I packed light for my trip to New York city. The night before, though, I couldn't sleep. I wish it were from excitement. I have a chronic shoulder problem, calcific tendonitis, earned from a mixture of bad genes and overuse. When aggravated, this problem affects my rotator cuff tendons, different ones each time, and on the Monday before graduation weekend, I decided I was going to play a little squash. The Wednesday night before I left for graduation, I deeply regretted that athletic excursion.
The pain was so bad that I had considered waiting in the emergency room. I got the name of the "quick" emergency room in Toronto (i.e. the one where someone would likely wait less than 4 hours) from a friend, and then I fell asleep while trying to figure out how to explain to my parents how much pain I was in. When I awoke, I thought the pain had subsided but, upon moving my shoulder, I realized that nothing could be further from the truth. I was first in line at the local walk-in clinic (my family doctor is a joke) and this was no easy feat. The clinic officially opens at 9 am but, unofficially, it opens whenever the medical assistant arrives. In my case, 8 26 was early enough to stay ahead of two others who took up line behind me, and when the medical assistant arrived at 8 40 we all put our health cards into the "Card rack" in a very orderly manner (I have to acquire one of those for my practice, it's a major organizational tool). By 9 am, there were 9 cards in the rack, including one of a young man who had walked in with one of those extraordinarily attractive blonde women who you see in a bikini on the set of "Burn Notice" or in the background of a travel brochure. Then I found out HE was a resident as well! He was starting in Internal Medicine in Philadelphia, what a small world.
The doctor (who arrived fashionably an hour and a half late and received no complaints from the staff for doing so) prescribed me some next-level anti-inflammatories and a muscle relaxant, both of which I am still taking religiously. I left and packed the remainder of my luggage in a hurry. I took a few minutes to scan and email an info sheet to that resident regarding the J1 visa when I happened upon an administrative email saying that my score for the Step 3 is available. I'll spare everyone the tedium of medical board examination scoring and simply happily say that I passed, with a bit of wiggle room no less.
Content but still in pain, albeit less than the night before, I headed out to New York city. I had to stop at Syracuse on the way to pick up my graduation attire. Upon approaching the border, however, I realized this would be a much better and sooner opportunity to quickly obtain my J1 visa. I waited 2-2.5 hours at the US customs office, but it was worthwhile, because I obtained my visa and did so easily. The customs official even asked if I had interviewed for one in the past, because he was impressed at how smooth I was during the interview with the answering of questions and the handing out of documents. I may have been a half-decent immigration lawyer. Too bad I'll never find out since I have emotions and I care about people. To the one lawyer who may eventually read this; it's called humor, and it's been around a while.
I showed up very happy indeed to Syracuse, but I did some quick math and found myself unwilling to complete the journey to NYC that day. I was exhausted, in pain, and would only end up arriving to NYC at 1 am if I pressed on. Tired but content at my progress thus far, I decided to rest at my friend's house in Syracuse. While there, I decided to be productive with some of my evening and head to the nearest AT&T store to activate my flip phone. That's right ladies and gentlemen, for at least the first month of residency I shall function with a flip phone. I'm also buying a tablet, possibly a google nexus, so that I can actually do work, but hey...flip phone. What people reading this are minimalist enough to say they get along just fine with a flip phone and only a flip phone? I'm not talking about the "business and personal" phones, or the "this one is for my girlfriend and this one is for the miscellaneous women" phones, I'm talking every day all day work and play flip phone. $50 a month plus tax for my phone plan, and that includes unlimited calling and text messaging. I threw in another 10 bucks a month for this month so that I could call Canada for 250 minutes, but I realized my parents can call me any time they want so I may just cancel that extra feature next month. If I want to cancel everything altogether, guess what? I can do that to, because I didn't go on any kind of contract. The flip phone cost $50, but I bought it 3 years ago to use in Maine when I was at school there for a pre-clinical and board exam review semester at my school, and the damn thing still works perfectly to this day. Battery life on this thing is amazing, I'm charging it right now just for the hell of it, just because I'm worried my charger is going to rust or accumulate grit or something if I don't. Those reasons are both made up, but I don't care, because I'm using a fucking flip phone. I'm the happiest man on this street right now. That night in Syracuse, though, I was not the happiest man at all. I woke up at 2 am in excruciating pain, the worst I had suffered so far since the pain began to manifest the day before. My friend, the lifelong humanitarian activist and champion trap shooter (hey it's my blog, if I wanna make shit up I will) graciously switched sleeping arrangements with me so that I could sleep on the firm mattress upstairs, leaving him to sleep on the soft couch which I believed exacerbated my shoulder pain. This was not before I finished an entire bowl of cereal and took an extra anti-inflammatory, a practice to which I was not accustomed at all.
The next day, I started out somewhat early (10? Let's say 10) and I headed for New York City.
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