I am having a HORRIBLE DAY today. i have had people either dying, screaming at me, threatening me, hitting me (not hard, but still, they did), crying at me, lying to me, falsifying their narcotic prescriptions in order to get more, asking me stupid stupid questions that i have already answered three times and written the answer to in the chart where they are supposed to look for it first before asking me three times when i'm trying to do five other things, or refusing to consult on a desperately ill patient that i need help with and don't have a clue what to do with, all day long. i have myself cried four times today, once in semi-public after saying "FUCK" very loudly and inappropriately in front of one of the nurses after having had a massive argument with a san francisco neurogastroenterologist. i think even i even threw a pen on the floor out of sheer frustration, and i don't think i've thrown anything out of temper since i was about three.
ohhhmmmmm. OK, we are going to count blessings now:
1. all my major organs are more or less intact and in working order. all four limbs correctly attached.
2. i have family and friends who love me, except for tabitha, who is cross with me for picking more of her raspberries than she thinks I should have. we don't need to go into that. she rang me to tell me she was cross me with for picking too many of her raspberries right after i had the screaming argument with the SF neurogastroenterologist.
3. i don't have to take tara's ER shift on sunday after all, so i will get a much needed day semi-off this weekend (still on OB call, but it's better than OB call plus ER shift)
4. a little girl drew me a beautiful picture of me wearing very puffy sleeves with a purple dog that said "Dear Dr. Jessica thank you for making my mummy better", and another patient brought in a perfectly formed jello flower that she had made for me in gratitude for my having pinched her a plastic syringe out of the supply closet. you inject clear jello w. opaque coloured jello to make what look like jello paperweights. they're sort of weird, but very beautiful and convincing. she had taken a jello-flower making class while visiting her family in mexico, and didn't think to bring a supply of syringes back with her (available at any pharmacy in mexico, but i guess you need a dirty needle to exchange in order to get clean syringes as a lay person in the US, which being a very sweet 70-something non-IV-drug-user she didn't have). shocking, I know, that i would steal supplies from a poverty stricken community health center, but the price of a plastic syringe seemed like a small price to pay to keep an old lady happy, and the health care system wastes money on much stupider things. .
5. I am now at home, and eating thai ramen noodles with tomato chopped up in it.
6. I'm only on OB call tonight, not medicine, so my chance of having a 12 hour stretch without any crazy/screaming/dying/hitting/lying people is relatively high. the medicine service can't hurt me until tomorrow morning, when i'm (whee!) back in the hospital again.
I think this is called compassion fatigue.
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