains, my bookshelf, etc).
| | |
|
Yes, that's about
30+ (90 dollars worth) of Naked Juices I bought with leftover meal
tickets at the hospital. They're heavy. The first batch of
16 I got broke the handle of my paper bag. Wah. And while I
was hoarding 16 more bottles into my extra-strength paper bag today,
some crazy cafeteria lady gave me an evil stare and I thought: "B***h,
haven't you ever seen a starving med student loot some nekkid
juices? I earned this, dammit, ONE NAKED JUICE FOR EVERY DAY OF
THE ROTATION."
Heehee.
My roommate opened the fridge this morning and thought "Holy s**t - is
Domi ILL?" He thought I had suddenly come down with dysphagia and
could only subsist on an all-liquid diet. Hahahaha. It's
great: my roommate thinks I have cancer, my boyfriend thinks I have an
eating disorder (half kidding about this), and some of my friends think
I'm a functional bulimic (as in, I don't throw up, but I go for periods
without eating and then eat a lot). I LOVE eating. I
do. I think about food ALL the time. I just like to eat
with people. Don't tell my mom, but some days go by and I just
drink coffee and imbibe these naked juices like they're going out of
style. Mmm yes.
**
I just finished my internal medicine sub-internship! 
And I loved it even more than I expected. I have embraced my
inner detail-oriented uptight librarian-ish nerd. I learned so
much and found myself driven by my own curiosity to figure out why
things are the way they are and all that evidence-based goodness.
Oh - and the people are amazing. At least at my institution, many
of the attendings, residents, and interns are so admirable, kind, and well-balanced.
The men are witty, handsome in a non-cocky-way, and devoted to their
families. And the women - wow, what amazing role models:
confident, sharp, warm, and beautiful inside and out. I was so
lucky to be on this great team (it consisted of me the retarded MS4, 2 interns, and a resident) this past month and patients and
residents called us the "Pretty Girls Team" (those are coattails I
don't mind being on )
and the "Power Team." High-five. We discussed residency
applications and NEJM articles and the nordstrom half-yearly sale and
trending troponins in the same breath. They're phenomenal at
their work, yet they're grounded and are in happy functional romantic
relationships. I found myself growing up a lot this June by
observing them and realizing what really matters: this stupid need for
superficial affirmation is getting old - I'll save the neuroses for
work. I want to be happy.
Ironically, I came to this conclusion following an afternoon of
superficial affirmation - on Monday 6/18, I had the worst Monday with
personal-life ickiness and patients crashing around me so I went to the
gym for a swim to cool off in an attempt to feel better after
work. The swim was good, and since the gym is near my apartment,
I defer showering until I get home so I just wear a red sundress to and
from so it's easier to get out of - I was walking home with my
hair pulled back and in sunglasses all damp and this car is turning the
corner and screeches to a halt - a woman rolls down her window and
smiles and shouts out: "God, I HAVE to ask you! Where did you get
that DRESS?" I sheepishly reply, "uh...this is from the
Gap...years ago. I got it on sale." And she's so sweet and
laughs and says: "Oh, that's awesome - you look SO cute in it!"
To which I actually bite my tongue from arguing and say "thank
you." That's right, I can stop traffic. Granted, it was in
a residential neighborhood. In a small city. But to know
that I can work a $19.99 Gap dress reeking of chlorine after a long
crap day where I felt both unwanted and overwelmed - that felt nice.
I like compliments from other women - cause they're never a means to an
end. Ah...but damn all these beautiful girls - they'll only
want to do you dirt
**
What's the huge fuss over the iPhone?
I can't even use my own regular razr cell phone to its full
extent. Have you seen me text message? I take a million
years.
**
I can't wait to see Ratatouille. 
**
My favorite Supreme Court Justices are Souter and Ginsberg.
**
And I think THIS will be interesting to follow in the next few months.
**
And DUDE. What if on a long red-eye flight, a girl in tight jeans and a fitted top takes an OCP at a designated time?
This study needs to be read more closely. Otherwise said girl
might have to take some prophylactic heparin. Heh.
| | |
| I am now a
fourth-year medical student! I'm so excited! And I can't
believe my 3rd year is over. To be completely cliched and
Dickensian about it, 3rd year: the best of times and the worst of
times. Even amid the ego-crushing and self-doubt and constant
sense of inadequacy and intermittent situational blues, there is beauty
in this mess. I'm still giddy with excitement that I'm lucky
enough to become a doctor.
