Sicko

Yesterday at work I was feeling a little sick, but like, cold sick. I could still work with the sniffles.

But last night, after half an hour of studying, I started to get the ol' abdominal pain and nausea. I lay down and fell asleep, hoping I could sleep the pain away. Nope. I was up all night, making frequent trips to the bathroom, moaning in pain and generally hating my life. I kept checking the clock every time I dragged myself out of bed, hoping that more than half an hour had passed since I last woke up (it never had). I called my intern when it started and she told me to take today off, which I did. (I later found out that she got the same bug a few hours after I did and also took today off. Good thing today was supposed to be a light-day workwise, as our team is pre-call.)

Anyway, it made me think about pain and nurturing. It touched on two areas of my life that have been on my mind lately. The first and most obvious is working at the hospital. It made me realize how businesslike I am as I ask my patients "Are you in any pain?" each morning and what a terrible life-altering experience it is to be in pain, even the relatively mild and short-lived pain that I had last night. In the future I'll try to remember that pain and empathize with it in my patients. The second area it made me think about is relationships, and how important it is to have nurturers in one's life. How I wished that I had a boyfriend to call who would come over and bring me things and in general smooth my brow and say "there, there." Instead I emailed my mom, who's in London now, and even her emailed "Poor baby" helped. I dunno, I've gained this constant low-grade worry that the more confident and badass I get at work, the less warm and spontaneous I get as a person in general, and certainly the less soft and feminine I get.

So basically, I'm a total Amazon who will never find love. No nurturing for me! Hehe. I don't really believe it, but the worry makes me resolve to be more loving and giving in my personal life, with my friends and family. To be more spontaneous and surprised by life, and to let it show. It's a tough line to walk, this whole efficient smart professional lots-of-responsibility career vs. not-a-huge-bitch personal life goal. But I think it's worth trying.