serendipti's Diaryland Diary

1:23 a.m. - Thursday, Nov. 11, 2004

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crazy on call night and failing the boards (again!)

So it is the am in the peds ward, am on call with my girls, and it seems like we are in an ER. The 6 year old with ALL (Acute Lymphcytic Leukemia)--t-cell, which is the worse variety than B, is crashing.....fever spiking, Bp decreasing, we might have to send her to the PICU (peds intensive care unit)....then there is the 16 year old we admitted because she started losing sight in her left eye.......
later (time has elapsed).....nothing like watching a lumbar puncture at 2am to really wake you up.....this patient is this lovely 16year old, smart, bright, kind.....we think she has possibly had her first symptomatic episode of MS....the MRI shows all these white matter lesions in the brain, and manana, if the spinal fluid shows oligoclonal bands, then we break the news to her. Man oh man.
So in the background of this on call night, I find out I have failed the Boards, yet again, in true Dipti style of making things even more complicated. So i failed. And maybe it is the environment, but i mean, in the grand scheme, it is a stupid puddle on the sidewalk....no great obstacle...in fact, I might just jump in it feet first to splash.....so i failed, so i go home, that means I get to be around dad and mom and that means I get to be around when jumbee is born and that means I get to learn this material even better this time and that means I get to avoid 2 months of chi-town winter and that means I get to have a change of scene and be in Socal (1st time, chicago, 2nd time, Barea, third times the charm in LA....and so maybe it is because my life seems a helluva lot simpler than little Olivia who is is 6 months old and has never left the hospital and was born with her intestines spilling out of her because teh sides of her stomach did not quite meet at the midpoint.....and maybe it is because of all these reasons, that I currently feel that failing the boards for a second time is hardly anything to feel awful about....we most likely have to tell this girl manana that she has MS at 16, and that is what is in the forefront of my mind right now, really.
And I will take this puppy a third time, and try my damnedest but not freak out about it because we all know it is a floggin miracle I actually got into med school anyway, and we all know that this is not where my natural strengths lie...i.e. in the rote memorization and the hard sciences, but the last few weeks on the peds floor have been so great, and I feel like I am good at this, on some level, anyway, that i will re-take the boards...none of this, if I fail again I will drop out business.
oh floggin well... i failed. the rate at which the character is being built is most exciting.
Aite kiddos, it is 2:30, i am going to see if my intern needs me to do anything for her...i.e. i am going to offer my i'll-be-your-ward-bitch services, because they have had a rather stressful night.
love you
miss you
will call you
will re-take the boards (again)
will be around the danchster again
will miss chicago winter for a bit (yaa)
will miss amy for a bit (boo!)
will be back in cali on dec 10th for an indefinite amount of time
bye!

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