Ghosted

So you’ve been ghosted by a girl or guy you like, and true to millennial form, they text back weeks later saying essentially, “[I’m 29 years old, but] I don’t know what I want.”

What you want to reply is, "I like you, but you’re a fucking jerk."

What you think they want to hear is, "Let’s be less than friends and fuck every once in a while."

What you’re really thinking is, "I don’t know if I want this relationship either." The sentiment is based on the way he’s treated you and your own millennial-hood. 

You thought he liked you after months of texting and dating. You shared laughter over creating meals and while going on runs, and you bonded over your hatred for shopping. You never told him you liked him because of these red flags:

1. He told you about a lecture in your field several months back rather than inviting you to it. 

2. He went from picking you up on dates to "not even thinking to" and meeting you at the restaurant. 

3. That same night, he didn’t kiss you goodbye even though you’d already fucked and even though you were wearing your short black dress and did your hair. You never do your hair. 

Weeks pass with occasional ambiguous text exchanges. You play the "game," taking as much time to reply as he does. 

You think about him instead of your work, your passion. Your friends tell you to forget him, but you can't. You feel small and giggly and insecure. 

Finally, you work up the balls to call him out and ask him (nicely) what the hell he wants. 

"[I'm 29 years old, but] I don't know."

No, really. 

All it takes is a simple, "I'm not interested." And not nearly as quickly as he came into your life, he's gone. 

You ride your bike home feeling freed, heart chains off, hoping it won't, but knowing it might happen again.

Harrison's Interns

From the producers of Grey’s Anatomy comes a show about internal medicine residents. ABC’s official statement on the upcoming production reads, “Our nighttime television board got together after the last Mc-blank-y died in a tragic snowboarding accident and decided that after the successes of ER and Grey’s, we need to move on to the next and most common medical specialty and explore the intricacies of its drama.”

Here’s a review of the first season: Mary Harrison writes a poem on her blog the night before the first day of internship. She lays out her cloths and then goes over her ACLS cards out loud before falling asleep.

Gary starts out on night float. He watches the entire first season of Scrubs in the call room alone in the first week. Susan, a girl he likes because of her hipster glasses sprains her back and has to walk to the code blues instead of run.

Tina does a chart review retrospective study during her first month on elective. They go to a clam bake together and post pictures of themselves on Instagram even though they couldn’t think of what to talk about that day. Mary is frustrated she doesn’t have the energy to write a poem about the clams.

After the first two months of trying to be social, they all sleep on their days off. Mary and Tina break up with their boyfriends who don’t get why they’re always sleeping.

Susan spends time with her 3 and 6 year old kids and her golden doodle. They go to a pumpkin patch in October. Meanwhile in the hospital, Terry, Sean and Larry complain about how rounds go until 3pm. Larry says he wouldn’t call a code if he walked in and his delirious full-code patient was dead.

Mary develops a hamster face from eating only stale graham crackers and peanut butter.

The season ends with a close up of the paper turkeys plastered on the walls of the nursing station. A taste of what’s to come. ABC is determined this one will be a success.

Marquez is Dead

Is it called the tapenzie?

I don't know. There was a pause. See, there are a lot of things I don't know. Another pause. I don't know anything if you ask me about sports.

What does that have to do with anything? 

I'm just saying. 

There was a conversation about meditation. He was mad she was a know it all. Medications. Meditation. In public too, when they went out. Get the fuck out of my face he thought.

She thought whether it was worth it to hold on to him. 

That's ridiculous, he said. Why do you weigh our relationship on one fight? Obviously things are ok. Get the fuck out of my face was still written on his.

How can I not weigh it when this is what I'm left with. He couldn't escape any faster. He looked like her poor cat when she held him on her lap. Tail wagging. A cat wag. Her firm grip.

He had gotten himself into this mess. Both pig-headed. She wanted out. He smoothly rode her in. Made it so she couldn't let go.

She could. But she didn't want to. The money mostly, the stability. The family. The values. So much baggage too. Baggage that big picture she didn't have the patience to sort through. The part of her that mirrored her mom did. It wanted to spin in circles in the weave that was uncertainty. She wanted sympathy, love, understanding. It wanted to know those things without a partner telling it so. 

Fuck. This time it was her mouth. She was changing. 

There was an accident. And Marquez is dead.

Why After a Month of Self-Practice, I've gone back to Yoga Class

1. Always something new. I know how to engage my abs to stay in a hand-stand without a wall, but I can’t do it yet. Even after 15 years of practice, I learn new adjustments to deepen a pose and prevent injury.

