Sunday, July 29, 2007

And.... I'm spent

Another 100 hour week in the books and I'm enjoying my one free afternoon. Learned a ton more stuff this week:

1. I need to think of more creative ways to say- I don't know... I'm not sure... I have no idea... I should know that, huh? I'm thinking of learning some Spanish. Or maybe German. I dunno, just to mix it up a bit in surgery.

2. Surgeons have to keep a cool head under pressure and not to let ANYTHING surprise them. Even if, say... you go to see a patient and his small intestines are sitting quietly in his lap. No biggie... we'll take care of that for you right away sir...

3. I am learning the distinct smells of various normal and infected bodily fluids. My favorite so far is a nasty, polymicrobial pancreatic pseudocyst . Good stuff.

4. Sleeping on a gurney in a dark room from 2-5am is my idea of living it up

5. Contrary to popular belief, I actually can function pretty well on 3 hours of sleep.

6. My messed up body gains weight on an all natural fruit and veggie rich diet, and loses weight while eating cookies and sorbet for dinner. Go figure.

7. Jeans and t-shirts feel oh so sexy after living for 2 weeks in baby puke green scrubs that are 2 sizes too big.

8. There's just nothing wrong with shaking your groove thing 3 hours into a long surgery.

9. Getting a pager...free. Having a pager that never goes off...priceless

10. I am slowly becoming master of my domain- putting in and taking out foley catheters, taking hair off people's bodies, running around the hospital to retrieve things, buying food and coffee for the team, retracting fat, cutting sutures... Maybe I'll have them all perfected by the time I leave to move onto my next rotation...

I was on call again last night. So today is my 14th day of work in a row, most of which have been >14 hours. I can't complain, though because I just love being there. But it was great to have an afternoon off. I went to Stone Oven bakery, drank coffee, ate lunch, went to Whole Foods, bought myself some flowers, mowed my lawn, and took Maddie to the park. I'm making myself baked Tilapia with broccoli and raspberries for dessert. Eating vegetables has become quite the rare luxury these days. And, uh... I'm going on day 12 of no exercise. Nada. Zilch. Zippo. Ah well. Life goes on, right?

15 comments:

Wes said...

Phew! and I thought I was busy :-) Glad you got to come up for air!!

Me said...

Broccoli AND raspberries for dessert? That's an odd combination there.

Now the question is can you function on 3 hours of sleep and hungry at the same time?

Also, I'm sure I'll experience some of the pains that you are going through when I go back to school, but not nearly to the order of magnitude that you are suffering right now. I feel for you.

JenC said...

Wow, you are a busy girl. Miss you!

In Spanish, the words for "don't know" are "no se" pronounced "no say". I took German, but I can't remember what it is. Hang in there buddy!

TRI TO BE FUNNY said...

My husband is a physician and can I just say that I'm glad I didn't know him when he was in Med School?!?! Wow...continued luck with everything.

B Bop said...

So, were you actually training over the last year for your IM, or were you building up endurance for Med school ;-) My question is, do GU's work better @ hour 5 of in the saddle, or hour 15 in the middle of the night, at the hospital??

Angry Runner said...

Wear a Fuel Belt while taking patient histories over your scrubs. That would be hot.

Don't worry about working out; you have much more important things to worry about. Just make sure you sign up for some sort of race that I'm at. I may have a chance...

Doris said...

Dr J... wow.. 100+hours.. we are sitting here in awe - you guys work so HARD - no excuse for us slackers for not putting the tri training in eh!!

Unknown said...

Nuts...all you doctors are nuts. I'm just glad there are heros like you out there willing to do it. As for me, I'll stick with my cushy 40+ hour a week desk job and put my energy into my training.

Jess said...

I agree with Wes. I did think I was busy. Not so much after reading your blog. Love your posts. They're always so much fun!

Rachel said...

Hang in there. You'll get through it and have time to regain balance in life later.

Unknown said...

You're probably burning as many, if not more calories racing around the hospital as you would working out. Hang on, like Rachel said. Keep on rockin' it.

Rice said...

great work.. it has to be such rewarding work.. I was going to say I got a good laugh from #.... but I laughed at all of them..

Cheers.

Rice.

Anonymous said...

Wow, reading that made me exhausted! It's really interesting to see how things are from an inside perspective! I've got a lot of respect for you and your goal, wow!

LoupGarou said...

Amazing. To be able to do all that and still train for an IM. And to enjoy the smell of a "polymicrobial pancreatic pseudocyst" is just twisted. hehe

I will definitely enjoy reading up on your endeavors. Keep up the good work.

Anonymous said...

"Ich weiss nicht" = German for "I don't know."