My Knee Hurts

My right one.

I really have nothing else important to say about my knee hurting. I just felt like complaining, and there was no one close at hand to whom I could complain. Except that as I sat down to write this blog about how my knee hurts, and I have no one to complain to, a Fellow Intern walked into the room, thereby providing someone to whom I can complain. Which negates the whole point of the blog.

So why are you reading it??

I'm going to go complain about my knee now.

Fake It 'Til You Make It

My intern year is rapidly drawing to a close (*gulp*), as evidenced by the fact that we now have NAMES of the people who are going to take our place. Which is, on the one hand SO FREAKING AWESOME, but on the other, absolutely terrifying. (For me, and probably for them - I'm remembering back to me one year ago).

This year is passing quickly, and while I do know that I must be learning something (I have not, after all, been called aside for any uncomfortable conversations), it is very hard to empirically judge this. We're not getting tested, for one. Which, don't get me wrong, is probably the number three reason why it is Great To Not Be A Student Anymore... but it also takes away the one concrete way we knew that we were Making It. Pass the test? You learned!

Lacking the concrete tests, I seem to have adopted the mannerism of just Faking It, and Being Cheerful (the more professional version of the Smile and Nod).

And it seems to be working! I consistently get, if not stellar, at least perfectly decent and occasionaly great, evaluations. Evaluations, by the way, are really the only empiric way we have to know if we're doing okay, however subjective they may be. Empirically subjective - what a great oxymoron!

You're an oxymoron.

So. This is the advice that I would like to pass on to those coming after me: show up, work hard and have fun. That's the guts of what I've learned this year - well, that and maybe a bit about pediatrics. It may (and for me often does) feel like you're faking it. But as long as you keep smiling and don't actually fake the important things, you'll make it just fine!

But then, what do I know? Anybody got a test for this??

I'm A Pediatrician, Not a Vet Darn It!

My cat has gone crazy. This is an acute behavioral change. And... I feel quite clueless!

Every day at work, parents describe symptoms to me. To the best of their ability, anyway. And my job is to take their description of "those muscles at the bottom of the neck caving in" or "eyes looked like they were staring off into space" and refine it into "retractions" or "absence seizure."

But? My cat? I dunno. She's just gone crazy.

I'd opened the patio to let her get some air and be outside. She was fine for about half an hour, during which time I fell asleep on my couch (just finished night float!). But then she started running around all crazy-like (picture the cat in Cinderella) and furiously licking at her side and leg. And hissing. And running around some more. And growling. And occasionally panting.

I tried to wrap her up in a towel to calm her down. Got a nice scratch across the cheek for that one.

The only thing I can think of as a possibility is that she got stung by a bee. There was a bee flying around my apartment yesterday, and she was enthralled. I think one must have gotten her... Either that or she's got neurosyphilis. :)

I decided to give her some Benadryl to help calm her down. Then I realized I had nothing to tantalize a pill into her mouth. I haven't been grocery shopping in ages (see: just finished night float), and literally the only meat I have in my home is hot dogs. So, I tried hiding crushed Benadryl in a hot dog. She wanted nothing to do with it. (Note to self: get rid of food even cats won't eat). Nor did she want the crushed-Benadryl flavored cream cheese. I could have forced it, but she is kind of scaring me...!

It is strange to be in the position of having no clue what is going on. I try to be empathetic with the parents I see daily. Try to let them explain things that to them are terrifying, and to me are totally normal variants without interrupting or downplaying the situation. It does get hard sometimes, though, when you're seeing your seventy-eleventh patient with RSV bronchiolitis.

So having no freaking clue what to do here is probably good for me. Though people do often compare pediatrics to veterinary medicine (since the patients can't talk, not because they're furry)

Except that I'm really not a cat person, so... I don't care enough to actually call the vet... (I'm a bad pet owner!!)

Here she is - not swollen or in any respiratory distress (stopped panting), so she's at least not allergic to bees. If that is what happened... She's totally still paranoid, though. Crazy cat.

Happy Match Day!!!

Not to be trite, but... I can't believe that a year has passed since I matched (and celebrated)

Congratulations to those coming after me!!!

And thank GOODNESS the end of intern year is in sight.

Not that I'm all that excited to be a second year...

Taupe and Childhood Fears

My upper level (Who is very mean. Oops - I mean nice. Very nice. I swear! Really!!) wants me to be posting in my blog every day. As if I should have something interesting and worthwhile posting about. Every day.

And in an ideal world, my life would be like Paris Hilton's, without all the drama (but definitely with all the shoes) and I'd have fascinating, mind-boggling, earth-shattering things to write about. Like the pair of new shoes I'm going to buy. For instance.

But, alas. Such is not the case.

