"'They tell me you're master of the old time fiddle'. I said, 'Now, mister, they ain't nobody mastered the fiddle. Ther's notes in that fiddle ain't nobody found.' I said, 'Ther's music in that thing that'll be there when Gabriel toots his horn.'
"
Today's assignment: tattoo removal clinic. The process is not as magical as it sounds: it's not painless and it doesn't exactly "remove" the tattoo. In fact, immediately after treatment, the outline of the tattoo actually becomes edematous and is thus more prominent and reddened. The surrounding skin becomes inflamed, apparently with the sensation of having been burned. Eventually, after several treatments, the tattoo fades - sometimes completely. Other times, there is a shadow, scar, hypo or hyper pigmentation. One guy who was having treatment on six (6!) tats revealed where another of his tattoos had been, and there was no sign. So, it works, depending on a person's skin integrity, the quality of the tattoo (do-it-yourself = yikes!) and the immune system. The way it works is that a laser sends short impulses of light into the epidermis; the light is absorbed and breaks the pigment from the ink in the tattoo into smaller particles that can be removed by the immune system. Varying wavelengths are used in order to deliver the best possible ink removal.
On my way out of the hospital on Friday I stepped into the elevator with a woman, maybe twenty-five years old, she was holding a manila envelope to her chest and weeping. She turned to me and said “It feels like tugging…” I asked, “What does?” She replied “That tugging here” and touched her breasts. “They feel heavy like they do when I feed her…my baby.” I said, “Yeah, that’s totally normal.” She sobbed and said, “No, you don’t understand. CPS took her away. They told me she’d be here today and I just got out and came for her, but they took her away already.” They lied.
I told her, “It will work out for you, and for her, in the end.”
I guess I lied, too.
I had been struggling with my clinical specialty until my community health clinical instructor who was been a L&D nurse for 10 years said to me, "I don't see the predicament. Sometimes, you can't tell the difference between a birth and a death. I've been at plenty of births where I was like 'was that a death?' and plenty of deaths where I was like 'was that a birth?'"...and I will enjoin my heart with no-one's
cause I was untried
when I was applied the light of birth.
- "Patience" Royal Stable Music 1997
After missing Bonnie Billy in Big Sur last weekend, we got a free shot today at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival. We also ran up on him quite unexpectedly on our way out. Come to find out he's an artist in residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts. This means a chance to recompense for the lost concert. Anyway, thanks to Will for fulfilling expectations and being something quite other than a typical musician/ performer. Thanks for walking a different line.
"She is a legend. She is a myth. She is Swamp Girl. Growing up on the Okefenokee, abandoned by her parents, Swamp Girl was raised by a black man she calls Pa. Trouble reins for Swamp Girl when another girl who happens to be a psycho prison escapee and her boyfriend force Swamp Girl to be their local Swamp guide. Things get nasty when Swamp Girl battles Convict Girl in an all out catfight." That, a little Ferlin Husky crooning, and more bad ass snakes than you can shake a stick at, makes for fine Sunday night respite.
So, one of the great things about MEPN is the community rotation. Today I learned that as a part of my placement I will not only be doing immunizations for the flu season, but also in-home prenatal Hep B screening, communicable disease education and screening, and we will all participate in a countywide bio-terrorism drill where we will perform "drive-by" immunizations of thousands of police officers and fire fighters. (And we have to be deputized to do this. Yes!) We also have the opportunity to volunteer for free tattoo removal and/or perinatal education for low-income families. As a part of our concurrent L&D rotation, we have 12 hours on the floor, and the option to volunteer in the NICU or at the Women's Option Center. That, and a pretty laid back academic quarter, makes us all happy.
There was an article in the NYT last Thursday about Clown Conservatory founder, Jeff Raz. I love the clowns. But this article was one of the more absurd, placing clowning in cahoots with psychoanalysis by way of desocialization. And here is where I run screaming from the room... “Working on clown is in vogue right now," says Dody DiSanto, director of the Center for Movement Theater in Washington. Working on clown? Does that sound, um, dirty to anyone else? Here are some of the workshop names for those of you looking for a little clown action*:
Yesterday morning on the ride to school, The Kid wanted me to feel his chin to see if he had suddenly begun to grow a beard.
When my partner got into the car for the commute home last night, he and The Kid took up a little birding. This was all fun and games until it came out that many male birds don't have a penis.
There seems to be something of an all-consuming concern on my floor (which I have just left for the next four months for my new clinical placement) but there still exists, in my absence I am sure, a somewhat obsessive concern with drug seeking. Granted, when I walk in the room, evaluate my patient, have a nice, friendly and coherent conversation with her -- VS normal, everything checks out -- ask her pain on a scale of 1-10 and have her reply "12", I have to think there's something a little fishy going on... especially when her PRN med is methadone.
I asked The Kid this morning if maybe he'd like to do some traveling this year. He said he liked that idea. I asked where he'd travel if he could choose. China? Ireland? Guatemala? "No," said he, "I think I'd like to visit Montreal... either Montreal or Saskatchewan."
