As Luck Would Have It

Last week this time, I was preparing myself mentally for the onset of another month of wards, but at the last minute, the chief switched my schedule. So instead of doing calls and 80-hr weeks in September, I'm on my easiest month of the year (elective) with a week of mandatory vacation at the end. I was quite upset. You see, it means I will have 3 months of wards back to back, (Oct to Dec). I was also hoping to "save" my week of vacation when I really need it, a.k.a. burnout time. I had thought (and told all family and interested friends) that the worst schedule I have to get through this year is wards medicine 2 months at a time. But now, it's actually three months of calls with nearly no weekends all at once, which sounds soul-wrenching! The feeling I had was like being handed an unfair prison sentence.

They say every cloud has a silver lining. . .and in this case, it's actually true, just have to look at the bright side. Here are my silver linings:

1. I had my one holiday of the year off, Labor Day! And I enjoyed it thoroughly, although I didn't step out of my door and mostly cleaned.

2. Also, my car broke down so I was able to take a day off from my ultral-light schedule and get it serviced. I just imagine if I was on wards and discovered my car was not working one early morning, I think I would just break down myself and cry. Car problems should not happen to people with stressful jobs! (That would be a law if I ever become Queen of the Land). As luck would have it, I was able to spend a leisure day at Starbucks sipping a pumpking spice frappacino while my car was being fixed next door. BTW, the PS frap was good, nothing like it to welcome fall!

3. "Linda, I think you dodged a bullet on this one." This was the response I got from an intern after I told her I wasn't on wards with a certain resident in September. Apparently, this said resident is very difficult to work with. After hearing a few horror stories from this poor intern who had to work with this resident, I was completely convinced that I, indeed, got very lucky. Your upper level (aka resident), at best, is a good boss, and at worst, a slave-driver.

4. Lastly, I was able to hang out with Malini at a rather posh shopping area in Plano on this free weekend of mine. We walked around the boutique shops, chatted our way through aisles of hand-made jewlry and overpriced but unique T-shirts and then headed to Stonebriar Mall to actually purchase stuff from Macy's big Labor Day Sale. It was so good to catch up with Malini. Even though we see each other at the hospital almost everyday, we hardly get to talk. It's always running to this and that, body and mind running to several different directions all at once. We are bonded by a common experience, something that I just don't share with anyone else in my life. It's an exciting and trying time, intern year is. She totally gets me when I tell her about a particularly difficult attending I had. I can't sympathize more when she shares the story of how the night before her last call of the month, she sat down with her mom to have a good talk. "It was like preparing for war, I had to get some strength and encouragment from my mom."

So, all that is to say I'm very grateful at this turn of event even though it means I will suffer a little deeper later on. Happy Fall!