Us Against the World

Back in July (was it really that long ago?!) Allie and I had the most epic night ever. What happened, you ask? Well, we went to the Coldplay concert, of course.

First of all, I just have to say: Chris Martin, I love you.

Now that that's out of the way, I have to say that the concert was perfect. I literally think it could not have gone better. It was just 2 days before I took the NCLEX, so I was stressing-out-of-my-mind and she was getting ready to move across the country so she was also stressing but held it together better than I did. Let's just say, it was the perfect distraction for both of us.

We started by meeting at Quincy Market to get dinner and then rode the T over to the TD Garden. When we walked in they gave us bracelets and asked us to wear them since they were part of the show. We had a few minutes before the concert started, so we went and bought our mandatory t-shirts.

Al modeling her shirt

We were beyond excited for the concert. Even from our nosebleed seats (we're poor graduate students), we were over the moon. Let's be honest, Coldplay knows how to put on a good show.

Our glowing bracelets

Everyone had bracelets of different colors that would pulse to the beat of the song. Pretty sweet, eh?

The concert was so much fun. They played while we sang and danced and smiled so big our cheeks hurt. I told myself that I would only video my very favorite songs, but somehow ended up with 10 videos...

When Chris Martin came out for the encore and played Us Against the World on his acoustic guitar I cried. And, truth be told, I haven't been able to listen to the song since without tearing up or full-on sobbing. But it makes sense because Chris Martin is my sloth.

Picture stolen from Allie's blog

Thank you Allie and Chris Martin for such a perfect night.

Clinical: 1, McCall: 0

I was so proud of myself that I hadn't gotten sick. Given my immune system's track record, I didn't think that it was feasible for me to spend every day with sick kids and not somehow contract their illness. But here we were, at the end of October and I hadn't gotten sick yet? Score!

And yet, I spoke too soon.

Sunday I went to the MinuteClinic because I knew I had strep. I got some meds and went home and rested. Luckily classes were cancelled on Monday for the hurricane so I didn't miss anything by being out sick. Tuesday I went to class but I still felt a little bit like death. Weird since I was already on dose 5 of penicillin. Cause the one good thing about strep is that once you start taking the meds you start feeling a lot better. Except I didn't.

Last night I started thinking that the reason I wasn't feeling better was because I had pneumonia. I tried to listen to my lungs with my stethoscope, but come to find out it's really hard to listen to your own lungs. Especially when they are as tight as mine were. I went to clinical today where my preceptor heard my cough and knew something was wrong. She gave me a nebulizer treatment to loosen up my lungs and then diagnosed me with pneumonia and sent me home with a prescription.

I got a text today from Linds that said, "I see what you're doing though... trying out every disease you can think of so you can truly have sympathy for your patients. I applaud your dedication, but you may want to rethink your tactics." She's right, I need to adjust my tactics. This one clearly isn't working out for me.

I'm gonna count today as a loss and try again tomorrow.