Life, death and that post call feeling

The last 4 months have been a bit of a blur. The last 3 weeks even more so. Since moving to Cleveland in June, lifes been either ridiculously busy or ridiculously dull. No real in-between moments. The last 3 weeks I've been in the Neuro ICU, (One more week to go, and its been really, really tiring!) which if one has the time is the kind of experience that will make one reflect on life, on death, on dying, and also on that incredible thing we call the post call feeling.

It will make one realize how fragile life is, as indeed many of our daily experiences do, and how a small blood vessel popping somewhere in a persons head can bring an end to what might have been a long and happy life. It will reiterate the belief that dying might actually be a lot harder on the loved ones of the patients rather than the patients themselves. It will bring a relative, in some cases an absolute lack of emotion dealing with death and dying, which is unfortunately, and in an ironic extreme, a part of life.

Coming to that amazing post call feeling, I'm not sure if there is any non-medical parallel I can draw for the more fortunate folks amongst us who were smart enough not to go to med school. I could liken it to running a marathon, somehow getting through it, and then seeing the finish line, the home stretch, but then I dont know too many marathon runners either.

You spend almost 30 hours at a stretch, working like the devil, getting almost no sleep. Somewhere about 20 hours or so into the call, it really hits you hard, but you keep going and around 24 hours into the call you get a second wind, which is the beginning of the post call feeling, even though you're technically and physically still there, still answering questions, presenting cases, and sometimes unknown to the ACGME, doing procedures, you bask in the knowledge of having successfully completed a call, in anticipation of the comfortable bed and undisturbed sleep that await you at home. Trust me, it is almost euphoric, as is the feeling of actually hearing those hospital doors slide shut behind you and the half asleep drive back home.

I still have over half a year of calls every 3rd or 4th day and I expect that like everything else this too shall pass. At least on every call day I have the post call feeling to look forward to.