This week has been a typical week of my life as a resident. Time constantly folds around itself such that it's hard to know if I'm coming or going. My sleep-wake cycle is nonexistent and days seem to blur into each other. Some days are great, other days are not, but everyday goes by so fast I fear I'll lose the good ones forever. With that, here are the details of my week.
I woke up well rested, but alone Monday. The bed I slept in we call The Big Bed because it occupies most of our second bedroom. Rich pumpkin-colored paint by Martha Stewart cover the walls of that room, with a darker tangelo accent wall. The bed's comforter is triple thick and complementarily autumn colored and there is a heated mattress pad above of course, a pillow top mattress. Southeast facing windows catch the morning sun with a shimmer through broad deciduous leaves. It's the quietest room in the house and thus the calmest to wake up in, uninterrupted and refreshed. I woke up alone because David had exercised that morning. Our room is crowded with workout equipment and if we had slept in there, I would have been kept awake by Tony Horton, of our work out video, screaming for me to "DO MY BEST AND FORGET THE REST!"
David had been babysitting Violet, the Gerber-poster-child daughter of The-woman-who-stocks-the-music-for-Starbucks, for several hours when I finally ventured out of the house Monday. I earned the day off for working a holiday earlier in the year. The-woman-who-stocks-the-music-for-Starbucks' house is four sliding glass doors and a window long. Four sliding glass doors to capture the entire width of Lake Washington in their vantage and a window for the city of Bellevue's skyline, a view of millionaires. After sunbathing on the home's one hundred foot long wooden deck for an hour, David, The Gerber-poster-child and I drove to Seward Park.
Located on a peninsula in south Seattle, Seward Park is one of my favorite parks in Seattle. In it's incredible history the park was once an island prior to the surrounding lake being lowered by 9-feet to make a connection to the ocean in 1916. The Park boasts a prominent old growth forest with trees aging up to 250 years old, young by comparison to Seattle's millennium-old ghost forests that were here before white man arrived. Nonetheless, it's soaring canopy is breathtaking and begged me to stare straight up, each tree carrying its own ecosystem of small animals and ferns suspended 200-feet in the air. I was affixed in upward gaze. Below I have posted images of David and Violet in a field at the park's interior. Monday was one of those days I wish I could slow down into an eternity or at least remember that long.
Tuesday morning began with the thud of my phone hitting the floor as I attempted to silence it's alarm. This was accompanied by a realization that I was getting sick, sore throat and chest tight. Amidst the long, but relatively benign shift that followed I described my symptoms to a coworker who forewarned that I might have an impending asthma attack. I, however, told her my peak flow meter was normal and posted on Facebook that my symptoms were due to The Plague and not asthma. When it was time to leave around 10pm I was feeling worse and decided to stay the night at the hospital rather than commute both ways only to be back at work 7 hours later.
Wednesday arrived frigidly with me in a jail cell cot half covered by our heavy hospital bedspread. These come in one color, beige, and provide no warmth. They're made of some sort of wicker hybrid and cover your entire body only if you lay still as a corpse, an eerie thought in a hospital. I woke up disoriented, in the pitch dark of the windowless 8ft by 6ft Doctors' sleep room, showered away the lung tightness in the Doctors' shower and pushed through another day of work despite feeling more ill. By the time I got home, it was as if I'd worked one huge shift starting the day before.
That night knew no sleep. Turns out I didn't have the Bubonic Plague, it was asthma after all. During the one hour I slept, my small airways tightened and constricted in a cascade of overactive immune inflammation that led to an asthma attack. I awoke breathless, pushing air through a mile-long coffee straw. You'd think I would've panicked, but I'm getting used to this. Last winter I drove to the ER for similar symptoms, but this is the third episode this year. Instead, I monitored my symptoms with a peak flow meter, finding solace in watching it improve to normal within half-an-hour of puffing my inhaler. Netflix further calmed my nerves until daybreak.
No pillowtop, no comforter, not even genetically engineered wicker sheets, just couch and Netflix when my alarm went off Thursday. Sleepy-eyed, I zombied my way through another shower and commute. I spoke winded at patients who offered me their beds in exchange and eventually got to the end. I told the clinic not to expect me back the next day... today. As of yesterday it had been a two-day week, instead of the calenders version of four. Monday was succinct and amazing, Tuewedursday was long and enduring.
Today is Friday. I stayed up again last night in order to anticipate the attacks, my peak flow dipping and raising in a waltz with my inhaler. When the sun came up, I curled up next to David and Norma Jean. After David left for work, I watched more Netflix, emptied the dishwasher and got back in bed, Norma Jean is currently snoring and softly warming my legs. The week has been lost to a virus, old-man-lung and work, next week will be better. It will be sunny, I will be healthy, the gay pride parade is that weekend and it's all going to be great. One day at a time and I'm going to be done with residency and living a well-rounded life. It will and must get better.
As proof, we picked out a new puppy today. After a year, Norma Jean's parent dogs, Smiley and Fifi, had another litter and we will be getting Professor Guy Lavern Littleford, Dr. Norma Jean Littleford's little brother, pictures posted below. We're very excited and he'll be arriving in early July, barring a testicular dissent issue.
