I have been pondering the impending trip out west. Pondering is the wrong word, excitedly anticipating the return out west. I got my covered wagon all tuned up and have an extra wagon wheel just incase. I got my ox checked out and packed up enough food for a “strenuous” pace. Needless to say I packed up my sling shot to hunt for extra deer or bear along the way. I love the bear because they are slow and you get a lot of pounds of meat out of them. If something bad happens, I plan on hunting a lot and trying to trade up to purchase an extra axel or wagon tongue. But in reality, I think I have enough power-bars to last the duration.

It makes me a bit sad. I have made some FANTASTIC friends out here on the east coast. I never thought I would. Its actually making me a bit sad to think that I wont have parties to go to every week and friends to cook dinner for. I dream of the day that I can unpack the wagon and actually have more than 5 tee shirts. But how petty is that? How many people live in a state of not OWNING 5 shirts, but I gripe and complain about having to recycle my shirts every week. Some days I feel guilty over life.

The last few weeks here in the ICU have not sucked to the point that I have hated life. I still am not a fan of this type of medicine. But I am surviving.

I feel that I have found a hole in my education. When I work in primary care or Fam Med, I feel that I am competitive. Not totally competent, but competitive. I can answer questions that people ask me, I can usually come up with good answers and even have reasons why I think what I think.

In the ICU, I do not have that comfort of competition. I suck, rarely do I have good answer, much less anything more than a total guess. But all that changed this week. This place rotates on a 4 week schedule. What does that mean to me? We got a new crop of interns Monday. The cool thing is that the staff docs only have 4 weeks worth of questions. So now they are just repeating themselves. ITS GREAT!!!! I know answers! I wonder what it would be like to be able to do all your hard rotations twice? I don’t want to because there is a chance that it would just suck for 12 weeks as opposed to sucking for 6. Humm. Tough call.

I feel the strain of this mental marathon starting to weigh on me. Senioritis? Perhaps. It funny to hear the docs talk about hating clinic. The thing that I continually think is “OH how I wish that I could get back to seeing clinic?”

I may very well miss this place. I will miss the people, not the roads or the drive into work, but the volleyball, the food and fun that I was not expecting to have out here. But the itch of travel is once again upon me. I wonder some days if I will ever just “settle down” and live a normal life, but that seems so darn boring to me.

Part of me does not really even care where I go, just that I go. Perhaps I am part salmon? I just feel this undeniable primal urge to migrate. But unlike the fish, I don’t have a real specific goal in mind. I am so very excited to go home, to see my family to be bugged by their funny quarks. I miss Portland and the max. I miss coffee shops that are not starbucks, (nothing against SB) there are just TONS of mom&pop shops out in the Oregon territory. I miss my Jim & Pattie’s coffee shop in NE Portland, I miss the habanera mocha, the coffee cake. I miss it all. But I will miss this place as well.

Hopefully I will not die of dysentery

See you on the trail.

M@