Today was ok

Things are getting bad, and not even related to my job. I’ve started talking to my car (i.e. Listen, Carlos, I’m gonna leave you in the hospital garage overnight, ok, cause there’s gonna be a snowstorm? So, don’t be surprised…) and my food (i.e. How we doing in there, Cous?) and I have given birth to a week-long pain in my knee that is now being evaluated for lyme and arthritis and other autoimmune origins. I got onto the elevator at work this morning, running late, annoyed at the pain in my knee and my inability to walk fast, climb stairs etc and at the 2^nd floor a man gets on. An obscenely large man. How large you say? Like, I mean, check-the-elevator-capacity-real-quick-with-your-eyes-to-make-sure-you’re-safe big. Y’know? And anyway, he was getting off at the 2^nd floor!!! He was going up 1 FLOOR! Wanted to scream. Would it have killed him to take the stairs? Well, maybe…

I had one of my first ok days at work today. A full schedule quickly turned into a few no shows and one cancellation and a fair amount of time hanging out with the MAs. But the patients I saw got good care. And they got thorough notes written in their charts. And my A neg pt who was demanding rhogam for no reason at her IOB even though she hadn’t had any bleeding and was pissed when I told her that she couldn’t have the shot just to “make her feel better” was actually bleeding (!) when I did her GYN exam so…she got what she wanted! “Isn’t it funny how the universe provides like that?” I said to her. I tried to focus on her success in acquiring the injection instead of the fact that there was a possibility that she could be having a SAB. And my 18 yo G2P0 who comes in virtually every week for abdominal pain or decreased fetal movement and who has had trich for weeks because she’s too busy to pick up her meds came in today for what basically came down to right-sided butt pain. It turns out she got her rx for the trich and has been taking the pills! And she came to the office without her mom today! And she was satisfied with non-pharmacologic comfort measures!

I think days like today are not only good ones because the patients get good care and because I feel a little less shitty about myself when I crawl into bed at night but I think more accurately because there are no awful reminders of how my skills and my limited knowledge fail the patients I am supposed to be helping. One of the stories we read for my lit and medicine class describes this perfectly I think. The author has been the doctor to a patient with depression who continues to come to the clinic over and over again for various somatic issues. She writes:

“I am not suffering. I am actually the complainer. I’m the one who can’t face this patient without immediately rolling my eyes and turning off my compassion. The reality is that I am profoundly discomfited by my inability to treat Mrs. Uddin, and she is simply the thorn that continually reminds me how limited my skills can be.”

(From the story “Torment” by Danielle Ofri)

And then, indirectly related I guess, I was listening to NPR at work and just before I shut off my computer to go home I heard a story called "After the forgetting". It was about this guy and his relationship with his 91 year old mother as she was descending into the depths of dementia. He says at the end: I can’t imagine my relationship with my mother being any better than it is now. What an amazing feeling it must be to feel that way. And what would it be like to be able to say that about your relationship with your father? Or your work? Or yourself? And why why why would you want to settle for anything less if that feeling is possible? (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98450439)