Wax

The weather is warmer, so I'm well into my usual routine of getting waxed every 3 weeks or so, and because of my timetable I've been going into one of the walk in centres at my local shops. They're cheap too, which has always got me coming back, as compared to the place that I used to go to regularly, where to get my usual therapist required booking a month in advance and paying twice as much for the privilege.

Usually I've had pretty OK results from the walk in place. The atmosphere is crap and the products aren't quite as good, but in the end I've come out relatively hairless and if I've needed rewaxing in 3 weeks instead of 4 thanks to hair breakage then oh well. I've not been game enough to have my brazilian waxing there, because being quite the sensitive area, and having had bad experiences in ithe past, I'm lot completely au fait with just waltzing in and taking whichever 18 year old is on for the day.

Which I'm grateful for, considering I'm now clenching a block of ice between my thighs to stop the bleeding 10cm bruise on my sensitive inner thigh from aching quite so much.

When it comes to tipping hot green liquid over your sensitive skin - it pays to have someone who you trust. Otherwise... ouch.

Nebulous

It's coming up very quickly to November, and as I've slumped in the writing department again, with little to no chance of a sojourn off on a sunny writer's jaunt to get back in the groove, it's about time for me to sign up for NaBloPoMo again. Last year I managed to do it, just. And it was very good for me. I miss writing. I love writing. When I write regularly I finish a post, press send, and exhale. It's like All that urge that's inside me to commit *something* is satiated. Even if all I've done is post a picture. Or a brief whinge. That very *somethingness*; that urge to link myself with the ability to put words together and make them mine (even, or perhaps especially, if they're not meaningful or interesting) is so important to me.

I'm sitting here at work at the moment, sitting Indian fashion on an uncomfortable chair and surfing the internet. Tired from a long shift and a long week. Looking forward to a full weekend off to be with my family. Sitting next to me here however is a photocopied piece of paper to add to my mental file of reasons why I am here. My report card from this term, looking awfully similar to the report cards I had in primary school. Columns of tick boxes with lots of different categories.

Clinical skills, Knowledge Base, Clinical Judgement, Communication, Personal and Professional Skills, Teaching, Time Management... It goes on. Usually my reports are very good. I have had one singular report that barely passed and it dented my ego and sense of self right down to the core. But in the main I have had veyr complimentary reports, the last one, for Surgery was so complimentary that I actually received a letter for my resume from the director of clinical training here. Which swelled my head and reminded me of a tiny 11 year old girl with waist length black hair who bounced home with her report and the knowledge that she could do *anything*.

But today's report is perfect. It could not be any better unless it came with diamond encrusted tickets to Paris. I am slightly embarrassed by it, thinking of the times when I know I could have done better, or worked harder. But I'm a tiny bit proud too, because I enjoy my work and I'm passionate about my work and about the patients I look after. The comments in the "free text" bit made me blush, but they're about me, and recognition of me and I find that hard to not knock down.

I am not perfect, I have so many areas to improve on, and I know that the path ahead is not going to always be easy. But right now there is a little fire inside of me, that burns so brightly and with so much heat that I can feel the flames lick along my veins. I feel irridescent, hopeful and so excited for what lays ahead of me. And if you could see my eyes you'd see the flames too, as the golden tongue of the Gleam sings.

I am ridiculous.

Ever feel like you're having a totally pointless conversation? One of those ones where you think you're expressing yourself clearly, but it's patently clear that with every response, the person you're talking to is misinterpreting everything you're saying? The rotation I've just started is rife with this. Circular conversations that make you want to bash your head against the wall at times. Even though I know it's not deliberate (in most cases) it is still something that makes my stomach churn with irritation. I hate repeating myself, I hate feeling like I'm repeating myself, and I absolutely loathe it when I keep on doing it and being misinterpreted in the process.

In fact, this afternoon one particular conversation bugged me so much I composed witty, cutting replies the whole bus trip home, and enjoyed myself stamping my feet in a temper as I stalked home, the warm evening air and my ire raising a film of sweat over my bare arms. I was so comically pissed off, that with one final hill to get home I started giggling, the ridiculousness of it all tickling me hugely.

