Weekend Work

[HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! I love you.]

An alternative title for this post: I got peed on twice today.

Both of the babies we circumcised today peed on me. It's like they knew.

This weekend is one of those residency ones where you just work both days of the weekend and you get the blessing of a weekday off instead and you take it and enjoy your business hours and don't complain about not having part of your weekend off because this is life and it's beautiful the work that I get to do.

I'm in a sentimental mood.

Maybe it's because it's super late at night - I'm not sure why I'm not asleep. I didn't have any caffeine today so I can't explain it but I tried to sleep and I couldn't. I don't like to stay in bed when John's sleeping and I'm not because I worry that my awake-ness disturbs his rest so I tend to get up and read or get sucked into a YouTube hole for 3 hours at a time or whatever until I'm tired.

This evening I rewatched this from about 4 years ago. It's a documentary about students at my medical school from when I was a first year. I'm not really in it but lots of my friends are and I felt like it was a good reminder of how hard I've worked to get here. It made me more thankful.

I highly recommend it for pre-med students - it's not too long and an honest look at what it's like.

Anyway, because I'm working this weekend, I got Friday off this week and I wanted to share how I spent a regular day off:

1. I ate breakfast. Okay. Not new.

2. I stood in line at the Apple store on release day. I know, like a crazy. I shattered the screen on my 4S with one too many clumsy flights through the air and it really stopped working a couple days ago, so it was perfect timing.

The fingerprint scanner works just like it's supposed to and I love it. I think the new operating system is gorgeous, but all you have to do is upgrade your current iphone for that.

3. After a fair amount of shopping around and price comparison, I joined a gym. A separate post on that coming up.

4. I took our fur child to the dog park. Albuquerque has a fair number of these that are fenced so Luna can be off leash, get some exercise and hang out with some other dogs.

5. I did some studying. I just want to say that not because it's interesting but because I don't want anyone to think I'm having too much fun in residency. 

6. I figured out who to give some of my loan paperwork to. This may seem like a silly task, but it was stressing me out and with as much debt as I have, really anything to do with my loans freaks me out. 

7. I watched Maid in Manhattan. J-Lo at her most mushy-romantical. Exactly as I remembered it.

And today I went back to work in the Newborn Nursery. Healthy babies make me happy and I feel like it's work I can love. PICU was getting kind of dark there and I think I was really ready for this switch. After our last couple deaths I just wasn't feeling excited about work, so it's been really affirming to go to a different service this week and be reminded that PICU isn't everyone's life's work but I do still like this whole medicine thing.

P.S. It's FALL! I'm so excited.

Work Life

Since last post I've made it through the transition back to days and made it another 10 days in the PICU. I only have one week left before it's off to the healthy babies in the Newborn Nursery - a population of significantly less sick patients. I'm not really in a rush to switch, as I feel like I've just now gotten a better grasp on the flow of the PICU but that's the way it always is. We switch every month, often with a week of nights somewhere in there, so it feels like constant transition. It really used to stress me out when I first started doing clinical rotations, and I still get a little nervous about starting something I've never done before, but I think we get used to being in flux.

Meanwhile, I've been trying to figure out my life outside of work. Some days it feels like I have too much time and not enough planned and other days I can barely get everything done.

This is my list of things I would do in an ideal day with plenty of time (besides work, as that is a given):

1. Exercise

Neon Run Shoes

2. Spend time with John

Oregon Coast August

3. Spend time with other friends

Miss you!

4. Study

Oh wait, study medicine. I should have specified.

5. Cook dinner/eat

A recent meal from recipes in Appetite for Reduction: Blackened tofu, butternut squash coconut rice, lemon green beans

6. Go out to a community event or volunteer or some outside-of-work commitment

Isotopes game here in Albuquerque

7. Walk Luna

Looking pretty scruffy on the day we brought her home.

The problem is, while some of these can be combined, it's really hard to fit them all in every day. At least, I haven't been able to with the natural flow of time. I think it would take a lot more advance planning. I think I didn't notice it so much in the months before residency because I had plenty of time off to do other activities so days when I worked all day there wasn't any pressure to fit in lots of other things. Now though, it's really work - I get 1 day off per week and that's not enough time to feel like I have a life outside work if I never do anything but stay home on weekdays.

So this is my challenge right now, to figure out how to fit everything I want into my life.

I guess maybe that's everyone's challenge. How do YOU do it?

Happy Birthday!

Guess who's Birthday it was yesterday?

Happy Birthday husband! We just celebrated our one year anniversary at the beginning of last month and my life keeps getting better because of him.

