Proof That Medical Students Are SUPPOSED to Stay Inside All Day

This weekend, I didn't wake up until nearly 1 p.m. on Saturday.

As mentioned, I've been studying dutifully for Step 1 during the week and I was just tired.  Since I keep Sabbath, I at least have Saturdays to rest if I need to, so that's exactly what I did.

The Lawyer had promised to help an elderly friend install a homeopathic magnetic mattress pad on her bad (said friend is a little wacky and stubborn) and he was gone for most of the morning doing that.  When he texted at 1 p.m. to ask if I wanted to join them for lunch, I said no, that I had just woken up and would eat leftovers.

As the afternoon continued, though, I started to miss him and to want to do something.  As tempting as it was to just crawl back into bed, I felt strangely compelled to just take a drive and go outside for once.  I sent The Lawyer a text asking where he was and when he was coming back, and he replied that he'd head over.

Also of note is that The Lawyer bought a car this week.  Until this past week, he'd been a city person who dutifully relied on public transportation and Zipcars.  We started looking for cars about a month ago, though, when The Lawyer admitted that he was getting a little annoyed with the Metro.

So, after mapping out a route that would take us to Mount Vernon and back, we set out.  After driving for a while, we parked at a spot on the Potomac River and got out to walk.

Not 500 feet up the trail, I could see that the land around us was swampy and infested with creatures.  There were those infamous noises of crickets and other chirping insects that are ubiquitous in Florida and no sooner had I said, "I hate those noises, because they make me think of scary things," we stumbled across this:

If you have no idea what you're looking at, that would be a piece of a snake skin.  With no regard whatsoever for my frazzled nerves, The Lawyer calmly replied,

"Wow, and that's a big one!  Gotta be at least 5 feet."

Thank you, Florida boyfriend, for the unnecessary education on circumferential snake skin correlations to body size.

I only let us walk for about ten minutes more, especially since it was getting dusky and neither one of us had on bug spray.  Everywhere we turned, though, it was all stickiness, creatures, and dirty water.

Oh, Potomac River, you are so deceptive in your beauty.

So, we went to dinner, ate delicious things, and I returned to the sweet embrace of my temporary boyfriend, UWorld, that night.

Fried green tomatoes & fried chicken!
Did you eat healthy things when you were studying for Boards? Yeah, I DIDN'T THINK SO.

It wasn't until that evening that I discovered two bug bites on my legs--one of which was ambiguous in nature.  Then, 24 hours later--last night--I developed a fever.

Could this be a coincidence? I THINK NOT.

If I even develop arthralgias and a targetoid rash, I swear that I am never, ever ever going outside ever again--especially since UWorld is usually available on very nice indoor computers, located far, far away from the pyogenic toxins carried by ticks and other creatures. Let this be a life lesson for you all, medical students.