Exhausted

Today was not a great day, health-wise.

I woke up tired, which happens almost every day. I haven't slept much this week because I slept at a friend's house for two nights and I was up half the night packing right before I left. Then I just didn't get my necessary 8-9 hours (which is a goal but not an attainable one--I usually get closer to 6 or 7).

So I was tired this morning. No big deal.

I shadowed in the morning, went to lunch, then went to shadow in the NICU.

I shadowed in the NICU before, when I was part of the program in June. It was a wonderful experience, and I jumped at the chance to do it again.

We changed into scrubs and followed the same doctor around.

The other girls asked lots of questions. In my opinion, asking questions is an excellent thing. However, when their questions cause us to stand in the exact same place for nearly an hour, I don't do too well.

I didn't say anything, but my back started to hurt. Then my knees. I kept bending them so they wouldn't stiffen up too badly, but they did, anyway. They also cracked almost every time I bent them, where that usually happens once every five minutes or so.

My shoulder/neck area started to hurt, but I still kept my mouth shut. At some point I was able to sit down for five minutes, and I was so miserable that I didn't want to get back up.

When I'm walking or moving around, this doesn't happen. But when I'm standing still, forget it. It took me more than an hour to get back to "normal", and even then I still wasn't okay.

I kept dozing off on the train on the way home. Generally the train is pretty safe, and there were lots of people around, but I don't like sleeping on the train. When I woke up to get off, I discovered that the muscle behind my knee and lower thigh had decided to cramp in one leg--and I kept feeling it pull when I moved my leg.

We went to the grocery store, where I just couldn't function. Then we went home, where I made dinner for everyone but me.

I had a BUNCH of Chip's Ahoy cookies and milk for dinner. Honestly, I don't even want to think about how many carbs that was. I don't even know if I spiked from that or not, because I then curled up on the couch and took a two hour nap (with about forty interruptions from the two family members, who don't seem to understand the word "sleep").

I feel better now, but it's days like this that make me nervous.

It could've been the rain. It could've been mild dehydration (even though that usually causes muscle sensitivity in my messed-up body, but anything's possible). It could've been the fact that it was cooler outside than it's been in a while. It could've been that the NICU was warmer than any other place in the hospital. Really, there are so many factors that it's impossible to tell what caused so many problems.

I've never had pain and stiffness in my knees that wasn't resolved after a few minutes of walking. I've never had back pain that wasn't resolved by stretching a bit. Today was more extreme than it usually gets.

If I've learned anything while shadowing, it's this: my health will be a major burden in medical school.

Most med students are uncomfortable standing for long periods of time, but they can do it. I really can't. And no one wants med students to need accommodations, because that makes them "unfit doctors" somehow, which makes no sense to me. Shouldn't taking care of your own health be important, too? Where's the harm in needing accommodations as long as it doesn't affect the quality of patient care?

It's likely that no one else in my med school class will have diabetes. I'm okay with that. But if you need to deal with a low, that's life-threatening, and assuming it doesn't happen too often, no one will get too upset. But if I were to ask for a chair while we present patients' cases in the hallway for three hours, I'd be condemned.

I honestly don't know what to do here. My rheumatologist offered me meds the last time I was there, but I'd prefer not to take them. There are many reasons, but the biggest is that it's an anti-depressant and I don't want anything messing around with my brain chemistry. His view (and it's a good one) is that there's already something messed up in there and that we're just fixing it. He's right--I just don't want to admit that.

There are other factors. He made a point out of not being sure what exactly this is. If it's, say, Lupus, then I'm messing with my brain for nothing--there's something else going on that won't be fixed by a little Lyrica. And though I don't hesitate to take pills that I need, I'm not so sure I need this. It might help, the same way it might not, or might interfere with my ability to think, or sleep, or not be completely crazy.

My joints have been bothering me a lot lately, which could be a source of some of my fears. But it should be noted that medical school is extremely hard--mentally, physically, and emotionally. I've worried about the work and the psychological impact in the past, and I've often thought about diabetes management in the clinical setting--but mostly I've worried about residency and fellowship, not medical school. Now, though, I'm worried about that, too, and I've been thinking about how the hell I'm going to deal with the fibromyalgia/my-body-hates-me crap, too. That stuff scares me.

There will be a talk with my rheum about this in the future. I was told to come back when new symptoms show up or when I think I need to see him, because there really isn't much he can do for me now. It might be later--like when I know I'm accepted to medical school and this will be a definite issue that MUST be resolved, but it will probably have to happen this year. (I'd also like to speak to my endocrinologist, but that's a problem I'll get to when I see him next or the time after that--he's very supportive of my desire to become a pediatric endocrinologist and he'll do whatever he can to help me.)

In the meantime, I get to worry about the AMCAS application, my school's incompetence in transcript building and mailing out, and finishing up my shadowing hours. Yay?

"I know you're scared out of your mind/ But just take a little baby step, baby step/ Right toward the finish line" ~ The Chromatics