My so called life

I started my new rotation on Monday, and have been so insanely busy, I've just given up on maintaining any semblance of a life. I live out of my suitcase, I have a pile (literally, a pile) of clothes on the floor, I eat takeaway food for every meal, I haven't actually seen daylight for the last three days. So this is what it means to do surgery? Crazy people. To all my friends who want to dedicate their life to this (you know who you are)... you should totally do this rotation, really, please, come and take it off my hands.

I was meaning to keep it a secret from my team that I had no intention whatsoever of getting into this specialty, but they kept asking me.. "What do you want to do? What do you mean you don't know? Med or Surg?? Which way are you leaning?"....and I finally told them. And my fellow goes.. "Every psychiatrist I've met has something wrong with them. So. What's wrong with you, Shalini?". *Sigh* Where do I even start? I told him I couldn't answer that question.
Anyway. They know this is not my vocation, so hopefully they will be less harsh on me when they discover the big gaping holes in my knowledge (and in my lack of enthusiasm about scrubbing in- Currently its like: Shalini, scrub in! Me: um..Really? Maybe the next one, huh?).

Strangely...dare I say it... I may be enjoying myself. Shockhorror. Don't worry, I'm sure this feeling will pass. But I've started getting a kick out of watching endarterectomies and amputations. I love how pretty wounds are once they're all stitched up, how closing up is an art in itself. I wish my team would play Bach or Beethoven or something in theatre, something majestic and appropriate- we are musicless heathens at the moment. I like how I can do ward work all morning and just waltz into theatre whenever we've finished the stuff that needs to be done. I like the ward work itself, I absolutely love paperwork and filling in forms. The patients are all old and quite sick, but everyone we have at the moment is so lovely, they ask ME how I am when I come in in the morning. Some of them are perhaps too enthusiastic. One man vehemently refuses to go into a nursing home for rehab post-op. Today, he told my team he would go 'on one condition'. He points at me and goes.. 'Only if I can take her!'. Wtf. Why is it the only men I attract are aged vasculopaths??

I'm also getting quite comfortable wearing scrubs all day. The medium scrubs are too short for me though, and the large is evidently..well LARGE. Am considering taking my own scrubs in, but then I'd get blood and bone matter on it daily and then have to wash it myself. Ick. When we were in London, one of the Swiss students told us that in his hospital, they would swipe their ID tags every day when they came in and they would get freshly laundered scrubs out of a chute. I want.

Is kinda weird, my resident has been out of med school for about four years now, and he's married with a kid. And at lunch today, my fellow and my intern were having this long conversation about their kids and how they're talking and crawling and oh-so-cute. And my reg and I just sat there (I surmise he's similarly spouseless and kid-less). Is this what all lunches are going to turn into soon? I've had so many friends and friends-of-friends get engaged and get married recently. I talked to this guy last week who said he actually felt he had to leave the country and he actually came backpacking to Australia to escape from stuff like that, from all his happy-married friends. Please, you have to promise me, you're all NOT going to get engaged within the next three years. Please. I need a social life.

So. Apologies for the surgicocentric post. I will talk about something non-med-related when I start doing anything non-med-related. Am too tired to shower, is time for bed.

Night,
Pans.

PS. I've decided to call my new phone Marcel. What do you reckon?

Currently listening: NOT currently listening. Except on PT on the way to uni. In which case, I'm listening to The Dead 60s
Currently reading: Current Diagnosis and Treatment in Vascular Surgery *sigh*
Current mood: Vitally exhausted