Pat

The heavy grey wind slapped across my face as I walked home to my car in the afternoon with the dull rumble of the river beside me and the sting of my hair in my eyes. With every gust my wrap dress would unwrap and lift then tangle itself between my thighs and little bites would come through my stockings into my legs and hip. I shivered walking, underdressed for once and hugged my bag against my side, the dangling arm holding my lunch pail cooling and whitening. The car was warm inside, having been parked outside all day and the leather had swelled and softened with it as I snuggled into it before putting my key in its holder and pressing the button that turns the car on and flinching from the too loud radio over the whine of the engine.

I backed out and began to drive, heading towards the mountains that hover protectively over our little hill and tried to let the tension seep out of my shoulders into the warm leather. Rubbing my dry lips together and feeling the flake of my matte lipstick as I indicated left for our street.

As the tension uncoiled, the tiredness began to set in and the fog of it surrounded me until I was wrapped securely in it unable and unwilling to break free. Thinking of dinner and wanting, wishing more than anything to not make and not cook and not eat anything but instead to crawl into bed and sleep for a week. But like always, I parked my car in its spot and turned off the engine. Sitting quietly listening to the radio for a few minutes as I always do before climbing out, collecting the bin and tapping my heels against the polished floor boards as I clicked into the kitchen and began the second round.

When Bingley's contract ended on his last job, it was of little concern. He's never been out of work since he graduated and has jumped his way up the career ladder as he always planned. And when 3 months later I returned from my time away, it was not so much of a worry that there was not much on the horizon because something always turns up. And we still had savings and we could keep on keeping on. Then Christmas came and the cool hand of it started to play around in my chest at times, as I watched our little nest egg erode.

Then it was 7 months then 8 and I would wake in a cold sweat thinking of it. Thinking how I couldn't support us all alone. Not without many things giving. And I love working, but we're a team, and all of the responsibility would suffocate me in the night until I sat up gasping.

At 9 months the cracks started to appear, and I began to feel each day that someone had a hold of the key in my side and was winding too much every day, and I worried about how many more winds I could take before the spring cracked and I was broken. But when I was at work I could shut it all out. I could be busy and work hard and not have time to dwell or be anxious. I could be good at my work and while the spectre of a looming exam was never far from my thoughts, I would chase my fear of failure and of study and of financial responsibility away and would instead throw myself into learning and procedures and having one thing in perfect harmony.

And it worked, most of the time, until the morning I came in and found out that the gentleman I'd done a procedure on the previous day had died. Had died of a complication that had come from the procedure that I'd done. That had it not been for me he and his kindly eyes and his soft voice would have still had life and his family would still have had warm hands to hold. And all the rest of that wretched day I worked, but the tears would not stay out of my eyes, and all I could think of was how I never see my children and I work so hard and in the end I have taken a life instead of given it. That that poor man's family would
have been called and if he had not met me, if it had been someone else, maybe he would have lived.

I came home that night and sat on my bed with my feet on the floor and I sobbed. I sobbed until all the tears had gone and the spirit had gone from my breath and so the only sounds that came were the sounds of the shudder as it racked through my chest. Bingley came in and stroked my head as it continued until the nausea began and I started retching, all done. Finished. Complete.

And for all those months that I'd planned how I'd celebrate for him, surprise him when he got a new job, of all days it was that one when Bingley could finally lift some of the weight from my shoulders. But there was a catch, that as my sobs subsided in the warmth of his belly as he held me there with my feet still flat on the floor, that started the sobs anew. This new job is away. Far away and he would be leaving in 3 days time. For weeks.

I thought of getting the girls to school and the Possum to kindy and then getting to work and I thought I could do that, that the rush rush rush I had not missed, but I could do that. Then I thought of coming home every night, of rushing home in the traffic and the rapidly darkening day as the sun tucks herself under her golden pink covers and making dinner and supervising home work and tidying and ironing and washing and sorting everything and whatever strength I had deserted me. I was 4 weeks out of an exam. A specialist exam with a pass rate of 25%. And I pulled my feet up off the floor, curled up under the blanket and cried some more.

Of course, eventually I got up, because what other choice is there? I could have lain there forever. I could have used any and all of those excuses for why I just can't do or be. But what sort of life would that be? There is a steely core within me. Some stubborn tenacious sort of fibre that refuses to break, and I set about making things work. I hired a new after school nanny, I wrote up a timetable, I had a family meeting and I had most of all a long, hard talk with myself and I told myself I could do this because there is and was no other choice.

It's not been all sunshine and roses. I can't be the worker I was before he died because he still haunts the periphery so that there's a tremble sometimes when I finish a procedure now, and an assumption that all things can and will go wrong. I have none of the confidence that comes from ignorance and I have tasted real fear for the first time in my life. There is a new quietness, and I was never loud in the first place. I withdrew so far into my shell that I'm blinded even coming near the light, and part of me doesn't want to come out again, but prefers to stay hidden and safe.

