I’m tired right now. For some reason the last several weeks I’ve been a bit drained. I say “for some reason,” as though I don’t know that I’m in residency and that’s reason enough. I guess sometimes I just expect that I should be a superhuman and be able to keep up everything else as well as I used to.
I have a stack of e-mails that I’ve read…or skimmed…and haven’t answered. I want to answer them, but I can’t quite do it. I’ve missed several important details in some of them. Like yesterday I called someone to ask if we could carpool to a meeting we were going to that I thought was today. Her response, “You know that meeting was changed to today, right?” Whoops! I do vaguely remember, now that you mention it, that I got some sort of communication to that effect. But it didn’t sink in. Typical of me these days.
For the last few weeks I’ve basically gone to work and come home and laid like a lump on my couch. It’s been really nice outside, and I keep thinking to myself that I should get out and go for a walk or something. The exercise and the fresh air would be good for me. Usually I think about it and then just keep lying on my couch. Once I actually convinced myself to drive to the Bayfront to go walk around by the water. So I did. I drove there, parked, got out of my car, walked about 50 feet, and then turned around and got on my car and drove back home! Pretty pathetic…or maybe just normal?! Doesn’t really feel normal, but in talking with others who are currently in residency, or with those who have been through it, it sounds like it’s kind of par for the course. One person who did her residency several years ago talked about how she’s seen photos of herself at different events during those years, and she’s been so surprised and relieved to know that she was actually there, even though she didn’t remember being there! “Wow, you mean I didn’t actually miss 5 years of my nieces’ and nephews’ lives?!”
The funny thing is that when I’m at work I function. I register details, and I have energy to do whatever it is I need to do. Granted, I sometimes have a bit of caffeine and a lot of adrenaline helping me out with that, but somehow I manage to do everything I need to do and function at a pretty high level. I guess maybe that’s why I’m such a lump the rest of the time. All my concentration, energy, and focus, are going into being a surgical resident and doing what I need to do. And there isn’t much left for anything else. And I guess that’s okay for now, since that’s what God has called me to for this season.
When I’m together with other current residents, it’s so reassuring to talk and realize that we’re all feeling the same thing. I guess it’s just normal. We all feel quite schizophrenic about things, too. One on hand, when we’re on our surgical rotations, we complain and feel like we hate it because it’s so intense and so busy. Yet we love it at the same time, and somehow when it’s over and we move on to something else, we look longingly back at those times and wish we were back on those rotations. Our friends and family get annoyed with us, because we spent the whole time complaining about it, and then when we’re not doing it we wish we were back there! Weird! We’re a group of people who can’t seem to make up our minds. There’s even one guy who was thinking seriously of dropping out of the program because he thought he hated general surgery so much. And this week, after being out of his gen surg rotation for a week, he’s begging to go back into it! Typical. I was asked by the director of the General Surgery rotation at the hospital where I just finished a 6-month block to rate the rotation on a scale of 1-10. I couldn’t do it. On one hand, I could honestly say it’s been a 1, while on the other hand it’s been a 10. But to average it out and say it’s a 5 doesn’t do it justice at all! It’s been both extremes at the same time.
So for any of you who have sent me e-mails and are wondering when I’m going to respond, sorry! I REALLY appreciate the e-mails, and I probably will respond to them eventually. But don’t take it personally that I haven’t responded…and please don’t stop sending them, because they do encourage me and help me keep going. And for those of you who have been trying to get me to do things with you and I give some vague, noncommittal answer like, “Yeah, that would be nice,” please have patience with me. It’s not that I don’t want to do any of those things – I just can’t always fathom where I’m going to get the energy to do them. And if there are really important details that I should know about, you might be better off calling me, or highlighting the important details with really big letters or bold print or something, so that I actually register the important details…
Eventually my life will be back to normal, whatever that means. But it probably won’t be for a few years. Hopefully I’ll have some periods that seem more normal than others, but in general, this is a journey that is taking so much focus and energy that I don’t always have much left for much else. I just have to trust that when there is something important, God will give me the ability to engage in it, and that otherwise, it’s okay. I am okay – really!
I still find that I’m pretty drawn to medical TV shows, for some reason. Why, I have no idea. Maybe that’s just what I relate to best. In a lot of ways they aren’t that accurate, but some things about them are. Anyways, in the theme song of Scrubs, which I actually don’t really like watching, but have seen a few episodes, the bottom line is “I’m no Superman.” And that’s the truth! Sometimes I expect myself to be a superman, but I’m not. I can only do what God gives me grace for, and sometimes the “normal” things in life that I think I should be able to do I just can’t. It seems that God understands this and has grace for me in it, so I guess I should give myself some grace, too…
