I am writing this farewell letter as a way to bring closure and wish you well during your departure. I hope that you don’t mind my frankness, but now that we’ve become close acquaintances, I have to let you in on a little secret: I was ready for you to leave well before you were willing.
I hope that this revelation receives a soft acknowledgement instead of seeming like an unprovoked verbal brick to the face, but I think we both knew that our time together wasn’t exactly koombaya around the campfire. Let’s face it: you spent the whole month on a climactic mood swing, fluctuating between warm and cool temperatures (and it seems you are still trying to find your niche), while I was trying to come to terms with my own feelings about being in Enid, Oklahoma. I realized early-on that I was experiencing prolonged flare-ups of (gasp!) negative feelings, something that I usually try to internalize and take care of at onset. I guess it was a mood-swingy month for both of us.
In all reality, the feelings started brewing at the end of October. After being away from home all month, the prospect of being away yet another month wasn’t at the top of my list; however, I was still excited to be going to a new place where I would meet new people and have new experiences. I think the full force of the feelings came out once I discovered that a) there was no internet access where I lived, and b) my working days were 11+ hours long with a 30 minute lunch break on a good day. I started out using my available lunch break to find free internet so that I could blog or check my email; however, I soon found that this was proving to be a significant stressor, and so I used the allotted time in the manner for which it was originally intended: to enjoy a midday meal.
This letter is taking on quite an overall negative tone itself, isn’t it?!?! I want to reassure you that our time together was not completely unfavorable. To make up for it, I’ll share some of the more interesting and positive aspects of our journey.
My first day at the clinic was a very interesting one, to say the least. My preceptor – I’ll call him Dr. Z –made it very clear that the medical student who was my predecessor left quite an impression. I discovered this via a letter that was written and taped to Dr. Z’s office door. (I learned later that this letter was, in fact, a chapter of a book that that he was writing to his daughters.) It chronicled the subject matter of various conversations of the previous month and was a small window to the obvious man crush that had developed. In addition to hearing my predecessor’s name a few times each day (Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!), I would learn very quickly that Dr. Z liked to philosophize and debate the unknowns of life. In those early days, he once randomly shouted, “Why do the mysteries of life envelop me?!?!?” The man was truly burdened.
Something else caught my eye in those first few days at the clinic. Without going into too much detail, let me just say that there is this man that is an icon in the osteopathic realm, and, oddly enough, Dr. Z resembled this man. (goatee and all) Hopefully this isn’t too vague (I’m trying to avoid my post turning up in future searches of this man’s name), but there is this classic picture of this man holding a femur that any osteopathic student would recognize. It looks like this:
Dr. Z has this classic picture in his office. After looking more closely, however, I realized that it wasn’t a duplicate of the original but instead a picture of Dr. Z portraying himself in this iconic pose! My immediate thought when combining this discovery with his open exclamations: This guy takes himself a little too seriously!!!
Fortunately, my first impression of Dr. Z was not entirely accurate, and he laughed when I later shared this early impression with him. As the days progressed, Marsha was mentioned less frequently, and Dr. Z became increasingly light-hearted. I transformed from a quiet observer to a chatty and interactive student, prompting Dr. Z to repeatedly tell me, “I liked you better when you were quiet!” (At the risk of sounding dense, I never took the bait to fully enter one of his philosophical discussions. I haven’t quite figured out at this point if this qualifies as apathy or diplomacy.) Nonetheless, I think that I would be doing Dr. Z an injustice if I didn’t mention that he was truly the most genuine physician that I have ever met. He spent more one-on-one time with his patients than any physician I have rotated with thus far, and he even made a daily effort to call each one of his patients to discuss their lab results. He also ended many of his patient encounters with a solemn, “May it be well that you live long and prosper!” I aspire to have the same sincerity in my future practice, but I think I'll let him keep the catchphrase.
I cannot write this letter without mention of Troy and Marcia (not to be confused with my earlier reference!), one of the kindest and warmest couples I’ve ever met. They welcomed me into their home when the student housing was full, exclaiming, “If you don’t make yourself at home, it’s your own fault!” the entire time. And so I did, using their dishes for breakfast in the mornings, their towels when I forgot mine the second week of the rotation, and their washer and dryer when I forgot my work clothes on my last day there. (In fact, I ended up wearing the OSU t-shirt that I slept in the night before to work on my last day-- it was either that or a Cozumel t-shirt since I decidedly was not going to buy a new one. ) I am grateful for their hospitality, and for introducing me to La Fiesta, a Mexican restaurant with the best frozen strawberry margarita I’ve ever had. (By the way, the goat mentioned in a previous post is named is Bo-Jo, not Bo-Jack. Oops!)
Well, November 2009, I think that I am going to end this letter/novel on this final note, wishing you all of the best in your future endeavors. I hope that you find clarity in discerning whether you are meant to be a fall or a winter month, but I suspect that perhaps you are supposed to be a little bit of both. Those with seasonal allergies will forever curse you, but those who are not yet ready to lose the colorful and calm fall to a cold and frigid winter will forever embrace you. Ironically, I happen to fall into both of those categories.
May it be well that you live long and prosper, friend.
Until November 2010 –
Crystalle
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