I am thinner again. My elbows are pointier and when I lie flat my anterior superior iliac spines are visible, tenting the pale skin above that does not pull taut but instead drapes across them. My belly again has the slack softness where it was stretched by the Possum and faded into silveriness and no longer has anything to hold it out so it falls. My jaw is stronger and has shadows underneath and there are little hollows in my cheeks that suck against my teeth when I am tired. Strangely, my breasts have remained full and soft and have not emptied with the rest of me, I am glad of this, to have one thing left of what it used to be like to be me.

There are lines around my eyes, still faint and not permanent yet, but they will be, and I am handsomer now than I was at 21 or 25. Not that I was or will ever be pretty, but my features are less harsh on this tired face than they were on the pillowy roundness of youth. My arms and my legs are thinner and my feet are smaller too. Who knew that feet could change in size. My hair is nearly down to my waist again and is darker too, and falls out in strands that get stuck in the bristles of the broom.

When Bingley is away I have no appetite and when the exam came I did not eat because I could not. And as I lay in my hammock afterwards, drifting listlessly in the pale afternoon light I was given food and forced to eat it for all I did not want it, because people were becoming concerned and I suppose they had reason. So I ate.

And now I live by my schedule where everything must be fitted in and around and somehow squished into the few hours of each day. And the children are happy and settled. They are thriving on all the routine and are helping. They miss Bingley too, but they know he is coming home and they know how much he needed to work. We read at night on the white sofa with the cuddly grey blankets in the pale white lamplight and they snuggle into me as I choke up reading Charlotte's Web. And I turn off all the lights at a sensible hour, and I climb into bed, feeling satisfied that the washing is folded and put away and that the kitchen is clean and the ironing is done.

And I lie here in bed, in my cold bed with the late Autumn wind whispering over me and I tell myself to sleep, because the tiredness makes my bones ache and I am doing far too much for one person who does not get enough sleep. And sleep evades me, night after night. So I read and I write and I compose stories in my head. And I miss the warmth in my bed that even on my worst days was always there, that I could somehow absorb into until his regular breathing became my breathing. Or the days when the tears came when I could burrow into the warmth and have it envelop me, encase me and penetrate me until all the cold was chased away.

I'm afraid to cry, but also I don't want to. The little thread inside me, the little core that refuses to break but instead tenaciously holds every piece together is intact. And while my skin may be softer than ever before and the legs that are holding me upright are whittled down, there is still a fire that burns there in the middle, and refuses to go out and believes all this is for a purpose. If only to prove that I can do anything, if I put my mind to it.

But I'm so tired.

A very boring week. Because I write about those now too. Apparently.

Because it is school holidays, the children had their annual visit with their grandparents and Bingley and I sat on the couch and wondered at the silence. For a very short period of time anyway before trying to fill it. I still had to work all week, and weekend, but we managed to do some other things too.

The first night we went and saw The Hobbit and drank slushies that gave me headspin and ate popcorn until I couldn't feel my lips. It was good and I enjoyed the Hobbit very much. I am thinking of taking the Elfling for an encore as I think she'd like it but it may be yet just a little scary. We'll see. Plus the idea of a night out with just her is appealing.

After the movie we walked around Southbank for a while and sat down at a Spanish bar to eat tapas. Fun ambience and a jug of tasty Sangria mixed with the sultry night as we people watched and the bougainvilea bower swayed listlessly in what was left of the breeze. After dinner, having eaten too much, we wandered through the park to the beach where hundreds of others were still swimming and I peeled off my shoes and pulled up my jeans and waded in tipsily, wanting nothing more than to dive right in. The only thing that stopped me was that my underwear was sheer, otherwise I would have jumped. Bingley was much more sensible than I though and promised we would come back the next night.

So Monday, after work, when I was overtired and overworked and underpaid, I got changed into my riding gear, we snapped our new $10 LED torches to our bikes and we rode all the way to the city, across the Goodwill Bridge and back down into Southbank to the pools. Unlike every other day of this new year, it was actually blowing quite a bit, with the wind racing along the river and losing all of her heat. Remembering the strong pull of desire from the previous night however I forced myself to strip off my slightly sweaty clothes down to my bikini and jump into the water that was actually blissfully warm. Lapping at shoulders as we bobbed around watching the city lights and listening to the sounds of everyone else splashing. The wind as it blew across the surface raising gooseflesh and causing me to shiver so much that it was not quite as long as expected before we were back on our bikes and riding home in the night.