I've lost my sense of humour a bit lately, and the inability to find the funny side of things has been pricking uncomfortably at my sides. Usually I can find that dark bit of comedy in everything, especially when it comes to things that are getting me down. But lately I've been enjoying being wrapped up in selfish sadness too much to bother thinking about the ludicrousness of wandering around limply and wringing my hands.

Life's truly too short to be miserable, and there's no point to me to continue with it when I know that I can laugh instead. It might be slightly hollow laughter at times, but it's still better than misery.

Testing... Testing... 1... 2... 3...

I was tagged by Jen (with one n) Jemikaan to post about my first ever blog post, and I thought I'd leave it for a day when I couldn't think of anything to write. Figuring it would be good for the mid month lull. But I was curious as to my first "welcome to my blog" post so went searching for it and found strangely, that the post I'm SURE I wrote is not there, and that my first however many posts are just C&Ped from my old EB diary. Which means that any newcomers to this blog, who wanted to know the wheres and whys of why I started this particular blog would have no idea.

Which may also be because, several years down the track, I have no idea either.

So maybe I ought to (3 years late) welcome you to my blog and tell you what it's all about.

I'm Jenn. I'm 28. I live in Australia. In Brisbane to be precise in a beautiful old Queenslander with big verandahs and even bigger gaps in the shiny floor boards. I live here with my husband Bingley and our three children, the Elfling, the Monkey and the Possum.

Bingley and I met in college and have been friends for approximately 11 years 4 months. Bingley has been in love with me for approximately 11 years 3 months and 3 weeks. We have been a couple for 9 years and 6 months. That interval of however many months was filled with unrequited amour on his side and deliberate avoidance on mine. But true love prevailed and we celebrate our 10 year coupleversary this year in November.

After about 3 years we were joined by the Grot, who evolved into an Elfling but who retains a good deal of grottiness. She started primary school last year an is learning how to read at the moment at her own pace. She's not the top of the class reader list and has a tendency to lose her hat/shoes/water bottle. She can't sit still and is vague and dreamy. She is my little ballerina and washed her own hair all by herself tonight. We have a relationship that is tested at times by the complete differences in our personalities. She can't eat cheezels without going troppo. But I love her to bits. She is tall and has a figure that makes my jaw drop sometimes. Bingley jokes that we will spend her teenage years on the porch with a shotgun. She has green eyes with a sea of gold in the middle that sparkles.



About a year after she was born, Bingley and I decided to have a wedding. So we did. And it was lovely. But I don't want to do it again.

About a year again after that we had the Monkey. She was not planned, but it didn't seem to make much difference. She is my cheeky, all singing, all climbing, crazy haired, ballet dancing, incredibly bright baby. She was called the Monkey from birth and has lived up to the moniker, being a banana guzzling cheeky soul who climbed before she could walk. She is a pixie, creamy skin, dark brown eyes and riotous auburn curls over her head, glorious spirals that hang above her eyes in double helices.

In between all this, I had graduated from my Arts degree (French and Spanish) and my Science degree (Biomedical with brief flirtations into Mathematics and Chemistry) and started studying medicine (just couldn't get enough of university!). The first year was a doddle. Then I had the Elfling and it was a bit trickier, but not that bad. Then we planned a wedding in the middle of my second year exams. But still coping OK. Then right before the beginning of third year I fell pregnant and had to interrupt my studies again to have the Monkey. That was a rough pregnancy. It wasn't planned and I had hyperemesis to boot. Anyone who followed me here from EB got to read in laborious detail how sick I was, but right before leaving to have her I made the Dean's List for Medicine, and I'm very proud of that.

Then I came back to med, and wasn't with any of my friends any more AND I had 2 kids in tow. This was really about as hard as it sounds. Socially isolating, academically difficult and financially crippling. But I got there. Lots of metaphors about lights at ends of tunnels etc. To the point that in the middle of my very last and hardest year of my medical degree I felt like I was back on top again. Could see where I was headed. We planned holidays and started seriously looking at property. We were so excited to have completed our family AND our studies and the fact that we were on the brink of starting the new chapter of our lives. We'd weathered a REALLY tough patch and come through. Life was cruisy. Life was great.

