I channeled Mary Tyler Moore today.
Wasn't it Mary Tyler Moore who ended her series by leaving the newsroom alone, one last look around and then shutting out the light?

So today, after working late my on last day at work -- so what else is new, right? -- I realized that I was leaving for the last time.  So many memories in that little clinic.  So many adventures.  It was so cavernous when we first moved in.  We even tried to get other folks to rent out some of the rooms, but other than our favorite in-house part time psychologists, we had no luck.  Now, here we are, 2 1/2 years later and we are crawling all over each other.  We are packed in like sardines.  Patients, students, paper, paper, paper, research, more students, more paper.  Even looking to expand space to the office next door.

Interior design on a budget meant a zen look from Ikea.  The shopping trip wasn't so bad.  The assembly part, now that was  heinous.  I was always waiting for a patient to land on the floor from sitting on one of the chairs that I put together.  A good poker was often the only thing between me and wanting to come clean on the string and bubble gum that held us together in the beginning.

A crazy handy man who installed almost all of our faucets backwards. Good times, good times. 

I distinctly remember the first time I called in a prescription. I was terrified.  I was in overachiever mode and left so much information on the machine I thought it was impossible that I could have missed everything.  It turned out the next day that I had left everything except the patient's name!

Fast forward and I've learned more science than I think I retained in all of high school.  I can throw around natural killer cells, cytokines, seropositivity and my very first -- postural orthostatic tachychardia syndrome.  I still have only a nominal understanding of all of these things but wow, how far I've come.  I could never have guessed at the path of my career and all in all, that's a good thing.

Many of the patients I have met on the journey will stay in my heart forever.  They are among the strongest people I have ever had the privilege to know.  They face each day head on, no matter what it brings, with a fierce will to survive and overcome the most daunting of situations.  I wish I could bottle or photograph their resilience and present it back to them.  I know that most of them wouldn't even recognize themselves in this description. 

I count down my last days here, it is the patients that I know I will miss most of all.  I felt like I made a real difference for some of the patients,   And that is the greatest feeling in the world!  So many have expressed their appreciation and gratitude recently and that has been unbelievably rewarding.  But there is an inherent pressure in health care as well. Even at the "front desk."  Our patients are truly ill and often needed more than we had or could possibly provide.  That inability to fill the void sometimes weighed heavily on a tenderhearted, heart-on-my-sleeve kid like me.  But for the patients, especially the patients from the original clinic and the ones I got to know best... I would do it all again in a heartbeat!

So if I've done nothing else in the last few years, I hope I have helped to spread the word about this debilitating illness.  What I've learned could fill four tractor trailers!  whether its about starting a new business (ugh!) or ordering medical supplies (thank god for the internet) or sitting holding a patient's hand and listening to her story (my most favorite part!!!), I know that it was an adventure I'll never forget.

So Chronic Fatigue Clinic, we had a helluva ride together. Grow, flourish, and make me proud.  The patients need you to succeed for their very survival and I need you to succeed as the legacy of my big adventure in Miami.

That's one last look around and lights out.