I wonder if there is not that element of amusement as we [perhaps] unnecessarily ponder the seemingly trivial decisions that we make. As if, by ruminating over all the aspects of an otherwise banal occurrence we make it somehow relevent. Simply put, I like drama, and though it makes me miserable to some extent, the lack thereof makes me irrelevent, a far worse circumstance. And I wonder this now, in retrospect, hours after our exchange yesterday morning, where in our post-call delerium we reiterated all our aforementioned fears and expectations (and on his part, lack thereof), and question if this entire situation would be best served in black and white, or if these nuances of gray merely provide a means of escape from our quotidien doings. It is rare, finally, to meet someone with as much complexity of thought as I have; I am still debating whether or not it is healthy.

Four more days, oh only four more days left. I don't think I have yet recovered from the few attempts to straight cath old diapered ladies for urine samples, or how after so many years I can still mistaken the clitoris for the urethral opening. (Nurse, why won't the catheter go in?) With the modern advent of the practice of showering, we tend to forget that our scents, accumulated, is bestial at best, putrid at least. And to think of the glorious future of gasteroenterology ahead of me. I can hardly wait for my first code brown.

There is something surreal about the pronouncement process; how to reconcile the austerity of the hospital environs with the silent sense of tragedy. You wonder if those rehearsed words from your lips mean anything to the grieving family, or if they would remember your being there at all.

The motions seem almost absurd. Putting the stethoscope to his chest to hear only the friction between the bell and his hospital gown, feeling the pulse at the wrist only to feel the warmth ebb from his body, shining the light into his eyes to see the pupils unyielding. And above all, the distinct look of death. The gaunt, yellow, sunken look that sets in only minutes after death. I remember sealing his eyes shut with my gloved hands, grateful that they remained closed, and squeezing his hand one last time, goodbye.