Plate o' Shrimp

It should have really sucked, but then it didn’t

The sucky part

• trying to negotiate my huge bags off the baggage carrousel one handed, the other arm in a sling and realizing that the first place no one offered to help me was on us soil

• the ambulance ride with the dislocated and broken elbow before the meds kicked in

• the burglar in my room at 3 am whispering don’t holler, I’ll kill you

• the landlord who hadn’t contacted me for 4 months threatening to have me held at the airport and shaking me down for $600

But wait I am getting ahead of myself

First of all I am writing this from a Starbucks in Palo Alto. (for those of you from the bay area who know me, and are wondering what the hell I am doing in a Starbuck when I could be drinking Peet’s… it is next door to a best buy that is putting a new radio in my car..) I finished my last set of exams at Saint George University and with them completed my basic science years of Medical School and with them I have finish my time in Grenada. I will be starting clinical rotations in a hospital in New Jersey starting in May. In the mean time I will be heading to Dallas for most of January and February to attend a boot camp style USMLE prep course and I will be taking step 1 sometime around the first week of March.

Leaving Grenada was a little rough. Two days before my last exam I slipped and fell on a muddy slope with my outstretched left arm behind me and dislocated my left elbow. Luckily I was at the Grand View and surrounded by fellow medical students who are medical professionals trained in other fields. My friends Chris and Chris took me first to the student health clinic, then by SGU ambulance to Grenada General hospital. I only started to worry when they started to apologize for the fact that they weren’t allowed to give morphine here as they would have in the US.. so the trip to the hospital was less than fun as pot holes are unavoidable. I would tell you more about what actually happened at the hospital but as time passes it is becoming more and more vague no doubt due to the amnesiac effect afforded sedative hypnotic I was given when they set my elbow. Chris F. absolutely refused to leave me at the hospital, even though he, like I had an exam in two days. All I know is the emergency room doctor seemed to be a bit annoyed by his presence at first and then by the time my arm was set they seemed like old friends. The doctors are very good in Grenada, and they do a tremendous amount with very limited resources.. so the room where my arm was set had cement floor painted around the periphery and worn shinny where folks walked, wooden shelves, was open to the “fresh” air and the gurney on which I laid was bare foam with a piece of vinyl sheeting laid over the top. It was wonderful to know that Chris was there keeping an eye on the preceding as I gratefully zoned out when they shot me full of the sedative.. I also received a nifty retro plaster cast. If you want to know what happened between me getting shot full of pain meds and getting the cast, you will have to ask Chris. I don’t really remember…

I went home that night and had trouble falling asleep. My room was in a building on a hill, with a second story balcony overlooking the ocean. I woke up to see someone in the chair by my desk near the sliding glass doors. I thought it was my friend and neighbor Christine who had helped me get ready for bed somehow back in my room. But no. It was the burglar who had been making the rounds of the Grand View. People keep on asking me if I was scared and I wasn’t. It is quite possible I was too medicated to feel fear.. but all I could think was that he couldn’t possibly do me much harm before I could scream loud enough that my mixed marshal arts loving neighbors and their dogs would come and put him in a world of pain before he could make me hurt worse that I already did. As it was all it took was me yelling once or twice and he was out the door and over the balcony.

Selected highlights of the next few days include.

The breaks going out in my car as Christine drove it to help me at the hospital where I was waiting for a re-check the next morning

My mechanic Phil, the original stand up guy, coming to pick up Christine, the staying with me at the hospital until the doctor saw me, and then letting Christine drive his car and then driving mine using the parking break back to his shop.

Patsy doing all my laundry and cooking many meals for me.

Peggy doing all my packing

Writing my way to an A in Pathophysiology 2 days after dislocating my arm.

Paying my landlord the damn money but demanding that she be removed from the approved landlord list by the dean of students.

Dancing with my cast at Club Karma on the Caranage for the big going away Party..(see photo.. see the big smile on my face...)

Drinking wine at 2 in the afternoon and watching In Her Shoes with Peggy and Mooly my second to last day in Grenada

Taking 4 flights in December a week before Christmas with my arm in a cast and having an empty seat next to me in all but one of the flights…. So that gets me back here to the states.. My California exploits will be detailed soon.

But why didn’t most of this suck? why wasn’t it terrible? Because the friends I have made at SGU were so unflaggingly kind, helpful, and supportive that I never felt burdened. I felt well taken care of. And what better end to a period of my life could I have then having my friends show me how much they cared. What else really matters?

posted by Sa @ 10:26 PM