Saturday, January 12, 2008

The Fourth, The Fifth, The Minor Fall, The Major Lift

I am positively wrecked.

There is almost nothing left of my essence, my being. I have left it all in Luton. This is what you get for partying with Lemons. A generally good night, with all too much beer drunk; the usual suspects were there, falling away at regular intervals, until the hard core remained at nine a.m. this morning. This was my time to bow out, but (?worryingly) many Lemons were just getting their second wind.

I am too old for this sort of thing; mostly.

My ex-beloved was there; and it was good to see her. Too good really; another reason to hate my job.

On a lighter note, ER is back on the TV. I can, once again, get my fix. My quest to watch them all again goes on; Santa brought me seasons 8 and 9... but they're all too soon gone.

A good friend of mine has been having a hard time of it of late. As usual, I don't feel at liberty to divulge why. Pregnancy related complications. I hate being on the outside. As I understand it, she and bubs are doing better now, but nothing is written in stone...

More burnout. One of the tricks I use to insulate myself from the psych-trauma of seeing how shit life can be is to try to disconnect; to de-empathise where possible. I think it makes me a little deader inside, but I discovered, when working on ITU, that I'm not strong enough to do it any other way.

I was confronted with a patient going South, whose background was very similar to my friend's. It suddenly became very difficult to be objective, to do my job. Let my feelings get in the way. The patient got the right treatment; in actual fact, the correct diagnosis was achieved by one of my SHOs.

But it wouldn't normally get to me.

Burnout...

4 comments:

Chrysalis said...

It is very hard to do what you do day in and day out. You are only human. We aren't machines when we're out there caring for others. There were times I'd get off duty and not even go into the house. I'd pull my car in and walk around to the back of the house and just sit there on the deck. Too bad you're across the pond Shroom, but I can still give you a cyber hug.

Edwin Wise said...

Dang shrooom -- burnout can be brutal. I get burnout in my job, I think everyone does from time to time, but in the job you do you don't get to be a slacker the same way, and the pressures are certainly different from those of an engineer.

It will get better, it usually does (the alternative is for it to continually get worse); the cure for burnout is time and distance.

How is your vacation time? Find a quiet spot in the mountains or desert or somewhere, spend a week or two away from humanity.

cherrypicker said...

Shroom if you fancy taking a trip into the chiltern mountains in the next couple of weeks give me a bell

Chrysalis said...

When the weather is better, I love to hike by a stream. I have found some of the best places. It's great to just sit there or walk and think in peace.