Stress Stress Stress Burnout Burnout Burnout

A blink of an eye and November is nearly upon us. Among other things, med school has been great for really making time elastic: in some cases you can do a world of things in fifteen minutes; in others, months rush past unnoticed. So it is. I'm closer to the end of this semester than I am to the beginning of it.

Honestly, I have no idea where the time went. Quite literally, I feel like my face has been shoved in a book since the semester started, frantically trying to coax the words from the page and into my memory. Anyway, it's now October. Post-season baseball. College football. Crisp, cool mornings with amazing amber light that makes you miss your grandparents, miss being a kid.

Tomorrow, I'll take the last test in our renal system and, in doing so, try to illustrate that I know a little bit about renal tumors, treating hypertension, acid-base disorders, identifying stones, proteinuria, and maneuvering the choppy waters of anti-hypertensive medications. (These among other things.)

I feel like a stranger to myself, to my family, and my close friends. This weekend, I'll head to Seattle to see Winning Run and try to be a normal cat for a few days. Perhaps in jest, a classmate sent the warning signs of burnout to the class. Rather than run down the litany of signs, it should have a single requirement: second-year medical student. Seems about right.

Back to the grind...

Standing

Another day, I’ll sleep in a lonely, empty bed.  I won’t hear anyone breathing next to me, won’t move the covers to escape their body heat.  In the morning, I’ll wake at a ridiculous hour and will lumber unsteadily into the shower and let the warm water rouse me.  Standing in the kitchen alone, I’ll drink black coffee and eat eggs on toast.  The only sounds I’ll make will be the rattle of the dish in the metal sink, the resonance of the fork skipping around.  Before turning toward my desk, I'll take another long look out the kitchen window at the gray, wintry sky.  Perfectly, it displays how I feel: vast, uniformly barren, cold.

Still, I’ll take another sip of coffee, shrug my shoulders and sigh to slough off the loneliness, and bear down on another difficult day.  I do this for me.  I do this for us.

Heal Me, Nature

Still licking my wounds, I headed into the canyon for a little "me" time to get away from things and to put something in front of my face that wasn't ink on a page. So, I headed into the river canyon for a short hike to get away from things, climb a ridge, and get a fresher perspective.

I drove fast in the canyon, leaning into the curves, glimpsing the river down below, seeing the rain clouds move in from the horizon. On reaching the trailhead, I ditched the car, grabbed my gear and heading across the river and into the thicket. I picked the steepest trail that I could find and attacked it. Within five minutes, my legs were throbbing and my lungs were on fire. I pushed onward, upward and, eventually, was rewarded with fantastic view of the canyon.





On the plateau, I lost the trail but managed to pick up a game trail and follow it for a while. Ten minutes later, when I was precariously perched on the seriously steep mountain side, I realized that I was not and had never been a mountain goat capable of comfortably walking on such stupidly sloped mountains. Carefully, I picked my way along the hillside for the next thirty minutes, pausing often, shooting some pics, and scouting my route. Eventually, I worked my way around the canyon and back to some landmarks that I'd noted that were on a proper footpath. Then, with quivering legs, I headed back to the car. I left the parking lot as the rain moved in and drove home tired and happy.

So, I Might Be a Little Tired...

After a late night to studying, I got up, showered, and lumbered into the kitchen to make coffee. I pulled out the filter and began to fill it. When it was halfway full, I noticed that instead of ground coffee, I was loading it with Splenda which has no coffee aroma and is the exact opposite color.

Nothing like a hot cup of freshly-brewed Splenda water!

Three on the...Right?
Yesterday in anatomy, our prof lectured about fetal lung development and, generally, about the structure of the lungs in the thoracic cavity. At one point, he mentioned utters the phrase "three on the right" and throws three fingers on his right chest. Supposedly, he meant to give us a quick way to recall that the right lung has three lobes versus the left's two.

Based, however, on the fact that I co-invented "three on the left" signal to indicate that one had "Turned the Fun Corner." Obviously, "three on the right" is a clear indication that someone needs an ass-beating. I let him slide this time. Next time, however, the gloves come off.

Disbanding the Army
Today in Anatomy Lab, we're supposed to detach the arms from our cadaver and put them in the body bin. I'm really honing my skills here. Hobos beware.