So there's this girl...

Let's get all Bridget again.

There's this girl at work who I've been trying to have dinner with for basically the entirety of my surgical rotation. It is now the end of the rotation and the outcome of ten weeks of mildly persistent flirtation is...nothing.

(Sounds a bit like a rash..."oh, it's just a mildly persistent flirtation, it'll probably go away by itself.")

I noticed her fairly early. She is pretty in a simple way - fresh features, nice eyes and a cute smile - more than stunning in a pick-your-jaw-off-the-floor way. She was friendly to get along with, and so I thought she might be someone to get to know better.

Opportunity was kind enough to stop by, and so after she bailed me out with a couple of patients of mine I decided to offer dinner as thanks, as my olive branch. Because I was on the phone (and to look more nonchalant) I scribbled on a piece of paper - "Owe you for your help --> dinner?" and passed it to her, just like in primary school. She laughed and replied, "Well, I think dinner's not quite enough to make up for it..." (settle down, it doesn't get exciting) "...I think *two* desserts might also have be thrown in."

Okay. We're thinking, in the moment, that we're Neil Armstrong on the moon, and made that first step for mankind. However, remember what I told you in the introduction - we're really much more like poor Michael Collins with his arse up in the orbiting module of Apollo 11 , going round in circles, going nowhere fast, and wondering when the party's going to head his way.

I spent most of that day expecting a cute page to say "Get dinner underway." 48 hours later I'm standing in the carpark hearing,

"Oh, you meant for dinner *then*?"

"Uh...yeah. But, um, don't worry about it, no big deal."

"Oh, sorry! Maybe next time?"

"Well, sure, but you know, this offer is for a limited time only..."

"Oh really? "

"Yeah, it doesn't have extended expiry." (Lame Group and Hold reference)

(You've got to try and bounce back with some witty crap. I bounce like a waterbomb)

Over the next few weeks we have several similar conversations in between making small talk on the ward. I throw around phrases like "this dinner is getting cold" and "this dinner is getting so old it's decomposing."

(I know, some of you reading this are probably thinking, "Dave, there seems to be a fairly logical reason why she doesn't want to have dinner - your lame-ass metaphors are about as funny as [insert funny metaphor here as I clearly don't have the knack for it] " I swear to you though, she laughed at the time).

Only one time had she tried to make a plan with me, which I had to unavoidably bail on due to an unexpected friend turning up with a mini-emergency. I ended up calling the girl back after I had finished with my friend (and this was not at an unreasonable hour) but she was by then busy.

Anyway, let's pretend we're in ICU. I've decided to pull the plug on this one. Apollo 11's running out of gas and I'm happy to let in burn up in re-entry. Slap a big NFR/DNR order on it. I've got nails, a coffin and I'm looking for a hammer. Flatline. I've got one more week at work and I don't want to care about this one anymore.

I won't get into the reasons why she had to bail so often, as that's probably a little more specific than it needs to be, but they were fair reasons. However, I think my friend Marcus summed it up best when he told me - the fact that this girl made no real attempt to reschedule any dinners was a fair sign it wasn't going to have good outcomes.

It's a funny dating scene these days where the etiquette is fairly up in the air. Is it proper for a girl to make the first move? Where's the gender equality? Why does a guy have to do all the legwork? Where's the pride-saving response to "Oh, I thought we were just friends"?

"Oh, the reason why I asked you dinner fourteen times is just that I have this incredible recipe for quiche and the chickens I keep in my backyard just happen to produce a hell of a lotta eggs."

I *don't* think so.

Let's not get confused though - we're nowhere near the frenzied intensity of "my only love sprung from my only hate!" or somesuch. All I want is a quiet half hour to maybe find out who this girl is, what her hopes and dreams are, and maybe get a sense of whether we're heading in the same direction.

Is that too much to ask?

Rumble rubble

The aftermath of the strike I blogged about previously was not much to blog home about. We got a light slap on the wrist, but business pretty much went back to usual.

This suggests to me that my reg (who we weren't real happy about last week) was probably just having an off week, as people have pointed out to me in person.

