Undisclosed Location

The end of a long road and a new beginning

As of today I am a fully board-certified physician of family medicine.

It was only fitting that I found out about it at 6 pm while sitting by myself in a dim office with the knowledge that I still had another hour or so of work to do. 

Hell of a long road it took to get here, that's for sure. It's funny to think that when I started this blog to record my journey through medical training I thought I'd feel different about this moment and what lay ahead of it. I remember thinking I'd feel relieved once I was standing at the top. How naive.

Little did I know that getting here would only mean that the work of learning was only beginning. It would mean that despite 80+ hour work weeks and sleep deprivation there are so many things I have yet to see and manage. That the mantle of responsibility I'd wear would feel so very heavy sometimes.

There are so many moments during my days now when I see glimpses of my family and friends through the patients I treat. I see it in a way they might look at me. I see it in all the worries, all the problems, all the joys and the sadness. It makes me want to learn more and make sure I know all the answers, make sure I know just the right things to say to make things better - even though sometimes I know that's impossible. It breaks my heart that for some of them all I can do is stand near and put a caring arm around them.

It's become all too frequent now the times when I'll think about a patient I saw a day or so earlier and wonder if there was something I missed or a different diagnosis I should have thought of. I want to answer all my messages quickly and return those phone calls that are requested by family members after seeing their loved ones in the office. All of this makes most of my days last about two or three hours longer than what they are scheduled but I know that I have to do it. I would hope that the person seeing my dad or my mom would do the same for them.

I know that most people who come to see me in the office probably don't think about things this way. I know because before I got into medicine I never gave a second thought about my doctor. In fact, most of the time I didn't want to even see him. 

I'm sure there are others out there who've said all of what I'm saying now in a more elegant and pointed way, but while sitting here thinking about what I've accomplished I'm only left with thinking how much I have yet to do and how little I really know.

I still have another long road to go down and another journey to experience...

2008 Retrospective

So there were lots of things to be thankful for in 2008, here they are in no specific order:

- My health: I guess as far as things go I'm in pretty good health. I behaved for a few months and managed to lose 30+ pounds. Then I went ahead and gained back about 10 of those...hey, I'm still 20 ahead though right?

- My new job: Done with the "being a resident" gig and now fully fledged. It's a gradual process growing into these shoes and learning to deal with the added responsibility.

- Our new apartment: Julie and I were getting way too cramped in my once bachelor pad. Now she has her own home office and don't have to turn in unison while in bed. 

- Google: For without it I'd be lost half the time and I would have no blog traffic from those of you still searching for song lyrics or for a place to tell the world how much you hate your bank.

- Celebrating a year of marriage: Much like everything else in my life, being married has been different than I had imagined. Despite how well we think know each other I still feel like Julie and I are peeling back new emotional layers and learning new facets of each other every day. It's exciting and scary at the same time but so is love...right?

- My iPhone: The single best piece of technology I've ever owned. Seriously. I've had to hold myself back from writing about it every single day and all the cool apps that are to be had for it. Whenever I'm not with Julie (and sometimes when I am) I'm using this thing.

- My wife: Sometimes a pain in my butt, always my best friend and confidant. Julie is a person that challenges me and keeps my life full of excitement...whether I want it or not - and for that I love her.  

Christmas 2008

Every year Christmas takes on a slightly different flavor. This year was spent with Julie's family and was a low-key affair, which was nice for me considering all the activity and changes that have gone on in 2008 for Julie and I. There was always something new coming around the corner, and it definetely presented us with a lot of oppertunities to grow (whether we did or not is a whole other thing). I hope all of you still reading enjoyed your holidays and had a chance to reflect on all the blessings in your life both big and small.

This is Julie Signing Off...

Yep, I'm out! Izzy keeps asking gently if my new blog means that I will stop posting on Undisclosed Location. Don't worry, he's not kicking me out... of our apartment (or our marriage for that matter). But I do get the impression he wants his man cave, I mean his blog, back. 

