*makes resolution to update better from now on*!

so sorry! today was my birthday and i had a very nice day i spent it working on my foot-long to-do list.. buying packing supplies, filling out a million forms for my virginia medical license, cleaning and doing laundry. oh, i bought a gift for my rheumatologist. i got her some chocolates from one of those fancy chocolate stores, and some scented candles, and i'm going to write a note telling her how great she's been! i wish i could take her to virginia with me!

this evening tom and i had a date. we've been having lots of those lately, cheating the babysitter thing by having early dinners before picking ian up from school. we went to dinner. there was a fly in my margarita!

now i'm going to try and go to sleep so that i can get up early and finish packing up & cleaning the kitchen before work tomorrow night. 3 more shifts!

3 shifts left! did a shift last night. it wasn't bad at all. then did a PALS recert today (pediatric advanced life support). then slept this afternoon. felt pretty rotten when i woke up, but i think i'm just all mixed up days from nights. and i feel better after taking my prednisone. last night around 10 pm at work we watched Scrubs.. I got the first season DVDs in the mail yesterday from Karen. we watched the last episode, where it's june 30 of intern year. cool for the interns, since it was their last call night!

this weekend ian and i went to the solstice parade. it's an annual thing here. people dress up and there are floats, and some quirky, unique traditions, like naked bicyclists. ian rode his tricycle down there (fully dressed!) and i hobbled behind him, calling out "don't forget to stop at the street!" as he flew down the hill. some bikers gave him a decoration for his trike. it was very cute! he enjoyed it and wanted to stay longer than we did but we were getting sunburned so we left before the end.

this evening i've been packing a little. i packed up some books. tried to part with as many as i could but it's hard for me to detach from books! just learned about bookcrossing. what a cool concept! maybe i'll start doing that.. anyway, did manage to part with some books and now i need to find a home for them. maybe the used bookstore in wallingford.

tom just went to get ian. i miss him! only 3 more shifts!

wow is it friday already??!! only 4 shifts left! one next week, then the three last nights of june. those will be with the new interns. we were joking about what a contrast their energy is going to be to our apathy!

last night i bumped into an attending in the ER who had been at graduation grand rounds and she said, as many people have said, how wonderful she thought christina was in talking for me. she asked me if i realized i'd gotten a standing ovation. idk, i hadn't really believed that was for me! but i think everyone was really touched, and they've seen me struggle this year and i think everyone is really happy for me having made it. i'm happy for me too!

these are a couple of photos from the party last week. i danced for a long time. my friends said they were a bit worried.. lol they were right, i was quite sore the next day but it was worth it!

there's another party tonight. it's kind of a goodbye party for those of us that are leaving. i've been in bed for much of the day. so tired after a week of night shifts!

guess what i did today? i ordered my dream car! a mini cooper S convertible! it'll be ready soon after we move to virginia. wow!!!! *speechless*

this is it:

doesn't it rock? i'm so lucky!

now i gotta go crash. ony 3 hours to sleep before my shift.

wow, what a week! thursday was graduation grand rounds. every resident picks a faculty person and that person has a couple of minutes to talk about the resident, while there's a photo of them up on the screen. the photo i picked was this one. it was really cool to hear someone talk about each resident in turn. they're all amazing, in different ways! i was so emotional during mine that i don't remember most of what was said! i asked christina, one of our chief residents to talk for me and she was awesome. i think the entire auditorium was teary-eyed. i felt overwhelmed as she spoke because i just was thinking about everything i've been through these three years, especially this last year.

this next pic is christina handing me my diploma/certificate whatever you call it!

last night was the graduation banquet. it was great fun yet sad. after the banquet we all gathered at the house of one of the residents for a huge party. we didn't go to bed until after the sun came up! i had a really great time. danced a lot.. i took extra prednisone yesterday in preparation but i'm still paying for it today, bigtime! if i get ahold of any photos from last night, i'll put them up!

i took ian to a birthday party this afternoon. i'm glad i did but it pushed me over the edge. i'm now well and truly in *sick mode* and am not planning to get out of bed a whole lot more this weekend. got a stockpile of CSI episodes to watch so...

hi, thanks for the comments!! just a quick post.. had one of our last girl's nights tonight. so sad... everyone except me is staying around here! i'm going to miss them!

did my big presentation today. oh man i suck at speaking in public! it's not that i'm nervous so much as just not very charismatic. *shrug* but my slides rocked. they were fun to show! the power went out in the middle of my talk and the entire auditorium went pitch black! it was nuts! but fortunately it came back on again pretty quick.

holy cow i struggled walking back to the car after standing for that long. joints are really bad this week. i know it's bad when i'm wishing for the wheelchair. oh no and i'm on tomorrow night. crap. that might not go well. oh well, that's what the chair's for i guess. and only three more weeks to go!

ian and tom came to my talk, which was great. and ian and i spent some time together afterwards, which was totally awesome. i've been missing him so much lately. earlier this week ian told me "i'm moving to 'ginia". i said "yeah, we're all moving to virginia together!" and then he said "you're not coming to 'ginia". i asked him if he was going just with daddy and he replied "yeah, you're gonna sleep and daddy and i are gonna go to 'ginia"... aw man poor baby. most of the time when he's seen me these past few months i've been either going to bed or in bed. so that's his view of the world! mommy doesn't do stuff with me and daddy because she's sleeping!

tomorrow is graduation grand rounds. we all had to select a faculty person to speak on our behalf. they all get a few minutes to say i don't know what about each one of us in turn. i asked christina, one of the chiefs, to speak for me, because of what an awesome support she's been this year. i'm looking forward to hearing what everyone has to say about everyone!

once again, apologies for lack of updates and visits to other diaries. i promise to be better in july!

thinking that maybe i should call the dr and check in because joints have been so awful. i'm definitely not going to decrease the dose as planned tomorrow. have to plan my DEXA scan too. it's a test for osteoporosis. i've been wondering so it'll be good to find out.

only two days left to work on my RCP! i have a lot of work left to do on the stuff i'm going to say but i'm really pleased with the visual effects these are some of the slides. you can see the whole rough draft here

i cannot believe how close i am to being done!!! tomorrow is the last daytime shift, then i do two weeks of OWL (overnight ward leader), then i'm done!

have been hurting quite a bit since decreasing to 9 mg but am trying to stick with it. cant stay on prednisone forever! i've been taking pain meds every night because otherwise i'm up and in pain. i think it's just the hours, all the running around. not too much longer. and i may resort to the wheelchair for OWL.

i have some new, cute photos of ian to post. need to update my website too! will get around to it in a couple of weeks

well, that sweet baby died a few hours later. sorry i can't explain much more because of confidentiality and all that but she was my patient and had some congenital heart and neurologic problems. it was very sad.

it's sunday morning and i'm drinking coffee, getting psyched up for a day of RCP work. the talk is coming together, although it's a bit jumbled, because i've been putting stuff in as i find it rather than starting with an outline and then fleshing it out. it's also kind of monotonous, slide after slide of bullet points, so i'm trying to find interesting graphics or photos that relate but i'm not being successful. i think i'll just intersperse pictures of ian. i have plenty of those!

only 3 weeks left of real work in residency. i can hardly believe it! the paperwork for working in virginia is a bit daunting at the moment. i'm working on my virginia state license application. ugh!

sorry for the lack of updates again! i promise i'll be better about this once i've gotten throught the next 3 weeks!

spent almost two hours this evening holding a dying baby. she almost died in my arms.. her heart and breathing stopped for so long i thought she wasn't going to come back but she did. little love.. this has been a very moving couple of days for me. i feel privileged to be able to take care of her during her last days and hours.