salt over the shoulder
I am not a superstitious person.
Or at least I didn’t used to be.
Now, I rap on tables when passing on my patients to the covering night intern that “there’s nothing to do. They’ll be like lambs all night long and not bother you.” I stop mid-sentence when talking about how calm things have been, or how we haven’t gotten any admissions.
Just so I don’t tempt fate. Or the powers that be. I forget in those moments that I believe in a supreme, benevolent God who doesn’t smite out vengeance at a lark.
Right now, I’m regretting writing about how good things have been. Because I did that, today was the worst day I’ve had yet.
I had two patients yell at me, swear at me of how I wasn’t listening to them and keeping them there and making their lives miserable. One was probably justified… my patient with the fever that I stuck a half dozen times trying to get some blood…and whom I walked in and informed that we needed more, and he was going to be my pin cushion again. It didn’t matter to him that I had practiced, that I had talked to the nurses and IV team and had gotten tips of how to do it better and get the vein when I needed to. He told me to leave, and I did. I got the other intern and begged her to do it.
The other was a patient that I had been trying to transfer back to another unit for two days and came in and discovered that all of my plans had come to naught. He was upset, I was upset and spent the rest of the day, trying to figure out what went wrong.
I haven’t cried. I didn’t get hurt or really upset, because I do understand that this is hard for them. But they don’t understand that it’s equally hard for me, to figure out my place, to be told that I, who have only practiced on fellow students, must go in and get blood on my patients…and my fellow students with their nice, plump, healthy veins are a far cry easier than these gentlemen. Thrown into the wolves and I have to fight my way out.
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Aww…I’m sorry!
If it’s any consolation….in teaching it’s the same thing. If anything ever went wrong, nobody considered what a rough time I, the teacher, was having.
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There’s always going to be horrible things that happen for a period of time. But hey, I know you’ll hate me for this, but you’ll look back and chuckle just a little about how many times you poked that patient…and when you become a doctor training your own interns, you’ll have the perfect success story to share.
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Ah, don’t worry, you’ll make it!!! That was just a hard day. Today will be better. *snugs*
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*HUGS*
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That painful icon so perfectly illustrates your point.
I wish I knew what I could say. I never know, and yet I keep saying things to you. You do your best, and you don’t give up. You keep believing, and keep trying, you keep going. And that’s something. That’s everything.