I’m currently Really Quite Far Away, to go to a conference. It starts on Wednesday, and I have a slightly questionable paper to present on Saturday. (Questionable as it contains some extra work done by my successor, and so I am apparently to talk about Western Blots, about which I know nothing. Fortunately, there are multiple, gaily-coloured graphs and that may distract the slavering beasts lovely people.

I had a rotten run at work, and was on call on Thursday night. It’s a rule that, the more you need the night to go peacefully, the worse it is. There’s also a rule about not buying any reading material on call, bringing any work or studying to do, and never, ever saying the “Q” word. Predictably, it was an appallingly busy night. I got home at 01.00am, packed until 02.20am, got into bed until 03.00am and then up and out until 04.40am. Two hours’ sleep, then a full day’s work. And the last patient of the day was almost an hour late. Typical. Went to Gotham on Friday night, to spend some little time with the lovely Batman, then onwards on Saturday.

It was a slightly bad sign that there was an announcement as I was boarding that if there was a doctor on board, would they please come to the rear galley. Being an all-round public spirited type (who never learns), I set my bag down on 27H beside a random fat man, and continued to the back. A young man wasn’t feeling too good – I think a combination of tiredness, stomach upset and a very strong travel-sickness pill on already dodgy innards. He didn’t look up to the flight, anyway, and the rather overwhelmingly scary thing is that as soon as I said this, it was unquestioningly followed. Paramedics, the captain, the ambulance…to be fair, he had to be half-carried off the plane and I’m sure it was the right thing to do, but delaying a transatlantic flight for over an hour on my say-so must rank as one of the more nerve-wracking things I’ve done. Cue embarrassing amounts of gratitude, seeing as I really was only doing what I am morally and ethically obliged to do. “Where are you sitting?” asked the Chief Crew Lady. “Let’s get your things, as we have a seat for you in Business Class.” Now, believe it or not, I did truly attempt a protest, but when she said, “No, I won’t hear of it and the Captain has instructed that you move,” well…

Nine-and-a-half hours on a flat-bed seat, meals from china plates and one of those fancy TV things – oh, life was very good. Very good indeed. I’ll leave you with my husband’s response: “You jammy get!!”

Oh yes, baby, yes. My thumbs may have been discarded in favour of one-fingered typing, but I am blogging from my iPhone. Oh Yes.
Currently supervising two of the Young People, as they poke around inside. Work just blah lately, changed boss but mine is on holidays, so I am general filler-in, and very tedjus it is, too.
In other news, a year ago today, I was single. How much life has changed, and how happy and thankful I am for Batman. Have to go and harrass the Young People. Pip pip.

I’m not one for snap decisions. I don’t believe in love at first sight, and I never trusted those people who said they just knew about their Significant Other. Turns out I was wrong. The moment Batman and I took the step from friendship to romance, I knew that there could never be anyone else. My birthday was last weekend, and he came over for a week’s holiday. On my birthday, he took me for a walk, and asked me to marry him. Thirteen and a half years after we met, six months and three days after we started going out together, I said yes. We’re getting married. We and our families are absolutely delighted, as you might imagine. Last week passed in a delightful blur, and they could get neither sense nor work out of me at the hospital. We saw our families and friends, celebrated a little, and revelled in the joy of having reached this decision. Life is good. I am very thankful.

Batman’s a busy man, between saving Gotham and putting in the hours at his cover job.* However, he’s also possibly the most patient man I have ever met. I say this because, since we’ve started dating, I have spent a lot of the time wound up to fifteen on the Shitshitshitometer, and I’m not very good at relationships anyway. Last week was a case in point – and after all the logbooking, they didn’t even look at the damned thing. Anyway, by the time I got on the plane, I was tired, hungry (my flight was cancelled but they put me on an earlier one, which had been conveniently delayed, but didn’t permit any grub to be scoffed) and not a little stressed. But I’m home tonight, after the most blissfully relaxing weekend, having vented at top speed to Batman on Friday evening, and then settled down. Somehow, somewhy, he puts up with it all. Not a lot of superheroes would let their girl crank at them all the time, and not a lot of superheroes would want to take on the myriad stresses and hangups I have collected along the way. Oh, and not a lot of superheroes can make pancakes, or know exactly the right thing to say, even if it is to tell their girl to,” Calm the f*&k down!” I am so pleasantly relaxed, after puttering and lunching and reading papers over coffee, and being hugged very frequently by my absolute favourite superhero.