Bingley and I have never ridden our bikes together in Brisbane before and it was a revelation. Wide, well maintained bike paths that snaked under and over bridges that seem so much bigger when you're whooshing past on your own steam. On arriving home my knees and shoulders hurt, but the grin of self satisfaction and spontaneity and doing something fun and active was elixir enough to fall peacefully to sleep not long after.

Wednesday night I stopped at Ikea on the way home and bought a new bookshelf. It was very big and heavy and getting it into the car I used all of my grade 10 Physics to actually lever it in without breaking something. We then had the fun of sitting on the floor and putting it together, which is probably the real reason we own so much Ikea furniture - it's just a really big lego set.

Thursday we went out for dinner at a Lebanese restaurant. It was ok.

Friday we had a big fight. I cried. We made up. I slept badly.

Saturday we woke up and the sun was shining and my room was full of light. I was snuggled up in my blankets as the airconditioning rumbled through the vents. After finally climbing out of bed and into the shower, we made our way to GoMA to the new APT exhibit.

Side note - I am lucky that I was brought up in a family that appreciated art and took the time to take children to museums and galleries and to explain it as well. Some art doesn't need explaining. Some art is just pretty and nice to look at, but art that speaks to you other than just being pretty - learning to appreciate that is a true gift.

Anyway, the Asia/Pacific triennial art exhibit at the Queensland Art Gallery is one of my favourite things to experience. The last exhibit in 2010 was spectacular and there were pieces there that made my heart hurt. Some that made my eyes sting and some that pulled my stomach out of my chest .I loved it. Loved experiencing it. Loved visiting it on my own. Loved taking others with me to experience it. The stag of globes still rates as one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. So of course my expectations were high, and I take disappointment badly.

I was not disappointed.

From the first moment of walking in, I knew I would not be disappointed. Some things of course I just glanced over politely, missing, or not caring about their meaning. Others had me spellbound, sitting and watching, sometimes nose right up to the glass or the paint or the wood, just to see every last tiny detail. To try and work out how as well as what and why.

Here are some of my favourites, and reasons why you should go too.

I liked these. I empathise.

This is techinically spectacular and utterly unnerving. So incredibly beautiful and so ugly at the same time. My phone has done nothing to capture the beauty of the colours or the technique. 

String theory. I followed each line to its completion. I loved the wobbles. String theory needs wobbles.

The yellow room 

Black and white. Texture and light. I was wearing a red dress and the reflected light from me gave the painting colour. I was profoundly moved by it.

Terrible picture of a stunning series by Michael Cook. Amazing.

This is a photograph taken of the sky in a mirror. The mirror is made from polished meteorite. When I realised what I was looking at my heart jumped a little. So spectacularly beautiful and so simple - seeing the sky from the sky. 

Large installation piece of cities that raise to they sky. Worth looking at close up to see all the little details. 

I usually am not much interested in the short cinema offerings at these exhibitions and wander out after a polite few minutes of trying to look interested. This one was not like that. 9 minutes that sucked the breath from my chest. I know it won't affect everyone like that, but it's worth sitting down for just to appreciate the cinematography. 

Whimsical Japanese print. Ethereal.

Farsi. I love that the room bent the more I looked at it to become a 3 dimensional thing. 

I am not sure why this moved me so much. It's massive and it is beautiful. Part of a larger series by an Indigenous artist. One of the bags reminded me of the Giants in the BFG. They seemed perfect for snatching up little children. 

One of those spectacularly beautiful wow creations that you don't need to be a critic to enjoy. I wanted to visit there in the clouds this temple. Live there. Home of the air nomads. 

Parade of the tiny glass animals. Intricate, refractory and flowing like water. 

Menacing shapes in the art gallery over the water. I loved the reflections and the menace and the beauty all mixed in together.

My hair is longer.

Wrap up posts are always a bit tedious. Both to write and to read. But we write the equivalent of the mass mail out Christmas letter because we feel the need for a punctuation mark in this little written universe of ours. So here goes...

There were and are plenty of things I could write about, but the first thing that came to my very very tired mind tonight as I bullied myself into writing the sort of post I usually glaze over, was that my hair is longer than it was this time last year. Quite a bit actually. Sometimes, in the tedium of growing my hair and trying to keep it looking healthy, it has felt as if it's not growing at all. That I'm spending all this time pursuing something that's just not possible, and as far as poorly drawn metaphors go, that about sums up good portions of this year.

But whining is not attractive at the best of times, and even at the worst of times it's not really one of my defining characteristics, because no one ever achieved much whining, and I've always been an overachiever.

So here's a few things I actually achieved this year:

I started drawing again. I've talked about it and half heartedly tried to pretend I was making an effort, when in reality I wasn't doing much of anything. But this year I really did, and I was even brave enough to give some of it away to a friend who deserved something much more impressive, but who was properly appreciative of the effort and thus I love her to bits.

