Blog: "10, 10, 10, 10...Everything, Everything, Everything, Everything!!!!!!"

I have not been writing a ton on this blog lately, but today was an eventful day and I want to reflect for a few minutes calmly. In the morning, Naomi and I took the bus to the West Side for spanish playgroup at La Escuelita. It turns out there are actually kids younger than her who are starting in the fall in the 2 year old preschool, but they are all siblings of older preschoolers....so we probably would not have gotten in had we applied for this year. Plus in any case, she is pretty young to start preschool and not toilet trained, and we may be doing daycare this year instead anyway...so it is all for the best. She does like the playgroup, though. I haven't been doing very well learning the "camping" vocabulary they've given out to parents, but it's ok, we had fun. So, we took the bus back to the East Side where we met Rossana and I went in to the lab. Then I got a call for a liver resection (I wasn't on call, but I had talked to a med school friend about wanting to scrub in on a shorter case, so she called and offered this one to me).

So I ran home to change my shoes, ran back, and ate about 10 packets of salt from the cafeteria on my way up the elevator (to raise my blood pressure because I feel faint when I stand in one place for a while). WARNING: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!!! As I walked down the hallway to the changing room, my neck and jaw began to feel numb. Then I felt sick to my stomach. Then I vomited all over the floor about six times (the last five times were at least in the sink, but still....unnerving, to say the least!). (I'm not pregnant, by the way. I'm positive it was the salt.) So much for feeling more confident about scrubbing in to a shorter case. So yeah....Don't eat 10 packets of salt at a time. Just don't.

But then I felt fine. And the surgery turned out to be super, super fun. And I did an ok job assisting, because afterward the attending said I did a really good job, and then came up to me again as he was leaving to say that he would love to work with me if I ever wanted to do a trip with MSMI (the med student group that does trips to Honduras and elsewhere...I totally would, but didn't apply this year because I really didn't want to leave Naomi and Matt for two weeks). And the fellow and nurse were super nice, and it was interesting because it integrated several aspects of disease that we have learned about and I got to do stuff for most of the time. So that was awesome.

I got home at 5:36 and rode up the elevator with Rossana and Naomi, all three of us smiling cheerfully and chatting about the day. At 5:40, Rossana ran down the stairs of our building saying she was never coming back. I am not sure exactly what happened during those 4 minutes to instantaneously destroy what I thought was a very solid, real relationship. There was yelling on both parts. But it seems that there was perhaps a deep, gaping lack of communication leading up to the blowup. It was, from anyone's standpoint, our first fight. And over...minutes and milk? My complaint that she should be willing to come 7 minutes early tomorrow (we were in an unforseeable bind) because I felt we had worked around her needs many times. Her complaint that we do not buy any food for our child (part cultural misunderstanding on valid "lunch foods"...we're thrilled if Naomi just eats a well-liked totally healthy PB&J sandwich every day; part legitimate criticism that we frequently ask her to buy milk when we run out). Irritating behaviors both, no doubt. But nuisances, nonetheless. Clearly neither of these issues can have been the true reason for the quick escalation to yelling and leaving that occurred this afternoon.

The unfortunate thing is that beneath our relationship's beautiful veneer of politeness and (real, heartfelt...I think?) warmth...criticisms and complaints were never expressed. Profound dissatisfaction was perhaps felt on both sides over certain things at certain times...but those feelings were never vocalized. We should have argued more. We should have fought and made up. Anything to bring conflict to the surface in a better way than they came out today.

So much for the myth of the conflict-free relationship.

There are things to be said for the type of relationship Matt and I have ended up with (more by mutual fault than by virtue!). We argue. We fight. Sometimes we start out arguing amiably and end up royally pissed off at each other. But we know where we stand, we know what we are doing that annoys one another, where we disagree. We don't typically hold back on the harsh criticisms, though we do cringe and sometimes lash out when receiving them. But we get to the bottom of things. We learn. So we are immature, but we communicate, and most of our communication is positive. Nearly all of it is real.

So anyway. This is a really sad event that has occurred with Rossana, an especially unfortunate way for things to have ended. Naomi didn't get to say Goodbye to Rossana. I didn't tell her how much I will miss her. All I can hope is that we will learn for the future. And talk in our other relationships.

Now for some belated pictures. Naomi at the Met: