It’s been a week and a day since I was last able to write. I compose entries every day, multiple times a day, but I never have time to get to a computer and by the time I do get home at the end of the night, I feel so drained, I am totally unable to sit up, let along write anything. On days when I don’t go straight from the hospital to babysitting (which I did four times last week – BIG MISTAKE), my new routine after work is this:
4:30 PM: Unlock the door, enter the apartment, lock the door behind me. Step two steps into the apartment (in a studio, this means half way across the apartment) – strip off my disgusting body fluid tainted scrubs, take off my bra, weigh myself, turn on the air conditioner, chug three glasses of ice water (unless I forgot to fill the Brita that morning, in which case, I usually break down and cry), stand in front of the air conditioner naked, flop into bed with a cup of applesauce, watch Seinfeld reruns, and pass out (usually by 6:30/7:00) until the next morning at 5:30 when I wake up and start again.
More than anything these days, I just feel like I am speeding along, totally unable to do anything but go to work and sleep. I eat too, but I feel like I don’t have time for anything else. I mostly like cups of applesauce because they don’t require any utensils and I can sip them in bed.
This job is relentless.
If someone had asked me two days ago, “Are you going to work in the ER after you graduate?” I would have emphatically replied, “God, no!” If you had asked me the same question yesterday afternoon, I would have brightly replied, “Sure! It’s such great experience.” So, each day is so different from the previous and some days I cry a lot (i.e. two days ago) and other days I feel like I am doing a really, really good job and I have a lot of fun (i.e yesterday).
So, enough for now. I’m going to try and do a better job of writing about specific patient encounters – but by the end of the day, they all seem to have blended and I can’t remember a thing that happened to me.
