Estoy corriendo.

 Running is one of my hobbies, my past times, and over the years served as a vital outlet at times. Perhaps saved a phone or pager or two from being smashed against the wall.  It gets me outside, into fresh air, and I can run until I feel normal again... whatever that is. In short, I used to run to "keep my heart happy". Which could be taken physiologically as well as psychologically and I ment it as such. 

Ever since COVID swept through New York, I had an additional motivation. My lungs. I ran to "Keep my lungs happy", in my own way refusing to succumb to the damage of any potential virus, and remind myself that I am still breathing.

As I started running more, and more on a random whim I entered the lottery to run the New York City Marathon... which of course I didn't win. And then surgeries started back up again. And then chief residency year start. And life returned to as it ever was, very busy. Running started taking up its previous role as an outlet reserved for any days off and post-call days. 

Then the New York City Marathon was cancelled, and went virtual, open to anyone. So I entered... paid a bit extra than the entrance fee so that if life happened and I wasn't able to complete it, I had still made a donation so it wasn't a complete waste of money. Next step I made was to download a training app, because honestly... I had no idea how to run a marathon.  I wasn't able to follow the training schedule day by day, due to work, but I kept as close as I possibly could. 

And I did it! I took advantage of the travel restrictions from COVID and ran a marathon this week! And in so doing checked something off the bucket list. Something I haven't been able to do since bungee jumping in New Zealand! Ran it in 4hrs and 23min. When I had entered the lottery I had put down 5hrs and 15min as an estimated time, giving myself 15min to run the last mile. Then as I ran the last few weeks, wondered if maybe I could do it under 5hrs. So I'm happy! I'm happy I finally did it! Completed something, I've wanted to do for many years. I can finally say, I've run a marathon, rather than I want to run a marathon one day! I can join that community from all walks of life, that spans cultural boundaries, no language needed, united by a goal and a joy and a support of each other, as we run. 

Few pictures from my week.

I did better with relaxing as the week has passed. Happy fall!

Got to love my nephews a little bit!

Much Love and Prayers!

Estoy tratando descansar

To say the new EMR went live without a hitch would be a drastic understatement. 

It doesn't really matter if this new EMR is better or worse at this point, because either way, it's new. It's change. And humans don't respond well to change. We get frustrated at what we don't understand. Perfectly happy and content employees have expressed their exasperation and threatened to quit this past week. And no amount of reassurance and aide that I can provide lessens their frustration....which then in turn frustrates me. 

The way I view it, we definitely can NOT go back to the antiquated barely functionable EMR that we used to have. The only way is forward, taking this new EMR and all its good, bad, and confusing aspects one step at a time. Unfortunately, us residents seem to be the only ones on board with that mentality. Nurses, aides, ancillary staff, etc seem to have differing opinions. 

Hopefully, things will calm down soon, and we can enter a new and accepted normal and stop struggling against this change. 

I am away from the hospital this week. COVID still preventing me from traveling and seeing this amazing world as I would like. So I am trying to simply rest this week. It's not working too well. First off, I was woken up early this morning to phone calls, texts and emails concerning the liver transplant today. My own fault really, outside of my own service I didn't exactly broadcast the fact that I would be away. At the same time, I can't really take a vacation from the administrative duties I'm carrying right now. Again my own fault for trying to take a week of vacation during the few blocks I'm designated the "administrative chief resident". Over the years, I've seen a plethora of chiefing styles. Everything from the lazy, checked-out and essentially absent chief, to the micro-manager. Where on that spectrum I fall... I'm not quite sure I actually want to know. But there are many changes in my style that I am noticing now as a chief resident, and one, not so good change, is my inability to separate myself from the work, from the patients. It's the first time that I have ever brought my laptop with me on vacation... so that I could still work. As ready as I am to be done with residency already... I can not understand how those before me have been able to ignore the fact that they still hold a responsibility, and an important responsibility, to their patients, to their services/attendings, and to the many junior residents that are looking up to them. Who knows.... maybe I'm the one that needs to let go more. So there you have it... trying and failing to relax. 

