Sere

One of our surgeons is generally seen as dour. I find him reserved in the extreme, but also with a sense of humor so dry any desert would be envious. Another of our surgeons recounts when, as a resident, he tried to start a chatty conversation. Dry surgeon stopped him, saying "I'm comfortable with uncomfortable silences." Which is when I knew I could get along perfectly with Dr. Dry. I'm also comfortable with all sorts of benign silences.

Yesterday he did a meniscal transplant, which we do rarely. And, although it was subtle, I could discern that he was delighted and excited. In the middle of the case, he told how his young son had to listen to American Pie six times in a row, he sang a bit of it, and demanded one of the residents identify what was meant by "the day the music died." When she couldn't he turned to me, and I said "Buddy Holly..." and he added "and the Big Bopper" looking at me and my ipad. So I looked it up and added, "Richie Valens, and of course the pilot who shouldn't have been flying in a snowstorm in the first place." He nearly smiled. Yeah, he was a happy surgeon.

He's also the one who needed an x-ray gown on a clavicle fracture that wasn't going well. He pulled up the front of his gown, and I knelt in front of him to get the lead skirt around him. He didn't milk the situation, but when the scrub asked suggestively "what are you doing down there?" I responded with mock guilt, "Nothing, nothing, what do you think?" He looked away from me, said nothing, but there was a hint of a smirk, maybe.

I have a weird job.


Got new cream for my rosacea, which is A. cheap and B. helping. Face no longer feeling like it will crumble off. Spots of eczema also got their own ointment, and are also responding. Dryness being held back. Took a long bath when I got home, empurpled my hair, centered.

Holy Saturday, Batman!