feeling loved

Thanks for the birthday wishes!!

Am having a good birthday - despite being on 24 (more like 30 at this point) hour trauma call. Started at 5am this morning and will get off around 10 or 11am tomorrow. I have been on two surgeries already, including an emergency exploratory laparotomy for a stabbing victim who came in this evening. He was a "911", which is our highest priority trauma, and had been stabbed in the abdomen. He was drunk and very friendly and didn't complain much as we stripped him, flipped him and poked all his wounds. As I started to jam a foley into him and the resident warned him that he would feel some "pressure down there", he mumbled something about imagining a pretty girl -mumble verb mumble- and of course everyone around me in the resuscitation room tried not to snicker. Then followed slightly inappropriate and not very well disguised jubilation among my surgery team when we found out that the knife had penetrated fully into his abdomen. This meant that he had to go up for surgery, since we had to fully open him up and check for any damage to his organs or vessels. By the time we had him open in the OR about 20 minutes later, he had nearly a liter of blood in his belly. The operation was fast and to the point, and he'll do just fine once the 15 inch scar fully heals.

Anyway, it's an interesting birthday night. I started medical school on my birthday, and here I am, three years later, celebrating another one on trauma call. I realize that I need to rethink my priorities, but for now, I might as well make the best of what I'm doing.