Back to the Blogstead as a Married Lady

Hello again! As I have a wait step in one of my experiments, I have a moment to come and write. I have been away for a long time, but I do have an excuse for my absence: B and I got married at the end of May. It was one of the loveliest things that has ever happened to me. With the help of friends and family, we did a lot of the crafting of the wedding ourselves. I will post more about that in future updates, but just wanted to check back in with my new blog.

Since the wedding (pictured here, with my maid of honor and our officiant in the background), B and I have moved into our new apartment. We had dropped off his belongings from Los Angeles before the wedding, but it was only two weekends after the wedding that we were able to visit my storage unit in Berkeley and recover the possessions I had stored there while living at my parents' place for a year. Now we have a little bit of furniture (although still no chairs), a big computer, and the all-important wireless network! There are still unopened boxes, piles of important papers, and a narrow pathway through the house. However, we do have a functional kitchenette, the laundry has been effortless so far (it's free and four steps from our front door), and the cat has moved back in! Since B and I are both studying at the moment, it's hard to find time to work on unpacking and setting up. Hopefully 15 minutes here and there will eventually lead us to a completed apartment.

We went to the bank and opened a joint account two weekends ago, and the teller asked us, "Does it feel different now that you're married?" It's the standard question you get after a birthday, and in that case the answer is usually no (at least in my case). When he asked us about marriage, though, we looked at each other and paused. It did feel different. They say it's just a piece of paper, but the fact that we separated the legal and the community ceremony shows what we think of that. I think that successful marriages are based on a belief that a private and public declaration of lifelong commitment does absolutely mean something. I am very grateful for it. So it felt different. I am also glad that we both decided to change our names and have a joint account.

In terms of the name change, it became a little controversial among friends and family. Living on the West Coast in such a liberal city, it has gotten to the point where true-blue feminists get angry when they hear you are changing your name, and the traditionalists are miffed if you aren't. We came from two different families in this regard. B's mom changed her name because she did not want to keep her father's, so they all share the same last name. In my family, my brother and I got the same last name but it is an old family name from both sides, and is different from both my father's and mother's last names. So our last name is, in some ways, unique to us. I didn't want to give that up. Apparently, in Denmark at the turn of the last century, name change was so important that the king had to sign off on it (at right)!

When B and I talked about getting married, the name change was an important issue. Your name does represent your identity, after all. Together, we decided that we a) wanted the same family name for all of us and any children we had, and b) we would find a relatively fair way to do it so that I would not be giving up my whole last name while he kept all his names. At first, we thought we would just have two last names, so we would both be Firstname, Middlename, Hislast Mylast. However, California law makes this very difficult, because unlike other types of name change, you cannot do it directly on the marriage license. So we decided we would both change our middle names to my last name, and change our last names to his last name. Now we are Mr. & Mrs. Mylast Hislast, and our children will be, too. Since his last name became our last name, we agreed that we would try to give any kids that came along Indian first names so that they had a lasting sign of their bicultural heritage. I think this final decision shocked both of our parents equally, which is probably indicative of a good decision...just kidding.

Anyway, being married is an incredible gift, as is seeing B every single day. Even on nights when I get home from lab at 7 pm, I still see him more than I did when he was in LA. Imagine that! You know, it boggles my mind that people were so generous as to travel to our wedding and also send us gifts. Their presence at the wedding and the wedding itself was more than enough. What amazing friends and family. Really. I am still writing thank you notes to all these wonderful people.

Since the wedding, I also started my new job! You can see a picture of my very own lab bench, above. It's actually a research fellowship, but I call it my job because it pays me and it's not directly related to the medical school curriculum. I'm working in an immunology lab and it's a great working environment. It's fun to be surrounded by smart people, and there are many clinician-scientists. I've already had the chance to present a patient at conference, which was fun. Hopefully I can begin regularly seeing patients at the weekly clinic. My other goal (other than studying for the second medical licensing exam) is to learn STATA, a statistical software program that is widely used for epidemiology research.

So, in short, we are adjusting to a calmer and more 'normal' way of life as we try to sort out the apartment, the legal Bar studying, the research, and the being married before we go on our (slightly delayed) honeymoon in August (another very generous wedding gift).

