I made it!

Week on the Wards (at the giant hospital shown) is finished. We go to school (the smaller building with grass) tomorrow to debrief.

Okay, it was really cool. My biggest problem was GETTING to and from the hospital. I got there every day, but rarely in the way I planned. The first day, as I described, was golden. Shuttle there and shuttle home with no hitch. The day after (Tuesday) was great in the morning because Richie and the girls drove me. But Tues was a problem in the afternoon because I didn't have a great understanding of the shuttle schedule and so missed the shuttle from Grady to Emory and had to wait almost an hour for the next one. Then I waited a long time at Emory for the connection home (should've walked at that point- 20/20 hindsight), making my entire trip about an hour and a half. Blech.

Wednesday was probably the biggest morning foible. I was determined to know the route and timing and spent considerable time on the internets the night before trying to get it all worked out. Long story shorter, I tried to take the shuttle but got as far as school before I realized it would never work. So I called Richie, who picked me up. On the way, we parallelled my attending physician on Dekalb Ave, so I switched cars and rode the rest of the way in with her. Lucky break. In the afternoon, I actually got out just in time for a shuttle and had to wait just a little while.

Now we're up to Thursday. Wednesday night I was again determined to make it work a better way and save gas and Richie's time. So I decided to bike. It's about 6.5 miles from here to downtown, where Grady is. I planned my route carefully according to roads and neighborhoods I'm familiar with. Only some of the trip is through a rough neighborhood. Those of you familiar with Atlanta or good on Gmaps, it's North Decatur to Oakdale to Euclid to Edgewood. This morning I had no idea how long it would take me accounting for road quality, hills, and traffic. Specifically, here, I thought about hills, but hadn't really considered hills that well.

I had fantasized (while waiting for the shuttle at some point, I'm certain) about a flat, straight shot to Grady where I could control my departure times. I forgot entirely about hills when I budgeted time. So, this morning, imagine my surprise when I hit the first hill and started to huff and puff - slowly - up it. I started to get reeeeeally nervous that I hadn't budgeted enough time to account for hills, so I started biking just as hard as I could - pushing up every hill and getting up tons of speed on the downhills. I kept checking my watch's tiny hands to see how I was doing. I really couldn't tell because I didn't find a halfway point in advance or anything helpful like that. I could tell when I was getting fairly close, and I seemed to be in good time. All told it took 35 minutes at a dead sprint the whole way.

AND! The bad neighborhood is situated close to Grady, so that on the way there it's downhill and I can ride fast and on the way home I've just gotten on my bike so I can sort of zoom uphill.

In all, today was the most successful travel day I've had. I looked silly walking into the hospital in my mom's exercise shorts and a bike helmet, but I changed quickly and nobody could tell I'd looked so silly just moments before.

More on medicine in a little bit. Thanks for reading that long long account of my travel experiences!