Island Med Student

Have you ever noticed that sometimes the most emotional or worst days tend to be the ones where you learn the most? Well for me, that was true today. I had a particularly stressful day at the hospital. It was probably the combination of PMS, a huge patient load, and a longer than normal day.

When I was at the point that I was so tired that I had mentally “checked out” I got a text message from my partner Micah. He had accidentally broken the freon line in the refrigerator when attempting to defrost it, and the cookie jar fell into the dog bowl. Now, I know this isn’t the worst sequence of events that could happen to someone, but I was so already stressed out that it sent me over the edge. I started imagining Micah and my three doggies all lying dead on my apartment floor after having been exposed to the toxic fumes. I imagined having to call 911 and some sort of doggy 911 all at the same time. That, and my favorite cookies were now in the doggy bowls. If that weren’t enough, I imagined the already half-dead doggies consuming the chocolate cookies and dying from that as well. All while Micah lay dead on the floor already, without being able to save them.

Yes, I have somewhat of an overactive imagination. But everything together just sort of sent me into a mental downward spiral.

Then I met the last patient of the day. She was being dialyzed when I met her. Her health conditions sounded like a medical textbook: diabetes mellitus, hypertension, CAD, double above the knee amputations, asthma, AIDS, Hep C, s/p MI and CVA, CKD and ESRD on hemodialysis, metastatic colon CA, anasarca, SBP, pneumonia, and sepsis. She should have gone a long time ago, but she was still hanging on. I tried to talk to her but she just mumbled incomprehensibly. Eventually she asked me for some water. I asked my attending if I could give it to her even though she was NPO and on fluid restriction. I mean, yes she wasn’t supposed to have it. But at this point, did it really matter? Or would giving her a few sips of water to help with her cracked, dry lips and mouth be the humane thing to do? My attending agreed, and I raised her bed and put the cup of water to her lips. She thanked me.

Afterwards my mind went back to my dead partner, dead dogs, and broken fridge. As horrible as my day had been, compared to this poor lady, my life wasn’t all that bad.

It’s really all about perspective. One extraordinary thing about working in a hospital with incredibly sick folks is that it gives you perspective. Every day. And for that I am incredibly grateful.

Photo above is my new “fire escape refrigerator.” I guess 20 degree whether isn’t always a bad thing.