Thrilling Insanity

Well that was fun.
Yesterday i got called at 9pm to work from 1-11pm in ICU. I knew they were getting a new computer system installed (SCM, affectionately aka as SCUM), so i went in and did my best to help them prepare. We ended up having a pretty good night. I went back in today for a Noon-Midnight shift, when various programs would go down and new ones would be activated. The orders for the 3 inch-thick charts for each ICU patient needed to be re-entered in the new system, which took 6 doctors and 6 Nurses 3.5 hours to complete. Paper was everywhere, lab results and diagnostic imaging requisitions were flying everywhere, there were probably 60 people running around the rather small ICU... keep in mind that we're also trying to transfer patients out and receive more critically ill patients. The adrenaline kept me rushing until around 10pm tonite, and without a little Timmy Ho's i wouldn't have made it. I felt like a hero, because i'm good at computers and could troubleshoot most of our issues with a little playing with the new programs. It's nice, we're going from a DOT MATRIX to a Windows based program...hallelujah!

So i'm driving home, rather exhausted and gloomy over the fact that i might need to go back in tomorrow, and stressing about how behind i am in school already (i know, three weeks in). I'm driving east down John Laurie, and i'm sitting first at the red light, waiting to cross Sarcee. There's very few other cars on the road, but there's this old, white, obnoxiously loud quasi-beater of a pick-up truck beside me, revving their engine, stoked to go as SOON as the light turns green. You must understand, i'm sitting in my dad's Grand Am GT. The light goes green. I accelerate. [I don't normally race like this, i'm not an exceptionally gutsy driver, but i was listening to "Dondet (For the River People) by Ari, and the mood just hit me right].
I totally beat them off the light, and the rest of the way to Hawkwood, the lights are flashing yellow. The white pick-up tries valiantly to catch me, and i need to slow slightly for a car. As they come up beside me, I peek, slightly anxious, bracing myself for a glare or a jeer or some obnoxious hand gesture.

Instead, a guy in his mid 20's is leaning out the passenger window with the biggest...

most genuine,

smile on his face, flashing me a thumbs up. He's just grinning a mile wide, and waving, until he needed to go back in so the truck could turn. For some reason, this smile just transposed itself right onto me, and the whole incident just made me smile right up to this moment. And now i'm going to bed, my outlook on the week uplifted by a high-speed grin.