Delirious

Today my bitter flamboyant friend allowed me to draw his blood. I suppose I ought to construe this as sort of an honor -- after all, he did refuse the third-year resident on the day he was admitted. When I penetrated the first vein, and nothing but fizzles seeped up into the tube, he told me, not entirely mean-spiritedly, that I really out to practice on my boyfriend. I smiled at him, trying to hold back saying what I really wanted, that I had no boyfriend in the picture, and moreover that I had been up for nearly 30 hours, with about a 1 hour nap between 5 and 6, in the cold intern's lounge, without blanket, with my body pressed up against my pager, barely able to close my eyes for fear that it would alarm as soon as I become unconscious, and that I was beyond tired -- that what I felt was this trippy light-headedness, a sort of delerium, where I wandered, sleep-walked, almost ghost-like to my next destination, at times wondering how I ended up in a certain spot I had no intention of being in. I did not want to heighten his anxiety anymore, the way he was heightening mine. He had amazing veins. Bulging from his lean, white arm -- ideal for even the most amateur of phlebotomists. But, even in my altered state, I felt this overwhelming need to impress him -- this person that greets me with a dismissive "hello, little girl" each day that I come to examine him. And as expected, nerves got the best of me.

So this was my ending to possibly the longest day I have ever spent. When two minutes before I was about to leave to rest in my warm bed at home, the nurses call me to tell me that he who was minutes away from being discharged, had, now a fever of 101. And my attending, with all the habitus, and none of the charm, of Archie Bunker, gruffly told me that of course I needed to culture. Kiss my bed goodbye. I forsaw that before I were to attempt to sign off again, I would receive another page. They never fail, these nurses, at predicting when the least convienient time would be for you, and page right at that moment. Ahh, medicine. How beautiful that sound of the beep.

And to think; in less than 12 hours I will be right back where I started.