30 Weeks

So how long have I lived here in Adelaide?

3 years, 3 months and 14 days – not that I’m counting or anything – and it took until this week for me to see my first poisonous spider. South Australia has exactly *one* variety of spider that is dangerous. It’s called a ‘Redback’ and it’s really quite small – about 1/4" is all it gets – but it has one heck of a bite! (Which just goes to prove it’s the little guys in life you have to watch out for – they tend to be the meanest ones, always trying to prove something. Like me, for example. But I digress.) The only way you can tell if it’s a redback is to get up-close-and-personal and look at its back which is – imagine – red.

So I washed my sheets the other day (once a month, whether they need it or not) and put them outside on the line to dry. Made my bed later that night. Was about to jump in when I saw this spider crawling across the sheets. Not one to be afraid of spiders, I just about flicked him across the room when I saw he was sporting a very nice shade of crimson. Yep. I had a poisonous spider in my bed. So I did the most intelligent thing possible in that situation:

I slept in the bathtub.

Anyway, by the time most of you read this, I’ll be down to my final hours in Adelaide. From here I head off to Alice Springs for 6 weeks, then back to the US for about 5 months of rotations. Most people ask me how I feel about leaving, and the only way I can put it is ‘Happy to go, but sad to leave.’ While I am really looking forward to seeing new things in Alice and have made a lot of friends here in Adelaide (I took some pictures in the past week and put them on the blog, if you want to see me). I’ve lived in my little apartment here longer than *anywhere* since I was growing up. But the other side of all those things is that that is that have lived a long way from my family for a long time.

Not that they complain about me being gone, mind you.

But the staff of the renal unit have been wonderful. They gave me a few days off to finish things here in Adelaide; they even found a few bottles of wine for me to take with me as going away gifts. Even one of the patients got into the act: she decided to have dangerously low blood sugar! So low, in fact, that they called a ‘code blue’ for her. Emergency bells going off, people running everywhere, equipment being pushed to her room. I ran to see what was going on and if I could help. I look around the room

And I was the closest thing to a doctor there.

And with that, it’s the weekend. Term 3 is over, which means I have 30 weeks left until I’m a doctor. On Monday I start my Emergency Medicine rotation; more on that and Alice Springs next week. (Before I forget, Happy Mum’s day to all the Mum’s out there – you brought us all into this world, and you sure could take us out of it, too!) I fly out on Saturday morning for Alice, so I need to finish my packing and cleaning tonight. Not to mention getting a good nights’ sleep in the tub…

As always, Love to All and keep working on your 101 List!
Bryan