I started a training program for a Royal Australian and New Zealand medical college and got excellent reviews. I got referees to say wonderful things about me and make me cry (in the good way). And if I didn't pass my exam first go, that's ok, I can do it again.

I moved into my first house all on my own and not only survived, but enjoyed myself. I went to the beach after work and sat on the sand. I stopped and bought icecream just because I could. I stayed up to late and read crappy books to cure the insomnia. I got up too early and did yoga on my purple mat.

I came home to my beautiful family and never want to leave again. Though it would be nice to still be able to pop down to the beach after work, or to the top of the mountain. I'd still rather come home to a noisy house full of squabbles and laughter and hugs and tiny sunburned hands that grip my fingers and steal my pillow in the middle of the night. I sleep better here.

But in general , 2012 was far harder than I anticipated, and in ways I hadn't expected. It hasn't been so much about enjoying as surviving and it's not my favourite way to live. 2011 finished on such a high - home from Paris, a major life long dream fulfilled, succeeding at work, succeeding at home, loving my beautiful children and with dreams this year of saving for our first home together. And I think that has what has been hardest this year, not the long hours, though they have been longer than almost any other time I have worked, or the stress of Bingley's prolonged unemployment, or the financial difficulties, or my weight gain that has been enough that my beautiful clothes that I wore to Paris pinch and no longer drape as they're supposed to. No, what has been hardest of all is that it has seemed pointless to dream, for fear of disappointment, and with no tangible goals to work for, I have floundered.

So for 2013, my goals are these - to have goals again. To work for them, even if they are smaller than the dreams of a year ago, when circumstances were different. To feel beautiful again, and dress accordingly. To learn how to curl my hair in curls that last longer than the time it took to put them in. To pass my exam. To go on a holiday, booked and planned in advance, even if it's not as glamorous as Paris, and sit in the heat with Bingley with limp hair and drink mojitos in the sunset.

Sometimes, I forget I'm 31, and I want someone to swoop in and save me. To make me feel clever and fun and beautiful and to make it all easier for me. To not worry about money or learning or holding the steel that is pressed against a person's heart and controlling their fate. To wake up and worry only about doing my hair and  making breakfast for the family and planning dinner and listening to homework. To still feel like there is magic and joy in the world.

But it's not my job or my study that takes that away, and no Disney Prince could ever give it to me either. And there are moments of magic still, when I make someone laugh, while taking away the fear of the procedure I'm doing. Of being thanked by the big burly security guard when I've given him the joint injection that means his arms work like they're supposed to. Or the little old lady who tears up when I am the first person to explain what it is that she's doing in hospital and why I'm doing what I'm doing. Who holds my hand with frail paper skin that buckles under my blade and bruises at a whisper.

Little old ladies always comment on my hair too. My beautiful long hair. I guess that's another thing I achieved: I have my old hair back.

Sun setting on 2012

PS I want to write about Christmas
PPS I want to write more this year. And not just because Liss told me to.

Air Kerma

I knew it was coming. The perfect storm had been brewing for weeks, and while there had been the occasional histrionic outburst, it had only ever been an opener to the main event. Today, after a tutorial that confirmed that I still have far too much to cram into my head in 5 short days than is humanly possible, I came home in the bubbling, gravid evening with the skies bruised and angry to make dinner.

We have been eating a lot of 15 minute meals lately, simple, boring food that the kids will eat and require minimal effort or brain power. I had a little more time this afternoon so I made boeuf bourguignon. Or casserole. Meat in gravy with a few vegetables.  I did it properly too, flouring the meat, preparing the vegetables, deglazing the pan with yet another half drunk bottle of wine bought to try and understand the mysteries of a glass with dinner.

It smelled fantastic. It simmered down to the perfect gravy consistency. The house smelled of red wine and garlic and beef. Perfect for a stormy afternoon. Warm and filling.

Of course, the kids refused to eat it. The Monkey making gagging noises - she hates "sauce". The Possum tasting the potato with gravy exactly once. The Elfling only ate hers under sufferance and a willingness to show up the others. I teetered on the edge. Reason completely lost and temper frayed. Ego already shattered on one front, pushing precipitously on another.

The Possum had a tantrum about something. He has them often now, his understanding of speech and language and his deficiencies in both culminating in outrage at not being understood. He stood in front of me, then climbed on top of me to put his screaming face in front of mine. He could not speak to tell me what was wrong as his tantrum had reached the state where he was only capable of emitting noise and crying. It escalated as I was incapable of understanding him. I burst into tears, and then became desperate and terrified of exploding. I put him on his bed and shut his door fearful of the way I had lost all sense of reason. I didn't yell or scream or hit, and that scared me more than if I'd done any or all of those things. I was beyond anger.