MUST CHECK THIS LINK OUT: Bill Moyers interviews Jon Stewart.
Schoolgirl crush aside, I really admire Jon Stewart for intellectual reasons, too.
As I watched this, I was humbled by how embarrasingly true it was that
the majority of comfortable, middle-to-upper class Americans really
can't be bothered by a 5-year war (FIVE YEARS!) when none of its
immediate repercussions really affect them directly and they're too
busy with their individual lives. Sure, I whine about stuff here
and there, but I don't need to ration my food (or coffee!) or have
people near and dear to me in dangerous regions or alter my life
drastically because of war. I'm so freaking
insulated. And admittedly self-absorbed. Dammit, I
just don't want to be self-righteous or self-entitled.
Toward the end of the year, as my sanity and faith in humanity began to
crumble, I thought 3rd year would turn me into a raving cynical b***h
whose life will be work work work and become so bereft of meaning that
she would need constant ego-stroking and validation at the expense of
kindness and other people and of what really matters. And
on my surgery rotation, where I expected to be humiliated and ridiculed
and looked down upon, I just told myself: enough is enough. I am not letting anyone push me around.
That, and I decided not to be so Holden Caufield and Eeyore since in
the end, I only hurt myself (and apparently others, too, although that
always confuses me since I feel everyone has the upper hand when it
comes to being involved with me  )
by living inside my neurotic negative mind. It must have worked a
little bit since on my last day, one of my patients said: 'you know,
you're really sweet, but you're TOUGH! You seem pretty
tough." To which I said: "REALLY!? Me?!?! OMG you are
so nice! TOUGH?! Wow I never thought I came off like that."
Ha, silly man thinks I'm tough...psych consult anyone?
Even my hairdresser asks: "Are you one of those people who put themselves down after receiving a compliment?"
Um, yes? That's my modus operandi. Sometimes I turn it into a full-blown argument. It's great.
I need to learn how to say Thank You. And maybe some faith would do me good.
**
From Glamour Magazine: 11 Things Every Woman Deserves in Life (hee)!
(The bolded ones are the ones I want more).
1) A friend who takes your side and has the guts to tell you when you're wrong.
I have lovely friends like these already fortunately.
2) One item of clothing that instantly makes you feel twice as beautiful and half as nervous.
3) The occasional good cry, for no particular reason.
4) A man who just cannot get enough of your body.
Sigh...
5) At least as much pay as the guy at the next desk who does the same job.
Wait a minute...you mean men in
medicine will get paid MORE than I do even if we're both, say, the same
sort of subspecialist? WTF.
6) A same-size friend with an incredible closet.
7) A really hot, really fast red car. Failing that, really hot red shoes you can run in.
8) The expensive toilet paper.
Does Charmin count? I get it cause the bears are cute.
9) To sometimes lie back and take, take, take in bed.
No comment.
10) A grandparent equivalent: wise, huggable, all ears.
11) A life in which you play the starring role.
I don't need a starring role, I just want a happy one.
**
I will drink red wine and listen to Ella and Billie tonight.
Life is good. My cup runneth over.
| | |
| Wow.
I didn't anticipate such fervor over the whole male circ vs uncirc
issue. I apologize for offending any guy friends and/or
readers. For the record, I have no problem with foreskin in and
of itself. I just hope to keep my professional encounters with it
to a minimum and my personal brushes with it nonexistent. If you
are happy with your turtleneck, then wear it proudly. Who am I to
judge? Really.
**
As my third year nears its end (geez, if I ever become as self-important as these "OMG I save lives and I write! LOVE me!"
folks, please push some KCl into me), one small thing I pride myself in
is that no attending and no resident ever made me cry these past 10
months. Even on surgery.
Well, I've cried at the hospital: once with tears streaming down my
cheeks and cellphone in the stairwell at the VA sobbing "you didn't
call!!" (I know, classy) and
my senior and intern (thankfully, both women and understanding of how
heartbreakingly frustrating it is when a boy doesn't call you when he's
supposed to) finding me and saying "aw, it's going to be okay" and then
having to wash my face before seeing my patient. "Why are your
eyes so red?" my patient asks. My reply: "ALLERGIES."
The few other times I've cried at work were in bathroom stalls after
seeing patients dying or die in front of me. Many people find
tears a sign of weakness, but I don't know how bottling things up and
faking it can be healthier. And I feel so guilty when suffering
is palpable all around me and all that's running through my mind is When will I eat? and When will I sleep?