Then in August 2009 I got influenza. A very very nasty dose of it that landed me in hospital being rehydrated through a drip and requiring antiviral drugs. Afterwards I was completely out of it for a few weeks. Weak and flattened. I was only just feeling human again by the 20th of September for the Monkey's birthday party which I planned and catered and we had something like 40+ people come to.



After it, Bingley and I were exhausted but I remember clearly thinking how on top of it we were. How we were finally moving onto the stage of our lives that would be easier, and more fun. So of course, 3 days later, after a random comment from a friend's 18 month old baby, I peed on a stick to reassure myself that I absolutely was not pregnant. Because there was no way I could be. We had been SO CAREFUL. You have no idea how paranoid we'd been. But not matter, there, before I'd even washed my hands were two lines. Two bright, glowing, you are very much pregnant, fuck you and your grown up plans lines.

I fell in a heap. I didn't want to be pregnant. I knew I would get sick. I thought of my looming MSAT exams, the big long very tough end of medicine exams and panicked. I thought about the fact that I wouldn't be able to finish my internship year. I thought about having to work long hours, maybe shift work while sick and pregnant and with two other children. And I cried. I cried so much. It felt like I'd lost my dreams. Our marriage was under major strain. I was so sick. So very very sick. I lost a lot of weight. I did nothing but cry and go to uni and sleep. I tried to ignore my pregnancy completely in between the vomiting and coped by just putting one foot in front of the other and sheer bloody minded stubborness.

Then in the week before my Very Big Exam we went and had our NT scan.



And for the first time, it felt real. 3 days later I aced my exam, got a high distinction and Bingley and I went to Bali.



And finally decided to suck it up, and accept the life that we were now faced with. Even while very sick I managed to go to work and gestate and get very good end of term reports. And then, on a very warm night on the first day of June, we were joined by the son I was always meant to have.



And we spent a glorious, sleepless set of 6 months together and I wondered if maybe I didn't actually want to be a doctor after all. Because I loved him and I loved being at home intensely. I went to things at the Elfling's school. I cooked. I baked. I folded laundry. I went to the gym regularly and kept in shape. For the first time I had no ambition at all beyond being with my babies.

And that's where I was when I went back to work. Unhappy, viscerally so about being separated from my baby. Homesick. Feeling tired because he still wasn't sleeping through the night, or longer than 3 hours in a row. Feeling stupid because I was tired. I got a poor midterm report after a personality clash and perceptual issue related to leaving to pump pitiful amounts of milk. He weaned, suddenly and I dealt with sore weeping breasts and no self confidence and the fact that I earned sometimes less than I paid in daycare fees. I limped over the finish line for that term with no self confidence, a crisis of pointlessness and fear and anger and guilt and hopelessness. It just all seemed like such a waste. I couldn't remember ever being competent at anything.

I seriously considered quitting. The only thing that stopped me is my personality. My suck it up, get the fuck on with it, never fail, keep on grinding on even if you are gushing blood stubborness. It gets laughed at by a lot of people, but that grit pushed me through.

And now I'm on another term, and you know what? I just got my midterm report and I'm good at it. I'm a good doctor. And I'm glad I'm here, making a difference, learning more skills and teaching a few.

So that's where we are. Family of 5. Nearly finished my internship year of medicine. One girl at school. One girl in kindy. One boy trying to walk and learning to blow kisses and melting my heart.

But why did I start writing this blog?

To remember as much of it as I can :)

Dear Rita

I've never understood why people keep working in jobs they don't like. I guess I've always naively thought that you could always find *something* to enjoy about your work, or if you couldn't, that it was the impoetus to find something else. Study/learn, reskill. I never expected that I would be the one dragging my feet to work. Feeling sick at the sight of the doors that i have to walk through and push myself to be there. Of feeling not very competent. Of feeling below par. Of feeling unexceptional and unrequired and unnecessary.

