I’ve started and then just never been able to post a bunch of posts in the last year for one reason or another. I noticed that it’s been pretty much exactly one year since I’ve posted. And a year it’s been. A rough year? An interesting year? I guess I’d have to say a year, so full of terrible and good things, that I have no idea how to classify it at this point.
One year ago I found out that my Dad, my primary parent, one of my best friends and biggest supporters in life and in all things medical, had cancer. A very bad cancer. After The Diagnosis he came to live with me for awhile and sought treatment at the Big Fancy Medical Center where I’m training. Soon after The Diagnosis, I got dumped, in an email by the guy I’d been dating for 3-ish years. I was on Gyn Onc at the time. (Anyone who knows anything about an OB/Gyn residency probably knows what I mean when I add on that little tid bit. Yeah.) Oh, and my laptop broke. I was too broke to do anything about that. Aside from using the computers at work to do strictly work-type things that did not include blogging.
Since all of that happened, almost exactly a year ago, a lot more good and terrible things have happened.
My Dad died.
And it was the most terrible thing. I can’t even explain right now, how terrible and horrible it was. Watching the rapid decline, and eventually being there at the end, seeing him suffer, waste away, his pupils dilate the moment that life left his body.
It was the most terrible thing I have ever seen, and I have seen many terrible things having been in medicine for a relatively long time by now. And I won’t write about it any more, I can’t at the moment. Maybe some time when I have a little more time to collect my thoughts and write something more eloquent and appropriate.
Somehow, in the middle of the terrible, horribleness, I also met someone. For a fair amount of time, after the unceremonious email dumping, I didn’t think this was possible. To meet a ‘someone’ again. But, through the magic of many, very encouraging friends, a couple of internet dating sites, and fate (?). It happened.
And that is primarily why I say that even though it has been a terrible year, it has had some good as well. While I watched one of the loves of my life disappear in a terrible, horrible way, another swept in and has carried me through it all.
I called him my Prince the other night. And in his typical, self-effacing way, he poo-poohed it a bit. I don’t know if he knows how much I mean it. The guy might well as ride around on white horse as far I’m concerned.
Through it all, I’ve still been in residency. I was at my Dad’s funeral the day I would have been starting third year. They said a little something about it at the service, which I found embarrassing but Dad probably would’ve liked it.
Several people have commented on the Nurse to MD thing since I’ve been in silent mode, I apologize for the lack of response and promise that I will respond eventually. The middle of third year of surgical residency, after all I’ve just mentioned above, is probably really not the best time for me to objectively comment on making such a move.
So, for the moment, I’ve explained as best that I can.
I am still in residency and of course have to get up early up in the am to get back to it, but I’ve ripped of the proverbial band aid, the new laptop is ready and roaring to go, and hopefully in less than a week, and in much less than a year of good and terrible things I’ll be posting again.
In the meantime, I’ve still been taking pictures. Here are a few I managed to get in the Year of Good and Terrible……..
Nurse, MD 
So glad you are back! I am very sorry for the terrible loss of your father.