Much Love and Prayer!

Estoy orando para ti.

 Another year has gone by. Another year older. I think I'd like to settle here. Stay 35 for the next 10-15years. I could be content with that. Nothing special happened today. I was post call, and so slow on rounds with my team this morning that I couldn't make a clean and clear exit before transplant rounds got underway. Really dumb on my part, which I told myself that multiple times as different attendings kept interrupting each other, and pointing fingers about inconsequential patient orders. Preferring to have been able to go home post call and nap/enjoy my birthday, having to instead listen to attendings strut their egos, really kind of spoiled it for me. Then it rained all day. I like a nice rainy day.... but, I really needed to go for a run today. And not being able to run, well... ice cream couldn't even help me with that today. Then our hospital is going live with its new electronic medical record this weekend. So I'm going in extra to do computer work. Nothing about that prospect is exciting in any way. It is what it is, and just like time, it will shortly be behind us.

Grabbing my jacket from the call room to leave the hospital this morning, I appreciated how the black jackets of my fellow co-chiefs all hung in a row, waiting for their owners to finish their cases for the day and return from the OR.

Birthday Song time!! Dance with me!

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And this year... I've been feeling Hard Love as theme song to my life right now. Tell me you do that too right? What's your life's theme song right now?

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Much Love and prayers!

Estoy cuidandome.

It was 6:30am Monday morning, end of my call and waiting for my patient to be extubated, the Anesthesiologist joked with me. "We've still got 30 minutes left! We can squeeze in another!" To which I responded, "I can still go grab the gallbladder!"  The gallbladder to which I was referring had actually been the very first case I'd booked for myself on call, then traumas and other emergencies kept pushing it back. To the point that we ran out of time and I never actually got to do it at all. Not for a lack of operating, my anesthesiology colleagues we soooo mad at me that call. When I finally got home that morning, I crashed harder than I had in a long while. Absolutely dead to the world. When I finally came to and reaching for my phone, discovered I had missed a lot. Spent the short evening I had left attempting to organize myself... only semi-succeeding. It reminded me of the various conversations held over the past 7 years with my colleagues surrounding the best way to present ourselves and our lifestyle to society. Concerning the work/social life balance, how to keep it steady, what is enough, acceptable and appropriate. Questions and conversations that perhaps will never truly have a standardized response, as they are going to be different for every individual. The joy of work, the peace of purpose and the love of life shown and received different by each resident in their own unique way. 

A lot of times sacrifice is thought of at the expense of social activity in order to work. In my experience, knowing the need for social interaction, that sacrifice frequently comes at the expense of my work and/or rest. Which is what happened this past weekend, prior to another heavy call, culminating in the exhaustion that led to me falling asleep, sitting in a chair, mid-dictation and ultimately crashing when I finally got myself home.

The day before, on my day off, instead of sleeping, which is usually the #1 priority on an off day, I woke early to get work done in time to go apple picking! Monica, Alex and I drove up to Barton's Orchard. In this case, sacrificing sleep and studying to instead get outside, in the sunshine and separate myself from the hospital for a moment. And it was worth it. It's always worth it!

Alex, Monica and I picking apples at Barton's Orchard.

Relaxing in the middle of an orchard, because.... why not?

Sometimes you go for the highest apples, because those are the best ones of course! Plus, the most fun to try to get at!

 

There's never an easy answer to maintaining the work/life balance. Plenty of lectures, talks, books, etc on recommendations and advice and How To's. I tend to ignore the general recommendations, feel when the balance is starting to tip and then act to counteract the tip. In retrospect, more reactionary than proactive I suppose. But, I have very few regrets. One regret however.... that I didn't get more of Barton's apple cider donuts. They were. Amazing!

 

Much Love and Prayers!