David and Violet in Seward Park
Professor Guy Laverne Littleford
I woke up well rested, but alone Monday. The bed I slept in we call The Big Bed because it occupies most of our second bedroom. Rich pumpkin-colored paint by Martha Stewart cover the walls of that room, with a darker tangelo accent wall. The bed's comforter is triple thick and complementarily autumn colored and there is a heated mattress pad above of course, a pillow top mattress. Southeast facing windows catch the morning sun with a shimmer through broad deciduous leaves. It's the quietest room in the house and thus the calmest to wake up in, uninterrupted and refreshed. I woke up alone because David had exercised that morning. Our room is crowded with workout equipment and if we had slept in there, I would have been kept awake by Tony Horton, of our work out video, screaming for me to "DO MY BEST AND FORGET THE REST!"
David had been babysitting Violet, the Gerber-poster-child daughter of The-woman-who-stocks-the-music-for-Starbucks, for several hours when I finally ventured out of the house Monday. I earned the day off for working a holiday earlier in the year. The-woman-who-stocks-the-music-for-Starbucks' house is four sliding glass doors and a window long. Four sliding glass doors to capture the entire width of Lake Washington in their vantage and a window for the city of Bellevue's skyline, a view of millionaires. After sunbathing on the home's one hundred foot long wooden deck for an hour, David, The Gerber-poster-child and I drove to Seward Park.
Located on a peninsula in south Seattle, Seward Park is one of my favorite parks in Seattle. In it's incredible history the park was once an island prior to the surrounding lake being lowered by 9-feet to make a connection to the ocean in 1916. The Park boasts a prominent old growth forest with trees aging up to 250 years old, young by comparison to Seattle's millennium-old ghost forests that were here before white man arrived. Nonetheless, it's soaring canopy is breathtaking and begged me to stare straight up, each tree carrying its own ecosystem of small animals and ferns suspended 200-feet in the air. I was affixed in upward gaze. Below I have posted images of David and Violet in a field at the park's interior. Monday was one of those days I wish I could slow down into an eternity or at least remember that long.
Tuesday morning began with the thud of my phone hitting the floor as I attempted to silence it's alarm. This was accompanied by a realization that I was getting sick, sore throat and chest tight. Amidst the long, but relatively benign shift that followed I described my symptoms to a coworker who forewarned that I might have an impending asthma attack. I, however, told her my peak flow meter was normal and posted on Facebook that my symptoms were due to The Plague and not asthma. When it was time to leave around 10pm I was feeling worse and decided to stay the night at the hospital rather than commute both ways only to be back at work 7 hours later.
Wednesday arrived frigidly with me in a jail cell cot half covered by our heavy hospital bedspread. These come in one color, beige, and provide no warmth. They're made of some sort of wicker hybrid and cover your entire body only if you lay still as a corpse, an eerie thought in a hospital. I woke up disoriented, in the pitch dark of the windowless 8ft by 6ft Doctors' sleep room, showered away the lung tightness in the Doctors' shower and pushed through another day of work despite feeling more ill. By the time I got home, it was as if I'd worked one huge shift starting the day before.
That night knew no sleep. Turns out I didn't have the Bubonic Plague, it was asthma after all. During the one hour I slept, my small airways tightened and constricted in a cascade of overactive immune inflammation that led to an asthma attack. I awoke breathless, pushing air through a mile-long coffee straw. You'd think I would've panicked, but I'm getting used to this. Last winter I drove to the ER for similar symptoms, but this is the third episode this year. Instead, I monitored my symptoms with a peak flow meter, finding solace in watching it improve to normal within half-an-hour of puffing my inhaler. Netflix further calmed my nerves until daybreak.
No pillowtop, no comforter, not even genetically engineered wicker sheets, just couch and Netflix when my alarm went off Thursday. Sleepy-eyed, I zombied my way through another shower and commute. I spoke winded at patients who offered me their beds in exchange and eventually got to the end. I told the clinic not to expect me back the next day... today. As of yesterday it had been a two-day week, instead of the calenders version of four. Monday was succinct and amazing, Tuewedursday was long and enduring.
Today is Friday. I stayed up again last night in order to anticipate the attacks, my peak flow dipping and raising in a waltz with my inhaler. When the sun came up, I curled up next to David and Norma Jean. After David left for work, I watched more Netflix, emptied the dishwasher and got back in bed, Norma Jean is currently snoring and softly warming my legs. The week has been lost to a virus, old-man-lung and work, next week will be better. It will be sunny, I will be healthy, the gay pride parade is that weekend and it's all going to be great. One day at a time and I'm going to be done with residency and living a well-rounded life. It will and must get better.
As proof, we picked out a new puppy today. After a year, Norma Jean's parent dogs, Smiley and Fifi, had another litter and we will be getting Professor Guy Lavern Littleford, Dr. Norma Jean Littleford's little brother, pictures posted below. We're very excited and he'll be arriving in early July, barring a testicular dissent issue.
David and Violet in Seward Park
Professor Guy Laverne Littleford
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