It's demoralising. And when it's on top of the guilt and the pain of leaving the Possum it's almost unbearable. I've tried really hard to find that niche. To find that part of me that is good at things, that finds things easy and naturally enjoyable. But it's been missing. And I've wondered what the point is.

Tonight, at 7:30ish after I'd come back from dinner I clicked on the next patient and had a quick flick through the triage notes. A couple of lines on a screen giving you a hint as to why a patient was here. An elderly lady with a fall, 91 years old. I am pretty numb to it these days, scarred by the alcoholics with their fetid breath and lewd comments, the malingerers and the drug seekers. My compassion has been stretched to its limits, tried sorely by the long hours and vomited on by the youth who imbibed 50 standard drinks in an evening.

But when I walked in and saw Rita, something that should always be there nestled back into my chest. That warmth and that want to heal and soothe. That cliched desire to help people and actually be meaningful to someone, if only for a few hours. She is old, not frail, and suffering dementia. Over the next four hours I think I repeated the same things at least 20 times, but I didn't care. I liked that when I talked to her she settled, looked at me with some sort of comfort and I helped.

She broke her collarbone, and I diagnosed that without the x-ray. I explained it to her every time I went back to her bedside, because with her dementia she would forget. But one thing she didn't forget was my face. Every time I started talking to her, as she would get agitated being in the unfamiliar surroundings, she would soften and settle. I explained everything, carefully, to her and not over her. And she thanked me. Over and over too, because she didn't remember between times. "You've had a fall, you've hurt your shoulder and broken a bone. Yes, that one, where this bump is." Over and over again. And not once did I feel frustration in it. Not once did I want to walk out and throw up my arms, because every time I did it, she nodded, understood, and calmed.

Her daughter was there and she thanked me too. Relieved that someone was talking to her, relieved that someone was talking to her Mum, and I wanted to hug her, because the love she felt for her mother was so touching to see.

Over the next 4 hours I made her better, excluded nasty things and carefully wrote notes in the chart. Talked to superior doctors and checked I was doing the right thing. But the thing I did best of all was go back to Rita's side and have her thank me and me thank her, because every time I felt like I was doing what I was supposed to do as a doctor. Feeling like, for the first time this rotation like maybe this whole thing was not a mistake.

Several times Rita held my hand, squeezed it and looking into my eyes said "you're an angel, a beautiful angel, thank you for helping me". It made a lump swell to my throat. Having just one person, even a beautiful old lady with dementia who won't remember me tomorrow and doesnt' remember a thing I say for more than 3 minutes appreciate me and what I'm doing is the first validation I've felt this whole rotation.

Just as my shift was ending, I managed to finish everything I could do for Rita so that she could go home. I finished all the loose ends and got everything ready for her, and when I walked out of the hospital doors my heart was light. Even better it was storming, lightning flashing across the sky and heavy splodgy rain squelching in the gutters and running down tree trunks. The first time I've thought that I want to come back tomorrow.

And there on my car was a $100 parking infringement notice. Nearly 4 hours I worked tonight, to pay for a parking fine. I sank then. Caved like someone had kicked a giant flail segment in my chest. I just want something to be fucking easy. Just one good night. FOUR hours of work for nothing.

And then I thought about the fact that for four hours tonight I had been helping Rita. Helping her daughter. Actually learning again that medicine may be the career for me. That I will make more than an adequate doctor and may actually make a good one. Feeling pride in accomplishment but more than that feeling human empathy and compassion and joy in my work again.

And Rita, for you I would have done it for free. Fuck the $100. It was worth it, because for four hours I felt like a doctor again. And I wanted to be.

Thank You.

Last day.

My one constant personality trait is that I cannot bear to break promises. If I promise you that I will do something, then I have to do it, no matter how bad a decision that seems several minutes/hours/days/weeks/years later. It makes me stubborn I guess. But for me it's mostly that I need absolute boundaries some times. And I have so many things that I want to get out of life, if I don't make promises then I'll never finish anything.

