Last Day At St. Boonie's

I'm sitting in my bedroom now with my husband and children watching the wind swirl snow off the rooftops. It's been snowing hard for hours. 

I can't believe it. It's finally here.

It was my last day at St. Boonie's.

I've said my goodbyes, and now I'm home.  But part of me lingers there for a moment.  For a couple of years I spent as many or more hours there than at home. Though our work load and situation got rough toward the end, the thoughts that echo through my mind are largely warm ones.

The O.R. community was like a village, or a second family. We joked familiarly with each other, teased each other, argued with each other, got into each other's business, supported each other. Leaving wasn't easy; but at the moment I truly feel it's the right step.

For now I rest with these memories, and many others - like the time one of the ENT surgeons did the merengue with me in the O.R.... and the time one of the OB/gyns was elbow-deep in a patient's abdomen trying to deliver a baby...and the time I did the polka with a colleague in front of the main O.R. desk...and the time we had to surgically extricate a rather large foreign object from you-don't-want-to-know-where...and...

The day they helped me change my flat tire...

The "Potty-Mouth Bucket" created for one of the surgeons...

One of the nurses expressing her affection for Johnny Depp...

Our turtle troubles, and our very own surgeon-cum-cheloniologist who was able to provide a curbside consult...

Bubba...

Caroline Walsh's highly appropriate T-shirt...

The "Fabio" effigy (face replaced) with which we'd decorate the lunch room in honor of a particular surgeon's birthday each year...

That surgeon's last Halloween appearance, when he showed up to work dressed as a certain well-known Plumber...

And this surgeon who was kind enough to stop for some Wheetabix for me on his way in to the hospital to do a weekend procedure...

And of course, the annual pumpkin carving exhibit:

Thank you, St. Boonies, for these past two and a half years. I won't forget them.