2. The people.  I’ve met some of the most amazing people at yoga who continue to enrich my life.

3. New music.  Let’s just say I fell in love with Janelle Monae’s single Yoga at a hip-hop yoga class.

4. Confidence. The know-how of when to stop and spend the rest of a class in child’s pose.

5. Power in numbers. There’s nothing like the sound of 30 people chanting om in candlelight.

Why After 15 Years of Yoga, I've Chosen a Home Practice

1. Practice when you want, where you want.​​​ ​​Freedom to do yoga with your dog watching birds next to you, in the middle of a hike, or in front of a campfire

2. No traffic/late train/flat tire rush to class​​. Press the snooze button, go on a run, do a half an hour of your flow-of-choice and still get to work on time

3. Cost. It's free

4. No pressure/no judgement. The ultimate listening-to-your-body experience. No awkward whispers about how you need to modify your dancer because of an injury. Do that two-minute forearm plank without feeling like an overachiever!

5. Peace. No commentary, no gossip, no cell phones on vibrate

6. Creativity. Down dog into reclined hero? Never heard of it. Close your eyes, go wild, maybe even dance.

How to be an Ultra Yoga Teacher

Eight Things You Should Know About Your Russian Patients

1. Ice cream is the worst possible thing you could offer kids during cold season. Every Russian family has a horror story about their sick child being offered...ice cream?! Hot beverages are the only things that help sore throats. We believe in scalding over soothing.

2. Cold draft brings colds. This is not just a Russian thing, but could be the reason for our fur hats.

3. Sitting on a cold surface makes us infertile. Get the drift? Cold is BAD.

4. Our alcohol intake does not, (for better or for worse), follow American norms. We drink vodka when we give toasts at special events. Toasts at Russian meals happen every few bites. Special events are every weekend.

5. We pick our own mushrooms and eat them. Possible liver failure is a risk we are willing to take for the hunt. The art of mycology is passed down through generations, but that doesn’t mean you won’t see one or two of us in your ER every year.

6. Make us wait. If we have to wait, we know you are busy and will respect you.

7. Don’t smile. Smiling in Russian means you’re dumb.

8. We eat Salami for breakfast. No comment.

The Day I Matched

Written March 2015

The day that I found out that I matched in neurology, I had to look at my mom's head CT. She was involved in a four-car pile-up in a tunnel heading east from Boston on the way to work. I called her at 12:10pm after hyperventilating at a dog park and dancing around with my puppy in disbelief and joy. Her voice was not her typical calm, supportive and somewhat tired-at-work self.

She said immediately that she had been in a crash and that my dad's friend was there to help her. (Dad’s office was an hour away.) He would take her home and a rental car would follow. She had to go talk to the tow truck driver now.

My dad, calm in crisis, relayed the details. It wasn't the ice, it was traffic and my mom's car at a forty-five degree angle with the hood pointing down towards the ground. It was no one's fault, just cars stopped short going luckily only 30mph.

Later my mom would tell me that she had just wept through the botched abortion scene of the book on tape she had been listening to, and then boom.

Over the next two hours, I called her every 5 minutes on my way home as I remembered parts of a head trauma HPI.

Do you have a headache? Yes. Blurry vision? Yes. Dizzy? Yes, when I look to the right. Mom, get up and look at your pupils in the mirror! You're torturing me, I just want to sleep. Don't sleep! Tap tap tap. Some research on the internet and then, it’s ok, you can sleep, I just need to keep bugging you.

Later that afternoon, we got a head CT and it was normal. The ED physician and her nurse were stellar. I looked through the CT that night and started to explain what we were looking at to my dad in my best neuroradiologist voice. He "mmhmm"-ed and went back to watching TV.

I thought back to the month I had just spent in India, where a woman came to our clinic with an open wound in her scalp and a witnessed seizure, but would still never get a CT of the head.

I felt lucky we could have at least some assurance that I would not lose my mom on this day. I also feel lucky that today I am given a chance to learn more over the next four years, so that if or when this ever happens again, I will be even somewhat better prepared.

'Twas the Night before Residency

'Twas the night before residency and all through the town,
ex-med students were reviewing notes and writing stuff down.

Not one could be still, neither young or old,
unless a glass of wine or whiskey had been poured.

"First day as doctors," were the thoughts in their heads,
"There wouldn't be this moment if we'd flipped burgers instead."

The idea however, buried deep down below,
was despite lack of experience, they were healers at the core.

