It rains here too

I find myself in my third week of work here in Juneau. The clinic has slowed a little as the flu has begun to pass us by. Having never worked in a urgent care type situation, I have never really had the opportunity to see the xpassing of temporal illness. It was quite fascinating, but the desire to put fifty stuffy, fatigued, myalgic, febrile people in a room and scream "YOU HAVE THE FLU! GO HOME, TAKE SOME IBUPROFEN AND SLEEP FOR A COUPLE OF DAYS. IT WILL PASS." persisted for several days. That said, I have never had the flu (knock on keyboard) and hope that I will stay at home suffering silently when I do. At some point most people need to realize that we can't do much for a virus, and a virus is what you got 90% of the time. (swooning, she said "What a sympathetic doctor I have")

A little bit of cynicism has carried me well in life. If I were truly bitter, it would be no fun, but when you see sick people all day long, you've got to do something to break the mood. Every once in awhile I get to play detective (the case of influenza B in an immunized patient last week)or actually fix something (the shoulder I put back into place this morning) but most of the time it really is work. I am glad they pay me, I wouldn't do it for free.

These days, I am looking for a job. I have a standing offer and will be interviewing in communities like Kodiak, Sitka, Homer, and of course Anchorage. The family thing has made it tough. Anchorage gives us the best possible set of resources (family, therapy options for Jackson, brew pubs, etc) but the worst option for practicing full spectrum family medicine. The smaller communities had great medical opportunities but lack much of the infrastructure we need (although most seem to have brew pubs as well. Alaskans like their beer.) My main concern is getting Jackson the therapy he needs and that will likely dictate my job choice for the next couple of years. Fortunately there are lots of jobs out there in my long educated profession and my family will not likely go hungry. My other concern is the twins, and the benefits of the grandparents for babysitting/support services. We truly would not have survived the past two months without them.

Jana and the rest of the clan leave this weekend. The two weeks of snow (2-3 feet) followed by another week of 37 degrees and rain combined with a small apartment has not set as well as hoped. That said, with the twins, even if we were in Hawaii for work, I would still be exhausted and inside on the couch rocking the babies and reading to Jackson. I caught a few pictures on the two days of sun we have had, so they will hopefully leave a favorable impression of Juneau.