I visited my palliative patient today.

When I woke up this morning, I noticed my phone had 10% charge left. Neither husband nor I could locate the charger so I quickly texted my receptionist and told her I would be unreachable for the morning.  I didn’t feel comfortable not having access to the office, but I knew there were other physicians working today that would cover for me if anything urgent happened.  I also told husband that I would be unreachable, so as to not worry if he texted me for any reason and I didn’t respond.   Honestly, it felt a little weird not having a usable phone.

I had planned on taking local transit to see my patient and brought along a book I’ve been reading – “The Secret Language of Doctors” – but on the seat next to me was a local news magazine so I picked that up instead, flipped to the back and started working on the Sudoku puzzle.  After a few minutes and a few numbers figured out, I got frustrated and moved on to the crossword puzzle.

Now, I’ve never actually completed a crossword puzzle.  In.My.Life.  I get one or two clues and then I get stuck.  I never felt smart enough for those things.  As my colleague told me later, I probably just didn’t think “out of the box” enough.  Well to my huge surprise, I finished the crossword puzzle on my way back to work.  I cannot begin to express the utter astonishment and the feeling of total supreme awesomeness I felt for managing that feat.  I felt like a freakin’ superstar.

A crossword puzzle.

A useless iPhone.

Note to self: Let your iPhone die every once in a while.  You might surprise yourself.