Happy Holidays!

So I'm about halfway throught my first year in radiology... and I naively thought it was all going to get better but it is definitely way waaaaaaaaaay worse then I ever thought, so #1 rule of medicine is, it never gets better, it just gets worse. Even if you think nothing can be worse than clerkship, even after you matched to "your specialty of choice" (do you really know what you're getting yourself into? Is it truly what you want to do?), and even after you pass your multiple licensing exams, I swear.

What is really difficult is call, and each time I'm scheduled on I seem to learn a lesson. I'm tired of learning lessons! Radiology call rules:
1) If you do any ultrasounds, always bring the patient back for a repeat departmental scan in the morning (which kinda defeats the whole purpose of doing calls on scan anyway but let's not get into that.)
2) Don't fight scans. Invariably, the scan you fight will be the one that is positive.
3) Warn your loved ones you will be a monster on some days from the stress.
4) Satisfaction of search - there rarely is just one finding!
5) You'll hear this all anyway and still make the same mistakes because it's the only way to learn. And your loved ones will still want to leave you.

Of course outside of working hours, when I should be reading, I try to have a semblance of a normal life. Recently Mike and I went to go buy our very first real Christmas tree. Growing up in a big fat Asian family, I only had a fake tree and I was fine with that. My real Christmas tree shopping experience (RCTSE) was interesting of course because it was in Vancouver, a.k.a. the most expensive city in Canada. We were stupid enough to visit a Christmas tree stand in Kitsilano, where the affluent also live. So this is how it went down:

Betty's RCTSE

Tree stand in Kitsilano.

Betty looks at trees. Mike looks at trees. Both parties catch a glimpse of a most beautiful, not too big and not too small Christmas tree that seems perfect.

Mike approaches tree stand man to ask for price.

Mike: How much is this tree?

Man: Oh... (man thinks) uh.... (man thinks some more, and wonders how much he can rip us off)... that one is fifty-five dollars.

Mike (incredulous): What?!?!?

Betty stands silently, as she is Asian and has no idea how much a Christmas tree is supposed to cost.

Mike: Back home Christmas trees are like twenty bucks!

Betty looks at the man in defiance, thinking, "damn straight!"

Man: Well, uh, you see, that tree is a high-end Christmas tree.

Betty and Mike go berserk.


Like seriously!?!?!? High-end Christmas tree? Only in Vancouver! Only in Kits! Maybe we should have dressed up in rags.

So the next day at work I tell everyone who doesn't want to listen about the incredulousness of my RCTSE and thankfuly a co-worker suggested getting a tree at Superstore, where the trees are cheap and plentiful. We went and got a Douglas Fir, although the Fraser Firs are ten dollars more so I guess in this crazy west coast of wilderness there is a premium on finer species of trees. They sold out of stands though, so on our way home we went back to the high end Christmas tree boutique in Kits (because it was close and we were lazy and gluttons for punishment) to get one. Apparently it went something like this:


Man notices a tree in our car as we park. Mike re-enters high end Christmas tree boutique.

Man: Hey, so did you come by here to get a tree earlier?

Mike: No, we're here to get a stand. Actually, the trees here were just too expensive so we went a bit farther out to get a tree.

Man: I see. How much did you spend?

Mike: Twenty bucks.

Man: Well, you could have gotten that tree for the same price. Man points to the smallest, most pathetic looking Christmas tree you ever did see.

Seriously. Only in Kits.


Which also reminds me, during Halloween, I really couldn't tell who was in costume and who was just wearing their normal clothes, because NOBODY tells you about the weird people in Vancouver.


Okay, enough hating, may your spirits be bright and ye holidays be happy. Tomorrow I attempt to make a seafood dinner for Mike (his tradition on Christmas Eve is to eat no meat). On the planned menu: lobster bisque, miso-glazed sablefish (or black cod as the rest of the world outside BC calls it), king crab legs sauteed in white wine, shrimp dish yet to be determined, and perhaps more, depending on how ambitious I feel.

Ho ho ho! I promise my thyroid meds and vitamin D supplements are working, and I will be more cheerful in the new year.

#1 rule in life: don't make promises you can't keep.