The day that will never happen again.

Every once and a while you have an afternoon where everything feels right. Got dressed for clinic and found a $10 bill in my pocket (yes, a $20 would have been just way too cliche). Clinic was efficient, with straightforward visits, even the narcotic patients (I swear to f'in god this is not made up). Traffic on the drive home didn't matter because I was catching up on the phone with an old friend I haven't talked to in 8 months. Got home to watch the alma mater win a classic college ballgame in overtime. Cracked a beer to celebrate and it was the perfect combination of "chilled" and "icy."

If only days like that could come more often, I'd probably be a little (ok, a lot) more sane.

Speaking of clinic, today marked the first time I have seen a patient in 35 days. Between my final and winter break, I had damn near forgotten what I was supposed to even do with one. But today was a nice lukewarm wading pool for me to get my feet wet in again. Saw a cellulitis patient whose entire right arm was much larger, redder, and hotter than his left one. Drained the wound to give him relief, gave him a boost of IM antibiotics, a scrip, and his arm should be feeling immensely better within 48 hours. Saw a patient with textbook bacterial sinusitis. A patient with a URI who simply needed reassurance about his new-onset hearing problems. Yup, your tympanic membranes are full of serous fluid and bulging sir, start popping those decongestants. Saw a 2 year old with a 6 month history of constipation. Natural methods had proven ineffective so far and it was time to actually see what we could get going with laxatives. You could tangibly feel the relief from the parents when we handed them the prescription, as if they now had a tool they could use to fight their kid's suffering. And yeah, even the narc patient, a pleasant 70 year old woman with a history of loading up a bit too much on her oxy. She was in a nursing home now, and the pyoderma gangrenosum on her leg was causing her a great deal of pain, oh doctor please, can't you give me more to help this go away? Turns out the nursing home... wasn't giving her any oxy period on a clerical error. Well that was an easy fix. Between histories and physicals, I didn't even have to think and ponder about "what to do next?" - it was all so straightforward it came naturally. This after 35 days. Unreal.

Dare I say, I actually enjoyed myself for an entire afternoon in family practice?

Hahaha. That's silly.

And yes, I chose the fruitiest picture possible for this post on purpose.