Life in Triage

-For my own personal notekeeping, I wrote this almost a month ago, but its been sitting around waiting to be published for some reason

Wow, it has been quite some time since I scribbled anything down in here. Things have changed for me. A lot. I’m now living 2,500 miles away from home, thus shattering my previous record of 200. I’m a doctor, which is a fact continually amusing and terrifying to me, and every time I have to answer the phone as Dr. Louis, I feel a twinge of pride mixed with a tidal wave of fear.

I’m absolutely in love with this part of the country. I can’t imagine why the whole population of our great land isn’t actively trying to move here. Granted, its the summer and the weather is amazing, but when I look out a patients room to see a panoramic view of Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens, and the Willamette River…its just….well good Lord its majestic. Its difficult–damned difficult–being so far away from the love and support of my family, but I think its good for me. They are now only a skype call away…and I feel like I’m really creating my own life here. Its a good thing, I just miss them so much.

Then, there’s the job. I’m exhausted. Its currently 3:10am, and I’ve been here since 5:30 this morning. And I have almost 9 hours to go before my shift ends. I don’t care who you are…that sucks. And yet, and this is truly astonishing to me, I’ve never been this happy. I’ve never slept this little or worked this much, but I’m absolutely filled with joy every time I wake up in a fog of half-arousal. You people that know me know I’m kind of a bitter old man…but I think that guy might be dead. I’m genuinely happy right now, and I’m going to cling to it as tightly as I can. I had a patient’s family from pediatric surgery send me a letter of encouragement, and it absolutely meant the world to me. I’ll be clinging to that feeling for quite some time.

Pedi surg was…well…not so bad, really. We had a relatively light census, and I feel our team was really strong (Nikki really picked up my slack). I didn’t get to be around Bliss as much as I would have liked, he really is a great teacher and I feel like I missed out on it because I spent the majority of my rotation on nights. Oh well…the time will come again. And now…Green. The bariatric and colorectal service. Taking care of the aches and pains of pre and post operative 400lb people is….well, I guess it should be miserable…and there are parts of it I loathe…but dammit I’m so irrepressibly happy right now. I have an awesome team, and the med students actually really rock, its hard to really get down about having to go change the wound dressings on a 350lb woman with an open abdomen, as truly disgusting as that really is.

I did my very first disimpaction the other day, and boy howdy, was that an experience. If you don’t know what that is, google it. If you do…mourn with me.

The people in my program seem universally…just dang great. I generally don’t like most people, but these folks seem a whole lot of OK. I’ve made some pretty good friends quicker than I usually do, and I can’t help but hope that continues. There’s just so much to do here! Between hiking, going to the coast, snow skiing, beer drinking, bike riding, etc. I doubt I’ll ever have a spare moment to relax. And dang it, that’s a bit of ok by me.