And I've studied sporadically at best...

I need to dig out my sealed transcripts so I can sign up for the certification exam. Having a date will help with motivation, I think. November was good for studying, December has been very Christmasy with some interspersed studying.

On the upside, Christmas is now over and we had a lovely time. My family all came to visit for a few days and it was really nice, probably the least stressful Christmas we've ever had. We tried to model things on my husband's Swedish Christmas traditions and it went over well.

I worked Christmas Eve and the day after, which is about what you expect in the medical field. Things slow down but it doesn't stop because people like to get things done while their deductibles are already met. At least I didn't have to work Christmas Day, which my sister's had to do several times in the past.

December has been busy...

I don't know if traveling over Thanksgiving just put us behind, but December has felt like a month of catch up. My husband is working some evenings and some weekends, so I'm trying to pick up the household slack while studying and getting ready for Christmas and working. Somedays I just want to hang out in a blanket fort, reading something fictional and fun.

But work is still going well. Lots of babies being born apparently, but relatively slow on colons. Things come in waves with no rhyme or reason.

My student AAPA membership expires at the end of the month, so I should probably look into renewing that.

Scrubs...

My husband took advantage of some black Friday-esque sales at Brooks Brothers while we were driving back from our holiday trip to DC (since we don't have a store locally, it made sense to stop when we saw one). And it made me really grateful that I wear scrubs to work. I put a lot less thought into what I'm wearing on a given day to the hospital...light blue scrubs every day. They are hospital issue, which makes sense for the type of job I have. In a position where you could be soiled with chemicals and/or bodily fluids, it is comforting to know that non-contaminated clothing is as close as the break room.

Plus as a new grad, it was nice not to have to buy a new work wardrobe...

Schedule...

I haven't signed up to take the exam, but I have a mental deadline for myself. I want to be done with my first pass through Robbins by the end of the month. In December, I'll actually see about registering to take the test for sometime in January. And I'll have the month of December to go back through Robbins and make outlines (I do love outlines) for major diseases/topics, etc.

In the meantime, we're going on a road trip to DC for Thanksgiving with the kids because it makes much more sense to do this now that we live three hours further away from DC instead of when we were in Durham. We meant to but never had the time! It will be good, a family trip before my parents move away, lots of pictures and memories of being together.

Today is my last work day for the week, which makes it a ridiculously short one. At least the rest of the week is relatively quiet so I don't have to feel bad about leaving a lot of work for my boss to do. That is the thing about working in medicine...you can't just leave the work to pile up while you're not there, someone has to do it. It isn't a good profession for people who like to call in for sick days because there always has to be someone there covering for you.

But, days off are nice sometimes and is travel, even if it is just around where you live. It is nice to have a break in routine and play tourist somewhere... even if I will be studying in the backseat while someone else drives us there.

Typhoon Haiyan (Not related to pathology)

You can't work in medicine without knowing some Filipinos. We come over as doctors, as lab workers, and nurses. We are ubiquitous throughout American hospitals, and almost all of us still have family members back home.

I appreciate that my hospital system sent out emails expressing their support of Filipino employees and that coworkers asked after my family members. It took several days for my aunts and cousins to be able to contact relatives in the Philippines but outside of the effected area. Thankfully everyone is fine, and other than some roof damage, my mother's childhood home survived the storm. Also, my grandparents' house has a well of sorts so they have water, which is a big concern for survivors. 

A lot of people have not been so lucky and it is heart breaking to hear the news reports of mass
graves of bodies to be identified later...to hear the worries of people still waiting to hear from family...and of survivors left wondering, "Now what?"

More than anything this past week I've thought about the story of the three little pigs... The Philippines has a type of housing called nipa huts (or bahay kubo), which is made of bamboo, grasses, and/or woven mats and is built on stilts. These are not homes designed to withstand 150 mph winds.The people who have been displaced are not necessarily people who have a lot of resources to replace the things that have been destroyed. I don't know what will happen in the recovery process, but I am heartened by the attitudes of the people there. They are hopeful, they are hard working, and they are resilient.

If you can help in anyway, please do. Because of how long it takes to ship goods internationally and the difficulties with transporting things between islands (especially where the roads have been damaged), money really is the easiest and most effective way to help.