Things of which I will never tire, part three thousand and forty-six:

1. The look on an attending's face when the nursing staff in the NCCU actually knows something. We read our patients' charts before the shift begins, we review lab results, we read EKGs and check out the results on CT scans and EEGs. Yet, for some reason, the attendings will never get over that first, pure shock of a simple nurse knowing something he (usually "he") doesn't about a patient.

(Nota bene: this is not all attendings, just a couple. Dr. Vizzini and Dr. Manbags come to mind.)

2. Pure thankfulness from a resident when we solve a problem or save them from a hideous fate. Dude/ette, that's what we're here for. You got problems? Yo, we'll solve them. Check out our scans while the 'puter revolves 'em.

3. The patients who say they don't want to take metoprolol/metformin/insulin/hydralazide for their problems, because they "don't want to mess up (their) bodies with medicine." These patients fall, generally, into two camps:

     a. The patient, male or female, with an A1c of 10, a resting systolic BP of 210, and a creatinine of
         4; or,

     b. The patient, female, with acrylic nails, bleached hair, Botox, breast implants, and liposuction,
          who has had her mercury amalgam fillings removed because they leak "toxins" into her
          bloodstream.

*** *** *** *** ***

Yes, I've been a long time gone. For that, I do truly apologize.

Back in December, the fine folks at Mind Over Media, the people who'd been my liason with Scrubs online magazine, informed me that my services as an essayist would no longer be necessary. (Nothing wrong on my part; Scrubs decided to go in a more fashion-related, nurse-o-nality {dear sweet baby Jesus} driven direction).

I realized quite suddenly about three weeks ago that I'd been blogging, or writing weekly essays for some company or other, for more than twenty years. It started in the early 1990's with a website called ParentsPlace and went from there. I also suddenly realized, about three weeks ago, that I hadn't written shit for HN, and it actually felt pretty good. So I continued on, not writing anything, until I had had enough "I've got to blog this" moments at work and in my personal life to make it worthwhile to put fingers to keyboard again.

It's a little strange, having dissected both my personal and professional lives for--hang on to your asses--twelve years!! to suddenly stop, but I think it was good. I quit looking at life through the lens of bloggable versus boring, and had a break from trying to stage things in writing in my head. Maybe the quality of my stories will improve? Perhaps that's too much to hope, but it's been an instructive, and very pleasant, break.

Thanks to all of you who wrote, wondering if I had been abducted by aliens, the Zeta cartel, an underground supplier of international supermodels, or PETA. I am fine, and I appreciate your concern.

That said, I have to make lunch for tomorrow. We have a brand-new attending, just hired on, whom we have to break in. My job will be getting him used to reports that contain Queen lyrics.