Sick and nervous

The cold I caught last week on Onc (I don't think I mentioned it before because it wasn't that bad) is BAD. Every 12 hours I have to take 1 gram of Tylenol, 400 mg ibuprofen, 1 Mucinex, 4 tsp guaifenisen syrup and 2 sprays of a nasal decongestant. On top of that I take 2 sprays of Nasonex, just in case my allergies are making any of this worse, but this is beyond allergies. I might add loratadine to the allergy arsenal and pseudephedrine to the cold arsenal. Oh yeah, and I'm sucking down cough drops and mint tea like.... candy and water. And rubbing Tiger Balm under my nose. My voice is hoarse when it's even present, and I have coughing fits on a regular basis.

Did I mention I still have to go to work?

Bah.

I thought I was going to have today off because my private practice doctor doesn't work Wednesdays. But last night when I got home I had an email saying my elective Ab observations had been set up, starting with today. So last night, like any good medical student, I read up on the procedure, in preparation for being pimped. But none of my books really talk about it, surprise surprise.

So last night, I had the craziest dreams involving shadowy bomb-filled clinics, crazy instruments, ME being pregnant and delivering at University Hospital in front of all my classmates, being late for work today, AND failing boards.

Because did I mention we find out our board scores today? I was looking forward to being able to obsessively sit at the computer checking my email every 30 seconds until I got my scores, but now I'm going to be in surgery. Boo.

Argh. I AM feeling nervous about today. To get into the fenced-in clinic parking lot, they said I should type out "HELP" on the gate code box. That's reassuring. Across the street from the clinic, which is a nondescript medical office, is another clinic, the kind that advertises loudly that it offers pregnancy testing, termination counseling, and ultrasounds, which makes it the kind that doesn't perform terminations, but that offers ultrasounds to convince women not to get them. I've been told that protesters are not uncommon in front of the clinic I'm going to. They said I should just wear regular clothes, because I'm going to be changing into scrubs in the office. But I don't know that walking into a clinic of that type with my white coat on is the smartest idea anyway.

I've never been the slightest bit apprehensive about anything medical related -- blood, guts, gore, smells, and sounds don't bother me (OK, sounds probably bother me the most of anything. Like the sound of someone retching makes me want to retch. But seeing vomit doesn't faze me.). But THIS has my stomach all tied in knots. I guess it's because it's so not ordinary, even in the medical world. Everyone at school has been very professional and supportive of me choosing to do this extra bit of work for the rotation. And I'm sure it's going to be a good experience. But did it HAVE to be today? Isn't being sick and worried about board scores enough for one day?

In case you're wondering, Student Affairs is going to email everyone who failed at some point today. Then they're going to send a mass email to the whole class (ie, everyone who passed) giving the instructions for score retrieval. Apparently two years ago, they PAGED the people who failed. Imagine the horror -- your pager going off for everyone to hear! And of course, some people paged each other at the set time as a joke, which didn't help matters any. So now they use email. But at least with the pager you'd get the page no matter where you were!

So, wish me luck. Observing surgery all day is never an easy task, and when you're sick and worried and observing what I'm observing I'm sure it's no easier.