I called Jon Golden [one of the chief residents] and told him what was going on. I told him I was on call and that I probably wouldn’t be able to make it in. Calling in sick on the day you’re on call is the biggest sin an intern can commit. But what could I do? I couldn’t even walk! Jon told me not to worry, just to try to get well and make it back tomorrow.
I got into bed and fell asleep, but Elizabeth woke me up at about ten. She’s on the Jonas Bronck wards this month. She’d heard I was sick and wanted to know if I was making it up just to cash in on some sympathy. I guess when she heard my voice, she realized I was serious. She asked if there was anything I needed; I asked for cyanide. She said she’d see what she could do. She asked if I thought I was dehydrated and I said I was easily about 10 percent dry. [The main complication of gastroenteritis is dehydration. Five percent dehydration is enough to require hospitalization; 10 percent is serious, and 15 percent may lead to shock.] She said I should come in and let her start an IV. I told her I hated pain, and knowing her technical skills, I would never allow her anywhere near me with a needle in her hand. She thanked me for the vote of confidence and said I must be feeling better to be making jokes. I said, “Who’s making jokes?”
I am actually feeling better tonight, but I still fall down every time I try to get out of bed, and I don’t think that’s normal. I feel guilty about not going to work. I know the other people on call tonight are probably working their butts off and cursing me every chance they get. But what can I do?
This is such a screwed-up job. In what other profession would you actually feel guilty calling in sick when you really are sick? Lawyers get sick and take a week off, schoolteachers take days off like it’s coming to them, which it is. It’s only us interns and residents who feel guilty about it.
Sunday, November 17, 1985
I’m feeling 100 percent better. Well, maybe not 100 percent, maybe only 80 percent, but I’m feeling well enough today to go into the city with Carole to see a movie. I don’t know what we’re going to see yet, and it doesn’t really matter. The only thing I care about is that the theater has seats comfortable enough for me to fall asleep in. Of course, after last night, a chair with spikes coming out of it would be comfortable enough for me to fall asleep in.
I won’t say last night was bad but at about two o’clock there were still about ten charts in the box, and Peter Carson and I were seeing patients in the asthma room. Peter’s kid was a really cute three-year-old girl. She was sitting there alone because her mother was out registering her and she was scared. But very shyly, she asked Peter if he was a doctor. “Yup,” Peter said.
“And you don’t ever go to sleep?” the girl asked.
“Nope,” Peter answered.
“Never?” the kid asked, amazed.
“Never,” Peter answered. And he meant it. Then we both ran out of the asthma room and cracked up. It seemed really true last night. I’ve got to get out of this ER!
Thursday, November 21, 1985
Did I say something the other day about having to get out of the ER? Well, the chief residents must have overheard me, because on Tuesday afternoon they called me into their office and told me that I wouldn’t have to work in the ER Tuesday night. That would have been wonderful, except for the fact that they also told me that I had been selected, out of the entire intern group, to have the distinction of being the first person ever to take call in the new neonatal intensive-care unit that had opened that morning on 7 South. What a thrill that was! It sure is something I’ll never forget as long as I live! And you know what? After one night on 7 South, I’m ready to spend the rest of the year in the ER.
What happened was, Val Saunders was supposed to be on that night, but she called in sick. Everybody said she wasn’t really sick, she just didn’t want to be on call the first night in the new unit, which was really very sweet of her if it was in fact true. Somebody had to work there, and since I was supposed to be on in the ER and there were four other people down there that night, the chiefs figured I was “it.”
So there I was, sitting in the nurses’ station on 7 South, waiting for some disaster to happen. I’d never even been in a NICU before, and here I was, taking care of twenty-eight tiny babies. Just looking at them scared me to death! And nobody knew how anything worked! They hadn’t even figured out how to turn the heat on yet! They couldn’t find the outlets to plug in the damn ventilators! And sometime during the move, somebody had misplaced the coffee pot, so we couldn’t even make coffee! And I was supposed to cover all those babies! It’s the kind of situation that’d make for an outstanding horror movie!