Why It's Been Awhile

It's been over 2 months since I last posted, and I know exactly why.

There are a lot of reasons, actually. The first reason is the obvious one: I've been busy, working 14 hour weekdays followed by a 30 hour weekend shift, then less than 24 hours off til it all starts again. I get a weekend off (2 whole days!) every 4 weeks, and when I do I usually have so much on my to-do list I don't have time to sit and collect my blogger's thoughts.

Then there's the fear of writing about things that are so far removed from everyone else's experience that I'm writing more for myself than for an audience. If I were to try to explain (complain about) the logistical horror of scheduling an MRI for a patient, it really wouldn't mean anything to anyone but myself, really. I'd probably just get myself all riled up about it again unnecessarily and earn myself a reputation of being a big ol' whiner (hmm that may already be true).

Then there's the fact that I don't want to have a blog full of sad stories. The experiences I have the biggest desire to write about are the sad ones - they're the ones that leave the most lasting impression on me. The truth of the matter is that the majority of the people I take care of are happy stories, or at least neutral stories. Kids get sick, we treat them, they get better, they go home with their supportive or at least moderately competent families. They've just had a serious life experience - illness requiring hospitalization - but to me they're a dime a dozen.

But then there's the baby girl whose dad was trying to play X-Box and got frustrated that she was prying the controller from his hands, and so he shook her so hard she bled not only into her brain but into her retinas, too, and had non-stop seizures for 5 days and will never be the same again.

There's the boy who has a mysterious illness that can be curtailed with a strict no-fat diet, whose parents, due to extremely frustrating cultural differences and lack of education cannot comprehend the nature of his disease, keep feeding him bacon and eggs and asking angrily why we can't fix him with surgery or medication.

And then there's the baby girl who fell between the bed and wall and asphyxiated as her parents lovingly painted her new bedroom next door, who was rushed in without detectable cardiac electrical activity, whose chest I compressed, whose eyelids I later pressed closed for the last time, and whose sobbing parents I listened to I sat on a gurney in the hallway, stunned at my own lack of tears.



And see? That was super depressing. That's what I'm afraid of doing. Because the truth is, I love my job, and I feel lucky to be paid for what I essentially paid to do as a medical student. I laugh on a regular basis, and I have amazing colleagues and friends to share these experiences with. I am happy. I'm afraid of sounding sad, because I'm actually very happy. I'm afraid of telling sad stories and making all of you sad, because then I'm causing sadness while I'm not too sad, myself.

And then I'm afraid of saying so, because what cold hearted demon is happy when her arm is sore from doing chest compressions for 20 minutes on a girl who is now dead?

So you see,

it's been awhile, and that's why.