And sometimes I wonder whether the things we do to and for patients are
really all that therapeutic or if it just f***s up their lives even
more. I got choked up last week when a patient who wasn't yet
aware that his unresectable abdominal mass turned out to be end-stage
pancreatic cancer (which is a redundancy since pancreatic ca of any
kind is a death sentence) asked me how my day was going and if I'd been
outside to enjoy the sun cause the view from his room seemed amazing. Why does it matter how I
am? My days aren't as numbered nor do I have to sell my
possessions to pay off hospital bills. I hated not being able to
say goodbye before he got discharged to hospice. There is no
heroism or idealism or poetry in any of this.
I don't understand disease. I understand death.
(I lie. I don't really get that either).
Had
brunch today with a friend where I told him it's such a strange
business we find ourselves in - it's neither meaningful nor
meaningless, it just is - and I feel so replaceable (anyone can do what
I do) and insignificant (my hands - size 6 indicators and 5.5 overglove
- are small and so am I) and that the world is 95% bullshit and 5% the
startling kindness of friends and lovers and strangers. He says
my outlook is just a defense mechanism and that I'm most likely not
replaceable to those who directly interact with me and that I do bring something to the table. Ha, and what would that be?
On a brighter note, in one week, I'll be a fourth-year and begin my internal medicine sub-i!
I look forward to it.
**************
This is what I want (but edited and written better than this drivel...ha):
You. Me. A room with large windows. Creaky hardwood
floors. Middle of nowhere. I want the evening sky marble
pink and red and the dimming light filtering through dusty
curtains.
Turn off your pager, cell phone, Blackberry, iPod, laptop.
The humid air hangs heavy. The summertime heat makes my hair
stick to the nape of my neck. Beads of condensation cling to the
glass of your marigold tea. We just made sangria with a 2004
Pinot from Sokol Blosser and cherries that stain my lips purple.
I'm in my favorite white sundress. Coltrane is on the
turntable. And it's too hot to think. To move. Even
an inch. We are so still and you sit back, legs stretched, your
eyes closed. I fold into you.
There's nothing between us.
Nothing between us but the scratchy music and the air whose scent is
laced with hyacinth and whose breeze makes me shiver.
This is what it means to want in the edge of summer.
| | |
| Had
a great time in the OR last week when I scrubbed in on a case with an
attending who turned out to be a classical music buff.
Unbeknownst to him, the snot-nosed conservatory-trained MS3
retractor-holder across from him has 22+ years of classical piano
playing under her belt and wrote dry and bore-you-to-tears tutorial
papers on brahms and schumann at oxford.
As the iPod speakers blared 80s music, my attending turns to me and
says: "I'm going to play Brahms in the next operation. Do you
know why?" (Ah, gotta love the "read-my-mind" questions).
Me: "Uh...no. Cause you like it?!"
A: "Well, what's the next case?"
Me: "A gastrectomy."
A: "Yeah, and who was Brahms' best friend?"
Me (thinking WTF I can't believe I'm getting pimped on classical music
on my freaking surgery rotation. But whatever, if this were a
jeopardy category, I would dominate): "Schumann."
A: "How can that be? He tried to steal his wife."
Me: "Not true" (I know, I've got chutzpah) "Brahms admired Clara, he didn't want to get with her."
A: "Hahahaha. You're funny. But wrong. Brahms had
another friend. Again, what's the procedure we're doing next?"
Me (not getting the orthogonal line of questioning): "Uh...a Billroth I or Billroth II?"
A: "Exactly. Billroth was Brahms' best friend!"
Me: "REALLY!?"
Go figure. Billroth the surgeon
was apparently a music fiend. The thing about being pimped by
surgeons is that the more questions you answer correctly, the more
insane questions they'll throw at you just to see you fall flat on your
face. If you answer wrongly, then God help you.
But I must have gotten on his good side and made him think I was mildly
competent (knowing all the brahms/schumann stuff surely made up for not
knowing the posterior border of the foramen of winslow...grrr) cause
during the gastrectomy, he said: "You get to pick the brahms symphony
that we'll listen to during this case." I picked the fourth, the
e minor, and he had the scrub tech play it on the iPod for me.
High five for that. That's right, if it's classical we're hearing, I get first choice baby.
