Lobster and surgery...

Those are two nouns that shouldn't be together, eh?

Tomorrow I'm heading up to Maine with the arbitrary goal of getting a lobster dinner, but with the general goal of sightseeing and possibly skirting up to Canada if the urge strikes me. I'm an on-the-road kind of gal and like to set meaningless destinations in the countryside because it gives me a chance to get out and drive, which is particularly fun in my tiny little manual shift Hyundai Accent. Of course, if I hit anything, you'll never hear from me again, because the safety rating is even lower than the grade I got in third quarter organic chemistry.

To give you some idea of the arbitrary destination thing, I once drove from North Carolina to Northern Georgia for a cup of coffee, North Carolina to South Carolina to look at the giant roadside butt (some know it as a peach, but those who've seen it know what I'm talking about), etc ad infinitim. Try it sometime. I also love little side trips and roadside attractions, which is how I once ended up in Solvang, CA, a town I had not ever known was there.

So Maine should be fun for a couple of days. Probably for longer than that, but I don't *have* longer than that because I'm reporting at 6:30 am for surgery on Monday.

In other words, the shadowing is going fantastically! Initially, I was going to watch two knee replacements and an ankle arthroscopy, but the latter got moved so now it's the two knee replacements, but AWESOME.

I don't think they'll let me scrub in, at least not for this one, and I'm not sure this hospital's policy on it, but I know that at least for the first surgery, the doc will put me in the corner in case I pass out, which considering hospital experiences and more critically, forensic experiences, I find unlikely, but hey, to a surgeon, when the alternative is having someone you've known for two weeks collapse un-sterile headfirst into your patient, is an understandable precaution.

In general, the shadowing is fun just in and of itself, with the surgery as gravy. I'm learning a *lot*, and I'm getting to work in a private practice, which I've never done before. Some pretty awesome x-rays too, though not as spectacular as the new trauma patients, of course.

So in case you hadn't noticed, this is somewhat filler material, but I should have pictures and stories of Maine, more on SGU, and non-HIPAA violating surgery details upon my return, preferably not blogged at 2 in the morning.