And So We Begin...

Not having ever written a blog of any sort before, it's a little hard to know exactly what to do here. I suppose if a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, then presumably a blog of a thousand words begins similarly does it not? As I write this I'm sitting in our rental apartment in Cusco, Peru. Cusco...birthplace of the Inca, and birthplace of this blog as well. Which will have the greater impact on the course of human history? Only time will tell.

It's cold outside compared to Grand Junction, in the 30's. The skyline is a fantastic nightscape of the city, illuminated by the shockingly frequent fireworks. I'm told that the fireworks are "to tell people where to find the fiesta." Based on that, this town has a whole lot of fiestas (which would explain the similarly high number of AA meeting notices around town). I'm also told that fireworks (fuegos artificiales) aren't legal in the first place, "but this is Peru, so illegal just means it costs more." Besides, being a cop doesn't diminish one's enjoyment of a fiesta, and they want to know where the action is at too. Before we get to the present, though, I suppose we should begin at the beginning.

I started my hiatus from my day job as a neurologist of middling competency at the start of June, 2024. While Grand Junction is likely heartbroken to lose it's most mediocre neurologist, they will simply have to do for the time being. That said, I do owe a great debt to my partners Drs. Kareus/Belk, all our great PAs/NP's Sharon, Amanda, Chris, and Paulina, our manager Amber and all the rest of the great team for helping support my time away. Likewise I am indebted to our medical group and hospital leadership in particular Joya, Justin, Bryan, Michele, ben and Kevin. The stroke team (Audra, Heather, and Meredith) have probably been counting the days until I'm out of their hair anyway.

Our first few weeks away have been a fun mix of adventures around the region. We spent about a week on Desolation canyon rafting with our great group of friends. Following that we had a great backpacking trip in Rocky Mountain National Park with my Dad (in which my dog slipped his collar and charged a bull moose. We then took off and had a fantastic trip to Oregon. I was a neurology resident there, and though we haven't been back since graduation 12 year ago it still felt like home. It was a fun chance to see my brother Patrick and his wife Alex and son Grant in their new Eugene home. We were also able to spend some time at the coast with the Scott family, with whom we shared our time in Oregon. Following that we had another river trip on the San Juan, then it was on to a flurry of activity as we prepared the house for departure. This included such exciting tasks as replacing the stucco that started falling off the house right before we left, repairing a water heater that decided to heat water only intermittently, and fixing a truck window that decided to stop rolling up (conveniently, just as we were driving into a thunderstorm). While spending a brutal sum of money on stucco repairs wasn't exactly what we wanted to do with our last few days we figured it beat getting questions from Tyson (or friend who has graciously agreed to help look after the dog and house in our absence) such as "were all the walls of your house attached when you left? Is it OK if a wall or two falls off the house?" With all these fun matters taken care of, we were on our way and 5+ years of preparation made the abrupt transition to lived reality.

A final note - for those who find reading the blog too cumbersome, I am sure that Seth Kareus will soon resume his tradition of hosting a read-aloud of others' blog posts, performed in the voice of a southern dandy. Feel free to contact him if you would like to be included.