Life is pretty busy at the moment – I’m doing anaesthetics this week so working for as long as there’s operations going on, essentially, and trying to sort my job application at the same time. Anaesthetics isn’t for me – I’d rather be the surgeon doing the cutting than the anaesthetist enabling them to operate – but it is interesting. I intubated my first patient this week, and am enjoying getting to learn more and more practical skills – I feel like I’m finally really learning the ‘tools of the trade’. And I’m not going to lie – helping them put a tracheostomy tube in was pretty AWESOME. I’ve written before that I love medicine, but it’s things like this that really make me rejoice and thank God for guiding clever clogs through the centuries – we can keep someone alive. We can breathe for someone. When you need it, someone will literally breathe for you. That’s pretty amazing.
Counselling on Monday was pretty rough; she’d not had time to read back through everything so I didn’t get feedback, despite being a complete bag of nerves all week over it. So, I have another week to wait. Part of it is that although she’s pretty much duty-bound to do the whole unconditional positive approach or whatever, I don’t really believe it. I’m still, even now, as ever, set to this stance of incredible negativity, which only gets worse when I’m a bit emotional as I am at the moment. I’m half expecting her to tell me I’m a hopeless case and that I’ll never achieve that all elusive balance. I’m half expecting her to tell me I’m wasting everyone’s time and just need to get over myself.
I’m so tired at the moment, which is not that surprising as I’m doing long hospital days, followed by a few hours of studying, and then repeating ad infinitum, but I am just feeling so very drained. It’s tough with F and her pathway through possible depression at the moment, particularly as I’m the only student on my block and literally go all day without seeing any peers, and then come home to a fairly grim flat. I’m feeling a bit shut off at the moment. I’ve just got too much in my head at the moment. Between my job application (due in a week on Friday) and everything else, I’m just feeling stretched. I’m also feeling a lot more anxious than usual which is starting to worry me (ironically) – whether it’s just that I’ve had some pretty harsh clinical tutors recently who have really dinted my confidence is hard to say, but I’m not enjoying the whole racing heart, light-headed thing. I need to be working at the top of my game. Strangely, I’m very good in actual high stress situations – I can get cannulas in quickly and helped resuscitate someone today – it’s just there in the background, more of a confidence in the small things problem, as when I actually really need to step up, I can. I’m putting it down to a stressful few weeks, and am hoping that once my application is done, I’ll breathe easy again.
One thing I’ve thought about this last week is that my prayer journal has changed in the last while, for the better. Every Sunday, I write at the top of my notes things that I’ve done that week, and things I need to pray for in the coming week. For most of last year, there were big lists of bad things that were happening, and long lists of stuff I was worried or scared of, and not very many positives. Now, although I still worry about counselling and don’t enjoy the meetings at the med school I have to go to, finally the list is becoming more positive, more reflective of who I am. This week, a student going to Londond for next year asked if he could start a branch of my visiting programme down there, which is fantastic, and tonight is the AGM for the neurology interest group I chair, which has done a good job this last year. I’m advertising the medical school mentoring scheme, which is my new pet project, tomorrow to the second years, and have a wedding to go to on Saturday; all good things that remind me that although I lost a great deal last year, I am slowly regaining it back and am still the person I always was. It’s good to feel that the balance is finally tipping back to normal, even though I know I still have a few miles to go. These things keep me going. They keep me breathing.
I’ve written before that I struggle with keeping my ‘busy-ness at bay’ – but sometimes, I am so grateful for it, as it reminds me that I make a difference and make a change to how things are around me. I need that anchoring at times. It helps me focus on what I’m doing and why. When I spend a Sunday visiting one of my old folks in hospital, part of the joy is that I know their family is feeling that bit easier as they aren’t spending another day alone. They breathe easier. Similarly, my mentoring scheme will help younger students who are battling with academics and their own issues – it will help them breathe easier. This is all what I want to do – as a medic, I want to, obviously, ventilate with the best of them and get people through crippling illnesses. But as a Christian, my goal is more simple. I want to lighten loads and lend a hand and find solutions. I want the world to breathe a little easier. I want things to hurt a little less.
We all need help to breathe, sometimes.