And on the seventh day ...

I'm resting. There are so many things I could write about because this week has been full of firsts and emotions. Off the top of my head ...

I did my first procedure this week. I was finishing up my work at the end of the day when my resident text paged me, "Get over here. You're doing a lumbar puncture." I had never done one before, but I had seen a few. To make a long story short, I did it! What I felt when I saw the cerebrospinal fluid coming out from the needle in my patient's back was disbelief. I couldn't believe I had done it. My resident was like a proud father running around the ICU telling anyone that would hear that his brand new intern did her first lumbar puncture on her first try. It was pretty cute. I got a lot of pats on the back, and I'm pretty sure that's the closest I'll ever get to feeling like a rock star.

The down side of my rock star moment was that I was very late for my friend's birthday party. I was also dead tired and barely able to hold conversation with an awful tendency to talk about my lack of sleep and little else. I felt terrible because we had purposely arranged the dinner for the night before I was on call (logically known as the "precall" night). Typically your team tries to get you out early on your precall night so you can get a good night's sleep before your overnight shift. What my friend and I hadn't anticipated was my co-intern being off on my precall day, which meant that I was covering the whole service by myself, and things were pretty busy.

As I enjoy my day off, I know that my co-intern is now feeling what I went through on Thursday and Friday (his post call and off days). While the time off is well deserved, it comes at a price. Someone has to take care of my patients every minute I'm not in the hospital. At night plus my post call and off days, one of my co-interns is taking on my load so that I can enjoy my time out of the ICU. I do the same for them. We are all dependent on each other, and I'm with a great group of interns in the unit. We're still trying to find out the best ways to help each other because we're all new at this, but we are all helping each other. This dependency on my teammates is something new for me. As a medical student, sometimes you're a bit extraneous. You're there to learn, and if you can do some work to help the team, then that's great. However, the team can run well (and likely more efficiently) without you. You're sent home way before the rest of team because you have books to read and tests to study for.

After my call yesterday, I got home and slept until 5 pm. My husband and I went out for a wonderful dinner outside on a restaurant patio. I enjoyed actually being outdoors, and he and I talked for hours with each other. There was so much to catch up on! I have no definite plans for today except to relax and maybe read a little bit about ICU management of patients. I want to cook a meal in my lovely new, under-utilized kitchen, call my mother, and deposit my first paycheck. Otherwise, I'm a little surprised at how ready I feel to dive back into work tomorrow morning.