So here we are at Day 30 of NaBloPoMo and I'm happy that I've stuck through this, without too much reverting to memes or 30 second googles of colourful pictures. I will think of this month mostly as a month of extreme tiredness. Of laughter. Of discombobulation and restlessness. Of sadness. Of failing as a parent, but getting better as a wife. Of holding secrets that make my stomach churn with anxiety but also light up my veins.

Anyhow, I actually prepared something earlier for today, in readiness for tomorrow, the first day of December (or for me, the first day of Christmas).

Caramel Fudge.

Ingredients

• 125 butter

• 1½ cups brown sugar

• 2 tablespoons golden syrup (though I've used maple syrup and I think it tastes better)
  

• 395g can condensed milk

• 180g white cooking chocolate

Method

• Line a square cake/brownie tin with baking paper

• Melt butter in a large saucepan
  

• Add brown sugar, golden syrup and condensed milk; stir over a medium heat until boiling

• Lower heat and cook, stirring for 10 minutes

  

• Remove from heat and add chocolate; stir until smooth.
  
  
  
  Quickly spread in tin as it will start to set immediately.



• Allow to cool on bench top and slice when completely cool.


• Refrigerate (assuming there is any left that hasn't made its way into your mouth)
  

Happy NaBloPoMo!

Elizabeth and Edward

I've just watched the lake swimming scene, and the moment of awkward reintroduction of Darcy and Elizabeth and am eking out the last two (and undoubtedly) best and favourite parts of the series. Watching it this time, was the first time that I've wondered about lust in the times of Ms Austen.

I am a lover of words, and the appeal for me of Pride and Prejudice, and to a lesser extent Emma of the Austen books has always been the repartee between the protagonists. The artful prose and the clever, insightful and humorous dialogue. As a 14 year old when I first read the book, I swooned over the love making of the era, when a look, a smile, and a clever turn of phrase could be all that a woman needed to capture the attention of a willing suitor. That, of course, and a nice little dowry.

I have always identified with Elizabeth. Not the most beautiful, not rich, and both stubborn and willful. A lover of words and dialogue. Who liked to poke fun at the most ridiculous of situations. I have always read the books and even watched the series with a veil of Victorian modesty and gloried in the innocence of the play and the chess like manoeuvring to secure marriages.

But where is the lust? I will guiltily admit to having a secret penchant for bodice rippers, and I read one recently that was actually quite well written. It was the first time that I'd really considered that women of the 19th century surely had thoughts and feelings as well of attraction and affection and sex. More than Disney like dreams of marriage and happily ever after - surely there was the heady attraction of sex as well.

The BBC production at the time was accused of "sexing it up". The lake scene was considered by some purists as completely unnecessary and gratuitous (while middle aged housewives salubriously fanned themselves as they found themselves flushing pink). It was as if some believed that sex and the era were mutually exclusive.

I'm not suggesting that Elizabeth took herself off to wench classes with Jane or corset parties with Charlotte, but did she dream of Darcy in the ways that 20 year old women dream of their crushes? Did she ever wake up flushed and pupils dilated after a steamy retinal scene? Did she secretly long to rip off the tophat and run her hands through Darcy's luxurious mop of raven hair? And is Jane Austen now rolling in her grave?

I wonder what married life was like for Elizabeth and Darcy. Whether the passion of their words translated in other ways. If they were passionate in the bedroom and ardent amongst friends. Whether they entertained while wearing the knowing blush of those who have spent a warm afternoon loving each other. Or did their married life follow the pursuits of the time. She practising at the pianoforte and organising parties and dressing hats while he went out to shoot and fence and drink with the men?

Did women of the era ever fantasise about getting away from it all? Did they take holidays together and come home and talk about the experience? Did those who were married for convenience have affairs? Did women have lovers? Did women ever initiate or were they all properly chaste and innocent?

