​You'd think being on a boat in the hinterlands of Alaska without any internet or cell phone access would be a good thing, right? Ok, it was, to a point.

The first two days of the ten day trip, I slept nearly 12 hours/day, thanks to every one of my Ob patients within 5 weeks of their due date dropping into labor and delivery within 72 hours of my departure on said vacation. I haven't had a nasty slog of sleeplessness and emergencies like that since fellowship. Yee haw. Mind you, this is a critical access (rural) hospital. We don't normally see big floods of patients or weird stuff. Emergency c-section? Check. Tachypneic 35 week baby on oxygen, requiring gavage feedings? Check. Shoulder dystocia? Check. Placental abruption? Check. And those were just my own patients, to say nothing of the flaming insanity flowing amongst my colleagues. Could someone tell me what spectacular, sex-inducing event occurred 9 months ago because I clearly missed the memo.

So phew, back to the boat. Yay, no communication. No calls, no emails. Fabulous. On a whim, I linked up to a virus-ridden hot spot in Juneau and….#1) full request #2) contest finalist #3) contest finalist but not winner #4) publication offer. WHAT??!? Hold the all-you-can-eat buffet, Mildred! Yup, offer.

​That's not to say it's been a bad month. Just very long. Like 5 c-sections, 7 vaginal deliveries (only 2 in the daytime, thank you for that, my sadistic little vampire babies), way too many scopes, and just a lot of the usual mess of stuff on my desk. That kind of long. Like when the phone rang after midnight last night, I started thinking bad words in my head. (But you know the rule, right? NEVER ever say those bad words to the nurses. They are making my life better by being awake all night, taking care of patients so I don't have to drag my lumpy butt to the hospital. And if there are nurses out there -- you know the gig: Crummy interactions with grumpy doctor = q1 hour phone calls until she cries uncle. Proud to say that's never happened to me, but I've seen it with colleagues.)

So the last thing I've wanted to do this month is edit, but slow page by page, I've slogged back through the first 50 pages of Dante's Inferno. I entered a few more contests, some for Hell to Pay, but more for Dante's Inferno, mostly because I really appreciate the feedback. I'd love to get the book as strong as possible before going out to agents/publishers.

​Usually I'm not one for feeling overly intimidated. At least not in my day job. At least not anymore. Heck, last week I cut a human out of another human, which I have to admit never gets old. (And mother and baby are doing just fine. Baby has a massive shock of black hair that sticks straight up in every direction. So stinkin' cute. All my babies are cute. And if they're not, there's always something nice to say, like "Would you just look at that little nose" or "Those are some big feet" or "What a cute bald head"  -- even if they come out looking like a squished lizard, one should always say something nice. But I digress.)

So I've faced life and death, cried with folks in joy and sorrow, laughed at the insanity of life and medicine. I've pulled diagnoses out of places where the sun doesn't shine to come up with esoteria like "leukocyte adhesion deficiency" or "pityriasis versicolor" (got that one today) or "gamekeeper's thumb" (today, too -- I was busy) or "bicornuate uterus" (yup, today, it was nuts in the office) -- which by the way, if you didn't know, bicornuate uterus is not nearly as cool as "uterus didelphys" because what's more awesome than 1 uterus+cervix? How about TWO? Like, which one do you do the PAP smear on or check for dilation? Or, even better, what if, in a small town in Appalachia, you start seeing folks that don't have a cervix? (true experience) Faster than you can say "A Fish Called Wanda," boom, you've got your own pocket (no pun intended) of testicular feminization.