I am in the final countdown days of relaxing and strangeness until it is time to work my ass off for a full year. I won’t miss the days of school, sitting on my ass every day in a tiny classroom trying to learn everything possible about medicine. Yet, I am starting to panic. On Monday I begin my first rotation. At a mental hospital. I guess I should look up the proper name, is it mental institution? Whatever. My preceptor gave me a list of books to read and told me to brush up on schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, addictions, and eating disorders. With these I must also trudge back into the world of pharmacology and the many drugs for each. You know, honestly, I thought my psych rotation would be a piece of cake, something to ease into like the vast freezing ocean, body part by body part. I thought I would just sit and listen to the doctor-patient encounter and that was all. Nope. This is as hardcore as psych gets. I have all sorts of irrational fears about these five weeks of jumping into the ocean without testing the waters first (if you couldn’t tell, I am the sort to ease in very very slowly). So you know how many kinds of schizophrenia classifications there are? Jeezus. I went to my school last week to fax some paperwork and to pick up my new white coat I had ordered. As an aside, the white coat? Bullshit. I hate that fucking thing. Sure, we had a big ceremony first semester about how important and what a rite of passage the white coat represents. In my school everyone has one but only the pharmacy and for some strange reason the nursing students (yeah, like why do they even have one in the first place?) wears theirs on a daily geeky basis. We wear ours only if we a) are cold, b) have a lab practical, or c) have simulated patients. They are cheap and pilly when washed, if washed ever, most looking rather gray-ish and stained with highlighter or coffee (apparently my coffee has stained many a coat sitting on the backs of chairs in my vicinity, not just my own). Anyway, I went to get my new one, in the next size up because my old one is a half shirt because sitting around for an entire year tended to make most of the class gain anywhere from five to twenty pounds, myself included. I chatted with my rotation experience coordinator for a bit about my upcoming rotation. The good news is that someone from last year’s class liked it so much they went back as an elective. I then spoke with my favorite professor about it and he had quite a bit to say. “Memorize the entire DSM IV.” I said, “Are you serious!?” “No, but know it very well.” Shit. He told me he went on a site visit there this past spring and that my preceptor was very into reading and assigning reading (which I gathered) and she was somewhat of an existentialist. Okay. He also told me that I was going to be like the ambassador for the program, the first student from our class to go to this site and I must present and achieve the proper standards, basically to beat out all the medical students that rotate there and show them all that the PA is of the highest caliber and ready and eager to learn and accept all challenges with ease and grace. Something like that. I said, “Great. No pressure.” Medicine is not just a science, it is an art. When you hear hoof beats think horses, not zebras. So many mantras, so little time. The one we hear most is that we need to prove ourselves, show them all that being a PA is no less than a medical student, intern, resident, doctor, or any well educated person of authority. We are supposed to be humble and scared, not cocky. We are to be well dressed and professional. Being a professional, for me, is the biggest challenge. I am a goof who curses way too much. The wardrobe thing is also an issue. I have been wearing the same pair of socks for no less than five days straight. Oh god, I think I am going to vomit.
Life has been relatively mundane over these past weeks. I did have a rather surreal experience the other day, and believe me, not even I can make this shit up. I went out on Tuesday to vote in the New Hampshire primary. How fucking cool is that? I had watched the four hour debates on tv, alternating between screaming at fucking Romney (I hate that flip flopping bastard) and sneering at Obama (who in my opinion is a joke with not enough experience). I had to stand in a huge line to register, New Hampshire being somewhat of a backwater state where applying for your drivers license doesn’t automatically register you to vote. So there I am, standing in the line from hell, and this guy behind me starts chatting me up. Usually I put up the ignore screen, like listen buddy, I am so not into you, okay? I don’t know why, but I played along. He seemed friendly enough, a total Manchester local. I do regularly have conversations with these types in and around my ghetto apartment building. He told me he hadn’t voted in over eight years. I was aghast, I vote whenever possible. Anyway, as he was standing in yet another line to get his ballot he told me he was going to vote for Edwards. I yelled out, “You are throwing your vote away!” I mean, come on, how many times have we seen Edwards running for election to see him lose? Seriously. Local guy asked me to wait for him while he cast his vote, and I am happy to say I swayed him to vote for Hillary, thank you very much. Very much unlike me, but I did wait for him. As a note, he didn’t seem like a serial killer or anything and I guess my self-induced isolation was getting the better of me. He had interesting stories, I like stories. We walked out into the parking lot and of course he tried to ask me out. He had at first glance thought I was all of nineteen years old but the fact that he was a mere five years my senior seemed to persuade him that I was datable. “I’m a lesbian.” He didn’t care and rattled off every gay person he was ever friends with and asked me if I wanted to have a cup of coffee at his mother’s house, which was down the street. I went, after asking him if he was going to kill me. He asked if I was going to kill him. I found out that he is Greek and his mom is 81. We went to this old triple decker, wood paneling and out dated family pictures everywhere. His mom was a sweetheart, I loved her. She made us Greek coffee (I fucking love Greek coffee and I haven’t had any since I was in Greece) and I got the tour of the house, saw all the prom pictures from 1985, the family history, pet the dog, the whole nine yards. He told me that his mom had “the gift” and could tell your fortune by reading the coffee grounds left in your cup. She didn’t want to read my fortune, but after about an hour of convincing her son made her (personally, I didn’t want to have my fortune read, that shit scares me). I drank my coffee to the point where you have to stop otherwise you get a mouthful of grounds and was instructed to turn it over onto a saucer and wait. She picked up my cup, cleaned her glasses and started to speak rapidly in Greek. My translator told me I had three roads ahead, a road to money, one to a house, and one to a new career. I asked if they were separate roads and if I had to pick one. No, they were all to be traveled, I did not have a choice. I mean, I could have predicted that, too, but she did not know of my current schooling or career path. And then she said I would have a problem with “W” and suddenly she slammed my cup down away from her and said, “No more.” Uh oh. See? That’s why that shit is scary. You have a nice lady reading your fortune and then she sees something so horrible that she stops and won’t tell you. Now I am staring at that w I typed and thinking terrible things, Wilson’s disease? Wernicke’s encephalopathy? Since I don’t drink alcohol all that much, that one is kind of safe. Worcester? It’s probably women, fucking women. I want to sleep with you but I can’t, that’s okay let’s be friends, okay, what the fuck, you can’t be friends with me because you still want to fuck me? Whatever. Anyway, so Local guy and I leave his mom’s to go to his friend’s house, home of “they are breaking up and she’s bi and he can’t deal with it but I am best friends with both of them and I can’t help one but not the other.” Awkward. They smoked some pot, I didn’t. Eight years ago I would have been like this is the best voting day ever, but I am just not that girl anymore. I sat around petting three dogs and watching Hillary sweep the elections, gave out some medical advice to the girl who has endometriosis, laughed at their follies and drove the Local guy back to his apartment. He told me I had beautiful eyes, lips, and teeth and we should hang out and maybe have a threesome with the bi girl. I don’t do that either. It was a very strange evening, I remember why I put up that shield when guys start to talk to me. It’s there for a reason.
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