What strikes me most is that I've never thought to research this before. In my romantic, possibly teenaged fantasy, it was a purer time. Where love was simple and uncomplicated by lust unless it was combined with a proper godly reverance and respect. But love and sex and covetousness have been with us since before time began. Clearly it was there. And yet, I realised at some point watching this production, that I've held my own relationship up to it at times and found it somehow inferior, because it lacked that rosy romanticism that I had imbued such a classic story.

I'm going with Bingley to see New Moon tonight, and I have been fascinated since reading the Twilight series (wait! wait! let me explain!) of the themes that Stephenie Meyer has put through her book. The almost biblical concepts of "pure" love. Of its contrast with lust and heat. Of the beauty of coolness and restraint over the eroticism of heat. Sure Bella wanted to jump Edward, but because he was so "good" and protective of her innocence he wanted to keep her pure.

There are many irritating things about the Twilight books, not least for me the never ending references to the physical perfections of Mr Cullen. But the thing that has grated on me and yet is probably the most compelling and appealing to some is this notion of keeping love pure and unsullied by lust and heat and emotion. The idea of Jacob being inferior because of this. Of what that symbolises.

Which, when you consider my position on Austen, is interesting I think.


Addendum:
Movie was quite fun. Enjoyed muchly. But OMG, the TwiMom phenomenon? There's something truly terrifying for you!

F is for Fail

I have lost weight in the last few weeks, without actually trying. I stopped caring what I ate, went to the gym when I wanted and drank what I wnted and hey presto, weight loss. I still have a way to go, a depressing way to go, but I can at least fit into some of my old clothes. Including some of my favourite clothes, not just my fat day clothes.

So this morning, in a sunshine and lollipops mood, I felt like wearing one of my dresses. I have a collection of beautiful dresses (mostly red) that I adore. Almost all of them are impractical for breastfeeding, but I don't care. I selected my favourite spotty, 1940s style fitted dress, so very fitted that it snugs in on my curves without causing a single lump. It skims in and out and then has a floaty skirt that ends a few inches above my knees. It's got just enough of a slip so that you can sort of see a hint of leg, but it's not completely sheer. As you may be able to tell I adore it. It also has a deep V-neck, which is supposedly flattering on a large bust.

Anyhoo, I pulled it out this morning and put it on and after a bit of contortion realised it fit. I could do the zip all the way up the back and not one of the pearl faux buttons along the front were straining. I felt pretty and feminine and *normal* as I did my hair and danced around the house.

What I had forgotten however is that I had fed the Possum literally minutes before I got dressed. A big morning feed... One of several that the Possum has on any given morning (he clusterfeeds in the morning). But I was completely oblivious to the issues that this would cause.

After dropping the Elfling off at school, I noticed I was involuntarily tugging on the deep V of my dress to pull it up a bit. I was very absent minded though, and assumed it was just the fact that although the dress is pretty demure, it's a litle bit dressy for school drop off. And headed off to the shops...

About half way around Coles, I realised that my hand was almost glued to the front of my dress, trying to pull it up/trying to cover he heaving mass of glandular tissue below. As I walked around, every time I saw a baby, every time the Possum made a slurping sound as he munched on his fist, I would get a tingle from my collarbone to nipple and the gigantic exploding bosom would heave. And let it be known, that at 9am on a Tuesday morning, there are a lot of babies in Coles.

By the time I got to the checkout, the faint blue lines of veins were becoming visible. As I bent over to empty the trolley, the poor pubescent checkout operator looked stoically into the mid distance and turned an unbecoming shade of puce. The man behind me was very helpful and started up a polite conversation with my cleavage. It began to get painful and they were still growing. It felt like someone somewhere had a bicycle pump with which they were inflating a voodoo doll. By the time I grabbed the fruit from the Greengrocer and headed back to the car I figured that I would never need hire a jumping castle for the kids next birthday party, I would just need to delay a feed for an hour.

I finally got home a few minutes ago and managed to peel off my dress, desperately hoping that the Possum would oblige in the deflation efforts. But alack and alas, the usually ravenous booby boy had fallen asleep and snorted at my attempts to subtly woo him back into consciousness for a snack.

