the underwear drawer

you take the good you take the bad

I knew today was going to be a challenge (see: two Peds open heart cases back-to-back), but what I didn't know was that I was supposed to be carrying the Peds Trauma and Peds Arrest pagers today too. You want to know an wholly unpleasant way to find out that fact? Be working in the OR, getting your patient settled before going on bypass, when a nurse wanders in, thrusting the pagers towards you. "Dr. Au, one of the anesthesia secretaries said you're supposed to be holding these pagers today, and that one of them just went off." Whee!

I don't know why someone who is actually working in the OR is somehow also supposed to be available to field the arrest and trauma pages (this just builds in a critical delay--I had to page my attending to handle my patient on the table while I grabbed the arrest bag and went running down to the ER to attend to a patient who, for the sake of anonymity, I will call Stabby McKnife) but hey, things can't always make sense, can they? That would make things too easy.

Anyway, so there was Stabby McKnife, and there were the two open heart cases, and then, at the end of the day, there was an arrest in the ICU, which--hell, anytime you have an arrest in a critically ill child, things just aren't pretty. I left work two and a half hours late and when I got home, Joe tells me that he absolutely MUST watch football tonight because Ohio State is in the playoffs (or whatever) so could I please take care of Cal's emotional, bodily and hygiene needs for the rest of the night, because blah blah blah football. FOOT. BALL.

Anyway, enough with the computer, I have to give Cal his bath. And then I have to DIE.