Least Favorite Part of the Job and Lame Attempt to Cheer Myself Up

Is it the balls of mucus I occasionally suck out of people's throats?

Frustrating days spent being torn in a million different directions, then being kept late at work due to scheduling snafus?

Snide surgeons and nurses?

Difficult patients?

No.

Those aren't the worst aspects of my job.

Saturday call, hands down, is my least favorite part of being an anesthesiologist.

I despise it.

I start getting queasy over it the day before.  I am reluctant to go to bed on Friday night before a Saturday call because I know that instead of waking up feeling rested, hopeful, and cheery over having a couple of days off, I'll wake up facing the gloomy prospect of having to drive away from home and be shut up in the hospital for twenty-four hours away from sunlight, family, favorite books, and good food, with possibly a wasted Sunday spent recovering and catching up frantically on errands after that.

So I'm trying to cheer myself up by planning (among other, more important things) my Blogiversary, coming up in less than a month.  

If you haven't voted already on my poll for how to celebrate (see sidebar on the right), please do.  So far my suggestions are running a pretty close race.  I have 

• 7 votes to do an interview (5 to do one like the one on last year's first blogiversary post plus 2 "Other" votes which included a self-interview and an audio interview); 
  
• 6 votes for a "best-of-Notes-of-an-Anesthesioboist" blog carnival/post compendium; and 
  
• 5 votes for a book give-away.
  

Maybe I'll combine all three - link to my favorite posts in "Year 2," have people send me interview questions, then throw the questioners' names in a hat and pick one out for a book give-away.  But one kind of book?  Food, medical, or literary?  Hmm....Suggestions? 

Well, there's time enough, I suppose, to figure this out.  Please feel free to start sending me interview questions whenever they occur to you.  They don't have to be profound!  A few people were concerned about that last year and really you can ask me something totally fluffy like my favorite color of cupcake frosting or something like that, if you want.

Ok, enough procrastinating.  I gotta go do rounds before another O.R. case or epidural comes my way.