September Update

Only 3 days left in the NICU, and I haven't posted since - well - before I started Heme/Onc, so it's been awhile! I'll start with a general update and then try to post more often. :)

Heme/Onc (i.e. hematology, which deals with blood disorders, and oncology which is cancers of course) month was my first "real" month as an intern. I had done so well with my clinic month in July that intern year didn't seem very hard - or real - yet; but once I started heme/onc in August, which was my first inpatient month, the fact that I'm an intern hit home fast. I cried after work almost every day for the first two weeks... and not so much from the emotional piece of dealing with kids with cancer - more just because I was working such long hours (over 95 hours my first or second week, but don't tell anyone...), and felt so tired and stressed and overwhelmed! I almost constantly felt like I didn't know enough about what was going on, yet there were people looking to me to know & to make good decisions about the patients, and that was a very bad feeling. Fortunately I learned as the month went on and I actually ended feeling fairly good about it, and even enjoying it. Oncology was certainly fascinating, though I wasn't as excited about the hematology part.

From there I moved on the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) at UAB, which is notoriously one of the hardest months of intern year, and it has certainly lived up to that reputation. I am responsible for up to 10 babies every day, with problems ranging from extreme prematurity and its associated issues (babies born as early as 23 weeks into what should be a 40 week pregnancy - sometimes as small as 1 pound in weight at birth!), to babies that are just little & need help keeping warm, to babies that are full term at birth but have birth defects or just difficulty transitioning to life out on their own. It's long hours - I'm on call every 4th night, which means a 30 hour shift with no sleep. Thank goodness for the legal 30 hour limit, though, so that I can leave around noon on my post-call day and go home and sleep!! I am really ready for this month to be over!

In other news - I got to be a model for our friend David last week - he was doing a photography project for a class. Look at his blog (see the link at right) for one of the pictures! I'm trying out for America's Next Top Model next fall. (Ha, ha.)