I felt really guilty because coming off of night shifts (I'm done yay!) meant I slept through most of his birthday, much as I wanted to stay awake and make his day awesome. Fortunately, he's remarkably considerate and also good at enjoying time alone, so he claims it was still a good birthday. That doesn't keep me from hoping I'm working day shifts next year though.

Before I passed out though, we went out to breakfast. The place I originally picked to take him was surprisingly closed for all of Labor Day weekend, but we did get to walk around the grower's market. I tasted this red chile jam that was amazing. P.S. everything in new mexico has chiles in it. Everything. Like burgers, pizza, chocolate, everything.

So after a quick walk around the market we went to the Grove Cafe. I got oatmeal and he got pancakes that were actually crepes. And my coffee was decaf because I was about to go home and sleep.

After we got home at about 9 I fell asleep. Although I woke up to have some lunch, I then went back to sleep at like 2 and slept until it was time to go to dinner at 7.

What does an omnivore who's married to a vegan want to eat on his birthday?

Steak of course. 

We went to Marcello's, which is a nice chophouse in Uptown. He got the Chef Special Manhattan steak. Look how happy he looks. A man and his meat.

And here's another question: 

What does a vegan eat at a chophouse?

I'll tell you, I ended up too full. I order the Chopped salad, no cheese no meat, a baked potato without the toppings, and the seasonal vegetables made without butter.

Sorry for the low light. Everything was amazing. I put the veggies with the potato and the salad was really good. It had pine nuts and kalamata olives in with your standard salad ingredients. 

After that we came home, watched some TV, hung out with our fur baby and enjoyed some time together after this week of only seeing each other for 20 mins a day between me coming home and him leaving.

Happy Birthday Husband! I'm blessed to have you.

Also happy September and Vegan Month of Food! Get excited, it's going to be a great month.

From Inside the Walls

It is 2.5 hours to the end of my shift. The respiratory kid we just got from the floor is comfy and the kid who jumped out a window is looking surprisingly good, so I'm keeping an eye out for the dictation I did a few hours ago - hoping it'll come in before I go home and sleep. If it doesn't I can edit from home when it pops up. The problem is that the day team may want the story earlier and may then listen to my dictation instead of waiting to read it. 

"the patient. Um. Physical exam. Um. Bleeding. Um. Oh wait. Go back. What comes next? Labs? I dont even know what we're doing for this kid. *long pause* oxygen."

Suffice it to say it's an embarrassing proposition having my colleagues listen to me stumble over the words of the medical history.

So here's some work sharing for you all:

The workroom. That tiny couch I love so much is there in the back. We don't really hang out here most of the time always, depending on our work. Sometimes it's much more efficient to sit out on the unit.

The coffee maker. Lifesaver.

The breakfast I'm looking forward to. Cereal with peach and strawberries.

The view of the medical campus as I walked home yesterday. My senior was really nice and sent me home an hour early so I made the journey before the sun came up. I thought I would get to see a little more of John but really it meant that I passed out early on the couch and woke up to him taking a picture of me.

And here's me right before I came to work tonight. Luna of course wanted to come over and not be left out. Sweet scrubs right? I did find one of the machines that lets you pick different top and bottom sizes so they fit me slightly better now. I know that pictures kind of distant, you can thank our weird propped up bedroom mirror for that. I'm not complaining though cause it really takes off the pounds.

Almost there, happy Friday!

Home at Sunrise

The sun had just finished rising when I was walking home this morning.

I put on some music and walked home quick so I could see John for my 20-30 mins for the day. It was pretty out and still cool.

I was totally starving and grabbed a big bowl of cereal with peaches and strawberries and then I was completely passed out by 7:30 AM. I did a better job of day sleeping today and even though Luna did her best to wake me up, I managed to sleep until 2. 

I think maybe that's enough sleep since I was able to nap overnight in the workroom for a couple hours. 

If you're thinking, "Are those really big books or is that a really tiny couch?" The answer is it's a tiny couch. There's a call room with a bed but there's more than one of us residents on so one of us gets the couch in the workroom.

I'm an average height girl, so I can perfectly bend my knees over the armrest and it's a reasonably comfortable sleep for about 2 hours. Longer than that though and it's not really worth it. So if you add it all up, that's like 8 hours of sleep. A little broken up, but still I feel pretty okay.

Before going in tonight I had a big Asian salad with edamame, cabbage, lettuce, carrot, cucumber, cilantro.

Eating overnight is a whole other post. I never really know if I'm hungry or what but it's a good idea to have a meal at like 4 before I go because sometimes the work starts right away and we don't really have everything tucked in to eat dinner for a few hours.