Anyhow, lesson learned. No more dresses, for the time being at least. And out come the F cup bras. How I have (not) missed thee.

Follow the Gleam

The room I am sitting in is vibrating as the retrieval helicopter lands on the roof. It's 8:30pm and there's a new patient being delivered. The buzz in the corner when we heard the approach makes me think it's a medical patient, probably for ICU but I don't know the reg so I'm not sure. Could be a neonatal retrieval but I cross my fingers it's not.

The view from here in the common room is pretty spectacular. Something to cheer us up from what can be a depressing job. There are coffee cups littered everywhere, and slumped in corners various other on call personnel. Me from mental health, others surgical or medical. On take or on call. Emergency Dept trainees sneaking up for some TV and coffee on their too short breaks.

I've done everything on my list for tonight and my pager is sitting next to me, willing the belligerent part of me to turn off its squealing insistence so that no one can interrupt me from my hot cup of tea. I have been here 12 hours straight already. My last day of waking, dressing the girls, making their lunches, dropping them both off, wending through peak hour finding a park, running for the green pedestrian light and then unravelling the problems on the ward.

It has been a hard 5 weeks. 45 hours of waking each week spent looking after other people instead of my girls, or Bingley, or myself. Working hard to develop rapport with all, to gain the respect of peers and supervisors and most of all patients. Some who are so fearful of anyone in the medical profession that the fact that I have a lanyard around my neck means that they will never trust me.

Nightshift my favourite and most dreaded part of the week. The autonomy to work and wander around the darkened halls of this sprawling hospital, to do good, to help, to soothe and to deal with crises that inevitably arise out of office hours. The terrible nights when I haven't eaten and I feel the possum squirming and want to throw the whole thing in. Of patiently trying again and again to get blood from a patient and the heartbreak of pathology calling to say that the sample needs to be retaken once that ruby red vial has finally been sent off.

The interdisciplinary meetings and holding the floor as I discuss aspects of patient care with confidence and the knowledge that I have the respect of the team. Of having consultants refer to me with confidence. Of knowing that I am doing well and that I am appreciated. Of knowing that even though this particular rotation isn't my career path that medicine definitely is. That for all the pitfalls of this job, that it is me, and as much as I fight to tame it at times, that we are as well suited as frenzied lovers.

I received my assessment today for the last 5 weeks. 5 short weeks for me to show my capabilities and ability to work under pressure (and without supervision at times). To show initiative and to handle patient care. In general, recipients of 5 week rotations get solidly average reviews - after all, it's such a short time to get to know someone and to feel confident that they are competent let alone better than expected.

My feedback was exceptional.

The validation I feel, looking at this stupid piece of paper with a few tick boxes is incredible. I finished medical school with hyperemesis, huge weight loss, no sanity and a high distinction for clinical skills. 5 months later I am here, showing that I can do this, showing that being a woman doesn't stop you from being in this profession, showing that being a pregnant woman doesn't stop you from being in this profession, showing that being a mother doesn't stop you from being in this profession.

I am a wife, a mother, a pregnant woman and a doctor. I have shown that it is possible and not by the skin of my teeth, not by leaning on the sympathies of those that look at my unwieldy belly and feel pity. But to do this and to do it well. My girls are happy and healthy and loved. I know they are secure by the giggles at bedtime and their confidence, love and affection. The way that they sleep unselfconsciously across their beds with books strewn all around. The way that even in sleep as I kiss their foreheads on nights when I come home late something about my smell and my presence softens their already relaxed countenance.

I know my husband loves me, that when I show him my assessment that he will tell me "I told you so" before doing the slightly embarrassed expression he gets when he is proud of me and can't find the words to tell me. The way his body will feel curved around mine when we go to bed tonight and he whispers into my hair how proud he is of me when he thinks I've fallen asleep. Our son squirming incessantly against a picture of pure domestic bliss.

I do not regret one moment of this. Not one tired and tearful night coming home too late, nor early morning start. I have never been more certain that this is what I was made to do, that this career fits me like a glove.

