Call:
— Wake up at 6:45
— Shower, brush teeth. Head to work with wet hair.
— Arrive at work at 8:00 am
— Discharge 1 of 2 patients by 9:00 am.
— Cointern is post-call; spend most of morning and afternoon trying to finish up on his work.
— 14 patients to dictate
— 4 completed dictations by 5 pm.
— Eat lunch at 3:45
— First admission at 5:15.
— Second at 5:25
— By 8 pm, am already behind by 2 patients
— Capped with 5 admissions by 10:12
— Supervising resident is busy. We don’t finish seeing my patients until 3 am
— I eat dinner (chili cheese hot dog. I’m sure it’s great for my diet) at 12 am
— In bed at 3:15. Am awoken every 15 minutes by pages. Really, really silly pages
— Wake up at 5:30 to finish admission notes from night before
— Wait impatiently for new intern to arrive so I can sign over the patients and leave
— New intern doesn’t arrive until 7:10.
— I don’t leave the hospital until 7:30.
— Drive through a blizzard to the VA hospital. I have 5 patients to see before 9 am.
— Arrive at 8:15 am.
— Am told by resident that we have orientation to attend
— Am feeling extremely post call and nauseated by the adrenaline rush of the blizzard drive (you try keeping control of your car on 2 hours of sleep!)
— Meeting finishes at 9 am.
— I haven’t seen any patients.
— Excused from first part of rounds to see patients.
— First man is very sick. Was told by last month’s intern that patient was very sick. Thought this was patient’s baseline “very sick but stable” self.
— Fly by other patients and they’re all doing good.
— Meet up with team and start rounding on my patients together
— Patient #1 is very sick. Much sicker than baseline.
— Within a half hour, he’s intubated.
— Finally finishing rounding at 12.
— Finish notes at 1:15.
— Leave hospital at 1:30.
— Blizzard is at least finished
— Get home by 2:00
— In bed by 2:30.
— Wake up briefly at 11:30, fall back to sleep
— Wake up again at 8:25 this morning.

Sum up. Slept : 18 hours (+ 2 fragmented hours). Last ate: 30 hours ago. Last brushed teeth: 49 hours ago. Last showered 49.5 hours ago. # of pages: Filled up pager 3 times (can get 19 pages). And received 3 yesterday when I was comatose.

Had some interested dreams. I dreamed about Dr. Who, tenth doctor and Rose starring and with a small crossover from Everwood (Edna and Harper were in it). I never remember details of dreams very well, (something about a horrible obstacle course, where the contestants were trying to get back home and had to pick the right shoe hanging from a string) but it was very, very dark, and Harper died and Rose was crying. And me…. I was fixated on the fact that my laptop got flattened during the escape.

So, now I’m off to brush my teeth and seek out an IHOP, because man, I’m hungry.