Currently I’m on my “Internal Medication” rotation at University Hospitals @ Geauga. The hospital is located in the city of Chardin, which I’ve now learned has a couple of quirks:
1. Extremely large Amish population
2. Nicknamed “the Northpole” of Ohio
I bring up these 2 points for very specific reasons. Regarding the first, you should know that I drive for ~1 hour on 2-lane backroads to reach Chardin from our house. Which despite the darkness and inevitable SLOW driver you can never pass, wouldn’t be so bad....Except for the 5-10 horse-drawn buggies I pass (on a curvy, limited-sight, and DARK route). I’ve been at this site since October 1st and I still have a “mini-heart attack” every time I turn a corner going 45mph and 50-feet in front of me is a buggy (NO lights/NO reflectors....and 100% of the time, the buggies are black). Basically, it’s the worst 1-hour drive of my life. Everyday I make it to UH without injuring myself, my car or an Amish person or their horse/buggy is a triumph. Only 19 more days to go.
The second point, regarding Chardin being Ohio’s North-pole, is a point-proven. (1-point Chardin). When registering for my rotations I knew 1 thing...I wanted to avoid driving to rotations (especially early AM Internal Med rotations) in the SNOW. Which is why I scheduled this rotation for October/November and my January/February orations in the warm, sunny state of Texas :)
Well, folks....My strategic planning wasn’t full-proof it seems.
It snowed! And not you’re typical, measly, first-snow dusting. It snowed 8.5 inches!!!!
When you ask? Oh, well that would be on October 24th. Which ironically was the Thursday of Kyle’s company trip to Jamaica (which I of course couldn’t attend due to rotations). What are the odds, Kyle’s working on his tan in Jamaica and I’m stuck in Ohio....where it’s snowing in October!?!?! What’s even more ironic = Not a single snowflake @ our house. So, of course, as I was pulling out of the driveway that morning I was bitter about having lost an hour of sleep planning for the snowy drive to the hospital and thinking, “Of course it's not snowing silly weatherman....Its October”. Side-note: what training is required to actually be a weatherman/woman?
About 15 minutes into my drive I noticed snowflakes starting to fall (thinking, “awhhh cute...its actually snowing) then about 3 minutes later I was stopped at an intersection and it was blizzarding (as evidenced in the first pic posted below). I thought it must be a fluke or “just in that area” but it didn’t stop snowing the entire drive to Chardin. AND about halfway there, I entered a “winter wonderland” of snow-covered EVERYTHING.
Not only was there a lot of snow, but because its actually fall and the trees haven’t shed their yellow, orange and red leaves yet.....The heavy snow resulted in fallen branches galore across the road. Add to the “way to much way too early” snowfall + fallen-branches road obstacles + snow plows dousing me in slush+salt slush + “snow-fright” driving = it was an intense morning commute.
Basically, a horrible version of MarioKart. :(
Hopefully I won’t be seeing this fluffy, white stuff again until March :)
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