Which means a new month. And a new rotation at work. Today I started in the OPC. (Stands for OutPatient Clinic....but all clinics are outpatient clinics, so.....I know, doesn't make much sense) Anyway, point is, I'm not on a hospital service this month. Which means I go to work at 8:30 am and get home about 6pm. So far, sounds wonderful.
So why was today so horrible? Last month is still kicking me, I'm afraid. Tuesday (5/30) I was on call, so I didn't get any sleep. Then just as I was planning on going home Wednesday morning, one of my continuity OB patients showed up in labor. So I stayed to deliver her. Which meant I didn't leave the hospital until 1pm (I know, I know, that's over my 30-hours-at-the-time limit, but the last almost an hour of that time was just eating lunch, so it doesn't count, right? Well, by that time, I was too bushed to drive all the way home, so I stopped at PD's house. It's wonderful to know I am always welcome there, and there is always coffee waiting to be made just for me. And her daughters (9 and 2) are always such a blessing to my spirit when I'm there. So I stopped for a while and had some coffee, worked on stitching up the sweater I made for the company I knit for, and took a brief nap.
Then I came home and had to finish that sweater 'cause they wanted it back by 1 June. My plan was to finish it and get it to the FedEx place last night, but I didn't finish it until ~6pm. I found out later that the FedEx place closes at 7pm so I could have made it, but I didn't know that at the time. By the time I finished, Carl was home and hungry, so we went and ate at DQ before going to church. I finally made it back to my bed at about 9pm last night after nearly 40 hours away from it. That's a long time to be without significant sleep. And 9 hours sleep is not nearly enough to make up for that lack.
So today I was going to work at a little after 8 when my pager went off with a clinic number. What went through my head? "Clinic doesn't start until 8:30!! Lay off, already!!!" (One starts to think evil thoughts every time that horrid BEEPBEEPBEEP BEEPBEEPBEEP interrupts one's train of thought) Turns out it was one of the faculty secretaries reminding me of Derm(atology) clinic today. Horrible. Why, you ask? Well, it's not that I don't like derm. In fact, it's one of my favorite specialties. Where else can you breeze in, spend 3 seconds, if that, looking at a patient, and say "I know what you've got. Here, put this steroid (or antifungal) cream on it every day and you'll be all better." So I like derm. What I don't like is that derm clinic is from 11:30-2. So the dermatologist in town who volunteers to come over and be the attending for derm clinic can come on his lunch break. It's bad enough that derm clinic takes up all of lunch. What's worse is it takes up more than lunch. So while you still have morning patients scheduled until at least noon in your morning clinic, the nurses from the section where derm clinic is held start calling and harrassing you at 11:35--"Why aren't you here yet? Didn't they call and remind you about derm clinic today?" And, of course, your afternoon clinic has patients coming to be seen starting at 1:15, so those nurses start calling about 1:30 "Why aren't you here yet? Didn't you know you had clinic this afternoon?"
All of this is quite stressfull, especially on an empty stomach. But on an empty stomach and an empty sleep tank turned out to be more than I could handle today.
And I don't cope well with suprises on an empty sleep tank. I got to clinic expecting to be in my continuity clinic this am; I wasn't. So that made me more upset. (Now really, that wouldn't have made ANY impact on me if I hadn't already been blown way off course by the derm clinic I hadn't planned to be at)
All that introduction to say that today at work I was a limp rag that burst into tears if you looked at me the wrong way. The second time I did that in front of my Program Director (who is also the attending assigned to be my advisor), she sent me home. No derm clinic, no afternoon clinic...just home to bed. And she made it quite clear that bed was the only thing I was to do with the rest of my day. And turns out, GW has FedEx envelopes and FedEx comes to pick stuff up from work, so that was taken care of, too. So all I really had to do was run by the bank and come home to sleep. Which I did. Until Carl came home and woke me up.
So now I'm awake again. I had planned to spend all evening today and all night tomorrow cleaning house so I can be gone for a week and not have the bugs take over any more than they already have, but I can tell now that that is NOT going to work. I'm going to have to go straight back to bed as soon as I finish my dinner.
On a lighter note, I took pictures of the sweater I made for the people I make sweaters for. Thought you'd like to see them. The sweater is a sample garment for the U.S. distributor of the yarn (which is expensive, hand-dyed, and Welsh) and is made of their new mohair/polyamide blend. Color, as expected, is pretty and more varied in person than on digital pic. I put one of my camisoles inside so you could see just how see-through it is. I've been amazed at the number of people who cannot conceive of a sweater that one can see through. It's not like they don't wear something under their non-see-through sweaters! (Although, in their defence, the weather around here is conducive to wearing wool sweaters like one day a year. If you're planning on being outside all day that day. Without any coffee or hot cocoa)
Hope you like it. It is very soft. But likely quite warm. Well, it's going back home to Pennsylvania, so it will be nice and comfy up there.
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