Thursday Morning

For want of a more creative title. :) Let's see, 8-4 shift, pretty tired, lots of cases in resus, one of whom needed intubation for low BP / fast AF / ?CVA. Another patient, a 14-year-old Chinese girl, downed 15 tablets of Paracetamol and refuses to say why. Fellow with hypoglycemia projectile vomits repeatedly and exhibits an acute confusional state even after his hypocount normalizes post-IV Dextrose -- urgent CT head shows a whopping right subdural. Couple of nursing home inmates with the usual poor appetite / fever presentation. 26-year-old Burmese prisoner with an incarcerated right inguinal hernia. Yep, just another day in resus. It's good to be back. :P

So last night's Blogger Dinner #2 was cool. Met 2 more fellow writers, plus one I'd already dined with last week. One blogger turns out to be someone I've known for quite a while, so finding out was a pleasant surprise. Conversation was stimulating, the food tasty, and a Blogger Dinner #3 is in the cards for today ( though I can't make it, with profuse apologies -- my mom's gonna kill me if I don't start packing ).

Blogger meetups can be quite addictive, heh heh. ;) Certain blogs are already daily reading fare for me, but meeting the authors in person is always an eye-opener. Even if it's someone like Xiaxue. :P No, I didn't meet her, though it may very well turn out to be quite fun if it ever happened. Okay, re-minisce disagrees. :D

Only 3 other people witnessed an "event" last night. Not too sure if you guys noticed or felt a shift in the mood, but I thought there was a change, and would give anything to know what the expression on my face was at that particular moment. One fellow blogger -- the one who turned out to be someone I know quite well -- mentioned something about someone, which caught me completely off-guard and later resulted in a short ?awkward silence. Wasn't awkward for me, but might have been for the rest. Anyhow, for your info, I haven't related this piece of news to anyone else, not even my mom, whom I'm sure would love to know. I thought about emailing a close friend -- a guy I've known for almost 20 years -- to maybe vent a bit, but realized I didn't have anything to unload.

Driving home after the dinner, I thought about the news at length, feeling a myriad of emotions, none of which I could actually define. The best I can come up with is: contentment. Things turned out well after all, despite the pain, anger and disillusion. It wasn't something unexpected either, though the process of forgiving is still ongoing. Throughout those 30 minutes on the way home, however, the one sentiment I had was how both our lives had indeed turned out the way we'd hoped, albeit in different ways, and with different people, and it was... OKAY. No anger. No hatred. Just... CLOSURE.

I once wrote to this person years ago, saying I had achieved closure just by finding out the truth despite all the cover-ups and lies. I was wrong. But last night, cruising home and listening to the radio, I finally got it. And when I reached home and played back my recording of American Idol 3 ( yes yes, I can't live without it :)), I didn't dwell on the issue any further, and slept soundly.

I'm a bit surprised at my reaction. No sarcasm, no heated discussions with friends and relatives, no obsessing. People, I think I'm cured. :D

In other news, fellow Clay fans from Singapore touched down in LA 2 days ago, but failed to call me on my cell from the first Clay concert they attended. They've got two more to go, so pleeeeeease get back to me!
Oh well, even if I don't get to hear him "live" over the phone, they've promised to bring back tour merchandise. I've got my eye on the programme, key chains and T-shirts.

So somebody's flying back to London this weekend. Time for everyone else's lives to return to normal, heh heh.