Decision made!

I accepted a fellowship here at MCV for next year! After much debating, interviewing, thinking, worrying, talking, weighing, and let's be honest, crying, I submitted my signed offer letter last week. I am taking the month of July off and will be staying on the with my attending, which makes me really, really happy. I did have to part with my fantasy of moving back to Chicago this year, but I'm ok with that. As Emily reminded me, Chicago will physically be there next year, and when I'm licensed one year hence, I can move wherever I want! The response from my colleagues here has been overwhelming, like there has been jumping up and down and clapping. Being appreciated cannot be overrated, and I'm thankful for my MCV peeps.

During supervision last week, upon hearing the news I turned in my letter:
Kate (my supervisor): So, are you thinking of moving?
Me: Um, no, not really.
Kate: You belong in the Fan. You can walk to the stores, and restuarants, and even wine bar hop with someone like me. Like in my neighborhood. You should move there. If you need any help looking, I'll help you.

My patients continue to be fascinating...and in the last two to three weeks the smorgasboard of diagnoses has ranged from psychosis, to intractable Major Depression, to severe constipation. You laugh now, but you would NOT believe the irritability and aggression this caused several young men with a variety of other psychiatric diagnoses. Our team discussions, for about a week, focused in part on how to get these gentleman to poop. I suggested that we change our team color (for administrative purposes of course) from Green to Brown. No one appreciated my idea. In the end, a variety of poop interventions were utilized, some medicinal, some medical, and I am certain nursing hated life for a bit. But the transformation of these children was incredible, and also hysterical. In other news, I also worked with my first perpetrator, and finally had my first adolescent female patient on the acute unit! The truth is, I miss the drama and the special brand of acting out that teenage girls do...I think a higher power must have sensed this, and just the other day I got a phone call from my former residential 16 year old, and was also requested to take my former residential 11 year old for long term outpatient treatment. I have since agreed.


I had a psych consult in the PICU last week that followed me well after I wrote my note in the chart and left. 17 year old male in acute liver failure from drinking, with suspected suicidal ideation. I had to ask the nurse a second time to make sure I had heard it right. Not a transplant candidate, either. He denied the suicidal ideation and any problems with alcohol and pretty much was a jackass to me. Which was not necessarily diagnostic, but it did point me to his fear, and also the appearance of him not giving a damn. He knew all the things to say and not say, and there was no criteria for admission to our hospital. I'm afraid the kid will commit suicide by apathy, because any ingestion of alcohol could kill him at this point. For someone who is prone to being hyperverbal, I found myself without much to say. The reality of his impending death hung all around the room like the privacy curtain, and the nicest thing I could do for him was to get out of his face. So that's what I did, and recommended inpatient alcohol treatment, provided he makes it out of the PICU.

New important deadline in my life (since I turned in a draft of Chapters 1 and 2 of my dissertation to Helen): March 30th, the day a draft is due for our case study of my former exchange student patient. The due date is in-house, so I have to get my ass in gear and write so we can all put our parts together and see what is missing/needs to be edited.

New exciting news/upcoming trips: Jena is engaged! And even more exciting, she's getting married like really soon! So, I'm going to Savannah next weekend for an impromptu bash, which will be filled with girlfriends and fun and loads o' lingerie. I'm hoping for beachy, warm weather. It's been gray and cold-ish here for days, and I'm over it!

My houseguests arrive Tuesday and leave Thursday, which prompted a MASSIVE cleaning spree this weekend. It was timely. There was nothing much going on, I was exhausted from the previous week, and my outdoors-y hopes were dashed by consistent rain. So, my grad school classmate and his wife arrive to apartment hunt in Richmond in preparation for their move here for internship! I'm telling you, all roads lead to Richmond someway or another, just ask I-95.