They hadn't placed too many lines or ran the ICU at night,
but their spirit brought them here and friends knew it was right.

So through sleepiness and grumbles, my hope for everyone,
is that we stay true to ourselves and have a shit-ton of fun!

Two Weeks In

I was very judgmental of IIMC when I first arrived. I was sleep deprived, getting over the flu and confused about what I was supposed to do. On our first day, we were thrown into clinic and a volunteer who learned how to give B12, B/C complex and pain injections the day before showed us how and then we did the rest. 

We learned how to rub an infection or wound with antiseptic, then betadine, and then usually a combination of gentamycin and fluconazole cream.  That night, we had a two hour one-hour-late meeting with Dr. Sujit. He told us how long he's been running the clinic, how it started, how they've gone from 5 to 750 volunteers, but little about logistics. Those were to be decided by the two appointed team leaders. One was Austrian taking a year off from medical school and the other an Italian doctor one year out of school. (The Italians are the majority in our group.) They took on good-cop/bad-cop roles based on how well they related to the group. 

I was judgmental of the leadership styles. Dr. Sujit went on tangents, our meeting with the group leaders was full of hot emotions. I felt that IIMC was not open to feedback.

On the other hand, what did I know one week in? 

We've had another meeting with Dr. Sujit since then during which he explicitly asked for feedback from each volunteer on each part of the program. Relations  between the volunteers and leaders have smoothed out since we've made our schedules.

I've noticed when I get annoyed at something that is actually a cultural or language difference. It has happened more since last time I was in India, but less since when I first arrived. (I suppose my American way of life has been more deeply etched into my brain, but has loosened up thanks to this experience.) 

Language is the hardest part. We see hundreds of fungal and bacterial skin infections per week, but there is no one there to explain them to us. (The doctors are very busy and don't differentiate what they treat because biopsies are not readily available and there is no time). I'm thinking about borrowing Dr. Sujit's dermatology book next time I have some down time at the clinic. 

Since yesterday, since getting back from the countryside, Kolkata and the guest house feel more like home. I feel more comfortable walking down the streets. I look forward to the diverse things we have left to do: a soccer game with local kids, a visit to the medical college, Darjeeling on the weekend, seeing my patients at the inpatient ward, and getting to know the people in the organization better.

Some of the Difficult Stuff

There is a nurse on our team who is an adventurer. She works in Switzerland to make money to then go be a nurse abroad. She spoke about a village where she helped with labor and delivery. One of her patients needed an emergent c-section. Her husband asked if it was a boy or a girl. It is illegal in India to determine the gender of a baby, so he was told they can not tell. He said that he did not want the c-section, and the woman died.

This story haunted me. How can a man determine the fate of his wife? 

A Little About Where We Are

We are at an organization called Institute for the Indian Mother and Child. It was started by Dr. Sujit, a former medical director of Mother Theresa's clinic. He loved working with her, but wanted to do more to empower communities rather than charity. 

He and his wife Bernali started with 5 volunteers and now have 750. They also have medical students from Europe and Australia here every month to help run primary care clinics. In addition to healthcare, they have a microcredit loan bank, schools, daycare, a center for disabled children, a place where they employ women to make uniforms for the students and a public health outreach network. 

They charge a small number of rupees for all of these services, so that people see them as having value. 

We have a weekly schedule to work at these clinics, and then meetings to learn about the microcredit and public health services so that in our third week, we can do projects with them. While things usually happen 30 minutes to 2 hours after they are scheduled, the experience is still nonetheless somehow exhausting.

I feel far away from home, but there are good people here with us. One Austrian medical student, one German doctor going into psychiatry, one Swiss medical student, one Swiss nurse, one French-Canadian nurse, one Spanish psychologist from Sevilla, one Australian anthropology and philosophy major, and five Italians: a sociologist, engineer, doctor, and two medical students. 

We have two student leaders who arrange the schedules. Apart from the daily clinics and meetings, we have one weekend off, one two-night night stay at a rural clinic, and some trips to the public health networking sites for education on nutrition and hygiene. 

Our days have consisted of a one hour metro ride then tuk-tuk (rickshaw) to the indoor clinic where we split up for our tasks. We meet back around 4pm for a Bengali lesson and meetings. We leave around 6:30pm and grab street egg rolls on the way home. We convene about schedules at our guest house, try to remember to all speak the same language when we talk, debrief in our room, and go to bed around midnight. We've been waking up and running a few laps around the 375m tiny pond near our home. It's a godsend, a tiny plot of nature amidst honking, yelling, dogs howling, and smog.