An Apartment Worth Hunting For

We've been looking for a new place to live. Although it's pretty traditional for the girl to live at home before marriage and with his parents after, we aren't quite that traditional. B has been on his own for eight or nine years. It's actually funny to me that I do live at home right now, given that I was living alone for three years prior, and hadn't lived at home since 2002. My poor Dad is having a rough time of it because of the wedding, and I'm sure my at-homeness is contributing to some degree. Anyway, B is moving to the Bay Area after the wedding, so we needed a place to call home. He was here for a weekend and the Hunt began. Quite fortunately, it also ended the same weekend!

We started with that quintessential renter's tool, Craigslist. I am not exactly sure what people did before Craiglist. I have a vague recollection of old books advising readers to hunt through the newspaper classifieds and then call people. Of course, if you were moving out of your area code, you had to pay long-distance rates to call potential landlords. Shock!


Now, I use Craiglist, which is happily free, and email, which is also free, and my cell phone plan, which is pre-paid and does not penalize me for having an East Coast area code left over from college even though I no longer live on the east coast. I love living in the future! It really does feel that way to me, and I'm sure to others of my generation, who started grade school in a world of rotary phones and the Dewey decimal system and now take our self-scheduled, multimedia medical licensing exams in computer labs after studying for them on the internet. You can also book a storage unit, a rental car, and movers online without so much as checking what time of day it is to see if the 'office' (another old-fashioned term, when nobody knows which days our curriculum coordinator works from home as long as she has occasional office hours) is open. So my point is that I'm grateful not only to Craig, but all of the people who have conspired to make this apartment search so much easier for a poor student. (In a strange turn of events, my mother recently became acquainted with Craig of Craigslist, but that's another story.)

I got on Craigslist about a week before B arrived and started searching for likely places. I also contacted friends, colleagues, and professors/adults for possible leads. Between us, B and I had put together a relatively impossible list of requirements. Here it is, for your perusal:


You'll notice that I wrote it with a real pen on real paper, even though I am so excited about the Information Age and the Technology Revolution and live within driving distance of Silicon Valley. But our list was pretty extensive: near public transport and freeways, allows cats, safer neighborhood, close to somewhere we can run, has bike storage, easy access to laundry, and (for B, compared to my old place) has a shower head higher than 5' off the ground. All of that for less than what we decided was our price ceiling, which was not extravagant in the least. That's asking quite a bit of this very expensive area of our lovely nation!

So using my various sources, I excitedly made a number of appointments (more than we could ever go to) for the weekend B would be here. That in itself was interesting -- I guess the internet makes frivolous/fraudulent listings easier, so I basically dismissed anyone who didn't post photos, sounded the least bit strange on the phone, tried to rush a viewing, or got back to me with weird requests. B read through the postings I had picked out and decided which ones he was interested in, too. Then we both figured out how many we actually had the energy to see in person. The answer was three (ooh, insert Goldilocks foreshadowing!), although some of those were drive-by viewings.

The first place we went to was lovely, tiny, in a great location in terms of access, not really in a safe neighborhood at all, and highly overpriced. The second one was a drive-by viewing of two places close together -- one was run-down, not a great (as in, ugly) neighborhood, but relatively safe and accessible. It had bad reviews on Yelp (another wonderful invention, though it can get ridiculous at times). The second seemed beautiful and well-maintained, but had no place to walk or run and was quite a drive to anywhere -- not really okay for people who don't want to live in their car. The third was different, because it wasn't an apartment complex. It was a basement apartment below a family who owned the house. It seemed bigger than the other places, so we decided to visit in person.

These photos are highly unflattering and low-resolution, so please bear with them. As you can see, it's quite dark because much of it is paneled in a medium brown wood. It has low ceilings, panels to nowhere, random steps up and down to different rooms, and three doors. Its layout is a square -- you enter into the kitchen from the garage. In front of you is a step down into a dark, square room with big windows. To your left in a little passage that leads to an L-shaped living area at right and another little windowless room at left. It has a kitchenette, a tiny bathroom, and a rubber-ducky- yellow bathtub.

