Turkey Day, Take 2

The day after Thanksgiving, things were still mostly running as if in holiday mode. Dear Husband picked up individually packed lunches for my team and our sister team, and I smuggled him into the hospital (hey--he's MY support person!) to deliver it. After dropping off the food for the residents, who promptly scattered to different nooks and crannies so they could safely unmask, we went back to my "office" to eat together as a household.

Critic's take: the turkey was thick and moist, there was plenty of good gravy, the mashed potatoes and corn were passable, the sweet potato casserole was SWEET, the creamed spinach was salty, and the gratis cornbread was cold (ick). You can see my homemade orange-flavored cranberry sauce in the corner. It turns out the only reason we've been married for 15 years is that I keep forgetting DH doesn't like cranberry sauce, while it's my favorite part of the meal. Ah well, more for me!

 

Thanksgiving 2020

 

Since there aren't any meetings or classes today, I'm back in my "office" for the holiday shift. The residency bought Thanksgiving lunch for everyone who had to work today: turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing (flavored to perfection), green beans that were surprisingly not boiled to within an inch of their lives, gravy, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. I skipped the dinner roll but was glad of the cranberry sauce--so afraid was I that there wouldn't be any that I made my batch early and brought it with me to the hospital! (There's a long story about how I assumed there wouldn't be a potluck this year because of the pandemic, planned to buy my team a hot lunch, and both Boston Markets within driving distance were booked for Thanksgiving. It turned out there would be food on Thursday but not Friday, so we pushed our plans back by a day; Dear Husband will deliver the food to the hospital so we can celebrate together but away from every else. Whew.) 

Today I am grateful for my life and health, for my loving family and amazing friends, for a comfortable place to live, plenty of food to eat, more books than I could ever read, an excellent education, and my dream job right out of training. If we haven't seen each other in a while, please reach out. I want to make time for a Zoom chat, Google Duo, walk in Frick Park, or a plain old-fashioned phone call.

Step into my office

Welcome to my office! My division currently does not have enough space to house all its faculty, so I have been sharing an office with several of the fellows and two other attendings. However, four of us are now trying to work in there at the same time. Given rising COVID cases and the fact that our employer says the most common source of at-work infections is break rooms and people eating together, as opposed to patient interactions, we do not feel that this setup is particularly safe. (One of the four of us was out earlier in the week for COVID testing, so it's not idle speculation.) Therefore, I have taken up residence in the empty conference room--at least for the weekend, while there are no meetings or teaching going on there. It's a wet morning in Pittsburgh, but this is still one of my favorite views of the city. You can also see the "congratulations on being halfway done with your first week as a hospital attending" card that Dear Husband got me. He's so supportive about the fact that we rarely get to see each other for two weeks. Yesterday was my half-day off, and we spent part of it eating dinner and watching half of Enola Holmes, until an early bedtime for me, except then I did two hours of charting and emailing until I actually fell asleep.

What Attending Looks Like

I know I said back when I finished residency and shared my last bloopers post this summer that I wouldn't start a new series about attendinghood. However, every once in a while I would like to give you a window into my world.

Despite how incredibly over-busy I was this week, I made time to look up the tracking number for a parcel that the email that showed up in my work in-box claimed was from the American Board of Internal Medicine. I didn't end up reporting it as phishing, but it sure seemed fishy to get an unsolicited shipping announcement with a link. (Instead of clicking on it, I copied the purported tracking number and entered it into the USPS web tracker. It appeared legit.) Lo and behold, on Friday a big flat package arrived in the mail with my certificate in Internal Medicine. (Photo altered from my real name + MD to "Frau Doktor Doctor, MD PhD.")

The other package that arrived at the same time contained three Lyrica "surgical caps" from Etsy. I started my first two weeks as a ward attending in the hospital today, and I wanted to take extra precautions not to bring COVID home with me. In addition to wearing scrubs (which I don't do when I see patients in the clinic), I bought the caps to cover my hair. They say "one size fits most," but I am unfortunately in the minority: if I pull them all the way forward, the front edge reaches my eyebrows! (My child-sized head is the reason I failed all N95 mask fittings until Thursday, when a special set-up showed that there is exactly one model that fits my petite jaw. The nurse running the test told me I should have eaten more ice cream, because the masks fit better with a double chin.) Dear Husband even demonstrated his remarkable attachment to me by walking 4 miles round trip through Homewood Cemetery on an unseasonably warm Sunday afternoon to a locally owned shoe store so I could try on Dansko clogs to wear instead of my usual sneakers. The risk of me bringing COVID home on my shoes is honestly pretty low, but the risk of me bringing home a drug-resistant bacterium is actually pretty high. They didn't have the fancy punched-out leather ones from their website, so I went with a matte black, waterproof pair that were very comfortable for the 12 hours I wore them on my first shift.