I am just dripping with pretension, aren't it? Apologies. I just
wanted to prove it to y'all that my liberal arts background comes in
handy occasionally.
**
Dude.
If I have to put a foley catheter in ONE MORE uncircumcised penis, I am going to scream.
Okay. Last week, I put a foley in an uncircumcised
hoohahballooblahblah and was completely mortified and confused since it
brought back bad memories of my first practice GU exam on this patient
a year ago. Last year, as we were preparing for our clerkships,
this paid volunteer had students do a genital exam on him and he was
UNCIRCUMCISED and I spent at least 5-10 minutes trying to move back the
foreskin to expose the head (dude, I had never seen an uncirced THING
before and had NO CLUE what to do) and having an attending bark at me
"HARDER! Pull HARDER! Keep pulling it up!" and then getting
exasperated and subsequently pushing me aside and moving the foreskin
himself. Gah. I was literally sitting there pulling wrinkly
foreskin back and forth with both hands and getting nowhere. It was awesomely bad.
So last week I kept quiet and just followed directions when the scrub
tech and my chief resident talked me through putting a foley in the
uncirced patient. Once again on Friday, when I had to foley
another patient (they're all under anesthesia already, don't worry), as
they uncovered him, I couldn't hide my visceral reaction this time and
blurted out: "OMG. Is he...uncircumcised?!"
NOT AGAIN. What is UP with this mutant population? My chief
laughed at me and said "oh, Domi, you've done this before, just
remember to pull back the skin to its original position after you
expose the head."
AAAAAAAAAAAAH.
I hate this! Do you people know how difficult it is to put a
foley in an UNCIRCED MAN!? To take your oversized-gloved
NONDOMINANT hand (just ONE hand, cause my right hand is in the sterile
field dammit) and grip firmly and pull back wrinkly flaccid
foreskin?! My GOD. The scrub tech kept saying "Oh honey,
you gotta grab harder, REALLY hard, pull it back, harder...you won't
hurt it..." GAH. Foreskin is WEIRD and YUCKY and I felt I
was giving this anesthetized dude a very unpleasant handjob with all
the back-and-forth-ness of trying to pull back that damn piece of
UNNECESSARY flesh.
AAAAAAAAAAAAH. I am so over this. But now my whole team is
making fun of me and my R3 says she's going to scope out all pre-op
uncirced patients so I can do foleys on ALL OF THEM.
Not. Funny.
**
I am also so over
trying to appear "cute" in my scrubs. I'm resigned to looking like
a dorky smurf in oversized clothing. I've been too focused on trying
to appear minimally competent and I find myself spending more time
trying to read and know as much as I can. But I have to say that I found a way to make my hair look
pretty post-op. I put it up in a bun during the operation and when I
walk out wheeling the patient to the PACU, I undo the bun, shake my
head, and these lovely curls roll down my back. This is wavy greatness
that I can't ever replicate with a curling iron. It's lame, but it
puts me in a good mood until I realize I am so famished I could eat 5
steaks. R says I have hypoglycemia-induced rage, and I agree with
her assessment.
**
I like the OR, but I'm not madly in
love with it. Surgery is an odd profession - I feel, for better or
worse, if one chooses to be a surgeon, everything in life from that
point on will always be second to the OR and to one's career: every
relationship, family members, and possibly one's emotional and personal
well-being. This goes for both men and women.
In particular
regard to women, I'm not going to play the holier-than-thou judgment
game that the NYT likes to fuel when they showcase upper-middle-class
Ivy League graduates who snag wealthy husbands whose 6-7-figure incomes
allow them to stay home with their kids and feel superior to working
moms because they're "home and THERE for the children." Please, that's
bullshit. I think there are and will be women who make great surgeons
and doting moms even if they require nannies for childcare. I think
(or want to believe) that there ought to be men out there who are great
surgeons and are also kind and devoted husbands and fathers (stop
laughing, work with me here ). I just feel that the life and
sacrifices required to be a surgeon aren't for me, and the choices that
would come up if I became one are not ones I want to make. I want to
be a good doctor, but I don't have the desire to have my profession occupy every corner of my life.
It sounds silly, but I
imagine if I were in the latter years of a surgery residency or
fellowship or whatever, and if I were post-partum then and still
breastfeeding: what if I needed to scrub out to pump my breasts? It
would be most awkward. And painful. Heh. These are the things I
think about; I know it's weird.
| | |
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