This will tell you what my nights have been like lately:
I woke up in the evening to go in for the next shift, and my shoulders were really sore. I couldn’t figure out why. I’d been trying to study a little more, but surely I hadn’t spent so much time hunched over a book to hurt that badly. I was at the hospital for half an hour before I remembered that I’d been doing chest compressions the night before.
1am in the ER, one of the ER residents asked about a patient we’d admitted at 7pm. I couldn’t even remember who they were talking about.
A MICU resident asked, How did that laparotomy from earlier in the week do? I said, Which one? The 80yr old with diabetes, the 60yr old with cirrhosis, or the 70yr old who’d arrested? Doesn’t matter, they all did badly.
The OR charge nurses recognize my voice, and start protesting as soon as they know it’s me on the phone. . . doesn’t stop the cases from coming.
Time to go to sleep. . .
Cut On The Dotted Line 
November 29, 2009 at 6:07 am
[…] Alice, a surgical resident, who regularly chronicles her ‘quest to become a Christian surgeon’ at Cut on a Dotted Line , tells us how life has been for us recently with night floats. [READ HERE] […]
December 1, 2009 at 6:35 pm
I am excited Advent has started (for our Baptist church, anyways). After a church wide day of prayer on Saturday, we gathered in our individual congregations for our first advent service, which was joyful.
Another thing that’s cool: my brother and his wife are in Egypt right now (in Alexandria) and have completed a ‘teach english as a foreign language’ course. My brother’s practicum is to teach a group of local surgeons who want to improve their english.
December 16, 2009 at 10:53 am
I’ve been suffering from shoulder pain and neck pain as well. So does my wife. We’ve had it off and on for a little more than a year. I was healed of it in June at a prayer meeting, while on vacation. 24 hours after a guy prayed for me – it was completely healed.
But it’s come back. I know what’s going on. They’re both from continually getting into bad body positions; posterior neck pain from reading too much. My shoulder pain is from sleeping on my side, with my arm dangling unsupported. After months of prayer – and no change, I got out my extra large gel-filled cold pack and slept with it under my shoulder 2 nights in a row and took a couple of advil. The pain’s finally gone.
I love your writing style. Few blogs I’ve come across are as well written as this one. I’m adding yours to my list of blogs.
You are a blessing!
Dave
(mobileintensiveprayerunit.blogspot.com)