I'm already tired

This frightens me. I haven't taken my first call or really done anything other than be at the hospital for orientation from 7 AM until 4 PM with almost-nightly dinners with the crew, but I'm tired. Most of the interns officially start on Saturday, but because I'm working in the ER where we do 12 hour shifts, I don't start until next Wednesday at 7 PM. It is a total God-send; I'm going to use Monday and Tuesday to do some reading and review things that I haven't considered since my peds rotation almost two years ago. It's terrifying how much I feel that I've forgotten; I'm praying it all comes back when it really counts.

It's my blog, and I'll ramble if I want to.

I'm still working on syncing my new PDA. I'm used to my old Palm, but the program has provided us with Pocket PCs. They're great and will be essential to all the life saving that I'll be doing (can't give the wrong drug dosage to a kiddo!), but I'm having a little bit of a rough time getting it set up. At least my program has loaded most of the applications for me; I don't think I could stand doing it all alone.

I miss my husband. He's been staffed on a project out in California this week and will actually be out there every week until at least October. I'm thankful that we both have jobs that we love, but it's hard being apart. I was seriously blessed to be placed in the ER for this month; I only work 1 full weekend (one 7a-7p shift on Saturday and one on Sunday) and 1 extra Saturday, so I will get to see him quite a bit when he is home. He was also able to take off for a week when I was given one of my two vacation weeks (the next isn't til April), so I'm excited about that.

I'm scared. I'm terrified everyone's going to figure out how little I really know. I'm nearly immobilized at the thought of hurting a child by not knowing the right treatment. Everyone keeps telling us that we know much more than we realize; I hope that's true. I want to be good at this. I want to help my patients. I want to make a difference.

I love my new phone. My old phone refused to work last weekend, and with the hubby out of town most of the week, we decided it was a safety issue for me not to have a reliable cell phone. I live 15 minutes from the hospital, and for my first five shifts, I'll be working 7 PM til 7 AM. After that, I'll work two shifts from noon til midnight. (Never fear -- these shifts are not back-to-back; I have plenty of time for sleep between them.) My beloved '96 4Runner has been acting a little weird lately, and I would hate for it not to start or to die on my ride home and have me stranded somewhere. I have a very tall male relative who lives 10 minutes away from me, so if anything ever happens when my husband is gone, I have my back-up ready. :) My new phone is amazing. Unlike the old one, I actually get decent reception almost everywhere, it doesn't take 5 minutes to send a single text message anymore, and the battery lasts more than 6 hours. It's fabulous!

Tomorrow I get to wear my long white coat for the first time ever. At many medical schools (including mine), students wear short white coats, and we all long for the day when our coat grows and we join the ranks of the graduated. My coat grew about a foot and even got my name embroidered in it. I just hope I remember to answer when they call me "Doctor." I still haven't gotten used to that. For my 3 readers, I won't be wearing the bonnet and mask very often; I was on a surgical rotation when I took this picture. It's just the only picture I have of me in scrubs.

I think I may go relax and soak in a hot bath for a while. It truly is one of the best ways to end the day.