I'm Not Asleep, My Eyes Are Just Closed

More accurately, it was just incredible coincidence. I had just given a talk that Friday morning at our hospital's Continuing Medical Education programme, which is attended by any hospital staff available, including the hospital consultants and the hospital director. It went down well, I think. I put lots of pictures which I hoped would prevent anyone from falling asleep. So I banged on for half an hour about ectopic pregnancies, about how it is the leading cause of maternal mortality in the first trimester, the various ways you can treat it and other problems that could present similarly to a ruptured ectopic, i.e. a twisted ovarian cyst. I was having a well-earned breakfast later when A&E called, saying that they've got a possible ruptured ectopic pregnancy. Ah, dammit. I swallowed the rest of my Pepsi (yes, I know, a carbonated sugary drink for breakfast, bad girl, bad girl) and made my way to emergency. There was a lady writhing with pain, holding on to her left side. T

I've been having a disturbing number of flashbacks lately. I'd eat in a restaurant and think of the time I ate there with my Dad. I'd hold another woman's baby in my arms and think of the time when I held my own niece and she'd hug me back. I'd listen to Rufus Wainwright and my heart would clench with nervousness as I'm reminded of the long car drives to work in the Emergency Department. I'd drift off to sleep only to wake up with the remnants of a nightmare where I'm endlessly sewing a patient's uterus. I went into work one morning and heard about my colleagues bad on-call. Instead of feeling sorry for him, I was frightened and nervous the entire 24 hours that I was on-call. I had a horrible feeling that there would be more deaths and the dying seeping onto my day from yesterday. I barely slept that night, even though nothing more than a ruptured ectopic pregnancy happened. Some days you wake up and you have an awful feeling that something bad i