I think to give him that sacred space to write about Mac vs. PC and Third Day Lyrics once every six months or so, I will indeed move my musings over to my new business blog. And if the musings don't quite work for the business audience, they'll pop up on my old wallowing blog Looking at the Stars.

So, if you miss me please come visit at the new blog or follow me on twitter.

Thanks for some great times! Farewell Undisclosed Location...

No Hablo

Working from home with my new business has created all sorts of wonderful new experiences for me. Working in pajamas can be great some days, and it's also been interesting to see what goes on around here when I'm usually away. For instance, I have no idea what that man across the street is creating, but he spends all day working on something noisily in his garage behind his beater car. Interesting.

Anyway, today, someone rang our doorbell. Last week, it was the UPS man, so I got up and threw on something more presentable than a night gown (not much) and answered the door. As soon as I saw these people, I knew that they were not the UPS man, but for a moment I still thought they might be someone else I wanted to talk to - until I heard "Buenos Dias Senora."

Buenos Dias? So I said "um, hello?" The woman was like, "oh you don't speak spanish! I'm sorry." I foolishly responded, "si, pues, no mucho." She said "Oh, well, we thought that there were multiple spanish speaking individuals living here." (as in illegal immigrants?) I said, "nope, just me and my husband." Then I made the mistake of saying, "well, my husband is hispanic." She brightened up and tried to hand me a Jehova's Witness packet in spanish. I smiled and explained that while he is hispanic, English is his first language. I also threw in that he was a local physician.

I'm a PC?

Really? You're a PC? Is that what you're telling me?

Microsoft's newest ad campaign is a response from a someone who just doesn't get the argument. Interestingly enough, just like the John Hodgeman character in the competing commercials.

The "Mac vs. PC" ads that Apple has been running do not insinuate that PC users are boring and clueless, it insinuates that the platform is boring and clueless. Coming back with a commercial that shows "exciting and hip" people of all ages in all different fields of work all over the world does nothing to combat against this. So many people use PC's that this is an obvious observation. Of course there are rappers and wrestlers and astronauts and businessmen and designers and divers who use Windows. Most of them probably have to because their workplaces don't give them the option to switch or the opportunity to compare against the Mac has never been presented. That's not the issue that Apple is taking up.

Make a commercial where you outline either directly or indirectly (through jest, like Apple) why users would want to use Windows over a Mac. Then you'd be comparing Apples to, well you get the idea.

Apple's not saying that each person using Windows PC's is a boring hapless dolt who wears an ugly and dated tweed-colored suit. It's saying that the operating system/platform that each of these people use is a boring hapless dolt who wears an ugly and dated tweed-colored suit. Microsoft should be happy that at least Apple humanized and made the PC character funny and loveable, because in my world he'd a been a cranky and confused tyrant.

When who you are becomes who you were...

..and who you know becomes who you knew, you begin to realize what "living" really is - what it means to be a human, on the planet Earth. When you're young, you might have held the notion that you would always know the people you knew and always be who you thought you were. Then one day you lost someone, and then someone else. The relationships you considered to be the center of your existence become little more than memories. And you change, from the inside out - new people become part of your story. Then one day, you realize that life is all about ebb and flow. Everything is in flux.

You'll see the people you loved fall in love with others, get married, grow up and you never see them again. On the other hand, you'll meet the person you love and make a life with them. And one day, you'll wake up and marvel at where you are. Things could have turned out so differently, there could have been endless variations - but there aren't. They turned out just the way it was meant to. But don't get too comfortable because life is never done changing, twisting and turning.

Knowing the way life works changes a few things. It ruins the movies, keeps you desperate for happy endings and makes you just a little too cynical. It also makes you feel alive and helps you remember to savor the sweetness of each moment.

It also sets you up for a mouthful of bittersweet when thinking back, but that's another beautiful part of life - remembering who, what, where, when and why you were.