Overwhelmed

I cried in front of my attending today. Not my favorite moment of residency. She asked how the week went and I just told her the truth - that I feel like no matter how hard I scramble I can't figure these patients out, mostly because I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. Ugh.

Omg

I am psychotic with fatigue. And this is only 3 admissions...

At one point tonight, while I furiously scribbled a note in a patient's chart, I thought to myself, 'at least I haven't been paged in a few minutes.' Nope, turns out I had left the pager on another floor. Fml.

Quiet Sunday

I'm writing this from my lactation suite. And by that I mean the bathroom in the back of the family medicine team room. Luxury.

I hesitate to even say this, but it is a quiet day on the service. We only have five patients, and nothing too crazy is going on with them. I feel like I've hit my stride a little bit. I even had time to write out a discharge summary, and I think it went ok.

I think it's all going to be ok.

New Plan

Residency and parenthood are starting to be a blur. So my new plan is to write something here every day. It won't be long; I only have about 2 brain cells and 4 minutes at the end of the day. But I want to have some record of this year, because it it quite a year.

Today was my day off, which was glorious but not long enough. We had breakfast with Rosemary, then puttered around the house, then went to the mall. I had an appointment at the eye doctor to get contacts and then got a haircut.

Bear is a great baby. He is very smiley with me and even more so with Benjamin. He can sit up with support and moves his hands purposefully enough to play with toys. For our mall trip he wore his argyle sweater outfit, which I remember buying with Rosalind when I was pregnant. The time has gone by so fast.

Unfortunately, Bear has a serious rash- I'm pretty sure it is seborrheic dermatitis. Anyway, I've been fretting about it for the past few days, and the conclusion I have reached is that I'm glad Bear has a doctor who isn't me. If one if my patients came in with this, I know what I would do to treat it, but somehow with my own child, I feel crippled with uncertainty.

My one day weekend was not nearly long enough, but it seemed even shorter because I started worrying about work tomorrow almost as soon as I got up. I've got to work on living more in the moment.

I'm alive

I swear I am alive. I have this post about "having it all" that I've been meaning to write. But it turns out that I'm too exhausted from having it all to write it.

It's our anniversary today. This time last year, it was snowing. This year, hurricane. In any weather, I am so ridiculously glad to be married to my favorite person, Benjamin.

My Brief Experiment with Elimination Communication

The other day at a baby-wearing workshop, Benjamin and I met a woman who practices elimination communication (EC) with her 12 month old. God, we are such hippies. Seriously.

Anyway, we were intrigued, having never met someone who does this in real life. For the uninitiated, Benjamin explains the concept in his vlog:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY6FbqITL6k&sns=em

So we've been thinking about this concept and today I thought I would give it a whirl.

1pm: Watch 4 YouTube videos on EC while nursing my 5 week old. Am now an expert.

1:30: Bath time. Also known as water torture.

1:45: Wrap diaperless baby in towel and nurse him to aid in psychological recovery from water torture.

2:20: Still nursing. Hasn't peed on me yet.

2:25: Baby makes soft grunting sound, wiggles left leg slightly. Could this be an elimination signal?

2:26: Dash upstairs with naked baby, drop towel on bathroom floor, nearly drop baby in the toilet. Hover-squat over toilet seat, holding baby aloft over the bowl. Don't have enough hands, baby's head flopping side to side.

2:27: Baby is not peeing. Whisper pssssst at him as instructed per video.

2:27: Still no peeing. Begin to feel foolish.

2:28: Thighs cramping. Have clearly fallen for elaborate attachment parenting practical joke.

2:30: Admit defeat. Struggle to stand. Limp to changing table, apply diaper to baby.

2:31: Diaper completely soaked.

Show the Way

I don't know the lyrics to many songs. Usually, this doesn't really matter because I can't sing. Or as I like to say, I can't carry a tune in a bucket with help. But something about a crying baby in the middle of the night seems to require singing, if only as a last ditch attempt to keep from screaming myself.

Have you noticed how ... problematic the lyrics to lullabies are? Themes of rampant consumerism (papa's buying you what?) and traumatic arboreal cradle accidents don't seem very restful to me. Plus I only know 2 lines of each of those songs anyway.

So anyway, there is one good, appropriate song that I know all the words to. And that song is "Show the Way" by David Wilcox. You probably haven't heard of it, because David Wilcox is not exactly top 40 material. He's more like Methodist church basement concert circuit material. He's a middle-aged guy with a guitar and his lyrics typically use a Metaphor to talk about some Big Idea.

Usually, my cynical brain would dismiss this construction as simplistic and these Big Ideas as quaint, which they are. But the other part of my brain is trusting and optimistic; and this song is that brain's anthem.

Here's David Wilcox singing it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aQR1FUANVc&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Lyrics:

You say you see no hope,
you say you see no reason
We should dream
that the world would ever change
You're saying love is foolish to believe
'Cause there'll always be some crazy with an Army or a Knife
To wake you from your day dream,
put the fear back in your life...

Look, if someone wrote a play
just to glorify
what's stronger than hate,
would they not arrange the stage
to look as if the hero came too late he's almost in defeat
It's looking like the evil side will win,
so on the edge of every seat,
from the moment that the whole thing begins
It is...

Chorus:
Love who makes the mortar
And it's love who stacked these stones
And it's love who made the stage here
Although it looks like we're alone
In this scene set in shadows
Like the night is here to stay
There is evil cast around us
But it's love that wrote the play...
For in this darkness love can show the way

So now the stage is set.
Feel you own heart beating
in your chest.
This life's not over yet.
so we get up on our feet
and do our best.
We play against the fear.
We play against the reasons not to try
We're playing for the tears
burning in the happy angel's eyes

One time I sang this song for a group of my college friends, temporarily ignoring the fact that I have all the melodic talent of a cucumber. They all smiled and nodded politely, (and most if them refrained from covering their ears) but none of them seemed to really GET it. Guys, guys - the metaphor is about a play! Isn't that amazing?

I was a drama major, I was very excitable.

I don't think I have inflicted my performance of this song on any other adults since then, having gotten even more self conscious about my tone-deafness over time.

But babies are a captive audience, and at some time or another I have sung this song to every child I nannied. Partially because I know the words, but also because it has been my hope for all these children that they believe that love wrote the play.

And now, singing to my own child, I am filled with this hope for him; that he grows up to believe that the universe is a fundamentally good place and that the goodness and worthiness of people outweighs the instances in which those people are assholes and that standing up against fear is a worthwhile way to spend one's life.

And I also hope that he learns better sentence construction than I have.