Insomnia Strikes!

This has been a very long week. The in-service exam was as expected: poorly written questions, questions out of the blue, and questions with no answers. This year's exam continues to support the theory that the exam committee (as a whole) speaks English as a second language. After the in-service exam, I took Parker shopping for some more outfits. She really loves to shop. We also picked up some new air conditioning filters to fit our strange-sized unit since it hasn't been working very well.

I have come home and fallen asleep by 7 pm every evening. Then I wake up and take a vitamin and can't go back to sleep for a while. I've been feeling lots of discomfort... hopefully it's Parker kicking and I just can't distinguish it. I've also been battling the same chronic problem for months and the random providers that I see haven't been able to figure it out. But my cervix is closed and Parker is doing well, so that's really what matters in the big picture. I did meet a resident when I went to Labor & Delivery on Saturday who seems to be geniunely interested in providing care. He and his wife are both residents, and I suspect they are considering IVF based on his questions about private-practice costs. He was nice enough to call me Tuesday and let me know that they still don't have all of the answers but that several OBs are following my labs and he will keep me updated. I went in on Tuesday and had to see someone else, and she didn't do an exam. She also didn't seem concerned that Parker's heart rate was about 30 beats/min lower than usual. I decided that I didn't trust her and was fortunate enough to be seen by an OB resident at UT. One of our first year residents is engaged to an OB resident, and I emailed her and she had me drop by for a sono & doppler. Thanks, Caroline! Parker was moving around so much that we still didn't get a good picture of her, but she looks great. She is measuring right around 22-23 weeks and she already weighs 1 pound! Her heart rate was better - it's still on the lower range of normal, but she's probably just really athletic like her parents (**wink wink**).

I have been exhausted and less enthusiastic about surgery. I had a case this afternoon that I just wanted to walk away from because I got so frustrated. I started feeling cramping all through my abdomen before lunch, so I ate 2 oranges and just started with the surgery. My patient got so relaxed on so little drugs (smallest amount I've yet used to sedate a patient) that we had a hard time getting her to keep her mouth open. Kind of cramps my surgery-style. So I decided to place 2 implants and then bring her back for the other side in a few weeks. I told myself it was better because she can chew on the other side while she's healing, but I was really pretty frustrated and worn out. Then her husband was apparently running errands so I had her sit in a wheelchair in my operatory while I finished my charts. I really just wanted to go home but I stayed until 6 to beat the traffic. And I was asleep by 7 pm again.

Dr. Mealey asked me today if I could staff the clinic a few times in May. He's having all of the 3rd year residents help out since many of the staff will be in and out in May. I told him that was fine, but the truth is that I feel like I should get some time to work on that Volpe presentation. I am too tired to get anything done when I come home, so I need some time during the day to get it done!

I've been up since about 9:30 PM and I really need to sleep! I am meeting my trainer at 6 AM and I have a surgery at 8:30. Hopefully I can just push through that and then come home and rest. Tomorrow we have someone coming to look at our air conditioner since it is not cooling our house. I called today, and it is no longer under any kind of warranty :( Corey said he doesn't mind being hot, but I am guessing the people who will be interested in buying our house might want it to work. And I can't sleep because I've been getting too hot. So I am hoping they can fix it soon. The problem is that Corey cannot have time off to meet people (good thing we got married, otherwise what would he do?) and the company doesn't work weekends. So tomorrow I am leaving early even though I am supposed to staff the surgeries in the afternoon so I can be home from 1:30 - 5:00 for them to come give us an estimate. Who knows when I'll be home again for them to actually fix it. I'm going to Pittsburgh on Saturday to visit my parents for a week, so it will have to wait!

I was supposed to visit Nana and Pop Pop this week as well, but Nana has shingles and is not feeling well. My OB said it was fine for me to go, but Nana is having a lot of pain and discomfort. Hopefully I can find a flight in the next few weeks to visit before I get to close to the end of the pregnancy. I hope you feel better soon, Nana!

My alarm is set to go off in about 3.5 hours. Not enough time to sleep, even if I wasn't pregnant. Hopefully my surgery goes quickly. It's another sedation on a little old lady, so keep your fingers crossed that she'll open her mouth for me!