Batman, you’re always leaving nice comments, and so this one’s for you:

I love you; I really, really do. Thank you.

* Could tell you, but would have to kill you, and all that.

I am skiving this morning, but have to go to work rather soon. On the way, I shall be stopping at the University to collect my gown & tickets for graduation on Friday. I can’t say as I totally enjoyed my medical school graduation, as I was really enormously uptight about it all. There are reasons why this graduation may be a little awkward, specifically that mine Ex is also graduating, with the same degree, so not only will we be seated together during the gig, there’ll be the whole meeting of the mothers and hello-here’s-my-new-man business. Anyway. You know what? So what. I worked my ass off for this, I made everyone around me miserable, but the thought of this day was, strangely, such a tasty-looking carrot on the end of a very long stick. I don’t know why it should have been such an incentive, maybe it’s the day when I draw a line under all of this work and get on with the rest of life. What I do know is that I am so looking forward to it. Don’t think this is bragging, because it isn’t. It’s just the ramblings of someone who never thought they had it in them.

Yeah, so I get my medical education from the Hindernet. Do you want to make a big deal of it?

NameThatDisease.com – The disease test

(Shamelessly stolen from Handsome Ed, of course.)

It’s been a lovely weekend. Holidays at home, with the added bonus of a visit from Batman. Being a rather sensible chap, he wouldn’t come within 300 miles of me until the exam was over. His line is that it was in order to give me time to study, but anyone who had any contact with me in meat space will know that it is because I was so outrageously intolerable. Prof. Rubbergloves e-mailed me the corrections for my thesis, with instructions not to open the attachment until Monday. For once, I did what I was told.

As far as Batman’s concerned, the transition from friends to oh-my-goodness-we’re-dating has been quite a shock to the system, but definitely a very good shock. I had to take him back to the launch pad this evening for the Batflight back to Gotham, but it was a perfect weekend.

Work again tomorrow, with the grumpiest clinic in the world in the morning. I am going to eat ice-cream and go to bed.

Yes, indeedy, I passed! Thank you all so very much for the prayers and good wishes. I had an hour and three-quarters of grilling, and do I mean grilling? Yes. It was: let’s look at this photo on page 114…now on page 155, middle paragraph, you said X, what did you mean by that…and on page 157, why did you do Y? Got rather messed up in the statistics, as am ignorant of same. Then got a bit fouled up in another section, but, all in all, it could have been much worse. They put me into the waiting room for ten minutes, then brought me back and said they were pleased to inform me that they would be recommending to the University that it confer the degree of Doctor of Medicine. I said: thank you. Then the External Examiner asked did I feel I’d defended? I was out in scarlet blotches by this stage, so I said that I most certainly did.

I headed home afterwards, to spend the evening with my dear, long-suffering mother. She’s delighted, as is my sister (and Batman). Near home, I met a bus of students from my old school, and it made me think a bit.  When I was at school, on a cold February morning with condensation running down the windows, a really tragic perm, and a blazer that smelled like wet dog; never did I imagine that I would have this life, this amazing life. For it, I am truly thankful. I am so lucky, and so blessed. And also tireder than I have ever been in my whole entire life.

Right, I’m home and my sister has bought chocolate cake to celebrate. Good night, and thank you all.

Alas, I can’t upload the photo from my new hospital ID badge, which was in my pigeonhole this morning. I’m smiling in it, which isn’t a good look for me, but I went along with my friend Mo to get photographed, and he was ragging me and making me laugh. What I can do is submit, for your consideration, the accompanying letter:

Dear Ms Blade,

Re; Identity Pass

Further to review of the new identity passes, it has been decided that all doctors should wear a serious expression for purposes of the photograph. A temporary pass is enclosed. However, we would be grateful if you could reattend at your convenience in order to have a new photograph taken.

Yours sincerely,

*squiggle*

Human Resources Department.