On Monday I will be on leave. Leave to potter around the house and visit Ikea and rearrange the living room. To do the sewing and knitting that has piled up around my desk. To take the girls to activities only available in working hours and to prepare for the birth of my firstborn son. To sleep and read magazines and occasionally stay up to watch a movie without the guilty panic that I need to be up in a few hours. The idea thrills me to my toes and I am glad I have 5 weeks to prepare for the Possum, and to give all this time to the girls to prepare them too.

I look forward to the sleepless nights sitting up with a milk drunk baby drooling somnolently into my cleavage and tiny outfits and hats with earflaps that look terrible on anyone older than 5. I look forward to planning meals that don't need to be cooked in under an hour and trips to the park in the clear autumn afternoons. I look forward to visiting shopping centres empty but for other mothers pushing prams and treating toddlers to milkshakes and cupcakes. Of meeting up with friends and morning tea and working in our little garden.

But I look forward to coming back too. Of stomping all over the stereotypes and working somewhere I have passion. Of going into the bank to apply for our first house and knowing that my salary and my title and my education mean something tangible. Of knowing that my two year old already tells people with pride that Mummy is a doctor and she helps people to feel better. And it being true.

Of following the gleam.

12 hours

Panicking a lot. Feeling alternately confident and a squidgy mess. It all comes down to this. I have passed every subject for my medical degree. I have signed up and been granted provisional graduation. I have handed in every single last piece of written assessment. All I have to do now is pass one exam. One. 10 years at uni and it all comes down to tomorrow.

Scary scary stuff. No wonder I have heartburn.

20 stations, 10 minutes per station. Any system in the body, and mental illness, any ethical concept, any statistical concept, any disease, any syndrome, any cluster of symptoms and signs, any physical examination, anything could be tested tomorrow.

If you're the Godly type then please chuck in a prayer for me. If you're not please have a drink.

10 years. 1 exam. 16 hours and it will all be over.

Freak Out!

Ever feel like your brain is full? Mine is at the moment, to the point that I can only think of one thing at a time. There is so much going on at the moment, so much that needs to be done and organised and simply thought through in the next week and I can't. I can only do one at a time.

Some of it is fun - like my appointment on Thursday morning with the beautician to get all hair follicles below my neck removed and then coated the next day with fake tan (never done this before - hope it looks ok!). Or getting the Elfling's hair cut.

But others are scarier. Like Tuesday's appointment to get our NT scan - to see if
a) there is one live baby there
b) there is one healthy live baby there
c) how the fuck we will cope if there isn't...

Or Sunday, where I put myself on the line for 3 hours to see if I cut it, to see if I deserve the flight I take later that night. To see if 6 years at med school has imparted me with enough knowledge to impress a bunch of people into ticking the right boxes that will allow me to graduate on the 12th. How bad will it be, if after all of this, I fuck it up.

How about the fact that Tuesday is Bingley's 28th birthday, and that if the scan and bloods don't go well that it will be my fault that I have ruined his birthday forever more? That no fancy meccano set will make up for the fact that our 3rd child is not going to make it? I'm a barrel of monkeys at the moment I tell you.

This week is coming at me like a train - the mythical light at the end of the tunnel and I'm just looking at it steaming towards me and knowing I've got to meet it head on but desperately wishing that I could outrun it. I'm not ready for this week and I want it to be over. On the single plus side I'm down to 66kg. I wanted to be 65kg before we went to Bali, and ridiculously enough I will probably get there - I wanted to do it the healthy way though instead of hyperemesis. Oh yeah, that, still happening.

I can't believe that this time next week we'll be about to head to the airport.

Oh my God.

Just a note

If you've ever thought of having a brazilian wax, then always go to someone who has been recommended and listen carefully to their recommendations. Because Phucking Hell if you got the woman I got today (my regular therapist was away) then you would never ever return. In fact by the time that you were game enough to peel away the ice packs and the emla cream you'd probably find that the whole thing had grown back in the month it had taken you to be able to sit properly.

Just saying.