It is separated from the family's upstairs home by a flight of stairs that locks at the top on their side (not ours, which I had trepidations about). It was such a quirky place and full of character that you either took to it right away, or didn't. I think both B and I were quite taken with it from the get-go, although of course the shower head could be higher (he's nearly six feet tall) and the bathroom was quite tiny and old-fashioned.

We both liked it and the price -- it came in under our sum, and this included all of our utilities except internet/phone, as well as laundry and permission to use the garage for our bikes. The only thing about a place like this is that you live with your landlord. So you had better get along well with your landlord! Apparently, he and his wife had two college girls living there before, so we figured it would probably be okay. There were no weird rules about parties or friends. He even said that if we felt like re-painting, he would pay for the paint. He was up-front about the financial side of things, prompt with the lease agreement, and brought his kids and wife to meet me when I went back for a second look. He promised to replace the carpet before we moved in. So we agreed that, although a relatively strange arrangement compared to what we were used to, we would take a chance on it. And we signed the lease this past weekend!

Our adventure begins. It doesn't look like much now, I know, but I can't wait to get in there with my good camera and take some before/after photos of the place before we settle in and decorate. And then, once certain huge exams beginning with B and ending with things that rhyme with TAR and SWORDS, respectively, are over, we shall hopefully have a housewarming!

Can you think of any good names for our new home? We could go with something traditional, like The Cellars. A nod to classic fantasy, like The Hobbit Hole? Or unfortunately true, like The Basement Mews? All suggestions welcome, no matter how inappropriate/punny.

A Moment of Serenity

Today I went seeking some peace, quiet, and serenity. In the form of a cup of tea, some roses, and a bowl of blueberries, yogurt, and cinnamon bread that my dad brought home (at left). I was playing around with roses trying to figure out what to do with our wedding tables. I'm drinking decaffeinated Earl Grey. Mmmm. And of course, I am gazing at a very contented, bread-loafed cat. Tea and cats are pretty nearly synonymous with home, aren't they? I am very excited to start living with B in our new place (which we haven't found yet), but it certainly is strange to realize that the year is over and I'm moving again. Also, I'm going to miss having both my parents under one roof for the first time in 20 years (their work has kept them apart). It's so fun to call out, "Mom!" or "Dad!" and have them actually answer, no phone necessary. Of course, my little feline has been with me throughout medical school (we got her when I was 14).

This year, both the cat and I moved back to my parents' house (for the 3rd year of school), as did my dad (from Japan) and brother (from Las Vegas). My mom went from living by herself to living with all of us again! I moved back into the room I've lived in since we came back from South-east Asia in 2002, which used to be our home office when I was five and we had just bought the house. This room is the first room I ever typed on a keyboard in! Although it took all of us some adjusting and my brother decided he wanted his own place and moved out, he comes back on weekends to hang out and do laundry, and we do have some moments of peace now and again. And of course, since my parents are cooking, the meals are pretty gourmet. Yum. This is inspiring me. Maybe I'll make some gingerbread tonight for my nice mother and father (and brother, if he drops by).

I think we are actually ordering in sushi this evening, which is pretty special. My dad cleaned out our entire garage today so he could manage the people from Home Depot as they covered our garage walls in shelving units. It's going to be so tidy and neat to have storage for all of our seasonal items and things that would otherwise be stored in an attic (there isn't one at our house). He worked very hard all day, and I think as a celebration of our new, organized garage he is treating us to sushi! When we start eating, I'm pretty sure the poor cat will rouse herself and perform her sad-cat-without-sushi dance back and forth across the kitchen floor. My dad always takes pity on her (I captured this sweet shot of my parents sharing the papers in our living room).

But as I write, both the cat and I are at peace. And outside, the garden is blooming (the pink tree buds have opened)! I love spring. We have a postage-stamp size garden, but it has a rose tree, a cherry tree, a pear tree, a tiny lawn, abundant daisies, fresh mint, several jays, hummingbirds, raccoons (!) at night, and sometimes, neighboring cats. You can probably guess how our resident feline feels about that.

We do have a redwood fence that allows us some privacy, so we can have cookouts sometimes. My brother uses the barbeque frequently, and he's a very good cook. Our next-door-neighbor's flowering tree overflows from their yard and lends a nice backdrop to the grill.

