it's about time

i passed my driving test on thursday. did you know you have to be on your p-plates for three years?! *jaw drops* what a bloody long time!!

sleeping awake

i'm really tired in the mornings these days. the morning after my on-call nights are naturally the worst. even if i'm not called in. i fall asleep poised on the edge of awakening, waiting for the phone to ring, for another one of my oldies to get sick. now it's five cups of coffee a day. forty milligrams of proton pump inhibitors in the morning. a hurried lunch if i have time. it's almost all a blur. the only images i remember are my patients. their faces. their stories. they're mine. my babies. i love them.

this is surely pathological.

moved into keith house on saturday night. it hasn't changed one bit. the others are whinging about it and they're right. but lethargy overtakes me after six weeks and i'm just happy to have a home to stay in. to be able to have a beer out the front under the tree. watch the stars in the cold ballarat evenings. i am content.

sleepless nights in the rat

it's madness.

called in at 5am to see a lady with high blood pressure and chest pain. a couple of anginines and she started coughing up blood. tried a few times to get a cannula into her arm, hoping to hit a vein. i didnt. the notes said she'd been to the base a couple of mornings ago with svt, except she spontaneously reverted to sinus when the ambulance turned into the bay at emerg. called the consultant on, and all of a sudden my patient became palliative. wonderful.

that was the start of my crazy weekend on call. i had been on call thursday and friday nights too, but they were relatively quiet. saturday i worked until past 11pm. dvt. cellulitis. falls. hypoglycaemia. blocked picc lines. confusion. even admitted a new patient. sunday was much the same. except i got to called in to talk a lady out of killing herself. that'll get your pulse up a bit. all in all it was a good experience. the consultant on call was a absolute champ and pretended not to mind when i called her for the sixth or eighth time and ordered me to have dinner stat.

otherwise not much happening here in the rat. missing lots of lunches and eating a lot of crappy dinners. not really drinking and passing much water. my cold is still hanging around. and my sleep is terrible (i keep thinking the on-call phone's gonna go off). got a new reg yesterday and she seems okay. still living above the hospital and the crew's getting pretty pissed off. i hope the old keith house comes good soon. going for my hazard perception test this week and hopefully the driving test next friday. fingers crossed i'll be a p-plater by next weekend. what a joke. oh and i got a palm t5 on monday, courtesy of doris who went back to melbourne. now i just need to find someone who's got mims or amh.

i must admit i'm loving it. this has been an excellent few weeks. i must be going nuts like my oldies.