Physician Heal Thyself
Got back the day before New Year's Eve. Off in Utah skiing for a week. We go to Alta, which is an alternative type ski resort: no snowboards, ancient lifts, limited number of lift-tickets sold each day. When there, we stay at the Alta Peruvian Inn, an alternative type ski lodge. I highly recommend it if your tastes run to mellow funkiness, with a Soviet-era design theme to the rooms. However, the snow is the best in the country and the mountain rocks. Seven days of skiing lift-open to lift-close, great food, great wine, nice company. Life is good.
Got home in time for a New Year's Eve party with the Russian crowd at the St. Petersburg Restaurant (my wife is an immigrant from Kiev, Ukraine), but as I got off the plane I rapidly developed sore throat, nasal congestion, headache, cough and sneezing. It was like somebody smacked me with an axe-handle and I was down for the count. No way could I get out of the celebration, but as long as I was deathly ill, I volunteered to be designated-driver. I am often on call during dinners and parties and so can't drink anything. The other guests took my sobriety in stride. I'm sure half of them think I'm in AA anyway. We went to a neighborhood pre-party and a 2 am post-party, with me barely able to breath, but driving well. The post-party was with a great crowd of friends, but we got there late in the process. Half the guests were in the hot tub naked, and the other half were relatively incoherent, but very affectionate and carrying water bottles.... hmmm.
Finally got home, paid the baby-sitter off and crashed. I woke up feeling like hell. Now can you imagine anything more unfair than not drinking and waking up feeling worse than hung-over? My wife asked me if I should go to see a doctor. As if. What would they say other than "Probably a virus"? I began a regimen of sleep, green tea, multivitamins, light eating, and by the next morning was improved but not yet well. It was off to work anyway.
One problem with our practice is that we are very tightly scheduled in our rotations and we don't really have a mechanism set up to compensate for a sick doctor. In the last ten years of practice I have been out sick on 2 days when I had viral meningitis. Even then I got grief from the other partners. One of our partners once went to the Mayo Clinic to have neurosurgery. Since the surgery was on Friday we told him to feel free to take the weekend off, as long as he was back to work on Monday. None of us takes seriously the idea that we could become ill or incapacitated, even though we see obvious examples every day at work.
Fortunately, tonight I am feeling better. I went to the gym for a light workout this morning at 5 am. Nothing serious, just a wake up call to the body, a shot across the bow, notice that we would be returning to full action mode soon. True to form, when I stepped on the scale I was down four pounds. Every time I get sick, fortunately a rare occurrence, I drop a bunch of weight. It's like the "Virus Diet".
When meeting the Angel of Death on the field of battle you have to be in good health. By tomorrow, I'll be ready to fight the fight.
Got home in time for a New Year's Eve party with the Russian crowd at the St. Petersburg Restaurant (my wife is an immigrant from Kiev, Ukraine), but as I got off the plane I rapidly developed sore throat, nasal congestion, headache, cough and sneezing. It was like somebody smacked me with an axe-handle and I was down for the count. No way could I get out of the celebration, but as long as I was deathly ill, I volunteered to be designated-driver. I am often on call during dinners and parties and so can't drink anything. The other guests took my sobriety in stride. I'm sure half of them think I'm in AA anyway. We went to a neighborhood pre-party and a 2 am post-party, with me barely able to breath, but driving well. The post-party was with a great crowd of friends, but we got there late in the process. Half the guests were in the hot tub naked, and the other half were relatively incoherent, but very affectionate and carrying water bottles.... hmmm.
Finally got home, paid the baby-sitter off and crashed. I woke up feeling like hell. Now can you imagine anything more unfair than not drinking and waking up feeling worse than hung-over? My wife asked me if I should go to see a doctor. As if. What would they say other than "Probably a virus"? I began a regimen of sleep, green tea, multivitamins, light eating, and by the next morning was improved but not yet well. It was off to work anyway.
One problem with our practice is that we are very tightly scheduled in our rotations and we don't really have a mechanism set up to compensate for a sick doctor. In the last ten years of practice I have been out sick on 2 days when I had viral meningitis. Even then I got grief from the other partners. One of our partners once went to the Mayo Clinic to have neurosurgery. Since the surgery was on Friday we told him to feel free to take the weekend off, as long as he was back to work on Monday. None of us takes seriously the idea that we could become ill or incapacitated, even though we see obvious examples every day at work.
Fortunately, tonight I am feeling better. I went to the gym for a light workout this morning at 5 am. Nothing serious, just a wake up call to the body, a shot across the bow, notice that we would be returning to full action mode soon. True to form, when I stepped on the scale I was down four pounds. Every time I get sick, fortunately a rare occurrence, I drop a bunch of weight. It's like the "Virus Diet".
When meeting the Angel of Death on the field of battle you have to be in good health. By tomorrow, I'll be ready to fight the fight.
posted by ICUDOC at 8:01 PM
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