No Pain, No Gain

I started seeing a personal trainer this week. Not because it was a New Year's Resolution, or anything, but because it just happened to be January when I was able to start doing this. You might wonder why I don't just join a gym. I've done that. And I don't go. I need someone who I am paying for his time and who will be waiting for me to show up. I also want a program tailored just for me and someone who is there 100% of the time to make sure my form is perfect. Anyway, this guy is the real deal. He owns a private gym so I'm the only person there usually when I go in for my appointment. The place is very clean. There are no distractions and the equipment is always available to use. So Tuesday was my first day to go. He said he would be easy on me the first two weeks. I believed him. Yesterday I got out of bed and Yeeeoowwww my quadriceps let me hear about it. All day! And all night, since I was on call and awake. This morning wasn't as bad and it's a good thing because appointment #2 was this morning. If telling him about my soreness was supposed to be a hint to go easier on me, he didn't bite. His reply, "good! working out will help the soreness". I sorta gave him an agonizing laugh. But he was right. The soreness really did improve! It was a somewhat painful hour but I survived. I came home and slept most of the afternoon, since my sleep was interrupted overnight. I know tomorrow I will be sore but it feels sort of good. Like I did something good for myself. You know?

Nigel

This is going to be a disgusting story. If you don't like truly gross things, just stop now. It really takes a lot to gross me out. I can handle pee, poo, vomit, blood...doesn't bother me. However, I think I have met my match. Last week I was at the parent's house of my friend Kristin's watching the Fiesta Bowl. It's always a big doggie-palooza over there. They are never without at least 4 dogs in the house. This time I think I counted 6, but I'm not sure. So I'm just happily watching the game when Nigel, a visitor, jumps up on my lap. He was particularly happy, rubbing all over me and finally settled down and let me pet him. After awhile, he jumped down and I noticed that I smelled like the worst rotten fish smell ever. I couldn't figure it out and it was starting to bug me. I could smell it all over my cashmere sweater, so I took it off. I made my friends smell the sweater. Kristin's husband agreed that it smelled like fish. I think Kristin is either crazy or her 1st cranial nerve doesn't work because she didn't think it smelled bad.

After I went home, I took off my jeans and there was a strange brown spot on the thigh. I smelled it and it was the most concentrated fishy smell ever! So I whip out my ipad and I googled "rotten fish dog". I wish I hadn't. I found out that Nigel had emptied his anal glands on my lap and I guess the smell managed to get all over me! No wonder he was so happy! I guess they were bugging him. Anyway, if I was ever considering getting a dog, I think I just took a step back. Is that grosser than gross, or what?!

2 years!?

Has it really been that long since my last post? I've had many life changes since that last post. I don't think I'm as funny now, for one. My posts had wisdom mixed with humor and a few tears. Now I feel like I'm all serious. I feel like my career in medicine stole my happy soul from me.

I finished residency 6 months ago. What an awesome thing, to have my life back, to have money to spend, to plan my financial future, to have more free time. But I'm also much more scared about complications. In residency, it's easy to be a cowboy when you're riding on your attending's shoulders. But when you're out alone, all by yourself, making decisions feels so much more...permanent. My doctor friends warned me that in my first year of private practice, I'll have "crazy shit" happen that never happened in residency. They could not be more right. Just yesterday, I had two strange yet scary events happen that I've never seen before. I was putting an epidural in a pregnant lady and instead it went into the patient's subdural space. I couldn't do that again if I tried! It all turned out ok but it scared me and the patient, only I had to fake being calm and in control. Who wants an anxious doctor? Not me!

2 hours later I'm sitting in a c-section. All is going fine. Right before delivery, my patient told me she felt nauseated. I checked her blood pressure and it was a bit low so I gave her a regular dose of ephedrine. Baby is delivered right after. Everything is fine. All of a sudden my monitors start going nuts and I look and the EKG says my patient is in wide complex V-tach! What the hell?! I turn around and look at my patient happily watching her baby get dried off and I ask her if she's feeling ok. She told me she felt fine. I'm thinking, "how the hell could you be feeling fine?! Lady, you're in V-tach!!". I was about to tell her to cough as hard as she could when all of a sudden the V-tach resolved and never came back. Good riddance, I thought to myself. It must have been the ephedrine. It had to have been the ephedrine. But I've given ephedrine a thousand times to healthy women during c-sections! Why did she do that? See? Crazy shit happens your first year out...

My job is stressful. But I love my job. But it's stressful.