Crazy things happen when I drive around here

Disclaimer: This post will have very little to do with med school. The next one (which I previously intended to write tonight) will have everything to do with med school.

To start, one very exciting development in my life (besides starting med school, moving to Toledo, etc.) is that I found a water polo team to play with here! I realized very quickly that my schedule and volume of material were going to necessitate some sort of totally non-med school-related activity. It is easy to spend all of your time with your classmates and to also have your extracurriculars revolve around medicine, which I was afraid would make me feel a bit claustrophobic. I mean, I love medicine as much as the next person here, but I just can’t have it totally consume my life. For that reason, I went in search of a water polo team, which isn’t particularly easy to come by in Ohio. However, I found one at neighboring Bowling Green State University (about 20 minutes from my apartment) and the guys in charge of the team there are thrilled to come have me practice with them (possibly because an extra body means there may be enough people to scrimmage more often…). I’m very excited about this because it’s a chance to break out of my med school bubble, to expend some of my energy pent up from hours of studying, and to do something I love while I’m at it.

Ok, so I promise this all relates to the title of my post: In the torrential downpour brought on by the remnants of Hurricane Ike (more on that later) I was driving home from polo practice this afternoon and talking to my mom on the phone. As I’m driving through campus I see a large animal run along the grass and stop at the edge of the road and realized it was a beaver! I say excitedly to my mom, “Mom, it’s a beaver! A real live beaver!” (Caryn – unfortunately I didn’t get to continue “Look at it swim!” as Colin’s mom famously did since wasn’t near the water.) I couldn’t really believe that there was a beaver just hanging out on a college campus and wandering along the grass. I was pretty excited for the rest of my drive home, but then something much more exciting (not sure if that’s really the right word…) happened. As I got off the freeway about 2 miles from my apartment I saw a huge streetlight fall across the road, hitting the car next to me in the process. At this point, I was on the phone with Andy (maybe I shouldn’t talk on the phone so much while driving?) and he got to deal with me freaking out and abruptly ending the conversation. I hurriedly parked, called 911, and ran over to make sure everyone was ok. Amazingly, I was the only person to stop, but the family in the car was fine. This was quite a relief because, contrary to what my little sister believes, being in med school gives me no real qualifications to deal with triaging an accident scene! The pole just hit the front of their hood, but I don’t want to imagine if they had been a few feet ahead and it had crashed through the windshield… Needless to say, I drove home carefully (after talking to the police, etc.) and changed into some warm, dry clothes. As an aside for those of you who know me well, the most impressive part may be that I knew exactly where I was to describe the location to the 911 operator! A bit too much excitement for one day – but I’ve made up for that by spending the rest of the night studying.