I haven't blogged for a while because I have been so busy. And stressed. And tired. But today, Benji woke up at 2am crying. It was seriously sad! I went into his room and cuddled him and sang to him for a little while, but when I tried to lay him back down, he started crying again. This went on for about a half-hour, and finally Benji made a break for the living room and turned on the t.v. There's not a lot of good children's programming on in the middle of the night (oh, how I wish we had Sprout!!), so we watched Nemo, Elmo's Christmas Countdown, and somewhere in the middle of Kung-Fu Panda, Benji put himself back to bed. I called in to work, because I would have been so useless. I haven't done much besides some laundry, some dishes, and a lot of downloading (my digiscrap arsenal has grown exponentially today!). But it has been nice to spend some down-time with my little man.
I feel like I am spending less time with him these days. By choice. In essence, I have chosen work over family, even though I chose to make this transition
for my family. I think the schedule and predictability is better for everyone, but it is really hard for me. I miss my Benji. As unproductive as our mornings were before I went to work at 11am, I had some quality Benji time. Now, I get home, we eat, do a little cleaning (sometimes), watch a little t.v., and go to bed. I have been so exhausted when I come home that I am usually asleep before 9pm.
I do like my new job, but there are things I miss about the old. Here's a list of things I miss and don't miss:
miss: Sleeping in; not having to drag my baby out of bed in the mornings.
** why it's good for me: I have never really been a morning person, but I had become a little too much of a night-owl. So getting up early and getting to bed early are good things . . . I suppose.
miss: Days off. I basically traded an entire day off to reclaim my evenings. I haven't done much with them yet, so I can't say if it is worth it yet or not.
don't miss: Getting off at 11pm (and usually later).
don't miss: All the on-call shifts. I took a lot of them, and we were used frequently. I won't have to take
any call for a couple of months, and even then, their call-utilization is not nearly as high as that of IMC.
miss: Confidence. I could go into most of my assigned procedures and have an idea of what I was doing, what the surgeon would want, which instruments and sets I would need. That's pretty much gone. Once I'm 'set-up,' I'm usually okay, but the procedures at Primary's are very different.
miss: Case-Cart set-up. I guess I was spoiled at LD and IMC; the case carts were usually pretty complete, and although there were a lot of mistakes, I had been there long enough to know what I needed. The case carts at PCMC are rarely complete--the techs are expected to arrive 20-30 minutes early to check them over and get the rest of the supplies from the cores. So, since 7 a.m. wasn't early enough, I'm now trying to be there by 6:35-6:40 a.m. It's not easy. Yesterday I left my badge at home, so after I dropped off Benji at the babysitter's house, I came back home to get it. Man--there is a big difference in parking when you get there at 6:35 versus 6:55. Insanity.
don't miss: the sprawling parking lots and having to hike into work. Covered parking is a very nice thing, and since I arrive at the butt-crack of dawn, I don't have to fight too hard to find a spot.
miss: lunch breaks. I enjoyed giving (and getting) lunch breaks on my 12-hour shifts. I'd usually get two decent sized breaks. Not anymore. I get one lunch break. If my room finishes early, then I might get to sit for a few minutes, but otherwise I'm pretty much on my feet all day. It's not nearly as fun as it sounds.
miss: Diet Coke. Oh, man. There is a vending machine with my DC in the lounge, and I have succumbed a few times, but no more free refills. They don't have a cookie drawer either. Oreos and a Diet Coke were my lifeline!
***why it's good for me: I'm drinking a lot more Crystal Light. At least there's an ice machine! I have cut down exponentially on the amount of soda I'm consuming, but I have yet to see any benefits thereof.
mixed: Cafeteria. I miss the salads and pizza and stir fry at IMC. The prices at PCMC are generally a bit lower, but the entire cafeteria is about 1/3 the size of IMC's.
miss: LIGHT. None of the O.R.s have windows that face the out-of-doors. The O.R. is in the middle of the hospital, and it's very dark. At IMC, the O.R. takes up the entire second floor, and there were huge windows all the way around. You were never too far away from daylight. I loved that about my lunch breaks--both the cafeteria and the lounge were filled with light (until the sun went down!), so I got a good, healthy dose of it. I miss that a lot. It should get better with Daylight Savings--I'll get to see more actual daylight when I get off work.
don't miss: Scrub issues. There was always a dearth of scrubs in my size. I have only had one day at PCMC where there weren't any tops available in my size. The rest of the time we have been pretty well stocked.
don't miss: Heavy pans and heavy patients. I felt like I was going to throw my back out nearly every day. I have only had to help move a couple of patients so far; the rest of them are so tiny that usually one person can do the job.
miss: Older, relatively healthy patients who deserve to have surgery. I'm sorry, but if you're going to smoke weed while you're snowboarding, you deserve to have a broken leg. I love the kids, but seeing two-pound preemies who were born with
gastroschisis is heartbreaking, and I'm sure that's just the beginning of the congenital malformations I will see.
miss: Friends. There were only a few doctors I didn't care for; the rest of them were quite nice, and I got along well with almost everybody. The people at Primary's have been pretty nice so far, and I'm sure it will come in time, but I'm pretty much a loner right now.
Looking back at this list, there seem to be a lot of things I miss; more so than I thought there would be. Part of me is torn--there are a lot of reasons to go back. The main reason I did this is for my family, even though it feels like I see less of them. Benji seems to be doing well with a more consistent schedule, and Allen is okay--he has picked up a lot of slack with the cooking.
What do you think I should do? I honestly don't know.
This is a cute picture of my niece Ella and my sister Rachael, circa 2006. She has changed so much! She was the only grandchild/daughter/niece for several years (until the baby explosion chez nous), so I took a lot of pictures of her. My Picasa folders say that I have 522 pictures of her. How many do I have of Benji? More than 3,300. Yikes.
Same bathtub, same boy, but a little older and a little more dirty. I think it was pasta.
