When I became a patient.

Another rotation down (cardiology), and I'm starting to see the light at the end of the deep, dark tunnel that has been intern year. Though to be totally honest, I can't complain that much - it's been a pretty nice compared to some of my friends from med school. My last stretch of rotations have few to no "golden weekends" off and vacation is fairly far off in the distance.

That being said: my body (and bowels) decided to have different plans for me. During work the other day I had some serious belly pain. I'm usually pretty good at dealing with belly pain (I would argue that I have irritable bowel syndrome) so I tried to push through it. My hypochondriac/I-know-too-much side was self-diagnosing with all kinds of things. I even had my friends consult and examine me. My doctor side that grows frustrated with convincing patients nothing is wrong with them and that they should go home was fighting feeling sick and just wanting to get back to work. I ultimately asked some of my family and was convinced to go to the ED.

Long story short: appendicitis happened. I spent 2 nights in the hospital and am now one vestigial organ less. This is a laughable occurrence to me as it's been less than a year since I broke my ankle. Broken bones and appendicitis are common childhood ailments, and here I am 26 years old faux-adulting, trying to be a doctor instead ending up as the patient.

While I missed out on some time at work, I do actually think this little experience has been a very educational milestone during residency (ironically). Here are some things that I've learned:

1. While health care providers are running around busy in the ED, on the floors, in the OR etc. it doesn't seem like our patients are waiting very long for things to happen. From a patient's perspective - it does actually feel like forever. Friday morning we decided I needed surgery, but I didn't have a specific time. Knowing my experience with frustrated patients, I was happy to wait, but that's not to say it wasn't a very long day of boring, somewhat painful waiting. 
2. Being attached to an IV pole is miserable. I slept for maybe 2 hour stretches because I had to wake up and mess with the settings on my IV pump to get it to shut up. Dragging it to the bathroom is less than convenient (and I was going often since they were pumping me full of fluids). And none of this accounts for how I couldn't bend my elbow the whole night because of where my IV was placed. 
3. IV contrast feels super weird. This is basically a dye that they put in your veins before you have a CT scan. It makes you feel all warm all over. They warned me even, "you'll feel like you peed your pants". I laughed. They were not lying...
4. Similarly - and this and #3 are both more for my fellow friends in medicine - subcutaneous heparin hurts. A lot. Not only is someone coming at you with a needle, which I can handle, but you have a residual burning that lasts for a pretty extensive period of time. 
5. I very ironically freaked out when waking up from anesthesia. Surgical pain is real, and I am still slightly disappointed at my pain intolerance considering how "small" my surgery was. I didn't think I would be the person confused, panicking, crying, and asking for pain meds in the PACU. Hoping my anesthesia colleagues didn't judge me too much, ha. 

Being a patient is hard. Thankfully there are countless doctors, nurses, etc who do their best to make the patient experience a little less miserable than it has to be when you're sick in the hospital. Even more, I am so thankful for supportive friends, family, residency program faculty, and especially Parker who all took so much time to take care of me.

Special shout out to the people who covered for me at work! Having amazing team members in this tough doctor world we live and work in is everything.