One of these days I'll have to write more about the garden. It is a potentially enchanted place. With tasty barbeque chicken.

My Last Clinic as a 3rd-year Student!

Wednesday (April 20th) was my last clinic as a 3rd year student. It happened to be psychiatry. One patient was a super brilliant, highly paid, very well-educated, slightly unstable man who came in because of multiple issues that cropped up once he started working full time. It was challenging for me to interview him because he engages in many dare-devilish practices that frankly scare me and that I've never really understood, and some that I've never heard of. But it was a great exercise in finding those little handles people have that allow you to empathize with anyone -- some small preference, a place they've lived, a hobby, a pet, a belief. In this case, the fact that we were both in the healthcare field was a common reference point, so that worked nicely and broke the ice.

The second one was just a check-in from a man who had previously had such serious problems with alcohol/drug abuse that he had to enter a live-in residential program and leave his family and home behind. Somehow, miraculously, he has not only stayed straight-edge but has reconciled to some degree with his wife and she brings their daughter to visit him regularly. He has been sober for two years now. He told us tearfully (although perhaps this is fortunate) that the child is too young to remember when dad lived at home. I have nothing but the utmost respect for my psychiatry attending. As I've watched him over the year, I've realized how often he sees people at the very lowest point in their lives and then guides them back to emotional, and often physical, safety.

Because I am in a longitudinal clerkship program, I have had precepting sessions with different attending physicians in the core disciplines (Internal Med, Family, OB/GYN, Pediatrics, Neurology, Surgery, Psychiatry, Emergency) all year long and at seemingly random times of day and week. We've had a couple of inpatient experiences (2 weeks on Medicine, 1 week on OB/GYN nights, 2 weeks on surgery, 4 days of cardiology), but for the most part it has been outpatient medicine.

We also carried a core patient panel of about 60 patients each in all of these disciplines, and followed them into the hospital whenever they were admitted or on labor & delivery (via really old-school clunky pagers that would go off when any of our patients checked in for any reason at any of our affiliated hospitals). It's been amazing. Frustrating, demanding, often sleepless, awe-inspiring, touching, poignant, tearful, and just absolutely incredible. Never again will I have such complete access to all the different services of a hospital. Never again will I just be able to walk into the room, explain that I'm a longitudinal student, and then participate in whatever happens that day. In my fourth year and from now on, I will carry a label. I will become not just a student, but a student going into X specialty. And then I will be an X specialty resident, then attending, and so forth. This year, I have had the honor of being taught by some of the best and brightest minds in medicine, many of whom took the trouble because I was still an 'undifferentiated student' who had not yet decided what to do.

I have had so many 'firsts' as a medical student this year. First solo delivery of a baby with my (gloved) hands. First digital rectal exam (also gloved). First solo pelvic exam (metal speculums are less uncomfortable). First time breaking the news that someone had terminal cancer. First time a parent told me, "Thank you so much for taking care of my child." First lumbar puncture. First code. First time comforting a grieving relative. First time staying up all night for two days straight.

First time cauterizing a liver in the OR. First person to see someone who had psychotic hallucinations. First time I've seen a terminally ill child. First time I've had to explain why a woman in her twenties had to have her uterus emergently removed and will never again have children -- the day after her would-have-been wedding day. First time someone said "no" when I asked if they were safe at home. First thank-you letter from a patient. First time someone explained to me that they had to choose a Christmas tree OR presents for their children this year, and so couldn't afford their seizure medication. First time I've seen a husband and wife in back-to-back appointments -- in the oncology clinic. First home visit (to a healthy and robust man in his late 70s).

The Girl in the Orange Hat (first child I delivered, held by proud mama & papa)

It's been a memorable year in such a visceral way, to experience these human beings and their stories. I remember their faces, the feel of a spine, the smell of blood, phrases they used, the sound of their coughs. I look at a patient's belly and see my own sutures holding their wound closed. I look at an infant and remember catching him or her, soaking wet and newly born. It is a huge, enormous, incredible privilege to be there when people are feeling their worst, or hear the most terrible news they ever will hear. Likewise when the wonderful things happen: miracle recoveries, successful treatments without side effects, a false alarm. The thing about our longitudinal clerkship, though, is that I've also been there for the in-betweens: the colds that drag on through the winter when a patient is immunocompromised, the thyroid medicine that's never quite right, the lady who everyone thinks is "difficult" due to a lanuage barrier. These are the daily lives of the people of this city, and it's amazing to be so involved.