I find that my life is rather taupe of late. You know... taupe. Like... boring? But very useful and practical at the same time. With taupe you can accessorize with anything from cherry red to teal to gold-hued with a hint of peach. Or even lime green. Probably not all the aforementioned colors simultaneously, but you get the picture.

So. Lacking anything interesting to write about that has happened recently, let's re-visit my past. Shall we?

Let's see. A story from the past.

Hmm.

There's really nothing.

How about this: You know how most children are scared of monsters under their bed? (Obviously by 'most children' I am acknowledging a stereotype used and abused since the dawn of the bed, from before Little Monsters up to and through Monsters, Inc.) Well. I never fell for that 'monster' thing. But I was scared of under-the-bed happenings. Read on if you dare.

My own personal night-time terrors stemmed from a simple book that would seem pretty innocuous on the surface - a biography about Helen Keller.

You know - Helen Keller. She was that woman who is famous for being deaf, blind and dumb. Which left her solely with the senses of touch and smell, making those two senses vitally important in her life.

Apparently, in the course of her life, a fire started under her bed (at least to my recollection from the book), and her sense of smell woke her up, and she saved the day! Made a huge impact on 8-year-old Brenna.

Because, well, my sense of smell wasn't (and likely still isn't) nearly as good as that! What would happen if a fire started under my bed? I wouldn't smell it! I wouldn't wake up! The pain! The heat! Horrors! Terrors!

I spent months smelling really hard before I went to sleep, and frequently moving my legs around to confirm that there was no heat emanating from the nether-regions of my bed.

Sigh. I was an impressionable young thing.

Human vs. Doctor and Being Up in the Middle of the Night

I was just called urgently to the bedside of a patient. So I went. Urgently. And then? When I got there? The nurse that had called me? Wouldn't tell me anything. I don't know what she was expecting that I would do with... no information. So, I think I kind of got a bit short with her. I basically demanded to know what was going on. Because... I kinda sorta needed a medical-ish opinion or at least description of what I was looking for. To, you know, actually evaluate the patient. And I ended up having to get all the info from the mom. Even though the patient is in a constantly monitored environment with a nurse not ten feet away who should be looking at things. Like the monitor. And the patient. Anyway, I was annoyed.

I think I scared the nurse.

And... the part of me that's human (and I am pronouncing this in my head in the North-easternly way, you know - 'yoo-man.' Just in case you were wondering) felt really bad about it.

But the part of me that is a resident doctor up in the middle of the night dealing with all sorts of bizarre goings-on? Feels like she should just deal.

Hmm. I had assumed that by doing pediatrics, I would avoid some of the cynicism and arrogance that seem to get added on to our collective personalities as the MD degrees go on our walls.

Perhaps not.

Or perhaps I can attribute it all to the un-naturalness of being up and functional at 3 in the morning.

Banner Day... er... Night

It has been a remarkable night so far. Just... weird things going on. But also things that I am actually managing to Handle. Big "H" handle. Almost like a "real" doctor handling.

Patients with all sorts of weird exam findings that I am able to actually explain - physiologically, even.

A lumbar puncture - with mom and grandma in the room - that I got on the first stick in an unsedated child. (and though not quite a champagne tap, it only had one cell).

A swearing patient that I managed to calm down (at least temporarily).

A seizing patient, that I dealt with on my own, while my resident was dealing with another crisis.

Actually... listed out, these things don't seem all that major. But... I feel particularly competent tonight. (apart from the fact that I just had to look up the spelling of 'competent' because I was doubting my intracranial lexicon)

I ALSO bought a plane ticket to Spain tonight!!! I'm going to Spain!! This notice also serves as an open invitation for any of my friends to join me for part, or all, of my trip. Assuming you don't annoy me too much. :)

To top everything off - I won an iPod Shuffle! For real! It was delivered to my apartment today. Well... they tried to deliver it. I was sleeping. I should get it tomorrow, though. I can take it to Spain!

And the Beat Goes On

Today is my last day on the wards as an intern (never minding the four weeks on nights, the four weeks on hem/onc and the four weeks of sub-specialty rotations) EVER. And, in fact, these are my last few minutes here. I'm about to go drop off my LAST intern note.

This is really exciting!

And, yet... I find myself dawdling. Look! I'm here, writing a blog post, when I should be leaving. I'm kind of... sad. Which seems just bizarre. Crazy bizarre. This past month has actually been... fun. Weird, right?

I think it's mostly that I just don't want to go onto another rotation when I already know these patients so well. And my life is so well entrenched in the pattern of getting up at the crack of dawn, spending most of my waking hours here, and going home and crashing in front of the TV. I just... don't know what to do when I'm not here any more. Plus, I don't want someone else messing with my patients.

This is bad.

I need a vacation.