I-C-London, I-C-France

I'm beginning to have the strangest feeling that my internship is already slipping from my hands.  I always have this sort of feeling around February, the knowledge that winter is nearly done and time is passing right in front of me.  The trees are still bare, but I can see tiny knobbly bits protruding from the tallest twig branches, and I know that in a month or so, real buds will appear and I will be just a few short months from forever ending my internship.

I shouldn't feel sentimental about this at all - after all, internship is That Dreaded Year in the life of all doctors, the year that you are supposed to hate and feel as though you can never get back and so on.  And it is, and I am mentally "done" with the silliness of tylenol orders and 3 am falls and patients demanding dilaudid instead of morphine.  I don't feel like I have to rush to the bedside for every little thing anymore, and I can recall how to write for potassium without looking it up and I can tell whether the nurses really do need my help with an IV line or if they're just being lazy.  But... it's over so soon.  I can't believe it.  The infancy of my career is nearly done.  I feel like I should have taken more pictures.

I've transitioned from my last two weeks on the ICU into the night float, where I'm continuing to cover the ICU and a few other floors.  Despite some very questionable nursing calls, I've had quite an easy week taking care of things, mostly because my nurses are terrific and organized and know what they're doing.  I keep waiting for patients to die (I am covering the critical care unit and the hospice, after all) but for some reason I have been extremely fortunate and sleeping a reasonable amount, which translates into hours at home during the day to relax and do exactly as I wish.  I came into the night float really dreading it, since I was pretty sick of it by the end of two weeks the last time I was on it (and that was with terrific weather in July), but I have been taking my vitamins and bringing my laptop in with me, and I find that a warm room + 4 seasons of Battlestar Galactica on dvd has made for a very pleasant experience.  I am most definitely dreading next week, as the other intern and I will swap floors, leading to lots of late-night troponin blood draws and EKGs and imaginary chest pain calls.  This won't be all that bad, except that I must also go in for an eye appointment and a surgical poster presentation conference post-call next week, all the day before my birthday.  I then have to start two weeks of surgery in-house the day after my birthday, but hey, at least I have it off.

As part of my planning for the coming months, I have finally kicked off a few things that I had in the works for some time.  The first is that I have scheduled myself for Lasik for March, which I am really excited about because I JUST CANNOT DO EYEGLASSES AND CONTACTS ANYMORE.  It really isn't so bad, it's just a massive hassle and when I already feel so unpretty on-call and post-call because I have to wear glasses, it brings my self-image down, and I would love to continue to feel good about myself as I go forward in surgery.  I scheduled it with the same guy my dad went to, and my parents are helping me out with cost, so things should go smoothly and I hopefully will not end up blind and transferring into a specialty where eyes are not required (like psych).  I should be good and recovered by the time I head back to Shmanhattan Hospital for two more months of surgery, which should be a ton of fun since I will be back in the city for the spring.  This time, I will make a greater effort to go out and hit TopShop, because shopping for pretty fun clothes genuinely does make me feel better about myself.

I am also putting things into motion for my spring vacation, and I am trying to juggle a trip to London with a second trip somewhere in the US, maybe Chicago or Texas or something.  I had such an awesome time in Memphis that I really would love to do another southern trip again.  Nothing is set up yet, but I'm just enjoying that I can actually move forward with planning all the fun stuff I had been holding off on for so long, because I am done with my exams and can really take control of things instead of acting like I am a victim of my own specialty.  The best part is that I just discovered Groupon, so once my dates are set, I plan on London spa-ing myself in a bad way while my sister and cousins are working.  We're toying with the idea of at trip within my trip, maybe to Paris or Scotland or Dublin, with the goal of getting smashed and just having an awesome time.  But really, if I come back with a semi-British accent as I typically do, that will be more than enough for me.

mad knife skills

Aaaaaand, I'm spent.

I made it back from a lovely trip yesterday, much of which was spent lying on a quiet beach with my med school girls (and guy) and eating as much seafood as possible. I tried out crab-eating for the second time, and I have discovered the key - it is THE KNIFE!! The Crab Deck gives you these lovely sharp knives with which to pick apart the crab and avoid injuries, which my friends sadly were unable to do. But having more comfort with a knife than most people who know me are ok with (my boyfriend usually keeps one eye on me at all times while I dice a tomato), I actually found that using the knife to both pry open the crab as well as scoop out and eat the meat while dexterously avoiding "the mustard" was the best way to go. Ha ha! I eat off of sharp knives! And build cabins with my left pinky! I am CHUCK NORRIS!!

~a collective round of sighs emanates from everyone who actually knows me~

As usual, I tanned quite a bit and now I think my hands are starting to age from the lack of year-round sunblock protection. (For some reason, I religiously wear sunblock on my face in winter, but not on my hands. And so, my hands are 80.) But I anticipate that in a few days, I will have settled into a healthy glow. Just in time to hit MEMPHIS, BABY!!

The thing is, I'm finding that this extended vacation time actually makes me a bit uneasy. Following The Match (which for me was in February of this year), each rotation got easier and easier, until I was barely there. And now I have about 3 weeks before graduation, then another 4 after. I love being able to finally travel the way I wanted to, but it's actually oddly frustrating to have so much free time.

(Yes, I recognize this doesn't make sense to most people. Or anyone.)

I don't know, I guess that I'm often happier and more productive when I'm too busy. I get more organized, I have a schedule, I don't spend insane amounts of time thinking about non-existent slights from other people. Sad as it is to say, sometimes having real work to do makes me feel like I have a life, because I make time for that life. Whereas now I am 100% in that life and it feels kind of empty. My med school friends think I'm nuts, but a big part of me is really looking forward to starting internship and learning stuff and being busy and working hard. I'm getting emails from my program about lab coat sizes and health forms and orientation, and it's just a little exciting. Like when I was a kid and looked forward to the third grade all summer long. It will be exciting.

(Yes, I know that in 3 months, the word "exciting" will be more appropriately reworded as "torturous". But I'm ok with the delusion.)