The Intern Blues(141)
Anyway, on the way to the camp, we passed Peter Anderson’s house, the place where we had orientation almost one year ago. Boy, that’s amazing! It’s hard to believe that orientation happened a year ago. It seems more like something out of a different century. There were the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and orientation at Peter Anderson’s house, not necessarily in that order. Well, what difference does it make? In another couple of weeks a whole new group of interns will be deposited on Peter Anderson’s doorstep, sweating bullets. I bet they’re all sweating bullets right now. I remember last year at this time, I was scared to death. By the way, if you haven’t guessed by now, sweating bullets was the completely correct reaction. I wouldn’t trade places with those guys for all the money in the world!
I left the picnic at about three-thirty because I had to get Elizabeth back to the hospital. She’s on call tonight. Elizabeth wasn’t exactly in the best mood today. It’s kind of hard to enjoy yourself when you know that in a couple of hours you’re going to be face to face with your worst nightmare.
I’m going to watch some TV now. Yes, it’s been the kind of day normal people have, and I’m going to end it the way normal people end their day. I’m going to watch The Tonight Show!
Twenty-three days to go. But who’s counting?
Sunday, June 8, 1986
Carole and I are getting along really well. It’s kind of frightening. Either I’m over my internship depression, or she’s slipped into a serious state of depravity. Anyway, it looks like our relationship has weathered the year. I’m glad it did, I guess. I like Carole a lot.
I just got off the phone with Elizabeth. She’s on call tonight. She said her foot is feeling better, but it’s still not great. I don’t know if I mentioned what happened to Elizabeth last week. She was on on Friday night and there was a code about 3:00 A.M. She told me she was in another part of the unit, trying to teach one of the cardiac kids how to breathe like a human, when the alarm went off in the preemie room. She went running in there but tripped on an electrical wire on the way and flew about ten feet into the air. This is a new Olympic event, the Preemie Resuscitation Slalom Course. She must have made a perfect landing, because she said the judges gave her scores of 9.5 and above, but she came down on her ankle, which got all twisted up. A couple of hours later, after she had made sure the preemie who had coded would live to face another sunrise, she was drawing the morning blood and noticed her ankle was hurting. I got there about that point and we rolled down her sock and both noted that her ankle had become the size and color of a ripe eggplant. At about that moment she said she was feeling a little queasy. I noted that her face had turned a sickly shade of green. That was right before she passed out.
“Yes, I’ll tell you, they just don’t make these interns like they used to! At the first sign of adversity, they all find it necessary to fall over. They’re just not as durable as they used to be in the Days of the Giants!”
Anyway, we got her a wheelchair and I took her down to X ray. There weren’t any fractures. Laura Kenyon got hold of an orthopedic surgeon who examined her, said it was just a flesh wound, and wrapped her ankle in an enormous Jones dressing [a bulky dressing made of three layers of Ace bandages]. She was up and caring for the clients in less than two hours. What a trooper!
I’m finding it very difficult to concentrate on my patients. They’ve all become a blur to me at this point. I get one preemie mixed up with another; all the cardiacs seem the same; I just can’t keep them straight anymore. I think I’ve got spring fever. I’m going to stop now.
Saturday, June 14, 1986
It hasn’t been such a bad week. There are these bugs [bacteria] flying around the NICU that seem to be resistant to every antibiotic known to man. I don’t know how they got into the unit, but I’m glad they did, because it means we’re contaminated and closed to all admissions.
If I had known closing the unit would have been that easy, I would have brought the bugs in myself. I must have some type of bacteria resistant to every antibiotic known to man living in my apartment. I seem to have everything else living here. I can see a great future in the bacteria-resistant-to-every-antibiotic-known-to-man mail-order business. Interns all over the world would beat down my doors trying to get enough bacteria to close down their particular ICU. What a great concept!
Anyway, the infection hasn’t done my old patients any harm. Of course, these kids are so sick, it’s kind of hard to tell whether something does them harm or not. But it has caused us to have a nice, leisurely week.