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OK! So I've been really busy, but what else is
new? Let me try to recap what has happened in the past few weeks.
On June 14th I packed up my
car and drove up to Angelo’s place in Santa
Ana to hang out for one last night before I left
FOREVER! Not really forever but it just
feels like it. On the 15th I
drove up in my fully packed car to San
Luis Obispo and hung out for a bit with my
sister. That night my parents finally
made up through the Los Angeles
traffic and we had dinner together.
The next day we woke
up pretty early to get graduation tickets from Stacey, drop her off at
rehearsal, park and look for decent seats.
Stacey, being quite the popular girl, had a lot of other family and
friends come to see her graduate. Here
is the SHORT list: me, Mom, Dad, Ochan, Chris, Elaine, Jim, Nick, Nick’s
sister, 3 nieces and a friend from Spain.
Just a reminder,
here is the LONG list of attendees at my graduation: Mom, Dad
Not that I’m jealous
or anything. =P
Afterwards we went
over to Nick’s grandma’s place because she was throwing a party in Stacey’s
honor. There were even more people at
this party and there was a lot of good food to be had. Unfortunately, I had to make it to Redding, CA from San Luis Obispo that night
and had to leave the party early.
It took a little
longer than usual and I made it into Redding
at about 10:30 that night. Woke up early
the next morning not feeling to well but decided that I would rather be sick in
Portland than
on the road so I kept on trucking.
I arrived in Portland at about 4pm on
Sunday and went directly to Chris’ house where the guys were gaming. I spent the rest of the day alternating
between the couch and playing video games.
I wasn’t playing for my own benefit but for theirs. I know.
I’m a trooper.
Afterwards I moved
stuff into my room and went to bed at an early hour. That night I woke up with horrible
chills. I’m talking body shaking, teeth
chattering, bad news chills. I got out
of bed to put on more clothes and could barely get my arms into a sweatshirt
because I couldn’t aim my arm into the hole properly.
I spent the rest of
Monday feeling horrible. The next
morning I had a health employee screening and felt well-ish enough to leave the
house and go to it. As it turns out it
wasn’t a doctor check up but a nurse going over paper work and a drug
test. I was a little bit worried about
passing my drug test because I had been popping Dayquil and Nyquil like candy. They assured me that I would be fine and that
alcohol wasn’t checked on pre-employment screening exams anyways (which is good
to know because I sometimes go to work drunk as a skunk).
I spent the rest of
the day and most of Wednesday continuing to recover and Thursday was my first
day of orientation.
It was nice. I finally
got to meet my co-interns but it was also kind of scary because I was being
assaulted by reams of paperwork. The
second day was even more paperwork and I still have yet to sort my way through
all of it.
Over the weekend I
had to wake up early and attend courses in Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS)
and Basic Life Support (BLS) (think: chest thrusts and shocks just like
TV). It was a good review of the
material and even better the second time around. And I just might be the guy screaming orders
out the next time this happens in the hospital, too!
On Monday, we had
another orientation but this time for the Internal Medicine program
itself. I don’t even remember what
happened!
Tuesday was my first
day of residency! I had clinic in the
morning and my first patient ever! After
meeting everyone who worked in the clinic and another set of orientations, my
first patient ever CANCELED on me.
That’s right, my first patient ever is a DNKA (Did Not Keep
Appointment). He must have heard about
how awesome I was and decided that he was not prepared.
The next day was my
first day ever on my elective rotation.
I was due to start on the Pulmonary service over at the Good Samaritan
Hospital in Northwest Portland. As it turns out my schedule is clinic and
hospital consults in the mornings, attend noon conference over at the hospital
(free food that is usually pretty decent OR I can go to the cafeteria and bust
out the meal card(!) they gave me) and in the afternoons follow up consults in
the hospital. Usually one half day a
week I have my own clinic over at Emanuel and that has certainly been a
learning experience. It’s been really
cool though because the patients are MINE ALL MINE, MUAHAHAHA. I am faxing out prescriptions and getting
calls from pharmacies. I think this is
pretty amusing now, but I’m pretty sure the novelty of being called because I
screwed up a prescription is going to sour pretty fast.
On this rotation I
have weekends and today off, so it’s been pretty relaxing. I get home at a decent hour and it gives me a
chance to read up on patients and catch up on life.
I think that is
about all I am going to write for now. I
would post pictures along with this post but I’m pretty lazy about doing that
right now. You can still check out my
online photo album for pictures of Stacey’s graduation and I also update it
with other stuff.
Hope this post finds
you well.
Love,
Derrick
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