Potpourri

Warning this is gonna be an extremely long post......

So I haven't written in quite a few weeks at not about me in quite some time.
First off I rocked in the special care unit. I was quite scared about the month (it's the hardest month intern year) remember I don't really like taking care of sick people. Suprisingly however it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be and I loved it. The nurses in the unit are great. They're really knowledgable, they're on top fo their patients, they page you proactively rather than about stupid stuff. The patients for the most part are there longer, they're monitored and since they're all on one floor in one unit it's so much easier to keep an eye on them. It's controlled chaos so it was a lot of fun. Tooo much adrenaline though. So no I'm not thinking about being an intesivist (I considered it for like 3 days) too sad. I had to deliver really bad news to a patient's family by myself for the first time. Omg that was awful. I had this massive headache afterwards and really felt like I couldn't breathe so well and of course I still had a myriad of nursing questions as soon as I left the room b/c the whole delivering the news process took greater than 30 minutes. Fortunately I got those issues quickly resolved and found an hour to go chill and decompress. Ugh only to find out 2 days later that the situation was actually much much worse than any of us imagined. Poor kid. I still check on him from time to time. I had a couple of other really sick patients that I got attached to but they fortunately did much better and went home. So as if I didn't have enough sadness in my life I'm in the NICU now. Started there the week before christmas. My first day Iwithin my first hour get called to a delivery for a baby who was born with a very tiny bit of brain that was outside of her body. Then to a delivery of a second twin that was small enough to fit in my hand (and I have small hands) the first twin was born 4 days earlier oh and she died the next day. Christmas eve I got a baby probably about 6 hours from death she however is doing great now (yes I check in on patients via computer while away from the hospital and yes it's a really bad habit i'm trying to breatk) I also got called Chrstmas eve to the delivery of a still born. So you can imagine I was ready for a break.

I had to work Christmas week but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I was off New Years Week and I spent the week in jacksonville with my family. it's always nice to go home. We had a good time. Did some touristy stuff around town. Went to see the best Christmas light displays around the city. Went to St Augustine finally made it to Ripley's and to the Fountain of Youth. I sampled some of the water this time and it must have worked b/c we went to the winter festival and I got carded to ride the Ice Slide. You had to sign these waivers and they wanted to know where my parents were to cosign my waiver only after I looked at the guy weird he was like how old are you. When I said 27 he still asked me for ID which I didn't have on me b/c I was getting ready to tobaggan down a slope at 40 mph. He eventually was like well I guess it must be true no one lies and says they're 27 but that i don't look anywhere near 27. I was like thanks I think. He essentially said I looked young enough to be underage and thatI was old all in the same conversation. We went to Amelia Island and I was reminded about my favorite beach in the Jville area (will have to make a summer trip) Little Talbot Island incase any of you care. So my eyes started doing that stupid thing they did back in July so an impromptu trip to the eye doc New Years Eve. Went out with some friends and my mom and one of her friends. It was a mother daughter event. Then saw Invictus (the nelson mandela movie) which I highly recommend. Halfway through the movie I figured out why i knew the title. Invictus is a poem I had to memorize when I was in the 6th grade as part of our weekly poem recitations. "I am the captain of my fate. I am the master of my soul" I know this is familiar to someone. New Years Day was a big meal day and we had people over. Went to my home chuch that Sabbath and it was nice to see a lot of people. See my favorite pastor (who was my youth pastor when I was a teen) now as the senior pastor. All in all it was nice being a normal person over the past week. Someone asked me on Sabbath what I liked least about my job that was unexpected and I honestly could come up with nothing. I realized all I hate about my job are the hours and I knew what I was getting into though the chronic fatigue is still a little shocking. But lamentably the NICU calls tomorrow and that makes me very sad.