I started to shake while sobbing. My brain unable to process anything. Leaning forward, my arms holding up my torso as I rocked and sobbed. Barely aware of Bingley beside me. I retched and only just made it to the bathroom to divest the only appreciated meal of the evening into the toilet bowl. I knelt on the cold floor with the tiles digging into my knees and convulsed. My head resting against the lid as I sobbed and vomited and shook. I have never in eight years wished so very much that I could be alone. My mascara stung my eyes and my teeth hurt. Horrible suppressed memories of hyperemesis flashed across my skull making me shake more. The terrifying feeling of my body being separate from myself and losing all control. My body only a vessel for my angst until it was all gone and the familiar aching sensation filled the void.

Emptied, I turned on the shower and put my shuddering self under the spray, as hot as I could before my skin flamed and stung. Scrubbed clean and pink and hollow until the shaking had steadied and only my insides that were quivering. I brushed my teeth in the soft pyjamas I wore when I birthed the Monkey then took a deep breath, walked back into my real life and the bedtime routine. Dressed the Possum, read him his stories. Feigned interest as he counted the tigers in his book before kissing him goodnight and walking out of his room.

Then, pretense expunged, the anger returned. The desperate snotty, tearful anger. Anger at Bingley for every time he smiles condescendingly and tells me "you'll be fine". Anger at those that don't understand. Anger at the fact that I did this to myself by accepting this job and pursuing this path. Anger at the hopelessness. Anger at my brain for not being as youthful and spry as it once was. Anger at ridiculous curricula that don't cover understanding of concepts but expect memorising of tables and formulae that I will never ever use in a clinical setting.

And then, eventually, I stopped crying. It took a while. I used a lot of tissues and I haven't picked them up yet. They're in a damp, snotty pile beside me on the desk. But once I'd stopped snivelling and the fog of despair had lifted a little I was left with the "now what" part of any complete, messy meltdown.

A very large, very tired, very sensible part of me wanted to go curl up in bed. Sleep for a month and wake up in another time and place. But the bigger part, the simultaneously damaging and preserving part of me picked up my bag of study notes and text books and pulled them out. Arranged them on the desk and picked up a highlighter. Made me practice exam questions and leaf through a hefty text book and ask Bingley to give me a pop quiz.

When I say I am going to fail this exam, it is not for dramatic effect - the proportion of persons who fail is actually quite high, and my best case scenario involves failing at least some sections. Acceptance of this fact is very difficult for me to come by, as it feels, rightly or wrongly, that I have so much more to prove; when all I know for certain is that I can prove that this is a very bad idea. There's also the stubborn fact that I've never failed an exam before, and I don't particularly want to. Aside from the ego thing, if/when I fail this, I have to do it again, and more than the study and the cost, it's feeling this way for another 6 months that terrifies me. At least with hyperemesis there was a baby to cuddle at the end.

Gauze

I hadn't washed our curtains since we moved into this house. I am sure that experienced Hausfraus are currently shocked out of speech, but it was well down on my priority list. They were the heavy, block out type of curtains, and so even though the faded minty green colour matched with the yellow of the walls to look precisely like bile stained vomit, I left them. Blockout blinds provide both insulation and the dark cave like sensation that promotes sleep. And that's all I wanted to do. 

But after my dawn experience the other day I felt compelled to take them down, clean away all the dust and to hang gauzy white curtains that billow in the breeze and make me wake to the soft glow of light in the mornings instead of the miserable peal from my mobile phone at whatever ridiculous hour it is that I need to get up. 

I have started my new job and I'm tired. Miserably tired. I am trying to fit too much in and it's so hard because part of me just does not want to. I want it to be easy. I don't want to race and panic and stress, but I have to and that's part of the deal. I come home so tired I want to crawl into bed, but I don't even get the luxury of that because I have to make dinner and read books and sign homework folders. 

I want to be gleaming and excited and happy. And I am quite often. But right now, even though I intended to write about the beauty of waking with the birds, my brain has collapsed into tears and I just can't. The girls are doing beautifully at school and the Possum is thriving at kindy and I want so much to write about those things, but right now I can barely move my fingers to type. So I'm going to crawl under the covers, now that I've kissed the last forehead and finished the last exciting Tashi adventure and feel guilty that I'm not studying. Because useless emotions creep up one you when you're tired, and never give you the giant reassuring hug that you need. 

Epoch

This time three years ago I was sitting in a large lecture theatre with my notes in a perspex folder as I listened. In front of me, nestled in my lap was the beginnings of my belly, that would continue to swell for the next few weeks as the Possum grew. I was no longer a student, and yet sitting there in the lecture theatre, I may as well have been, and life was not so very different to a few weeks earlier when I had been just a student.