I don't work directly with COVID patients, but I might take care of some while their tests are pending. And there are plenty of others with chest pain, back pain, cancer, asthma exacerbations, bloodstream infections, unexplained kidney failure, delirium after a prolonged hospitalization, and everything else I'll see between now and Thanksgiving. Low person on the totem pole again as junior faculty, I am working on Thanksgiving, just like intern year. I suppose it's just as well, because 2020 is not the year to travel across state lines to eat with other people, not matter how much we love and miss them. (I'm also working Christmas.) Please stay safe out there, wear your masks, and distance as much as you can. Yesterday we got a briefing from the Chair of Medicine about new bed spaces being opened up and asking for volunteers to staff them. We're seeing the aftermath of indiscretions on Halloween weekend, but also coworkers, church members, and households not taking as much as care as maybe they could have. Maybe scrubs, caps, and clogs are "hygiene theater" like having your temperature taken when you walk into the hospital building--today I was so cold after my hike from the far parking garage that the automated robot reader couldn't pick up my temperature at all--but maybe the fact that I'm willing to dress like the virus is serious will help someone else take it seriously too.

St. Mary's Cemetery

On an unseasonably warm fall afternoon, I took a walk through St. Mary Cemetery in the Bloomfield neighborhood of Pittsburgh. It is one of the Catholic cemeteries in Pittsburgh, having been purchased in 1848 after St. Patrick's and St. Paul's Churches' burial grounds filled up. Those bodies were eventually moved to these 44 acres of lawn and gentle hills right next door to the new Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, which opened in 2008. (The red brick behind this brilliant yellow linden tree is the back wall of the faculty building across the street from the main hospital building.)

The Burke family--father Michael (1847-1910), mother Bridget (184701927), son John (1873-1902), and daughters Mary (1878-1881) and Mary (1887-1888)--are interred on a hillside that appears to be eroding. You can see the garage where I used to park as a resident in the background.

There are grand mausoleums like this one, to the Vilsack family, as well as headstones that have fallen over and sunk into the ground (below left). There were not many Eastern European names that I could find; they were mostly Irish, with some Italian ones noticeable. Some of the Irish markers note the county in Ireland in which the deceased had been born before they emigrated to the United States.

I saw two of these textured crosses (middle), in different parts of the cemetery. More recent gravestones sometimes have portraits, and St. Jude here appears to have a cowlick. Or maybe a tongue of fire.

There's a whole section on a hill for priests, pictured above, with big beautiful headstones. This big one is for the Reverend Charles S. Maguire, born in Ireland in 1768 and immigrated to Pittsburgh to serve as pastor of Old St. Patrick's Church in April 1820. He then founded St. Paul's Church (now Cathedral) in 1829 and served until his death in 1833. In a different, flat section of the cemetery are the graves of the Little Sisters of the Poor. The crosses have mostly (been) broken off the older headstones. The newer deaths are marked on a large granite stone.

I don't have pictures, but I did notice some interesting punctuation: Mary. Elizabeth. The periods marked the sudden ends of their short lives (I believe they were children when they died). Then there was "Our darling May / May Singer died Mar. 31, 1891 in her 12, year." Her parents outlived her by 30 years.

The headstone below had a lot of history on it: In addition to the IHS Christian cross on the top and "U.S.N." in relief, it reads: "Frances P. DeLowry / born Apr. 1, 1893 / enlisted in U.S. Navy Oct. 19, 1910 / killed in battle / at Vera Cruz, Mexico / Apr 22, 1914." Below that must be a brother who not only served but survived two tours of duty: "Richard J. DeLowry / Oct. 26, 1896 / Aug. 10, 1973 / W.W.I Navy--W.W.II Army."

This is clearly still an active cemetery, as you can see by the big new stones above. Sometimes the style or condition of the marker is newer than I would expect from the dates, or there are flowers or other mementoes for someone it is unlikely to still be remembered, such as the marker on the left: "Wife and children / Ellie G. / wife of Michael Sisk. / died March 14, 1881; / aged 23 yrs. & 4 mos. / eternal rest grant her Lord." The Gothic tower on the right is damaged but still interesting.

It was a pleasant walk that didn't afford much aerobic exercise, as I kept getting distracted to investigate the grave markers rather than keep moving to get my heartrate up. Another day I will come back to explore Allegheny Cemetery next door.

Where I'm From

I am from the sandbox next to the lilac bush,

from hot pavement under foot

and cold water from the sprinkler.

I am from the bottle rocket brigade

and an aluminum fishing boat, the red hymnal

and poker only on vacation.

I am from 1066

and raspberry bushes behind the farmhouse.

I am from Andes mints and Uncle Dana's stuffing,

Thin Mints, and peanut butter, and snowballs with marshmallow.

I am from Easter photos in front of the azaleas,

nose in books, and grips, and midnight chess.

I am from Hradovice-Strimelice and Veselé Vánoce

and developed Heimweh in high school.

We play Trivial Pursuit on New Year's Eve.

N'zdar, y'all!

This is a poem I wrote during a class with medical students modeled on George Ella Lyon's poem "Where I'm From."