Bartonella, Disability and Old Friends

Today I return to the workaday grind. It pains me to admit it, but this is almost a relief after the last two days of conference. I did have a good time attending the conference, but it had much more to do with the people I saw than the lectures I attended.

Wednesday morning we had some snow, which completely snarled rush-hour traffic into the city. Dr. Twenty Cats and I ended up arriving to the conference an hour late. Since the only sessions at the conference that had bearing on my job were held during the first two hours of the first day, this meant that I missed half of what I really wanted to see. I was able to speak with the session coordinator (a old friend from vet school) and get some good information from her. I also agreed to assist with some data collection the University wants to do regarding biosecurity. It was a disappointment to have missed the first lecturer though.

The remainder of the conference offered nothing but dog, cat and horse stuff. I sat in on some Bartonellosis talks, some feline diabetes talks, and some canine otitis lectures. I tried. I really tried. But this stuff is stultifying. The bartenella talks had some cool tick pictures, but even they didn’t make up for the fifteen minutes discussing the classification and re-classification of the different species of Bartonella bacteria.

I did run into perhaps half a dozen of my old classmates during the conference, and it was good to find out how they’d been doing. It’s hard to believe we’ve been out five years already. Perhaps the most fortuitous meeting was when I met up with a friend who’d been in the class ahead of me. She’d been through the joint VMD/PhD program, and is currently at Johns Hopkins doing research and some limited teaching. It turns out she got an absolutely wonderful offer out in Portland, and is moving there in a month. We went out, had dinner together, and caught up with each other’s doings. She’s made me promise to come out west to visit her as soon as I can. I look forward to it.

I’ve decided I’m going to fight going out on disability for the time being. There are certain things I cannot/should not do, but this does not mean I can’t do the rest of my job. My boss is supportive of this position, and wants a list of things I need to get someone else to cover during this period. I haven’t figured out how to manage a couple of things yet, but I’m working on it. The bottom line is that there is no reason for me to sit around stewing at home just yet. I probabaly will aquiesce and let my doctor sign me up for a handicapped license plate. Just because I have it doesn’t mean I have to use it, but there are times now when I simply don’t have the energy to drag myself across a parking lot and this will help.

I arrive home to find a surprise email from an old friend in my queue. You ever have one of those friends that you can go months without seeing, and then when you finally get in touch you just pick up as if there’d been no lag? Did you ever have one of those friendships where you didn’t necessarily see eye-to-eye on everything, but all that meant was that there were lots of interesting things to discuss? Well, this is one of those rare sort of friends whom I heard from. A turn out there’s been quite a bit going on in their life while I’ve been otherwise occupied, and not all of it has been good. I feel chagrinned that I was not the first to write and get in touch, but I’m pleased that we’re back in touch again. We can make a good mutual support system for each other.

This weekend I’ve got a ton of chores to accomplish. I can no longer put off getting that will notarized and back into my lawyer’s hands. I want to get my taxes done if it is at all possible. I need to finish the lists of who the Socialist needs to contact when the excrement hits the propeller. And then there’s those damned bills ….

I remember when weekends used to be fun.