My clothes were plain and boring. Partly because maternity wear was mostly plain and boring and partly because I couldn't afford much else. But it was also because part of me didn't care, and the part that did was too vain to accept that I couldn't wear the sorts of clothes I'd like to. I liked that I got a free pass in pregnancy anyway, as I listened to those lectures, surrounded by the excited hubbub of my fellow interns as we prepared to step out into the world for the first time and use that hard won "doctor" in front of our names.

We were naive and excited and optimistic. We had survived medical school and the world was ours for the taking. Bring on the ER scenes of jumping on someone's chest and watching them come back to life while we patted ourselves on our backs for a job well done. The fact that my first arrest that I arrived at was a shambles should have given me a heads up, but that naive idealism pervaded my first few months of medicine. And every time someone called me "doctor" a thrill went through me, as it registered that yes, I was.

I went on maternity leave, came back, and I chronicled the disaster that that was. I didn't come back with my adrenaline fuelled idealism and excited determination to make a difference. I came back desperate and isolated, dreading being at work and dreading being at home. It is no wonder that those first few months were so horrible that I have nearly blocked them from my conscience. But I survived them. Barely. And ended up in Palliative Care.

Palliative Care was to be the hardest and possibly the best rotation I did as an intern. I fought against it, it was the area of medicine I feared most, my personal experience being limited to ideas of giving up and saying goodbye. I learned it was not like that, and that the people who go into this area of medicine are the most dedicated and caring doctors I ever met. There is no money in palliation. Very little respect. So those that are there do it because they truly want to make a difference... and they do.

But by the end of 3 months of dealing with those that were sick and dying and afraid, I was a complete mess. Breaking point on so many fronts, falling apart while being the best doctor I could, leaving behind a family in tatters and so fragile that I felt as if I were made of glass. Transparent and brittle. But there was one saving grace, one tiny spark inside that illuminated through my limbs. I was a better doctor.

For the next 18 months I worked so hard that sometimes I'm not sure I slept. I learned to laugh again. I left home in darkness and often came home in darkness. I learned so much. I learned what it feels like to do chest compressions on someone when rigor has already started to set in. I learned what it's like to push a catheter into an epidural space and the unique joy that is seeing crystalline fluid drip from the end of the needle to show you're in the right spot. I also learned the fear in seeing that fluid flow bright yellow, thick as mustard.

I ordered x-rays, I attended crash calls, I took more blood than flows around my body. I prescribed medications I'd never even heard of, and looked up the formulations on MIMS guiltily, wondering how it is that people have so much faith in doctors. I became so slick with taking blood and putting in cannulas that other doctors would call me to come help. I made people laugh at 2am in the darkness as I punctured their feet and finally found a vein in the circle of light from the lamp so that they would mind less at the tourniquet and stop being so terrified.

I sat in the doctor's lounge and watched the sunrise more times than I can remember. A full lunar eclipse one night. Fireworks another. I fell asleep on the chairs, with my pager clutched in my hand, waking instantly as it vibrated and dashing off to put out more fires. I learned to do so many things that it didn't matter if I was mostly asleep, so long as I could do them effectively and not cause pain or fear.

I experienced death. I learned the smell that heralds multiorgan failure and felt the keening pain of it when it happened to someone I'd come to know. I found that there's comfort in sitting next to a bed in the twilight, when no one even really knows you're there and listening to the breath of someone whose inhalation may be their last. Tinkering with the syringe driver to make sure that everything was perfect. An event coordinator for the last moments on Earth. I learned there are good deaths and there are bad deaths, and tried to explain the difference to the desperate and afraid. I cried sometimes, but not very often. The worst days leaving me empty so that I didn't even know how to feel.

But I experienced life too. I saw patients with head injuries so bad that every morning I'd hold my breath a little, waiting to see if this was the day they'd deteriorate. I saw senseless injuries in people far too young to know what the inside of a hospital looks like and permanent disabilities while families smiled tight smiles and became excited by the opening of eyes. I saw two young people, both barely out of their teens, both have injuries that should have caused death. And they languished on the ward for weeks, barely changing, barely alive. Hearts and lungs that still work as 20 year old hearts and lungs should, but everything else at the mercy of a petulant brain.

And I watched one of those 20 year olds wave to me on the last day. Watched him start to show signs that his brain was waking up, and though he would never again be what he was, that he would be something more than what he had been, when I had washed and debrided the wound on his arm that he could not feel as it laid limply by his side. I saw one of them walk into the ward, a few weeks after she'd been discharged. Not ever again who she was, but smiling and walking alone. A girl who had lain silently in bed for weeks, only one side of her body responding to painful stimuli who had progressed just like the miracle pundits tell us.

But I saw many more who didn't.

I've done psychiatry and seen people trapped in their own minds. I've done pain and seen the same thing; those looking for a magic wand that doesn't exist - a silver bullet that will suddenly make them "normal". Seen some that engaged and accepted, went on and understood how to move past the pain and live the only life they have. Saw plenty more who couldn't. I did general surgery, abdominal surgery, orthopaedic surgery. Stood in theatre in the middle of the night while swooning a little from tiredness as I held a retractor. Gloved up and gowned, felt the sweat roll behind my visor and yawned again behind the mask.

