Loud Cheers! (For several reasons. . .)

Doctor Annoyance is going away. I don't care where or when, though I know when the when will be, and believe me, it's not soon enough: he's going away.

Doctor A has been a thorn in my side now for longer than I care to consider. He's one of those doctors--you know, the ones who can't find a phone number on their own, or who ask you stupid, unimportant questions in the middle of a crisis, or who think they're being cute when what they're really being is totally off the chain and for God's sake will you just TAKE IT DOWN A NOTCH ohmygawd how many times do I have to tell you

. . . .Anyhow, he's going.

And, with him, goes another colleague--one so toxic (as the kids say) that I didn't know how much my work life was being affected.

I wrote a piece t'other day for Scrubs about toxic workplaces and nasty, poisonous coworkers. I hadn't connected that bit of writing with anything that was going on in my own precious unit until now. Turns out I was speaking more truth than I had ever imagined.

For the last two years, my daily life's been made more unpleasant by somebody who can't see the good in anything. Swear to Frog, if this person won the lottery, patented a device to reverse global warming and remove pollution from the air, and cured cancer, all in one afternoon, there would still be bitching happening. Some people are never happy, and this is one of those folks.

And they're leaving. Cue my happy-dance. They're leaving, and they're taking Doctor Annoying with 'em, and for the next week, I am going to be blissed out and just smiling like a fool.

In other Hooray news, I have a confession to make: a sexist, horrible, awful confession:

There is some serious eye-candy happening in my unit these days.

We got a new crop of residents in as part of the half-year switcheroo, and although I know most of them, there are a few lovely strangers to gaze upon. (Yes, yes, I know. They're all young enough to be my children and they're professionals and so on and so forth, but dayum.) HR has also given the go-ahead to hiring what seems to be America's/Australia's/Canada's/Backobeyondistan's Top Model candidates for the night shifts, and all of 'em are orienting, in succession, to the NCCU.

Aside from a I-will-always-say-something-stupid moment when I tried to guess where one of the newbies was from (I guessed Ireland; turns out the correct answer was New Zealand), things have been going swimmingly. Not only are these guys--because they're all male, and what's up with that?--easy on the eyes, they all came in knowing what three-percent saline is for and how to do an NIH stroke scale exam. They're all experienced. They're all certified. All I've had to do the last three weeks is show 'em where the coffee machine is, tell 'em how to access the computers, and turn 'em loose. This is in contrast with what I've been doing lately, which involves equal parts babysitting, computer training, and hand-holding.

Is there an asteroid due to hit soon?

Because, if there is, I want to open my mouth as wide as possible and show it my tonsils before I get blown to cinders. And therein lies the last Hooray bit of news: my two-and-some year's checkup was clean as a whistle.

Dr. Crane said that thing that used to be my mouth looked "beautiful," and as I was getting all puffed up about it, added, "The Prosthetic Elf always does such good work." Still, it's nice to know that I am still officially without evidence of disease. The next exam's in August, and I'll have a good old time freaking out about that, as I'm supposed to get an MRI a week prior.

I'm tempted to deck out an IV pole with streamers and fake flowers and ride it around the unit, waving like Queen Bess at everyone.