Some thoughts and much rambling

Many apologies for the lack of posts of late, I suck at regular blogging! Sorry, sorry, etc.

Lots going on in life, much of it work, but some of it, um, extra-curricular! Am currently sitting on the sofa watching rugby (with one eye, apologies for typos) next to a pretty wonderful guy who has appeared on the scene…his name is Andy, he might feature here from time to time

Today we (yes, me and aforementioned lad, we’re ‘we’ now!) went to the church I grew up in, my ‘home’ church. Haven’t been for about 3 years because it’s not really home any more, at least it doesn’t feel like it and I go to a different church usually. It was nice, very different from last time I went.

It wasn’t a comfortable service. I know it sounds bad, but I sometimes like to go to church and then leave and not have to think too much, especially about things I should be doing differently. Challenge is not always welcome. I’m challenged enough at work, I feel like church should be a safe place with not too much thinking and definitely no feeling! Oh dear, I suck.

Anyway today’s service was really quite uncomfortable for me, I felt a bit weird about it all. I might write more about it once I have cultivated some more logical thoughts and when I have time to write things!

This week is my last on GI – I’m doing 4 long days then I have 5 days off, hurrah! Then I am going to the surgical admissions unit for some fun and games with people with abdominal pain. I really like GI, I’ll be sad to leave. I’m just getting the hang of it. But change happens and I’ll get over it. Might even get a holiday if I’m lucky!

I hope things are good in your life. Think lots.

Exhaustion…or how I learned that medicine is a game

Well, that’s me finished my first 8 days of work…I calculated that I’ve worked 86 hours since last friday which is rather a lot if you ask me, and I’m ready for my day off now!

All in all, I’ve really enjoyed it. I’m starting to think it’s some kind of crazy game. Here’s how I see it:

Go to work in the morning – get handover. This determines the difficulty of the game that you start at. Lots of sickies = advanced, nothing to report = beginner.

Level 1: The Ward Round – see all patients before moving onto next level. Complete menial tasks for points, insert venflons for more points, review sick patients for bonus points.

Level 2: Complete ward round jobs. More points to be had by knocking down obstacles such as fluid prescribing, rewriting kardexes and things. Go back three spaces for a tissued venflon.

***Congratulations! You have prescribed meropenem, at £100 a day! Win a free lunch from a drug rep***

Bonus Level 3: Lunch. This is a difficult level to get to and is not reached every day.

Level 4: Get called to see a sick patient. 500 bonus points for not killing them, 100 points for correct investigation and initial management, 100 points for diagnosis. Lose 500 points if you have to send them to HDU. Lose 1000 points if you have to send them to ICU.  Game over if you have to send them to the morgue.

…anyway, you get the picture! Some days you win, some days the hospital beats you. I won a couple of days this week, but other days I lost. A couple of people got really sick, a couple are dying, we had to tell 5 that they have terminal cancer, and on one day my (male) consultant and my (male) registrar between them managed to make 4 ladies cry in the course of one ward round – enter me with tissues and sympathy while my reg and consultant stand there looking awkward and saying ‘there, there’ in a very male way.

So it’s been a rollercoaster, but I’m feeling good. I’m starting to recognise when people are properly ill, I’m not panicking about every little thing, and I’ve stopped freaking out every time I prescribe a scary drug – warfarin and insulin are not exact sciences, I find, and I even managed morphine and benzodiazepines a few times this week!

This weekend I have lots of nice things planned, including taking the medical students out for lunch, seeing a friend from uni, and playing my violin at church. I’m looking forward to it.

But most of all, I’m looking forward to going to bed!

Impulses

Today has been a day of impulses. It started when I couldn’t sleep last night, so I bought a polaroid camera on e-bay for £2. I always wanted a polaroid. It seemed like a good deal.

Then I changed my blog. I like it here. It’s nice.

Then I went to church this evening (I went this morning too, don’t worry) and randomly said to someone ‘I think I know you from somewhere’ (what a floozy). It turns out that unless I met him at my med school open day six long years ago, it’s unlikely that we’ve met before, but I swear he looked familiar. Anyway, well done to this guy and the guy sitting next to him for being not in the least bit freaked out by a strange girl randomly introducing herself and for being very friendly.

Church today was awesome. Both times. The talks were both on Psalm 42 and 43, and, in a nutshell, were about how God can sometimes feel far away and it’s ok for us to feel like that. Wow, that was a really small nutshell. Anyway, I like to keep things simple.

It got me thinking. I’ve spent a lot of the last few days feeling cross about various things – namely my lack of freedom living in my parents’ house again (although mainly sans parents, so it’s not so bad), missing having my own place, missing my uni friends, missing my social life in general – I’ve been feeling quite sorry for myself. It seems like by choosing to work in the city that I love, I’ve moved away from the life I spent six years building, and now I have to start over, and I admit I was sulking a bit about this. It sounds childish, I am fully aware of that!

It has felt to me for a long time like God’s far away, and because I am so hopeless at remembering to talk to him and spend time with him, I sometimes feel like he’s given up on me. I would give up on me if I were him, I’m pretty rubbish.

But something that was said today struck home – two things in fact. Firstly, when life sucks and God feels far away, the psalmist makes a conscious choice not to give up on it all. Head over heart. I often get the impression that Christians think that faith should come from the heart alone, but sometimes it’s a head thing – hearts make mistakes, they confuse things, they bruise easily, they doubt things. But making a decision to trust God whatever and sticking to it is a head thing, and can bridge the gap between the times when God is close and life is a breeze.

The other thing was slightly less profound – a quote from Adrian Plass which is so simple but so good: “God is nice and he likes me.”

Because he is, and he does. Even when I don’t like me (which is quite often), and even when I feel like lots of people don’t like me, and I lose all my confidence, God likes me, loves me even, and he matters more than anyone.

So I feel good this evening as I’m writing this on my shiny new blog. I feel peaceful. Which is wonderful, given what this week holds. Long may the peace continue!