Golden Weekend

Medical-type folks are always throwing around their own set of catch phrases. In Arkansas, at Children's Hospital, phrases included "strong work" and referring to children as "kiddos." It's no different here except there's a whole new set of them. Phrases such as "circling the drain," (close to death) "crazy train," (loony pt, drug seeker, etc), "teed up" (ready to be discharged) and my personal favorites, "golden" and "black" weekend. Everyone who's everyone medically utters (hehe) these phrases, I've seen my own fellow interns start using them as if they've been for years. I'm not sure why, but something about it drives me nuts. In any case, I'm on my golden weekend (both days off) and it's been swell enough. I had intended to sleep the entire time but neither Sophie nor Ben with his early morning bike rides would allow me to do that. But in any case, 8 am is much better than hours that really shouldn't be used for waking any day. The transition from my first rotation of clinics to inpatient can be best described by what I listen to on the way home from work. Last month ranged from Modest Mouse (pink album no. 2 and 3--it's a short drive) and Imogen Heap. This month it's the local Christian station which is really pretty good. Lighthearted, silly, to encouraging words. I am enjoying my patients and their rooms encourage me to visit because they have really amazing views. The hospital is on the edge of a residential area and its views include church steeples and lots of trees and lovely old houses and some even face downtown. One morning my COPD pt was sleeping away while I watched the sun rise from her room.
Transitioning now, to Ben. He met his colleagues this weekend and we joined them for a viewing of snakes on a plane. It truly delivers, folks. We decided to venture away from our usual choice of church pews at St Pauls and visit another church for a change and so went to the Wake Forest campus church. Several new freshmen were there, having just moved in, and managed to make me feel old and reflect on my first days when I met Kristin and Kim and Ashley and Ashley immediately began having dates. What a wonderful and terrifying year it was. Back to the service-this is a Baptist church but between the liturgy and singing all 4 verses to the hymns and the classical music it felt similar to St Pauls. WF is a large sprawling campus dotted with dark brick buildings with big white columns and metal roofs and spiral staircases and I'm so happy that Ben is back in academia. And speaking of, he'd probably want dinner soon. Boys eat a lot.