I had such grand plans yesterday! I had told myself that if I had loose ends tied up, I would leave at 5 and then sneak in a quick run before walking in the door.
It was looking good until 4 pm when I received 4 simultaneous consults. Woah! I actually took it fairly well. I initially felt myself panic, but then realized — WAIT! Our nanny is okay to stay. There is no newborn waiting to be nursed. NOTHING will fall apart if I have to stay at work a little later.
And I did, and it was fine. I was a bit stressed because I was a little worried about a patient, but they ended up doing very well, so whew.
Hours worked: 8:40 – 7:15 with an hour in there talking to my sister/parents/eating lunch. So, 9.5 hours. Not even that many hours.
Overnight calls: Just one at 3 am on some labs (I had asked the nurse call if values were outside of certain parameters); I put in an order & went back to sleep. Not too bad!
Grade: B+. Mostly because my coping mechanisms involved sugar/carbs and scrolling rather than exercise + reading. But I’m not on call ALLL that much anymore, so maybe I should just let myself cope in the ways that feel good. Meh.
I am in the hospital now with one more patient to see (this is my break!), and then I am going to head home. I am going to get in a run, too, if I can! We will see.
Once Tuesday morning runs around, I’ll be done with call until April! I can see the light at the end already. Yay.
PS: Josh is in charge of the kids this weekend, though I did hire a babysitter for this AM 8a – 12p. He said he was “looking forward to it.” Which is not exactly how I feel about solo weekends, but hey — more power to him! I will report back on their adventures.
10 Comments
Question about call- are you on call for all the pediatric patients, all the endocrinology patients or just pediatric endocrinology?
Omg definitely just peds Endo! Our practice is 7 drs. That’s plenty :). General peds is very different setup I imagine. And I have no training in adult Endo – that’s an entirely different world.
That’s what I thought but 4 consults at once sounded like a lot.😮 Hope you have a quiet weekend.
Oh the 4 p.m. Friday consult (x4!!!), so painful.
I’m a prosecutor and every 3 – 4 months have a week of call for emergency warrants. I SO FEEL your call posts and am always trying to improve my coping mechanisms as it is an unfortunately miserable part of a job that I love. For years I would answer the middle-of-the-night calls angrily, snap at the police officers on the phone, be SUPER bitchy with my poor husband, and pout all the way to and from the warrant. About a year ago, as an experiment, I decided to try forcing myself to be as fake happy as possible when I get a middle of the night call. I force myself to smile, make a big production with my husband of how thrilled I am to have been woken up in the dead of night and getting dressed to head into work at 3am, and try to be as sugary sweet as I can with the officers and judges. As ridiculous as this sounds, forcing myself to be positive to this silly degree has actually made the experience less miserable (although the dread never goes away). Anyways, just wanted to share that, and I love these posts! Hang in there!!
The four at 4PM consults, on Friday afternoon. Classic. Very painful even if you have childcare lined up. Without I cannot even imagine.
At least they were all actually emergent (3 were in the ED, one was in an outpatient space and getting admitted for an unexpected surgery).
I think you should use the strategy of treats for call, Sarah. And just tell yourself, during call week, you will use Instagram and scroll for many more hours a day, but that is your strategy of treats 🙂
I just wrote on your previous blog post, essentially asking how you managed stress/anxiety. Treats and finding things that work are key.
I’m finding Mondays to be just horrible lately. I work part-time, and my preschooler is home on Monday’s with me. It is tough. After a weekend, I feel like I’m so far behind, but my week can’t truly start until I get to Tuesday. I definitely need to identify some low-impact jobs I can do on Monday to feel productive AND some “treats” to help me cope.
He starts school in the fall, so this will be a big shift (he’s currently home x2 days with me), and I’m excited for the change in pace. Hopefully Monday’s won’t seem quite so hard!
That does sound SO tough! (And the worst part is that there is a stigma to admitting it!). I am sure school will be a great positive change!!