Said Blade: !!! What sort of crrrap is this? (Don’t forget to roll your rr’s when saying this out loud.) What is the number for HR? Someone is getting it for this! One of the secretaries said she’d go and find the number, then came back and said they were in a meeting and maybe I should see if any of the other doctors had got the letter as well. I was incandescent, questioning were they implying that I was pulling faces? And should we not be showing the friendly, approachable face of ze profession? And did they have an issue with how I look? And if so, should they not speak to my parents?

I stamped off to theatre, showed it to the consultant and a couple of the other trainees, to expressions of disgust about the Waste of Resources Department, etc. Then I thought perhaps I would phone HR. Can you see where this is going? By the time I got the number, I was about 60% sure someone was having me on, so went all softly-softly on the HR guy and said I wondered if I needed to come for another photo. “Hmm, no,” he said, with a snicker, “There were a couple of temporary staff sending out the badges and so it wouldn’t have come from us. I think maybe one of your friends may have written the letter.”

A. Ha. Ha. Immediately, a culprit sprang to mind – J, the secretary who’d said she’d get the number for HR. We’re good pals. Or so I thought. Deciding to spin this out a while, I left work and headed for my study morning. Half an hour later, the phone rings and it’s Miss Evil, one of my colleagues. Think Dr Evil with more hair, and also two X chromosomes. She’s a total minx. “Blade, did you get your badge?” she said, sounding tense…and I knew she was in on it too. “And did you get the letter?” “Why, yes,” I said, “Couldn’t believe it!” “Did you phone HR?” she asked.

*silent Blade snigger*

“Yes, I did,” said I. “They were furious, said it was an abuse of the hospital mail and they were going to start an investigation immediately to see who it was from.” “Oh no,” said Miss E, “Do you still have the letter?” “No, they wanted me to send it at once, so I put it in an envelope and sent it in the internal mail,” I said.

*sound of complete panic* “Oh, no,” said she, “It was me, me and J. We wrote it yesterday.”

I couldn’t contain myself any longer and started to laugh. Priceless. Miss E was totally losing it by this stage. After fifteen minutes, I convinced her that I hadn’t sent HR the letter, and they were actually quite amused by it all. Since then, I’ve had two more phone calls, one grovelling apology from an entertainingly-repentant Miss E (unnecessary, I think it’s hilarious), and another from one of the guys to tell me it was a wind-up and not to phone HR.

I’m enormously gullible, and fell totally for it, in such off-the-deep-end style that I have to hold up my hands and take the stick I’m getting. Oh, but, revenge is making it so much sweeter. *Evil laugh*

Went to see patient yesterday before their operation, whom I’d seen the week before with Mine New Consultant (have changed boss recently). Couldn’t work out exactly what to write on the consent form, so phoned to ask, and left him a message. Subsequently took drastic step of actually reading the notes, which contained the answer, so rather shame-facedly trotted off and got consent for butchery surgery. So Boss phones and I tell him it’s all sorted, sorry for being Dumbass (did not say Dumbass). In theatre later, he says, “Thanks for staying late.” It was 7.30pm. “What?” said I, “Sure, it’s my job. Wherever you go, I go, and all that.” “No,” says Boss, “when you phoned about the consent, I was driving, and I nearly hit the ditch. I usually have to do it myself.”

Am luckiest baggage in world, as was going to let housedog get consent, but was bored hanging around watching Old Boss hold forth, so wandered off to see patient instead. Getting consent: whatever. Getting away from Old Boss banging on: priceless. Making unjustified good impression on new boss: are you kidding me? Fan-bloody-tastic.

Had sneaky afternoon off, as Boss away. Options: (a) go and find job to do or (b) head into town. Guess what? Option (b) won. Am now owner of some very fab boots and also some non-Yeti eyebrows. In other news, came home to e-mail from Supervisor in Labland, which read: Blade. Having difficulties with experiment. Can you take week off and come over to help? Will pay flights.

Oh, yay. Yay doesn’t even come close. May be small problem with getting time off, though. Must do some serious grovelling.

Other reason for amazingness: have fixed the sister’s computer and it will now connect to the Hindernet. Sort of amazing, because I have not the smallest idea what I did to make it work. Bonsoir!