On my second day back at work, I am beginning to realize how much has changed since this time last year. I am back on service (finally) in the same hospital I started at last July. It is such a great feeling to be back in the gynecology ORs and delivering babies in the case room. People know who I am this time around, even though it’s been 10 months since I worked here. I feel more confident and capable than I did last year. I am excited to get back into this specialty with everything I have.
However, this is the first time I have been on-service since the “falling out” with K. My emotions around this issue were something that I did not anticipate. Unfortunately, I still think about K more often than I would like. Usually I am able to shrug it off and it is so much easier to let go of that fleeting wish that *maybe* she’ll get in touch with me and we’ll talk things through and we’ll be friends again. Even though I’ve realized that will never happen, I can’t help but think about it.
But being back at this hospital, immersed in my own specialty, has brought with it a new set of mental and emotional challenges. Despite what happened between us (what she did to me?) she is still one of the biggest reasons why I chose this specialty. It is hard for me to forget about that. There has never been a time in my medical career, until now, where I have been around obstetrics and gynecology and I haven’t thought about how instrumental and helpful K was in inspiring me and getting me to where I am today.
Last year, if I had just finished helping a woman deliver a non-viable fetus and I was waiting patiently at the foot of her bed for her bleeding to stop and her placenta to deliver, I would have thought about K being in a similar situation and I would imagine working with the same level of finesse and compassion that she would show. When I was in that situation this morning, however, I had a similar thought but instead, it was tainted and i wondered if I would ever be able to deliver another baby or interact with another pregnant lady without having her memory pop into my head.
I don’t want to be like her. I want to be like myself. But that doesn’t change the fact that every memory I have of even working in this hospital, in this city, with different staff seems to be imprinted with the knowledge that she was still somewhere, just a few keystrokes away, waiting to cheer me on. I want to completely dissociate everything about my life and my career from her and being back in this environment has made me realize that I have not made much progress on that task yet. I don’t know if that will ever be possible; I just wish that there still wasn’t so much work for me to do.
Reblogged this on themonkseal.
LikeLike