I went to an inauguration party last night. Must have been close to 75 people there. A mini UN of people. And it was wonderful. You could feel the excitement that the world shares in this change of leadership of the country. Seeing non-Americans get sentimental at the swearing of President Obama was very moving.
As for ID-
Whoa. Man these Wednesday clinic are killer. Non-stop from 8am to 6:30pm. I'm quite frankly exhausted. There are things I want to say, but honestly it's so late that I think about all I can do is pop into the gym, have dinner, read up on one topic briefly, and then crash. I've never seen people so ill. Today I could have admitted 3 patients, but instead will admit one tomorrow (so he could take his wife and infant home, get his HIV medications from home, and will return tomorrow to be admitted for the rest of his lymphoma work up), and am going to try and work up the other as outpatients. What I do kind of enjoy, is that I'm also working up pretty significant hypertension in a young woman, as well as abdominal swellings in 53 year old woman whom I started on HIV treatment today. I also tried to convince a 66 year old man with schizophrenia (well controlled on meds, you'd never know he had schizophrenia if you met him on the street) to start treatment, especially since his CD4 count is hovering at 41. He's thinking about it for a week or so.
I find myself telling people to hang in there, that they are going to get stronger and feel better. And every time I say this, I have flashback to KR (the child who died after telling his family he would get better), I scold myself to not say these things again. And because, quite frankly, I don't know if they will get stronger or feel better. That's what I certainly hope will happen, but those who are already emaciated, have no immune system, and barely have faith themselves, are already behind the 8-ball...
That's it. For now.
