White Cloud

I'm hoping that in writing this I will tempt the fates enough to bring me an admission. I'm a white cloud right now, and I'm stuck on call blogging rather than working. Now, this might seem like a bit of a crazy request; but when my wife is home in bed taking care of three kids, I kind of want my time away to be, oh, I don't know, somehow productive.

The first time I realized that I was actually superstitious was an overnight trauma call. We had seen a penetrating chest wound that didn't survive, a car accident that included a whole family that did, and a five-hundered pound Amyand's hernia, which occurs when a Meckel's diverticulum incarcerates into a hernia sack and then ruptures, causing necrosis and serious badness if not removed. Even the chief, who was amazingly resiliant, was exhausted, breaking between stitches to roll his shoulders back and look at the ceiling. As we finished up the case, I said, 'well, at least it's quiet now, right?'

He looked at me as only med students can be looked at, for we have yet to learn the ways of doctoring that matter. Never, ever, ever, tempt the fates, for they will deliver. We had three more traumas not thirty minutes later, just in time to push morning rounds back by hours. I couldn't feel my feet. And while that night was the night that helped me pick my speciality, I was tired and I wanted to go home. I had made myself into a typhoon cloud.

In contrast, here on my medicine rotation, I'm a white cloud on a breezy blue-sky day, footloose and fancy-free. Life I love you...all is groooovy.

The concept of white and black clouds, well, it's not official until I've actually been the responsible one on call. We'll see yet what my true colors are. Perhaps fate, just like attendings, doesn't really care too much what medical students say. Here's to being productive.