The next two weeks will be calmer: we have an end-of-year course focusing on healthcare policy and planning our careers. I have more tests to look forward to, as well. I am taking Step 2 of the national licensing boards soon. Clinical Skills (CS) will be in about 2 weeks, and then I'll probably take Clinical Knowledge (CK) some time in July. CS is pass/fail, whereas CK is most certainly not. I'll be studying hard for that one! Also in the next two weeks comes apartment hunting, wedding planning, and recovering from sleep deprivation. I'm SO looking forward to the idea of a class breakfast tomorrow morning, when I'll see how everyone is doing as compared to last term.

After a year of ups and downs and struggling to glean a tiny bit of this terrible, beautiful beast that is clinical medicine, it is such a pleasure to sit here with a cup of tea and write to you, knowing that spring has finally arrived.

Mail from the White House!

I was hoping that would get your attention. You may have heard that you can send a wedding invitation to the White House and receive a response. B & I decided to test this out for ourselves, and we received a very timely response from the Hon. President Barack Obama & Mrs. Obama. Squeee!!!

You can't tell from my scanned-in version, but the border is dark gold and 'The White House, Washington' is dark blue. I am so excited that our wedding will happen during the Obama administration so we can have the above keepsake for our scrapbook. I think it's neat for B given his lawyerly interests. It's really cool for me because I only became a US citizen in 2006. Did you know only US citizens are eligible to receive White House greeting cards?

Anyway, next time you'd like to invite the President & his family to your special function (wedding, baby's delivery, 100th birthday party, graduation, etc), write to them at:

The Honorable Barack Obama and Mrs. Obama
The White House
Greetings Office Rm. 39
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DC 20500

I was thinking some more about why I switched blogs. Somehow I felt that my old one had gotten too negative. There were a lot of posts when things weren't going well, and very few when they were. So I started a brighter and cheerier blog, inspired by murder mysteries with happy endings that you read with a cup of tea, and have made the following resolutions for a more uplifting blogging experience:

Nia's Blogging Resolutions

1. I will post more positive material than negative material. My own blog will therefore not depress me.

2. I will post posts of some substance, not 'tweet posts' that run like this: "I'm so tired. I'm still alive. Medical school is hard. Kthanksbye."

3. I will try to include a substantial bit of news or a new fact, etc. in each post. This is primarily to avoid #2 and also to convince myself that I'm learning. Something. New. Every. Day.

4. I will attempt to post at least once a week. Oh, boy, I can't believe I just typed that out loud.

5. I will respond to all comments made in earnest by anyone who takes the time to leave them.

How about you? Have you ever started a journal/blog/diary only to find that it gets you down more than it acts as an outlet? How do you lift yourself out of a funk?


Your friend,
Nia

A Bend in the Road Deserves a New Blog

Half Dome in Yosemite

Hello friends! Welcome to my new blog. I decided to start fresh because of an upcoming Bend in the Road. The three years of our pre-clinical, MD-master's program were very educational (to read about them, visit my old blog), but also very different from the clinical world I have been immersed in over the past year. My first clinical year of medical school has been eye-opening. It's been amazing, frustrating, demanding, and awesome. I think I have finally started to come to terms with my identity as a future physician, and I wanted to celebrate that by starting a new chapter in my blogging life.

In addition, two important and exciting things are coming up, each of which deserve a new blog perspective: I'm taking a sponsored research year to study how bones interact with the immune system (yay!), and I'm getting married next month (yay!). In the next year, I will also be trying to decide what kind of doctor I want to be: which specialty, how much clinical practice vs. research vs. education, etc.

My desire is to use this blog to share what I learn as I continue along this (slightly daunting) path. Anything is fair game, but as the title suggests, my focus will be on my daily life of medical school, matrimony, and the mayhem that is bound to ensue! As always, comments are gladly accepted and insights much appreciated.

Hugs,
Nia