NPR... National Public Radio. I love it. Tonight as I was coming home, a woman, speaking of the situation in northern Ireland, said, "The day was peaceful until the violence broke out..."
Last night, coming home from my last call-in, Mary McPartland was on with... damn this forgetfulness! I can't remember his name... the guy that invented the electric guitar... AH! Les Paul! An excellent show, as most of her shows are. Kind of a blah day. Oh, work was interesting, and I went in early and had breakfast there, a hash-brown "omelette". I must've looked really hungry, 'cause the lady behind the grill gave me about two pounds of hash browns, cheese, ham, onions and green peppers. In fact, I couldn't eat it all in the allotted time. I'm gaining confidence on a daily basis, but I still have so much to learn! One thing that I hadn't really anticipated... we do a lot of scans for cancer, both to make the original diagnosis and as a follow-up. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't hate doing cancer patients... I just haven't done much of it. Of course, there's a reason for that... it makes me really uncomfortable. That, and the fact that I've spent the last ten years doing trauma patients... Trauma, even major trauma, doesn't bother me. But having a patient come in because she's having headaches for a CT scan, which she is sure is going to be negative... and seeing a tumor on the scan that will kill her in a matter of weeks, and then going back out into the room and smiling at her and helping her off of the table and out the door... that I hate. And the guy who is sure that he's conquered his cancer, just in for a five-year check-up, and chock-full of metastatic lesions... yes, I hate that. Yeah, it doesn't happen every day. But it does happen way too frequently for my tastes. Not much that I can do about that, though.. it goes with the job. And so far, I like the rest of the job. And I'm really getting quite fond of my coworkers, too. I had known that they were, all in all, interesting people, but I hadn't realized how really nice they were. Anyway, this is my last free night until Monday. I was supposed to be off call on Sunday, but I know that the lady who would have taken it hates to pull call... and I owed her for my hospital time, so I'm taking Sunday for her. So far, the call hasn't been bad at all... I really don't mind taking it. It seems that I've been on call most of my life, though not always officially, so it's a good thing that I don't mind it. One more work day this week. This two-day weekend thing... geez, two days isn't enough to do anything, dammit! Anyways, have a good Friday tomorrow!