'It hurts' / 'It won't always'.
The last couple of days have been hard in work. I would say they've been killers but given the specifics of my job that might not be the best adjective possible.
Tuesday I did the overrun, and boy was that day ever a long one. The killing point of the whole day was the fact that it was my first EVER overrun and as a result we sent for our last patient at 5pm when most of the day-staff were getting ready to clock off and go home.
Let me tell you, there's nothing worse in work than preparing to give it 110% in your theatre when all the others are closing down and people chatting about their plans for the evening. Especially given how good the weather has been over the past few days.
It was a robotic case and honestly I enjoyed it given the fact that we were the only theatre working at the time and the surgeons and nurses were pretty relaxed doing a case we all had experience in. So we were able to anticipate the moves of each other easily and as a result many of us hummed, sang (badly) or chatted about dodgy porno films from the eighties (don't ask) during the time. The only hiccup was when one of the robotic arms failed. Then tempers got a bit frayed but we closed, patient survived, then end.
I even got a slice of banana cake too!
But when I finally walked out the door at 9pm, after doing what amounted to a 14 hour shift I realised how tired I was. and though I enjoyed the evening with my friends I know I can't do such hours on a regular basis.
Then I got home and discover a fly infestation caused by my food bin being overloaded and putrefying. And after declaring genocide on the fly population I somehow managed to trap my thumb in the door of my fridge and almost sever it.
I wasn't happy that evening.
Wednesday was a half day but I don't remember any of it.
And the last two days have been kinda upsetting as management have taken me away from my friends in urology and started using me as a dogsbody to pick up slack and fill holes in other lists for those who are absent, or sick or not working.
I don't mind these cases but currently with my required pre-op abstinence of HRT and the overloaded day on tuesday I was feeling mentally and emotionally exhausted on Thursday and putting me in a vascular list with a very scary vascular surgeon wasn't fair.
I got moved which was great and my friends showed real solidarity at the time but instead I had to do a general lap case from 1pm-5.30pm and the depressing thing was the surgeon wasn't any closer to making progress at half three and he was at half five.
And my back and neck were hurting so I was taking codeine thursday night just trying to sleep.
Friday I was in ENT theatres, with people who've had their personalities removed. And moan. A lot. And don't move with any particular speed, and force me to spend a lot of the first 5 hours of my shift sucking eggs.
'Yes, I know how to connect a light-lead, we use them all the time in uro'.
I would say something but I didn't want to come across as a know-it-all and also my HRT was so depleted and my brain so knackered that I really didn't care about anything at that point. SO i turned my personality down to zero and went through the motions like an automaton.
I wasn't with my friends, or surgeons I knew, and I didn't trust those I was working with so what was the point in caring above and beyond the required level?
In the afternoon I was in with the surgeon who's scared me too much. He was ok but he still comes from North America where surgeons expect their scrub staff to be fuckin telepathic!
in the end I just did what i was told.
Then I left at 5pm.
Operation monday in London. So i guess I could be off for a while. Here's hoping it's not too long. i'll blog a bit more later.
Good day for Bristol Pride though, lashing with rain, luv it!
Tuesday I did the overrun, and boy was that day ever a long one. The killing point of the whole day was the fact that it was my first EVER overrun and as a result we sent for our last patient at 5pm when most of the day-staff were getting ready to clock off and go home.
Let me tell you, there's nothing worse in work than preparing to give it 110% in your theatre when all the others are closing down and people chatting about their plans for the evening. Especially given how good the weather has been over the past few days.
It was a robotic case and honestly I enjoyed it given the fact that we were the only theatre working at the time and the surgeons and nurses were pretty relaxed doing a case we all had experience in. So we were able to anticipate the moves of each other easily and as a result many of us hummed, sang (badly) or chatted about dodgy porno films from the eighties (don't ask) during the time. The only hiccup was when one of the robotic arms failed. Then tempers got a bit frayed but we closed, patient survived, then end.
I even got a slice of banana cake too!
But when I finally walked out the door at 9pm, after doing what amounted to a 14 hour shift I realised how tired I was. and though I enjoyed the evening with my friends I know I can't do such hours on a regular basis.
Then I got home and discover a fly infestation caused by my food bin being overloaded and putrefying. And after declaring genocide on the fly population I somehow managed to trap my thumb in the door of my fridge and almost sever it.
I wasn't happy that evening.
Wednesday was a half day but I don't remember any of it.
And the last two days have been kinda upsetting as management have taken me away from my friends in urology and started using me as a dogsbody to pick up slack and fill holes in other lists for those who are absent, or sick or not working.
I don't mind these cases but currently with my required pre-op abstinence of HRT and the overloaded day on tuesday I was feeling mentally and emotionally exhausted on Thursday and putting me in a vascular list with a very scary vascular surgeon wasn't fair.
I got moved which was great and my friends showed real solidarity at the time but instead I had to do a general lap case from 1pm-5.30pm and the depressing thing was the surgeon wasn't any closer to making progress at half three and he was at half five.
And my back and neck were hurting so I was taking codeine thursday night just trying to sleep.
Friday I was in ENT theatres, with people who've had their personalities removed. And moan. A lot. And don't move with any particular speed, and force me to spend a lot of the first 5 hours of my shift sucking eggs.
'Yes, I know how to connect a light-lead, we use them all the time in uro'.
I would say something but I didn't want to come across as a know-it-all and also my HRT was so depleted and my brain so knackered that I really didn't care about anything at that point. SO i turned my personality down to zero and went through the motions like an automaton.
I wasn't with my friends, or surgeons I knew, and I didn't trust those I was working with so what was the point in caring above and beyond the required level?
In the afternoon I was in with the surgeon who's scared me too much. He was ok but he still comes from North America where surgeons expect their scrub staff to be fuckin telepathic!
in the end I just did what i was told.
Then I left at 5pm.
Operation monday in London. So i guess I could be off for a while. Here's hoping it's not too long. i'll blog a bit more later.
Good day for Bristol Pride though, lashing with rain, luv it!