Divertimento

This may be silly, but I'm probably due for another non-medical, more lighthearted post, given the tenor of the past few. I'd like to add before I start that Sufjan Stevens is amazing. I just got Seven Swans and Illinois. Both excellent albums.

On top of that, I'll say that I'm surprised at some of the results here. The Chemical Brothers being my top played song, for instance. But I think that's due to the fact that I've set them as my alarm. If nothing else will, a drum set and angry dance beat coming loudly from the next room will awaken a tired medical student at 5 AM. Even if it takes two tracks. Wow, the neighbors must love me.

The iTunes Game
How many songs: 8560

Sort by song title...
First song: ...which was the son of... - Arvo Pärt
Last song: Zulu War Chant - Afrika Bambaataa

Sort by time...
Shortest Song: Flip Sting (SFX) Kill Bill (Volume One)
Longest Song: Dies irae Verdi: Requiem Robert Shaw Festival Singers

Sort by album...
First Song:El Canelo - Los Lobos - (Just another band from East L.A.)
Last Song:Satellite - Collective Soul - Youth

Top 5 Most Played Songs...
Voodoo People Remix - The Chemical Brothers
Let Forever Be - The Chemical Brothers
Girl Inform Me - The Shins
Stars All Seem To Weep - Beth Orton
Seven Story Mountain - Railroad Earth

First 5 songs that come up on Shuffle...
For a Man to Be Alone - Don Francisco
Say Yes - Elliott Smith - Live at The Black Cat
Little Orphan Girl - Doc Watson - The Essential Doc Watson
Good Times Gonna Come - Aqualung - Strange and Beautiful
No More - Elliott Smith - Either/Or Demos

Search...
1. "Sex"--How many songs come up: 1
2. "Death"--How many songs come up: 81
3. "Love"--How many songs come up: 189
4. "You"--How many songs come up: 474
5. "love" and "you" --How many songs come up: 41

Musings

At dinner tonight, I realized what an odd group medical students are. As third years, we're talking a lot about specialties and who is going into what, and whether or not that's surprising. Usually, it isn't. Specialties seem to pick their aspirants, as aspirants their specialties.

Medicine takes so much of our time and effort that all our conscious thought is structured around it. When there are five of us out at dinner, we don't talk about the weather, or whether it's a good thing that Milosevic won't face temporal judgement, or even about sports. Favorite cases, interesting occurrences, even our gossip is related to the hospital. When the conversation does drift away from medicine, it is never more than a few minutes before it comes back.

Only with friends I made before this tribulation we've inflicted on ourselves began to affect us can I relax and talk about music, or faith, or nothing, just sitting there in blessed silence. My bent towards introversion is accentuated: not only am I overwhelmed with human contact already, but the humans I can contact only talk about a topic I find exhausting.

The only way I can survive is escape. My escape is usually music, or art. In the simple concerns of line or note, "what is more than human in me [finds] its solace and its hope." Without poetry, without faith, without music, medicine is pointless, for why save a life which is not special, and why dedicate so much effort to a cosmic accident? It would be worse than pointless, it would be cruel.

Elvis may never again leave the building

Elvis is back, and it's not a good thing. He suffered a severe complication of the disease we thought we had treated and required emergency surgery. The prognosis looks pretty grim. Though I'm not on surgery, I found out about what had happened, and I went by to see the family. There wasn't anything I could do but give Scarlett and their daughter a hug and tell them I'd be praying for them and him.

I was impressed that when I said I was very sorry to see him back in the hospital, Elvis' response was "well these things happen, and the L-rd has a plan, I know." Stirring faith in someone denied the debatable blessing of unconsciousness as the end approaches.

Going Home...for how long?

The Lady With the Sad Eyes has gone home. Her death sentence has not been commuted, and given the complications she's endured in the past two weeks, it has more likely been moved up. The cancer which is killing her has invaded her brain, and her personality has changed as a result. She is no longer sweet and endearing, but tired and occasionally snappish. She didn't recognize her own family when they visited.

How much of what we are is dependent upon the chemical reactions in a few cells? How does faith matter when something so little can change it? Is our soul a mere by-product of biology, a "ghost in the machine," a machine we don't understand, and merely inhabit on the way to an uncertain doom?

Elvis has left the building

We figured out what was bothering Elvis. He and Scarlett were grateful, and Scarlett gave me a hug on their way out of the hospital. I am so glad to see him improve.

Nerdy medical joke

If you get the following quip I made today, you might be a medical nerd:

My attending:
"So, in addition to RFA, what other localized treatment is there for HCC?
Anyone? Come on guys.
**long pause**
Ok, you might not have heard of it before, it's ethanol"

Me:
"Is that PO?"