Pants

Did you ever have a day so strange, so bizarre, and so *bad* you couldn’t decide if it was real or just a very bad dream? Well, read on.

One day last week I woke up, got dressed and went to the gym. After a few exercises, I looked down and realized that my *shirt* was on backwards. A while later, I was looking at my socks and realized that, while they were both white, they didn’t exactly *match*.

It was at this point I checked to make sure I was wearing pants…

I head home. It’s about 6:50am and I head to the back door to put some laundry on the line. It’s rather early, so Cane (the landlord’s dog) is still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes when he comes to great me. I wasn’t paying attention either, so when I opened the door I accidentally smacked the poor pooch square in the nose. He stumbles back a few steps, sits down with a plop and has a look on his face like, ‘What the heck did you do *that* for?’

After a shower and a shave with minimal blood loss, I head off to the hospital. About halfway there it dawns on me how hungry I am, and I wonder how I can be so hungry after eating breakfast. Then it occurs to me:

My brekkie is still sitting in the fridge at home.

I grab a few bacon-n-egg sandwiches from the cafeteria and head for the computer to print out my patient list for the day. After about 2 bites, a nurse comes out to me and tells me one of my patients is having a seizure, and could I please come. I look around the ward – twice – and I realize I am the closest thing to a doctor on the ward at 7:50am. While I can’t repeat in front of my mother the four-letter word that ran through my head (begins with an ‘F’), my first action was to do what any final year medical student would do in such a situation.

I grabbed my stethoscope.

Because, you know, it’s always good to have a stethoscope. (No one ever said I was the sharpest tool in the shed.) I go with the nurse and look at the patient. Yep. She’s having a seizure. (Remember that four-letter word I can’t say in front of my mother. Rest assured, it was going through my head on a continuous loop about now. But I digress.) So I head back out onto the ward and look around. I am *still* the closest thing to a doctor. (That continuous loop is getting faster and louder.) But I have been taught well, so I did the most intelligent thing one can do when faced with such a situation.

I found the head nurse and asked for help.

She and I were heading to the patient when one of the junior docs showed up. I have never been so happy to hand-over care to someone more senior in my life. The doc knew what to do – which was to call the emergency medical team. To be fair to *me* that was what I wanted to do – but to make that call as a student…

A little later, after the patient was transferred to ICU (Again with the ICU!), I realized the patient’s husband was still sitting in the TV room. No one had told him where his wife was. I look around again.

I am the closest thing to a doctor on the ward.

So I grabbed Ray, told him what we had done and why, and escorted him to ICU. I made it back to the ward in time for a department meeting. Remember that brekkie sandwich? I finally got to finish it about 9:30am….

But it gets worse.

The Renal Team (Yes, were called the ‘Renal Team’. I’m still waiting for my jersey…) heads downstairs in the elevator to the ICU to check on our patient. The attending doctor – who is also the head of the department – asks a question to which I not only have the answer, but I am able to express it with style and eloquence. I feel my stock going up with him, which is good, as I want him to write a recommendation letter expounding my virtues. The elevator doors open up, we walk out and turn right and I proceed to *trip* over the trash can sitting there.

It was at this point I checked to make sure I was wearing pants…

And with that, it’s the weekend. After a day like that (which I’d like to add is entirely true) I’ll spend some time this weekend with friends – lunch with some, saying goodbye to others. Not to mention making sure I’m wearing pants…

As always, Love to All and keep working on your 101 List!
Bryan