5:20 AM: Alarm goes off. Why did I choose medicine?
5:30: Alarm goes off again.
5:32: Alarm goes off again.
5:36: You win, iPhone.
5:44: Coffee brews. I get a tingle of excitement as I smell the grounds. I consider the line between appreciation and addiction. It’s blurry.
5:54: Pick out whatever shirt is least wrinkled in my closet. Apply to body.
6:05: Breakfast, like consistent flossing, is neglected.
6:35: Arrive at hospital parking structure. Contemplate the relative difficulty of diagnosing moyamoya and finding a parking spot. Oddly similar.
6:45: On my way to get check-out. How are my people doing?
6:47: Jesus Christ.
6:48: Jones’s BP tanked and is now in the ICU. Johnson is having a hard time breathing, and is on BIPAP now. Smith is having really bad diarrhea.
7:05: Checking labs. A little yellow flag pops up when a value is abnormal. There are flags everywhere. I am the leader of the flags. The flag charmer. I can almost hear them flapping their grim tidings at me. What an odd way to signal danger. Why isn’t it a skull? Or an unhappy face? What did flags ever do to deserve this?
7:45: Pre-rounding. Turns out Smith is having really bad diarrhea. He showed me. Yup, it’s diarrhea. Confirmed.
8:30: Morning Report. Med students for miles, all lined up in front of the coffee machine. There’s only so much coffee to go around. I’ve literally never seen so many med students in one place before. They’re phoning in med students from all over the country to get to this coffee.
8:32: Phew. The last med student got coffee. None left for anyone else. That was a close one, for a second there I thought that a med student might not get coffee.
9:30: Rounds begin.
9:50: Smith really does have bad diarrhea. By now almost every hospital employee knows about it, due to 1) the smell, and 2) Mr. Smith’s incredible storytelling abilities. The man may have been an editor in a former life. I feel like I know his diarrhea personally by this point. I agree to have dinner with his diarrhea next Wednesday.
12:15 PM: Noon conference. A much needed respite. I imagine what it must have felt like to wander the desert and see an oasis in the distance. Must have felt really, really good. I bask in the –
12:16: Beeper goes off.
12:18: It’s a new admission. I call back. No answer. I page back.
12:20: I get a page back. Call again.
12:21: Nothing.
12:22: Sisyphus didn’t have it so bad, right? At least he got consistent exercise.
12:23: Why do we still use beepers?
1:00-5:00: Call consults, place orders, round some more. During a lull in the afternoon, I talk with Smith’s diarrhea at length. We discuss his rough childhood, his difficult relationship with his mother, and his ultimate life goal of owning a vineyard in California.
6:00: Sign out to the night float, short and sweet.
6:16: Did I park on level 3 or 4?
6:17: Let’s try 3.
6:19: I hit ‘unlock’ on my car keys, and strain to hear the horn. Nothing.
6:18: Walk 10 paces north. Repeat. Silence.
6:20: Let’s try 4.
6:21: Hark! The clarion call. Faint, but perceptible.
6:22: I’m like an ultrasound, using the triangulating power of sound to find my position. Back and forth, back and forth. Seeing three dimensions in two. I’m closing in.
6:29: WHERE THE HELL IS IT?!?!
6:31: It’s not on 4. I feel my sanity slipping.
6:35: It was on 5.
7:02: Home at last.
9:25: I call Smith’s diarrhea to wish it a good night.
10:00: Bedtime. Relief. Release.