Sick of it

So this is it. I've been officially a 5th year for about 3 days and my life is already miserable.
Friday and Saturday morning we had our introduction to the clinical practice, the schedules were handed out and it turns out we'll be having what we here call guardias ABC. Which means that we're on call every 3rd night! Its just crazy, seriously. I mean, people in the US complain about their Q4 schedules (on call every 4th night) ... come on! This is just a living nightmare.

So this past Saturday I had my fist night on-call, meaning I was at the hospital from 6pm Saturday to 6am Sunday. I started on a public health hospital, with an excess in patients and a huge deficit in resources, both economic and human. As I said in older posts, I started with surgery. Yet, somehow in this overflowed hospital there were only like 2 surgeries that day, so we went down to the ER to help out there. We did like a gazillion EKGs (which reminded me that I've forgotten how to read them :S) learned how to place a Foley and a nasogastric tube, and tried to do both. The Foley was easy, but the naso was a complete fiasco.

It was a very slow nigh, but due to our naiveness, stupidity and first day excitement my partner and I didn't get any sleep. Around 11pm I started coughing and feeling a little bit off. As the time passed, the cough increased, and by 6am I felt I was going to cough my lung out. I went home in what felt like the loooooooooogest drive back ever, changed my vomit-splashed scrubs -only a little, but still gross- and collapsed in bed. I woke up around 12pm feeling like shit. I was feverish, coughing like a maniac and felt like I had been run over by a truck while asleep. I slept a few more hours, woke up and tried to eat something but really couldn't. I checked my temp and I was around 38oC (100.4 F). I called my mother and afterwards I cried a little. Seriously, I was feeling horrible. My mind was running the worst-case scenarios which implied me having to repeat my rotations because I missed a class or a clinical activity or dying, or something. I got so paranoid, I started tracking in my head the possible culprits, every sick person I saw while on call yesterday were cursed for making me go through this. I slept again, and I finally got to a limit around 7pm when I call a friend of mine who is a doctor and went to his house so he could prescribe me some drugs. When I got there I was 39.5oC (103.1F) and nearly collapsing. He gave a shot and some pills and I laid down for about 2hours until the fever came down. I've been on drugs since and feeling much better, but still knocked out.

Dammit! What a way to start this year, huh? I had a nervous breakdown/panic attack while I was lying on my friend's bed. I just wanted to go home and forget about this shit. Go home and get my life back. I mean, the universe was telling me very clearly that I shouldn't be there, that this was not for me. Then I talked to a friend and the drugs kicked in and I went back to being a crazy and masochistic medstudent. So, I guess I'll be here at least a little longer.

I'm on call tomorrow, and I'm already starting to freak out. I'll count to ten -or maybe 1000- and try to relax. I'm so not getting near anyone coughing or looking remotely contagious, and I don't care if he/she is dying. My body and my mind cannot go through this again, especially since I've haven't come out of it properly. I'm just literally sick of it.

Well see how it goes. I'll just go to bed right now and try not to die.