Another Pair Of Eyes

Pauses

You may have noticed I’m not here so frequently as I might have been before. The workload is stacking up rapidly – I’ve taken today off from placement to finish my essay and a bunch of cardio notes, and been up since half six doing the same. Day off, pffft.

Not, you understand, that I’m complaining. The more I learn the more elegant everything is, and the more I can link things together, understand the consequences of things and the cascade of consequences consequent of those consequences. Why can alcoholic liver disease cause catastrophic haemorrhage in the throat, or swelling in the ankles, or rupture of the spleen, or kidney failure?* I know I’m endlessly banging on about medicine but it’s increasingly an integral part of my identity, for better or for worse. Probably for worse, but hey – in some ways it changes me for the better. Currently I’m on a one-week-on one-week-off routine in sync with Helpful Teaching Consultant’s morning ward rounds. Next week it’s back to Dr. See-no-students-hear-no-students so I’ll revert back to going to a bunch of random stuff, neuro and GI and endocrine and phleb clinic, if I can swing it.

We’ve got some new neighbours, postgrad nurses-to-be; in number, three. We were worried first that there was a family moving in, but they were just the landlords. As of last Sunday we are officially surrounded by students on both sides, which is good news. And we invited them over for cocktails, and they are pretty chilled out, which is nice. That, the discreetly unmentioned valentine’s day and a couple of sunny days and nights with sleep in have cheered me no end, life is better again.

Now, I need to crack on with my essay. It’s a bit of a strange reflection that I want to finish this essay so that I am finally free for the remainder of the year to get down to working on medicine proper. Who’d've thought that the homework-hating me of yesteryear would become so driven…

Essaytime.

*don’t get alcoholic liver disease, kids.

Stalling

I watched an episode of scrubs once and during the episode, Dr. Cox came out with a phrase (the exact wording of which I cannot remember).

“Everything you do in medicine is a stall.”

And it is. Every disease you treat, every symptom you manage, every wound you stitch or tumour you excise; it’s all just stalling for time. It’s a pessimistic viewpoint, but the universal truth is that everyone stops bleeding one way or another. Fight as hard as you like, but in the grand scheme of things you lose. The bigger picture is a grim one.

The other day on the ward, a patient arrested. Staff performed CPR, successfully, and he was resuscitated. Three hours later, despite the best efforts of everyone involved, he died.

At first glance, we lose, death wins, but there is one more thing to this story. Three hours was long enough for his daughter to come and see him, talk to him, say goodbye to him. Before that I kind of agreed with Dr Cox, but actually sometimes, despite the worst, we still pull some semblance of victory from the jaws of defeat.

And I think that’s enough.

It’s not always about the bigger picture.

Cusp

On the cusp, on the edge, whatever other relevant phrases you can think of. A transition is always a little jarring (with the possible exception of one of the transitions on the film I edited on schizophrenia, which was so brilliant it was hardly noticeable *pride*).

As you all may have guessed, there is a stirring in the millpond of my lovelife. We shall call her D, seeing as fancy single-letter abbrev. seem to be all the rage at the moment. It’s at the stage now, though, where we’re beginning to change from the light-hearted, worry-free banter and chat to actually getting to know stuff about each other. It’s a bit tricky as its all still quite new so we’re both treading carefully, but hopefully it’ll all hold together and solidify a bit. I’m very cautious, but I’d like to think I’m cautiously optimistic.

Wish me luck.

And just for you Dickie, ‘Thoughts’.

Russian Roulette

I heard this the other day and found it reasonable, much as I hate going along with the crowd when it comes to, well, anything. Still, fairly haunting and despite not being ‘catchy’ per se I find it stuck in my head on a regular basis. Problem is, nothing can really follow it in a playlist. I like playlists, and I like them to be well designed with regard to mood or rhythm or whatever.

This is a big problem.*

*possibly exacerbated by the imminent start of my essay.

Surgery

Yesterday I had some surgery and today I have inadequate painkillers, but that’s not the point of this post. The post is about feeling inadequate, which coincidentally comes right back to the surgery.

