The disappearing hat

It's been so freaking cold for the last couple of months, that even for my 2 minute commute to Bellevue, I have been putting on a hat every morning. Then we go round on the floors. Sometimes, believe it or not, in our coats (that is mostly because we are always in a hurry and sometimes we have to go to a different building after rounds, and so just in case, since it's -25C outside, we all carry our coats). So last week, one evening as I was leaving the hospital, my hat was nowhere to be found. I tried to run through my day in my head to figure out where I might have misplaced it. Maybe at the cafe downstairs in the lobby where I got my coffee in the morning? Or the surgery call-room? I look everywhere but it was nowhere to be found. I must have dropped it somewhere in the hallway. It's a 20+ floor hospital with countless units, and my team has patients on 5 different floors some days. My hat could be anywhere!

So I resigned myself to the fact that it was permanently lost. I dug an old hat out from my closet and wore that for a week. Paul would say it looked silly. "Where is your nice hat?" he would ask. "Somewhere in Bellevue maybe" would be my reply.

And then today, during afternoon rounds, I am standing around the surgical ICU, waiting for a patient to be transported, and I look down and there is my hat just sitting quietly on an otherwise empty and unoccupied desk. It was MY HAT!!! Undoubtedly! So I grabbed it without much hesitation, inspected it for familiar marks, like the one string that was a little loose on one side, and quickly stuffed it into my white coat pocket, where it hung out for the next few hours until I was ready to leave for the night. Of course today the weather warmed up and I don't need a hat anymore :)