I did months of neurosurgery and fought an inner battle with myself. One version of me somewhere is a surgeon, and operating on brains and spines, giving hope to the Harveys of the world. But as I watched the dedication and the enthusiasm of the registrars and consultants that I admired so much, I knew that I just couldn't. I wanted to so much, but the toll it was taking on the girls and Bingley was too much. I knew if I pursued it that I would lose my family. In short months I also lost nearly ten kilograms, and while I've maintained most of that, and I can't pretend that I don't like it, it played havoc with my health.

And now I find myself here on the very last day of being a resident doctor and I feel overwhelmingly sad. In the last few weeks I've felt relief that it's coming to an end, but the wards and their smell seem welcoming somehow. I know this rabbit warren of a hospital better than most. I know the secret passages and the stairs to everywhere. I've practiced on just about every ward there is in every building. I know the nurses and the fellow doctors. I know the ones who've been here forever and the ones that are only just making a name for themselves. I've made friends who will stick up for me, cover for me and tell me roundly when I'm being a twit. I've found referees that say glowing things that make my neck feel hot and my eyes prickle suspiciously.

And I sit here on my unpaid lunch break, in my tailored sleek dress with the shiny accessories and amazing shoes that I would have only dreamed of three years ago. My pager in front of me, my smart phone on my notes and I wonder at how hard it is to push forward. To accept change.

Part of me wants to just stay here, to keep doing this, at getting better and better at it, to not go down any more tunnels but to sit out here in the warm wind and the light. It has been an amazing three years. A terrible three years. I am so much older that I was three years ago. And if I stay here it's warm and it's comfortable and there's no risk at all.

But deep in my belly where the Gleam resides, there's a warm and flickering fire and that curl of anticipation that a little girl felt as she lay her forehead against the window as she sped to another destination, another new beginning. I don't exactly know where I'm going, I've just bought a ticket for the train and once I'm on it we'll speed away. And sometimes we'll travel through tunnels, and there will be no light anywhere at all. But even in the darkness we'll keep on moving forward, until I'm in the light and wind again.

It's nice to be alive

Sometimes it's really nice to curl up in bed and have a cry and feel sorry for a little bit, just to get it out. And then, after I've had my cry, and felt sorry for myself a little bit, it's nice to put on some music, dance around with my adorable children and remind myself, that sometimes shit happens, but seriously, it's really nice to be alive.

Chill out it's alright, kiss me, it's nice to be alive.

Not Paris.

When I arrived she was leaning over the bed, face blue as she gasped for breath. My entrance shepherded by the others called by the emergency page for a young woman who couldn't breathe. The mask went on, the lines went in, like a well greased machine and the clothes were ripped from her chest so that we could stick on the leads for the defibrillator. I was there when she stopped breathing, and it was my hands on her chest as the ECG showed a flat line. Her ribs far springier than any others I'd ever felt, because she was at least 40 years younger than anyone else whose chest I had compressed, the beat of Staying Alive dancing irreverently through my head as I counted 30 - two pumps on the mask. Adrenaline, atropine, bicarbonate, magnesium. My fingers on the cricoid as the ETT went click click click beneath them.

Mobile radiographer arrives, chest compressions continue. There's a rhythm - now it's gone. Tiny pulse, now no output. That smell. That death smell. Pumping on the chest, arms tired, swap with someone else. Keep pumping, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes. Infusion. ABG. Acidotic. Pupils fixed. Compressions cease. 38 years old. Curtains now closed and everything left, just a blanket drawn up. Phone calls in the middle of the night. 

Feel pointless. Wonder if she will get bruises from the futile weight of my arms and hands on her chest. Detach. Sit on the ward and read through her chart, search for an answer for why it all went wrong. Listen to the call to the coroner. Lean back for a bit. Feel morose, feel reminded of all the people who wonder why I do this job and if I agree with them. Shake myself, answer more calls, forget her name and feel guilty about it. It's on a sticker somewhere. 

May

I have had this window open now for the better part of 4 hours and have left it hanging in the breeze the whole time. Like an assignment that's due tomorrow that I'm putting off until the very last minute. Which is ridiculous because this is a blog, and the only reason to write in it is because I want to. There's no have to anything. And yet, here it sits, like a precocious middle child, reminding me of my duties, and feeling guilty for avoiding them.

