So, yesterday I took Step 2: Clinical Skills.  This is an 8 hour test where we see 12 standardized patients, do a history and physical, and then write a note and come up with a plan.  Each patient takes 25 minutes, and we get a dinner and snack break.  There are only FIVE testing centers in the country (yes, EVERY medical student in this country, or others who want to come work as doctors in the US, have to take the test at one of those 5 centers).  So I got stuck with the afternoon session, which started at 3.  After the test (which was not hard, just long and exhausting), I had to drive from Atlanta to NC because I had an appointment this morning at 8:30 with my orthopedic surgeon.  So, a little after 10 last night, I hopped in my car and drove the 5 hours home.  Luckily, Sarah and I had prepared me well, with a cooler, two bottles of water, two starbucks drinks, twizzlers, pretzel M&Ms, a loaf of bread, cheese, meat, fruit, napkins, and a garbage bag.  We're good at this road trip thing.  So the trip home was uneventful, but I was very tired.  I wore a dress for the car, and threw on my new under armor sweatshirt for the drive so I could crank the air up without freezing.  When I got home this morning at 3 (which, you should note, would make it TUESDAY morning...), I took off the dress and sweatshirt and threw them in a pile before putting on PJs and hopping in bed.  This morning, I decided that was about as close to WADT as I'm going to get today, so here's the picture!  Glamorous, isn't it?

On the bright side, I had another great weekend in Atlanta.  Highlights include pizza with Bruce at Everybody's, watching Sarah dodge raquetballs while trying to take pictures of Bruce and I playing, watching Dual Survivor, seeing Sarah's coupon clipping in action, and learning that I should never seek work as a blind, one-handed sanwich maker. 

On the not so bright side, at my doctor's appointment this morning we decided to go ahead and do surgery on the ankle to see what is still causing me pain and swelling and ideally fix it!  It's scheduled for August 18th, and should be pretty easy as long as there are no surprises!  You may remember the original post about this injury from back in the winter.  Note: being a patient still sucks!  But I'd like to have this all fixed up without running into interview season.  I'm hoping.