Yesterday morning I walked into the transplant unit around 5:30 and glanced over at Mrs. K's room. She was still lying there, the ventilator moving her lungs, and the pressors holding her circulation.

I first met her last week when I was on call. She came to the emergency room because she was having bleeding with bowel movements. She was a small, elderly lady, with a quick smile and the most pleasant disposition. She'd been admitted to the hospital multiple times for the same issue, so she was used to sitting in the ER. I spoke to the Colorectal service and relayed to her that they will try to find the source of bleeding in the morning. Then I bid her goodnight as she waited to be admitted by the medicine team.

The next time I saw her, she was brought into the transplant/surgical unit after a subtotal colectomy. They weren't able to localize the source of bleeding, so they ended up removing most of her colon. She was still in good spirits and didn't complain of any pain.

She stayed in the unit for the next few days, so I ended up managing her care as the de facto unit resident. Her heart rate was always high, which might mean a lot of things, including poorly controlled pain and fluid loss. It was difficult to say, partly because she absolutely refused to complain about any pain at all. To some degree, we had to practice veterinary medicine, treating the more common, but less serious causes, while keeping in mind that she may have something much worse developing.

Different members of her family were always around, and it was obvious that she was loved dearly. They never demanded, never accused, never blamed, even when it became clear that her postoperative course was not improving.

She had severe respiratory distress one morning and ended up being intubated. Later that day, her blood pressure began to drop precipitously. She was started on pressors. She had blood cultures come back positive for infection. A CT scan showed nothing specific. She stayed in the unit that night, basically kept alive by modern technology.

A few minutes after talking to the overnight resident we glanced over at the telemetry monitor and saw Mrs. K's rhythm go into asytole - flatline. A code was called and continued for 20 minutes. As I was standing over her, giving chest compressions to keep her blood flowing, I looked up and saw her daughter watching from the hallway, tears running down her face. We stopped not long after.

The day went on. There's not much time for mourning the dead while the sick are calling. But now I'm home, and I happened to be looking at something I wrote years ago about a girl that I knew who passed away at a young age, and I can't help but think of Mrs. K.

Let me hold my breath and let this pass
And promise to savor each second
That follows the crash and anguished sobs
And the doctors who are beckoned.

Let me hold tightly to your promise
Of future glory, now near.
Yet risking a life as a pillar of salt
I look back from the pier.

Charon bids me climb aboard
And I cannot help but yield,
But my heart is left with those on shore,
Though I walk in Elysian fields.

"A stay-cation?" my coworkers chided, "That's no fun!"

So I looked up places I could go. Florida seemed liked a good idea; I could sink slowly into the sandy beaches for a few days. Unfortunately, the weather forecast was not cooperative. It was likely that I would be sinking slowly into muddy beaches as the rain pelted my face into a permanent frown.

I texted Tom. "Can I stay at your place for a few days?"

"Stay as long as you want," he said, "My studio is tiny, though."

Good enough for me.

Then I IMed Bekah. "Are you and Jon free next week?"

"Are you serious? Yeah."

Again, good enough for me.

Before I left, I got a text from one of my coworkers. "Rochester!"

I wrote back, "The sunny beaches of Rochester!"

"Have a good vacation."

I got to Tom's place just before he came back from work, so I saw him riding in on his scooter, as if he was back in college, except he was dressed up in shirt and tie. He is in his second and final year of orthodontics residency in Rochester, and apparently he is required to dress up everyday in a shirt and tie. He said it's disgusting because his tie will always end up with pieces of gunk or food or something by the end of the day. Recently he'd taken to wearing a bow tie in protest.

Tom drove me around Rochester and said we should try to get a Garbage Plate for dinner. Apparently, it's a famous local dish that resembles nothing so much as what I'd end up making with a fridge full of leftovers. We skipped it, though, because, well...

"I don't think we should go there. There are a lot of prostitutes around."

"..."

"And someone got shot near there recently."

The next day I drove an hour or so to Syracuse to visit Jon and Bekah. Now considering that I generally find college kids patience-trying, this could have been bad idea jeans, but the Lees are probably two of the least affected kids that I know. They bought me dinner and gave me a little tour of the campus.

By chance they happen to be taking the same math course, and though not in the same section, they sometimes work on their homework together. They were having some trouble with it last week, so they went over to get help from some upperclassmen friends. They sat down to get started when the upperclassmen guys asked Jon if he wanted to go work out. "Yeah," he said. So they all left to go work out, and Bekah was sitting there working by herself. When the guys came back later, they were sans Jon. When Bekah asked where he was, they said they dropped him off on their way back.

And the thing is, as they were telling me this story, there wasn't any annoyance or guilt. Bekah, the older sister - generous, self-giving - and Jon, the younger brother - carefree, sister-loving - were both highly amused by it, as was I.

They thanked me for coming and wished me a safe trip back. Bekah asked me to text her when I got back to Rochester, ever the ahjummah.

Now I'm waiting at the airport for my flight back. I've no tan to speak of, nor any sand in between my toes, but it turns out that the beaches of Rochester were even sunnier than I had hoped.

I have 6 days of vacation coming up next week, and after the usual should-I-travel-somewhere-but-where-oh-forget-it, I decided that I'll just bum around and try to find a thing.

I was talking to Myung about trying to find a hobby, or at least something that I can really get into and have it be my thing. For instance, Harry's into comic books, which, in today's nerdly cool world, is kind of nerdly cool. Myung always watches comic book movies with Harry, who can give expert commentary on everything from the faithfulness of the translation to why that thing is sticking out of that guy like that. On the other hand, I don't think I really want to be the Comic Book Guy. We'll see.

Myung's thing, apparently, is youth group. Considering that he's either been in it, teaching it, or leading it for a decade or so, I'd tend to agree. And when he says Che's thing is dinosaurs, even if she vehemently denies it, I have to believe him because, you know, it's his thing.

Speaking of youth group, a handful of us went to see (500) Days of Summer, a non-rated R movie for once. It was ok, but kind of depressing, and I think it almost made Myung try to wash the dishes the next day. That's a euphemism for, well, washing the dishes. There was a lady in the back of the theater who may have been Joseph Gordon-Levitt's mom, she was over-laughing so much.

Christine: YeahshewassoannoyingandloudandIlookedbackatherwhenshewaslaughingbecauseIthoughtthatmightmakeherstopbutitdidn'tohmahguhhhh...

And on Sunday Sharon forced invited us to her new place downtown.

Che: I love open house!

So dinosaurs and open house for Che.

Myung and I made the girls go get us food while we sat around. Sharon had some art supplies and half-finished pencil sketches on her desk. Ok, so art for Sharon.

And for me? Well, I don't know yet, but I'll find something. Maybe speed skating? I'd be following in Myung and Christine's footsteps, it would be good exercise, and I'd wear one of those ohmahguhhhh...