It should not be difficult to write, there has been a lot happening in recent times. First and foremost I took a holiday. A charlatan's holiday, in that we left at 10am after I had worked through the night, and I had to come back in the middle for a late shift, but still, we went somewhere new where the walls were white and the ocean crashed outside my window and the air tasted of salt. It was lovely to go to bed at night with the doors open to the view and to hear the tempestuous sea. For the first few nights the weather was quite wild, and in our 10th floor apartment the waves still roared. It was an angry sea.

The first morning I woke up, and there was sun on my face rising over that water. It reflected off the mirror next to the bed, and refracted it all over the white room so that everything sparkled. I have not slept so well as I did the last few nights, in months. Years maybe. That glorious white noise speaking of power and fury and wind rocked me as softly as any lullaby all night long. It kept me calm and zen, even when I discovered that the Possum had drawn all over a wall in crayon, and had tipped a bowl of cocoa pops on the cream carpet.

The air did beautiful things to my skin and made my hair shine. I went swimming in the waves, and licked the salt from my lips, smelt it on my arms. I played in the sand with the kids and ate whatever I wanted. I drank sweet bacardi with fresh mint and I ate chocolate while sniffling over the Royal Wedding. I read 3 Mills and Boon stories while sticky with salt and stretched out on the unmade bed. I luxuriated in our in room spa bath and let the jets and the bubbles transport me to some place else.

The kids had a lovely time too, but I was reminded of how much work they can be out of routine. They were constantly bored, or fidgety, or grumpy, or hungry hungry hungry, and it was interesting remembering that they needed to be thought of at all times again. While I am at work, someone else is remembering that you need to take tiny bladder toilet breaks every 2 hours and that meals need to be about the same apart. Whereas I can often forget to eat, especially if I'm off in la la land as it was very easy to drift this past week. But there were lovely moments too. The Elfling has been reading books on her own, and "in her head" and it makes me heart glad. Watching her sitting on the couch curled up with a book made me squee, just a little bit.

The Possum loved the sand, was terrified of the waves, and adored drawing on everything. The walls, the carpet, the tiles, and even the speakers for the tv. I spent a good bit of every morning finding that which he had decorated while we had foolishly slept in, and weighing up how much that extra hour in the morning was worth. But he smiled a lot and he tried valiantly to talk, gradually, oh so gradually, moving on from pointing and grunting to mimicking sounds. He was and continues to be so delighted when he is understood, that I feel that talking will be very soon. But in the meantime I don't mind at all, he is still my snuggliest baby, he loves cuddles, he loves books, and he adores me, in a way that makes me feel humbled to be his mother.

 

And the wild Monkey enjoyed herself too. She has been reminding me lately a lot of how much of a failure I felt as a mother when the Elfling was four years old, and I am so glad that I've lived through that long enough to know that it is not just me and that it will get better. Four is tough. She is bright and clever and far too quick witted, but there are still vestiges of babyhood as well. A few soft reminders at cheek and wrist that speak of my curly haired baby girl, who gets lost so often now in my fiery red headed preschooler. She of the corkscrew curls and the titian temper. She is flailing a little at the moment, and I am missing her dreadfully, to the extent that the two of us are going on a special holiday soon, where she gets to be made a fuss of for a change, instead of being sandwiched between her high maintenance siblings.


Bingley and I are doing better as well, with the ability to spend time together under the sun. My job is wretched on a relationship. Any relationship - and it is only made more difficult by the things that are meant to bind us so strongly. Children and money have to be the single biggest stressors in any marriage, and play into it my misogynistic career and it's chaotic. But after a few nights of sitting back together listening to the waves, and waking in white light, I feel more settled. Restless, still not breathing properly, but settled. I still have moments of wretched despair, but they are less often than they were, and I take comfort in this.

As part of our renegotiating of our relationship I asked Bingley to take more photos of me, so that I might be part of our family chronicles. Usually this exercise brings me to the point of despair, with poorly focused photos that are framed to best exhibit my nose hair or back fat, but he took 2 single photos this holiday that made me happy that I insisted. I look happy and relaxed and alive, to the extent that I received no less than 15 messages on facebook in the hour after I posted. And I know that when I am having a bad day, and it will come, sooner rather than later, I can look at that photo, and know that in that moment I was happy. That in spite of my catastrophising fear that I have never been happy, that my eyes there tell a different story.

And for the rest, I've learned how to take self-portraits.

10 hour shifts are hard. They hours sort of blur into each other until I look up and it's 6pm. I worked really hard today. I always try and be conscientious and keep busy but today was long. I barely stopped. I realised at 2:20pm that I had yet to eat, and I raced off to scoff some yoghurt before running back to check some x-rays.

What's interesting to me is how much the environment I'm working with right now destabilises my self confidence. Even with my stellar reports since I was last here I still feel unsure. It's strange.

And I'm too tired to write any more, my fingers and eyes keep sliding away. I'm going to curl up on the couch until I inevitably fall asleep and Bingley has to wake me up to go to bed.