so this is christmas

One of the Derrick Brown books I ordered came in the mail yesterday. To be more specific, it was the anthology. The other book I ordered is coming from the shipping company so it may be a few more days, but this one should keep me occupied until the other comes. He signed it, "I love your sauce." I wanted to sign back a rubuttal that said, "well, I love your poems." This book is great, he has some poems from "If lovin you is wrong, I don't want to be wrong" that he changed a bit so it's nice to compare and contrast. Plus, what I love about this book in particular is that he has commentary for almost every poem and IMHO, I think that it makes everything just "click." It just makes so much more sense. I can't wait for the other book, as this is my second time reading through this one.

In other news, I've started putting in some hours at a doctor's office. It's wonderful and I really get to see a lot of the behind the scenes stuff which is what I was looking to do. First off let me just say that I respect this doctor so much. He's a general practioner that also specializes in dermatology. It really seems like he's doing this because he loves it and not just for the money. He puts in so many hours at the nursing home before and after his regular hours and is so dedicated to each of his patients. His rates in comparison to the other doctors in the building are ridiculously good and he does that because he knows that the majority of his patients do not have insurance and while most places charge $60 for a visit he charges them $30 their first time and $25 for every visit after that. He does it because he TRULY wants to help people and believes in the accessibility of healthcare and I can't help but respect that.

In the few days that I've worked there, we've come across some strange diseases, namely Morgellon's disease. One of the patients had it and it's a rare disease in which there is severe itching and irratation that feels like it's being caused by a parasite, however when lab reports come back, no parasites are found, but in their place are fibers. Nobody knows what this disease is, and there's really not a cure. So far, he's given me the task of finding research that has been done on this disease and sadly, there hasn't been much. But just the act of trying to find out what is going on is really exciting to me and it's also reassuring to know that even though this doctor already has his degree, he is constantly striving to learn more. I can only hope that one day, I am as passionate about what I do as he is.

Today, in particular was a pretty tough day at the office. We told somebody that they have cancer and then later on, we told a 17 year old girl that she is pregnant. It was really hard and I hope this is something we don't have to do very often, but again, it really opened my eyes to what goes on. I think about my visits to a general practitioner and how I'm usually there for a flu shot or for a physical and came into this experience thinking all the patients going to see the doctor were generally there for the same thing. It's obvious to me now that there's a whole other side to medicine and it's so intriguing. Sorry if I'm boring you with my obsession but, these past couple of days have been keeping me on my toes and I'm so wide-eyed and naive about it all and these experiences, though some hard/sad are just so exciting.