Mission to Marzipan

I don't feel that I have the mental capacity to write a gushing narration about the amazing few weeks that I have had.  Instead, I'll shorten it to bullet points...maybe to elaborate later. :)

• I've been learning.  A lot.  You think you learn a lot when you're in medical school but it's an entirely different thing when YOU are the one making decisions.  Ordering tylenol for a patient becomes a big deal - "what if they have an allergy?"  "what's their liver function?"  "are they on other medicines that will react with it?"  "what dose is best for them?"  I've re-learned an insane amount of physiology too.  Awesome.
• With all the knowledge I've been gaining, I am feeling much more confident in myself.  When I get called about things I can handle - it's amazing.
• I miss my family.  Especially my puppy (who has grown so much I can hardly recognize her!) and Chris.  Chris has been unbelievably supportive, like always.  I'm so grateful for him!

• I might be making a wedding cake!  With my mom!  I don't have all the details yet, but making a wedding cake has always been something I wanted to do...so I'm very excited!
• Another thing that is going to be awesome - I'm entering a cake contest!  I just made a cake for Patrick's 21st birthday that I'm going to submit to Threadcakes.  Threadcakes is a cake competition run by a T-shirt website, threadless.com.  The idea is to make a cake that represents one of their shirts.    It's hard to describe, so I'll just put up pictures.  I know I won't win, but entering in itself is exciting.  :)  If I get another long weekend I may have to submit another! 

That's about all for now.  I suppose I should go read about "sick sinus syndrome" or how to treat people with congestive heart failure AND kidney failure.  Or maybe I can go hand-wash my dishes that have been sitting in the sink all week.  Maybe I'll just go eat some more ice cream that Chris bought me.  (Thanks, Christopher!)

Knowledge

Do you know how fast your brain can learn things? I don't know exactly, but after this past week it sure seems pretty fast. Nothing I learned in medical seemed quite so applicable until now. Now I wish I remembered more, and that I had understood the basics better before moving on to more advanced topics!

I started as "Dr. Twist" about 10 days ago, and man what a 10 days it's been! I can't even summarize how happy/sad/scared/proud I have felt because I feel like my emotions have been on a crazyride. I actually spent my first couple days writing about how I was feeling and, well, let's just say they aren't very happy posts! They may get posted here someday but it will be the "someday" they refer to when they say "someday you'll look back on this and laugh." Although things are going well now, I'm not quite there yet. :)

I've had plenty of lovely patients (and only a couple I would have preferred not to have) and I think Morehead's hospital is great. Everyone is SUPER nice (which is very much appreciated), and things are actually efficient. Here, if I want something done -- no matter how dumb or useless it may be -- I just write it in the chart and put it on the secretary's desk. No begging for consults, no calling the lab to do tests, no nothing! I just write it down and it magically happens. It's awesome! I never thought I would do hospitalist work and though I still don't love it I think I could do it in a place like this where everyone actually does their job (and does it pretty well, I might add!).

My patients have been good. The only really scary one was my first. I had no idea how anything worked - and my first patient had altered mental status (=completely out of it) and acute respiratory failure (=not really breathing). That isn't really a good combo, and especially for a brand new doctor like me. I walked into the room to check in and the respiratory therapist handed me some blood gases. "Here's his gases since we've had him on oxygen. Let me know if you want me to change any of his vent settings." Um, first of all, I thought the respiratory therapists were supposed to know how to do that!? Either way, his gases didn't look good and I had absolutely no clue what to do, who to ask for help, or where to go. I found some help eventually but let's just say it was a pretty traumatic experience!

Since then, things have been much, much better. My mom came up today and we went to Cave Run Lake and got some strawberry cake from a local bakery. I realized that (with the exception of the first day), I'm really, really happy. I'm actually helping patients get better. I like being in the hospital. My decisions matter for the first time. It's scary, but exhilarating.

I'm home for a few days now which is really nice. Chris is on a MD-PhD retreat, though, so I can't wait for him to come home tomorrow to have the family together again! :)

I'll try to update soon but...well...you know how it goes. I'm busy saving lives!