Time to go put on some scrubs and get some coffee. Happy Wednesday!

Night Life

I'm awake right now but I wish I were not.

I'm on nights in the Peds Intensive Care Unit (PICU) and that means I'm in that rough transition between being awake all night and trying to get used to being asleep during the day. I'll be on nights all week so hopefully by the end of it I'll be more used to it and able to get more sleep during the day, but I just woke up from a nap of only 3 hours and I feel like that's the best I can do. As you can see, it's not exactly dark in my room, despite these "light blocking" curtains.

I was up most of the night working. It wasn't too busy and our only admit came in early so lots of the time was spent just checking on things and trying to learn, and I got to nap from about 2:30 to 4:30 AM.

But since I'm awake, I've been totally productive.

First thing I went over to the DMV (for the second time in 2 days). Yesterday was a bit of a run-around but first I went to the wrong place, then I needed an appointment when I ended up in the right place, then I needed an emissions test. What's the DMV without some failure right? But this morning it was totally easy. I not only registered my car in New Mexico, but I finally changed the name on the title of my car so it's my married name. I have yet to put the license plate on the car though. Baby steps.

Woo New Mexico!!

I made soup in the slow cooker - plenty to feed husband and take for dinner for a couple nights to the hospital. This is a recipe from my Vegan Slow Cooker book, it's White Bean Sweet Potato. I haven't tried it yet so I'll let you know how it is.

I've also kept things organized in the fridge because I'm only seeing John for a few minutes in the morning between when I get home around 7 AM and when he goes to work at about 7:30. He doesn't get home in the evening until after I'm gone.

It's not that he isn't totally capable of taking care of himself, but he would eat just cereal for days if that were the easiest, so I've made lots of things that are easy for us both to heat and eat. Right now we have 2 soups, enchiladas, and rice/veggie bowls with peanut lime sauce.

Before I fell asleep and after the DMV I went on a run with Luna. She kept me going when I wanted to quit and walk so 5k later I was surprised that I made it. As I mentioned before, exercise has really fallen to a low priority in the past few months. I followed it up with the best strawberry smoothie. Luna's happy that I'm home even if I do sleep through part of the day.

And in boring news, I did a couple loads of laundry, since I'm getting my productivity on.

So now it's about an hour until I go back in to work and it seems like it came up really fast. But I'm going to start my evening with coffee and I'll see you on the other side.

Happy Tuesday!

What It's Like to Be an Intern

I'm an Intern M.D. You could say I'm a doctor and it's technically true, but, like, barely.

I can only speak for myself, but the adjustment has been interesting. Here are some things that are true for me about being an intern:

1. When my alarm goes off in the morning, or evening, depending on my shift, I pretty much bury my head and think, "What if I just don't go?" And then I get up and go to work because I'm a frickin' responsible doctor now. Or because I sleepwalk. I'm not really sure.

2. When I walk into a patient room and say, "I'm Dr. C___ , nice to meet you," I get about a 30% return of some variation on "Girl you too young to be a doctor." But everybody suspends their disbelief and tells me about their children's diarrhea anyway.

3. This is accurate:

4. My whole year's salary is a very small percentage of my debt. I don't like to think about it.

5. Now that I've graduated people ask me medical questions to which I mostly don't know the answers. Mostly pretty normal things. Sometimes I find out things I don't want to know. I chose to treat children for a reason. #veryfewhemorrhoids

6. Patients are cute. Parents are mostly crazy. One girl got a rash every time she ate eggs. I asked if Mom stopped giving her eggs. 

"Oh no, she loves them."

Well, if she loves them.

8. Those more senior than me are also kind of crazy, in a good way. Here's some recent important advice I received: "This is a small town. Be careful how drunk you get in public."

9. I used to exercise. Now I run from room to room and pretend moving a stethoscope around is calisthenics. One time I picked up a pen. It was a lot like a squat with a weighted row right?

10. I also used to sleep. Now I slip into full coma the second I lie down. Note to husband: carry me out if the house catches fire.

11. There's all kinds of crazy breaking out happening on my face, and I'm not alone - some of my co-interns are also erupting. Nothing like acne to make you trust your doctor.

12. Scrubs are proportioned by crazy triangle people. The top is too big, the legs are too short and I manage to look drowned and dumpy at the same time.

13. There is an expectation (and realistically, a requirement if I want to pass Boards) that I be studying and reading in my time outside work but I just want to be straight with you, the end of the day looks a lot like this:

Is it the dream? Of course. This was actually a hard post to write because really, the work/life balance is a huge challenge but ultimately I'm loving my life.