Big ups to Danny Bhoy, who we saw on the closing show of the Melbourne Comedy festival last night. I've long wanted to speak with a Scottish brogue...for some reason it seems to add 2+ charm to anything you say...

Rumble 2

Probably going to get a serve from the boss tomorrow.

I went on strike today at a doctor's stop work meeting, and didn't tell my boss I was going. I did hand my pager to another intern to cover but after that I just left.

I'll tell you why.

This week, as the previous posts have alluded to, has not been a Good Week. I've been bounced up and down trying to organize tests for my patient with PR bleeding who is such a lovely man that it infuriates me every time my boss flips the script and tells me to tell him we've got a new plan.

My fellow colleague was doing her best to be the advocate for another patient who our boss deemed to not have a surgical problem - so she had to go home. She was still vomiting and complained of dizziness. Physiotherapy was not happy to let her go home. My colleague had to fight to suggest that we at least transfer her care to the Medical team.

I was Not Impressed. Check that - We were Not Impressed.

It probably would have taken me two seconds to send my boss a page saying I was going, or duck into theatre to say so, but at that point in time I Simply Did Not Care Enough.

I realize that that action was very passive-aggressive of me. I should probably have the stones to say out loud to my registrar that he ought to pick up his game. Maybe I should have the heart to just shoulder this rubbish. Maybe I should have the brains to get a step ahead.

The tin man, lion and scarecrow rolled in one.

I envy you who aren't all that worried about being nice or polite. I really want to rumble and rage but I fear that just don't know how.

Rumble in the jungle

I've hit the mid-term hump. Monday was one of those days that got such an ass-kicking that Tuesday was still rubbing it's rear wondering what happened. Wednesday is fearful for the morning and I think Thursday is willing itself into non-existence.

We took in many patients on the last weekend, and for the first time in our spoilt rosters our unit was faced with a list that stretched over a page.

The almost knee-jerk reaction from our superiors was to tell us to spend the first half of Monday trying to turf these patients to other units.

I didn't like coming to work and then solely working to make someone else's work harder, even if that someone is a registrar who likes to point out our unit's problems.

I was starting to see the dreariness of paper pushing that I had been fortunate to avoid with such a light patient load. By lunch I felt disconnected from my patients, even more so the ones that I had successfully disconnected my team from by turfing them off.

Tuesday started badly when I forgot my pager, lost the previous day's blood results and came to work to find out one of our patients hadn't had an important colonoscope. This gentleman came in with rectal bleeding. He has mechanical heart valves which mean his blood needs to be thinned somewhat so that it doesn't clog up the valves. We had stopped his blood-thinners so that he wouldn't continue to bleed. We wanted a colonoscope to investigate the bleeding as urgently as possible so we could restart his blood-thinners and prevent him from having a heart attack, a stroke or some other catastrophic event.

I spent this morning shaking my tin for pennies at the feet of the Colorectal and Gastroenterology teams who do the colonoscopes. As apologetic as they were, Charity was not forthcoming. My colleague spent the morning getting crap dumped on her by the Haematology team for not restarting the patient's blood-thinners, and then had to endure further crap-showers from our registrar for apparently taking the Haematologists too seriously.

Again, by lunch we were feeling disconnected, and about ready to rumble.

We decided to let the man have lunch. He had been fasted for two days in preparation for this test, which was looking like it might materialize in the next millenium.

At 1500hrs I get a call from the Colorectal registrar who tells me that three (count them, 3) patients didn't turn up (punks) and my patient could be seen straight away.

Crap. We had let him eat. Or had we? I called the ward.

"No, actually he hasn't had anything to eat yet." Hurrah! Out of the mess that was today, there might be something to celebrate yet. I struggled through the rest of the afternoon, looking forward to seeing the scope report, looking forward to telling the gentleman and his frustratingly anxious wife, "There's nothing to worry about, and you can (both) go home."

At 1700hrs, with a fair batch of menial tasks still left to do I hopped on down to ward 1E to read the report that would help power me through the last of my busywork...

"Bowel preparation was unsatisfactory. Clear to splenic flexure. Colon not fully visualized. Suggest repeat colonoscopy as outpatient."

God.

Damn.

It.