Today I slept in until 8am (which feels very late after waking up at 5:30ish all week)! I laid in bed for a while playing candy crush on my phone, then I did yoga, took a shower, played candy crush again while watching 30Rock, walked a few blocks to my favorite coffee shop to buy coffee beans, and when I got back to my apartment it still wasn't even noon yet! Who are you weekend? Have we met before? You feel too much like vacation. I don't even know what to do with myself.
Ok, so I know my weekend activities aren't really what is interesting about my life, but the whole phenomenon of having a weekend is very strange to me. The first two years of medical school my weekends went something like this:
Wake up, study, eat, study, planned activity that usually involves eating so you feel less guilty for taking a break, study. Sleep, repeat.
I know, I'm exaggerating a little. I still occasionally participated in fun weekend-y activities like beer fests or brunch or going out every once in a while, but I really can't remember a Saturday where I woke up without an alarm and didn't have a huge amount of things on my to-do list. I feel like a real working person, even though I still can't quite nudge the nagging thoughts out of my head - "shouldn't you be studying Chelsea? I'm sure you should be doing something productive right now - like studying! Study!" I decided to ignore them for today - however, now I have no idea what to do with myself.
So enough about that. I'm sure you'd rather hear about my experience this week in the hospital. It's really difficult to use words sometimes after learning what often feels like a whole new language. As cliche as that is, it's happening to me! I have to think really hard not to use weird words or expressions that have already become commonplace.
On anesthesia I am assigned to a different service with a different resident every day, so my life is always changing. The only thing that doesn't seem to change are my aching feet. I'm so glad I started off on a "easy" rotation because working from 6:30am to 4pm this week exhausted me. Most of the time we are standing. Going from having to sit very still at a desk all day to standing all day wearing weird orthopedic shoes while being quizzed, trying to perform procedures that you have never done before, and constantly trying to be helpful and look interested when you have no idea what the hell you are doing is a whole new kind of crazy.
But it really is awesome. So far I've already placed 5 IVs (4 of them were asleep, but it still counts!), tried to intubate three times (maybe I'll be successful next week!), learned how to hook up EKG leads, learned a lot about medications, watched 3 epidural placements, gone to 8 lectures and held a scared patient's hand. I've been sprayed in the eyes with lidocaine (accidentally of course) and I've gotten maybe 30% of the questions that I've been asked right, so I feel stupid pretty consistently, but all my residents so far have been nice and genuinely interested in teaching me. The amount of knowledge I could gain is so vast, and even though I try to read about what I'll be doing the next day I'm mostly asked questions about things I've either never learned or learned and already forgotten. But I'm so happy I've finally reached this stage in my training. Even though the days are exhausting and I am certain there will be many harder days (and nights) in the coming year, I cannot wait to transform into a person who might actually someday deserve to be called doctor.
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