Send Help.

Do you ever get the feeling like you just swallowed a brick?

And it just keeps rolling around in your stomach and whenever you think of something else you have to do or someone else you have to call or anything else even remotely stressful, your stomach clenches around the brick and it makes your heart beat really fast and your throat close up?

No? Just me?

Oh, it's not a brick, I just have the beginnings of an ulcer? Or a fledgling panic attack?

Well today I totally played hooky from OR clinicals. I worked late last night at the hospital and when my alarm went off at 4:45 this morning I remember peeling my eyelids open and squinting at my blinking obnoxious phone. My finger hovered over the yellow "Zzz" button for about half a breath until its devilish side took over and quickly swiped the big red "X" button. A mental health day! my finger boldly declared. The decision was bad, but I eagerly went with it. I burrowed my head under my pile of pillows and pulled the covers up. 

Silence. 

Darkness.

Bliss. 

I woke back up around 7:30 and I have to tell you, there's something so beautiful and sacred about waking up on Wednesday when it's bright out and birds are chirping and I'm supposed to be somewhere else. 

However, it's extremely disconcerting and most of myself feels guilty and paranoid. (Oh God, who realized I wasn't at morning meeting? What if my teacher calls? What if I miss a really big case? What if I get kicked out of the program?!) 

But, it's weird because the other (mentally/physically exhausted) part of me feels like...well, it's kind of hard to articulate it, but it feels kind of like, 

"F**k it." 

So I anxiously lounged around in my scrubs for 2 hours this morning. I don't know how many other people can be anxious whilst lounging, but I was and I do it well.

Me at 7:45 am: wrinkly scrubs, playing FreeCell, eating grapes, furiously contemplating life and my next move. 

So, after furious contemplation/ a 5-game losing streak, I called Nova to try and register for my classes this Fall. 

Oh, I've decided to become a doctor. I'm extremely excited and nervous and happy. And stressed. And overwhelmed.

And I think Kevin would break up with me if I changed my career plans again, so this is it! Erin's journey to the O.R. just became much longer.

Send help.

Anyway, I have to take Organic Chem I and II and Physics II before I apply next year...

Bahahahah the thought of these classes makes me crack up. It's all just so ridiculous that I, Erin Barshay, plan on taking (and doing well in) these classes. 

Take THAT, Mr. Myers, my 8th grade algebra teacher who didn't think I could pass! I'll show you. Hmph.

Square root of -1 anyone? 

Anyway, my life is currently very convoluted and confusing. It's like all of the things I need to accomplish are puzzle pieces and I'm trying to fit them all together. While juggling 52 hours in clinicals or work at the hospital a week. And there's a 2-year-old that keeps grabbing the pieces off the table and stuffing them into his mouth so that I can't find/ recognize them anymore. 

Wahhhh

Ok, enough complaining! I love being busy! I love having a plan! I love being in the hospital! I love chem! (Err...maybe not love.)

But, ya, my plan is to move with Kevin to Stuart this August, take my last pre-reqs Fall/Spring in Fort Lauderdale and apply for med school June of next year. But, as usual, there are many hurdles to jump over and this video totally captures how I feel right now...

(I feel really bad for laughing...but it never gets old.)

So, my mental health day wasn't all that relaxing...actually I just laid on the couch in the fetal position with the phone up to my ear while I was on hold with Nova (crying) for most of it...and I didn't really accomplish anything...and I have to work tomorrow night and...um...hmm.

Well, it's Burrito Thursday at the hospital cafeteria tomorrow! There! That's something positive to end on.   Life is Good.