I'm Not Asleep, My Eyes Are Just Closed

The A&E department isn't busy all the time, which occasionally allows time for you to have a natter with your colleagues. Sometimes it's just a brief chat about where you trained before, where do you live, travelling's a bitch isn't it - topics close to a junior doctor's heart since they shift departments every few months. Sometimes it descends into some colleague bashing but occasionally you get a really left-field topic like in-breeding. I was in the X-Ray department on a late shift waiting for the radiographer to do a series of films on a patient of mine who had been in a motorcycle accident. I started chatting to Dave, the 6 foot plus grey-haired health care assisstant. Somehow the topic turned to how dumb and completely lacking in common sense some people are (please note: we weren't talking about the motorcyclist). Dave reckons that people's I.Q. has been going downhill. His wife, he says, who has been teaching for more than 20 years and is probabl...

This month I have been listening to: Take A Bow – MUSE. ‘Burn, you will burn, you will burn in hell, you will burn in hell for your sins’ – you couldn’t be more blunt than that, could you? Map of the Problematique – MUSE. Stonking electro-rock number that has been on repeat for ages. Starlight - MUSE. Okay, just get Muse's new album Black Holes & Revelations, right? Because it's addictive, overblown rock drama, even if Matt Bellamy has a tendency to sing in a range more suitable to dogs ears than human hearing. Last Request - PAOLO NUTINI. Nice voice, nice looking bloke, nice song. Smile - LILY ALLEN . Good, summery song about smiling after you get your revenge on your ex. Heh. Hips Don't Lie - SHAKIRA. Don't tell my housemate I like this song, because I've made fun of Shakira's strange warbling voice and bizarre lyrics about her mountain-like breasts before. And then of course, she has to come out with an infectious song like this. Damn that woman. And ...

You can tell I'm still on leave, can't you? Which explains why I'm being unusually prolific. Also, I have, if not exactly snapped out of my morose mood, felt a bit more upbeat and decided to sod the unforthcoming job interviews. I have decided that having no job in the immediate future is not the end of the world. Yes, hallelujah, the world does not revolve around me. What an amazing discovery! I shall win a Nobel Prize for that most amazing of scientific enlightenment. Anyway, I digress. While I've been on mandatory annual leave (yes, we get allocated annual leave in this A&E department, you can't pick which days you want off), I have been re-reading some old favourites. I suppose they have also contributed to me feeling a bit calmer, since my well-worn favourite books are like old friends to me. (Hah! You should have seen one work colleague's face when I accidentally let slip that I couldn't give away my books because they were my friends. On hindsight...

Oh for goodness sake woman! That's how I feel about reading yesterday's post. I am really, incredibly self-indulgent, self-pitying and egocentric. I can't stand me sometimes. I should stand me up and slap myself around the face a few times. How have I grown so small? Because I wallow in maudlin, vapid thoughts. If I want to get somehwere in life or be somebody, I should get off my arse and do something about it, shouldn't I? Rather than do all this moping around. What was it that Einstein said about genius being 1% brains and 99% hard work? Next time I shall limit my moaning to things worth moaning about, like erm... global warming, the state of the NHS, and weapons of mass destruction. Hurrah!

Having annual leave when you're not really on holiday is no fun. So, I may complain of long working shifts, the odd hours, having to work every alternate weekend - but I find myself at a loss when I'm not at work. Relieved, to a certain degree, that the pressure is off - that that heart-clenching worry is off - but at the same time not knowing what to do with myself when I do have time off. Oh there are plenty of things I promised I would do, if only I had a day off work - but all those things are work -related, which doesn't really afford me time away from work. So I'm nervous when I'm not at work, yet reluctant to do anything mildly reminiscent of work. Why don't I go on holiday, you say? Because I feel I can't. There's that damned audit to finish, that police report to write, the bills to sort out and biggest of all, I'm waiting for a call or a letter asking me to come for a job interview. I dare not leave the immediate vicinity of my house. Plus,...

First night is always the hardest since my body clock is still set at daytime. I had stayed up the night before in an attempt to get into the rhythm earlier. It worked to a certain extent since I was ready to drop by 10am but I had to attend an inquest at County Court as part of the junior doctor's teaching. Unusually for an inquest, ( I was told) the court was full and there were three counsellors present - which suggests a not-so-straighforward case. Unfortunately I was so tired, I fell asleep half an hour into the session and woke up to find that things hadn't moved on very much. I excused myself, drove home, and fell, blessedly, into bed. There was no middle-grade doctor on tonight, only little old me and a locum senior house officer, who thankfully, has more experience than I do (which isn't hard since basically everyone does). Nice bloke, very helpful. Not a particularly busy night, had the usual after 3am lull where the department was completely empty. Things started...