Alright alright, something about the surgery:

I was a day case so it was a pretty minor op but due to the nature of it I was under general anaesthetic. Turns out, GA is quite cool – I remember that I was going to focus on staying awake, and I remember a sensation of cold (but not in a creepy, scary way; more in a reassuring, refreshing way if that makes sense) spreading out from the cannula where the anaesthetic was going in. And then, voila, I was awake again, and an hour of life had passed me by without trace. In fact, despite surgery, I felt pretty terrific, and a little bit drunk. Not quite room-spinning drunk, but definitely this-bed-is-the-most-comfy-thing-ever drunk. I was also talking to the nurse, which was challenging because I could never quite seem to be bothered to open my mouth despite my best efforts. This did, however, pass. Still, GA = fascinating experience, and a perfect illustration of just how much willpower you’d need to make a little headway against a drug. And, of course, a good illustration of how long it takes blood to move from the arm to the brain. Not long, is the answer.

Sadly, however, the painlessness of GA is gone and the local anaesthetic they also administered at the time has now worn off. The cocodamol that I now have available is about as much use as a cardboard boat against the *doctorspeak* ‘discomfort’ */doctorspeak* and I’m basically trying to be as sedentary and as still as I can. Those of you who know me will realise how much effort staying completely still for a day is costing me – I am not impressed. We roll around to the inadequacy – despite it all clearly not being my fault, I feel like I am letting an endless flood of people down. I’m not going to hockey tomorrow, I can’t go to the gym with my housemates, I can’t walk to the shop with my neighbour. I had to ask my friend to drive me to the hospital tomorrow. I might not be able to do the 3-legged pub crawl on friday night, or go to a good friends 21st.

I hate that feeling. Unreasonable as it might be to blame myself for things that are beyond my control, I still do. I feel the tiniest bit helpless and I just can’t stand it.

Heal.

Radio

I don’t ever really listen to the radio. I don’t even own a radio, and I certainly never listen to radio plays. That is, until yesterday, when we were sat down, force fed some biscuits, given a piece of paper and 40 minutes of a radio play: “Do’s and Don’ts for the Mentally Interesting”.

And it is interesting. And brilliant. And elegantly done. And it really, really, really gets the point across.

“You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. And you’ll probably do both if you’re a manic depressive, like me.”

It’s 40 minutes (although it doesn’t feel that long) so make sure you’ve got some time, and then listen.

Apocalypse

I wake up some mornings and there is nobody in the house.* I go downstairs, and all is silent. There are still cars in the drive, but all around me is still and nothing but the birdsong breaks the all-pervading sense of isolation. I take time on these mornings to think ‘what if…’ and the what if involved is as follows:

What if you wake up tomorrow and everybody is gone? You are left, to your knowledge, completely isolated, nobody and no bodies. The infrastructure of the country is still intact, but unmaintained how long will it last? What are your priorities? Food? Sustainability in hunting and growing stuff? Communications and attempting to find someone? Transport and shelter? What do you do to accomplish all these?

Increasingly, I find myself thinking these kind of thoughts. In a way, I long for a ’simpler’, undirected life – one in which your energies are spent keeping alive and sheltered and fed, in which all the darkness and isolation and burdens of this ‘civilised’ life are undone. Life would be much simpler, and I do honestly believe, happier if we lived in tribal units and spent our days doing what was necessary to survive, using the knowledge we have now with a population of around 0.01% of what it is now. I sometimes feel so limited by the society of today – sure, I can do this and that but there is no getting away from it, no escape from the stringent lines in which we are compelled to move. Sure, I can choose my job, but I basically have to have one because otherwise I’d have no money, and money might not make the world go round but it DOES make our worlds move forward, up, down etc in the world we live in.

I’m sure much of it is ‘the grass is always greener’ banality, but that doesn’t stop me thinking about it, imagining it, and just occasionally I’ll pick up a skill which I’d feel would be of use in the post-apocalypse world.

Practical skill?

*of course these days I wake up to the dulcet tones of a disc saw and the refreshing scent of tile sealant and grout.