It's been a minute since I've written on here but as I was thinking about it...that is actually a good thing. This blog has been such a positive outlet for my grief and in the beginning I felt like it was such an important part of my grief work that I wrote in it often. The truth is...I haven't had much to write about in the last month. That actually kind of scares me though, it's like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.  I almost feel like I'm cursing myself by saying that and the weeks to come will now be drowned out by tears, depression, and overwhelming grief. But...maybe the won't.

I have moved...yet again...to Whitefield, NH to start my surgery rotation. I am not necessarily excited about this one.  It seems that no matter how prepared I am when I scrub into a surgery I always get nauseous, clostropobhic, and lightheaded. This has nothing to do with the fact that I am staring at an unconscious human being opened up right in front of me...in fact that is the intensely interesting part to me.  I don't know why it happens, but it happens almost every time. I start to see double, my armpits start sweating like Niagra Falls, and then the feeling of vomit starts to slowly creep into my stomach and inch it's way up my esophagus until I have two options. 1) Stay and vomit in the open body cavity, or 2) leave. I feel like it is best for post op infection rates if I leave.  So normally I have only had to be scrubbed into surgery a total of 5 times this whole year and now it will be 5 times a week. Not exactly excited about this.  The other reason I am not exactly a fan of surgery is that I prefer my patients are awake. Big surprise...but I really like talking to the patients. Maybe I will end up loving this rotation and searching for a job in surgery and I'm willing to keep my mind open...but hopefully the surgery sweats do not last the whole time!

This is also a definite reminder that I am more than half done with my clinical year.  I will celebrate my last day in the middle of March and then make the cross country trek back to Idaho to start my real life. This is the hard part. I should not be starting my real life without Kevin. We should be doing this together.  We should be looking at houses and figuring out where we want to settle down together. I get a little stab in the heart every time I think about that. In the beginning of the year I didn't think about it so much because it was so far away. I was also so busy still grieving his death every minute of the day that it wasn't such a big deal if I also felt the pain of the inevitable. My real life with no more school, and no more Kevin.  I know this may sound silly in the grand scheme of things but the thing that gives me the most sadness is that I won't get a picture with him in my cap and gown. That picture will never happen. He would be so incredibly proud of me and that picture would have set on our mantle forever. I know he is proud of me, but being proud from heaven still sucks...he should be here, he should be in the picture with me. 

The picture above is one of the first that we took in Boston.