{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

1/2 a turbulence?

My not-so windy-Turbulence cowl  details on Ravelry.

I’ve been trying (and succeeding!) to finish up some of the projects on my to-do list for 2011. it feels so good! My to-do list (ie. the pile o’ projects that is sitting behind my chair in the living room) is very large.  Too many bouts of start-itis and not enough finishing up.  Projects   that ran into a road block at some point in their making. But the strange thing is, they’re not even really big problems, just things that would take 10-15 minutes to puzzle through. Prime example?  My february lady sweater.

Ravelry tells me that I started this project November 2009.  I ploughed through the whole project in no time.   I skitched it out with less than a meter of  wool left to go.  It was blocked and done by the end of Dec 2009. Everything was coming up Kirsti. Those perfect 3/4 sleeves! The lovely purple-y tweed!  This was a winner!

I found the perfect-est buttons that matched the tweed to a t (from knitpicks- but it looks like they’re not carrying them anymore). I sat down to sew them on and then I realized that I had forgotten to make button holes.

forgotten. to. make. the. button. holes.

Okay.  deep breath. there are solutions here-

1. I don’t need buttons- I could just use a sweater pin. Nope. That looks rediculous.
2. I can sew on the buttons and use snaps underneath.  Nope. The wool pulls all funny and gapes weird.  I’ll have to sew on a ribbon facing to do that. Then the ribbon sticks out. ugh.
3. I can do an afterthough button hole (from EZ’s Knitting without Tears).  Oh my G-d. I can cut my knitting and make an afterthought buttonhole…with less than a meter of safety yarn.

And so, with the buttons sewn on, my sweater sat for 1.8 years in the pile o’ projects behind my chair waiting for the moment when I would “take the time” to sit down and “figure this out”.   Well, that never happened.  Last weekend, I pulled it out of the pile and resolved to figure out the afterthough buttonholes and deal with it once and for all.  Except I didn’t. Figure out the afterthought buttonholes, that is.  While I was fiddling with it, I just sort of pushed the buttons through the other side of the fabric, forcing a make shift button hole. And it worked.  They look smooth and clean. Now, they are not functional as actual buttonholes, ie. for opening or closing the cardigan, but I don’t think I’d ever wear this sweater open anyways. And putting the sweater off/on is not that complicated- it’s just sort of like a pull over.

2 years to push the buttons through the fabric.   Jeesh.

Lately, I’ve also been inspired to sew. I’ve been quiliting a little bit every morning when I get up before clinic. Sewing is so quick compared to knitting, like instant gratification! My sewing machine all of sudden started skipping stitches on friday though. I’ve worked through my manual and nothing seems to help. I guess it’s time to take it in to the professionals. I hope they can fix it- I don’t want to throw a wrench in my crafting groove!

What really drags you down is the being “on”. Everyday you are judged. All day, everyday you are questioned and monitored and evaluated. It’s like the most stressful job interview of your life…. and it lasts for a year and a half. Every specialist assumes that you MUST know the details of their specialty. Every preceptor has their own way of doing things that is the RIGHT way. Every physician/PT/OT/RT/lab tech/social worker/whatever thinks their role is the most important in caring for patients. They think that you should think that too. You should be rediculously passionate about their job, above all else.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m keen. I’m keener than keen. I truly believe that you can make up for a whatever you lack in smarts with a shit-ton of enthusiasm. And mostly, that’s what I bring to every day of my internship: a “man-this-is-the-most-amazing-thing-ever” attitude that takes me really far. My patients thank me for taking time with them. My preceptors give me good feedback 95% of the time My reports read: “Kirsti is enthusiastic and great with patients.” “Kirsti has excellent clinical skills and good bedside manner.” always closely followed by “Kirsti would benefit from reading more”. I have a wonderful relationship with most of the nursing and support staff teams. I feel like I’m learning a million things every day. I feel like I’ve gained a million new skills since January.

But I don’t feel like it’s getting any easier. I just feel like I have fewer excuses than I did in January for being confused and lacking knowledge. At least then, I was a “baby” intern. I could be a disaster and it wasn’t my fault, I was just starting out. Now, just as I’m starting to have a few basic things under my belt, everything gets ramped up. The expectations are greater everyday. Why don’t you know this yet? Why aren’t you more competent?

I’m not ready for ramping. I need more practice with basics. I don’t have any energy left for more ramping.

On the plus side, my call shifts are giving me lots of extra knitting time at 3am.

This is Sydney Tertius Pearl with her big sister. She’s a 5 month old blue heeler cross and a real handful of awesome. She will be modelling handknits before you know it.

I’m coming to the end of my Internal Medicine rotation. I am so glad that it is almost over. Internal Medicine is very interesting, but it’s also very complicated and can be very sad. More often than not, our patients are extremely complex- dealing with multiple chronic illness, combined with complicated social and personal lives. I have learned so very much in my 6 weeks on the ward, but I still feel that I am completely useless 97% of the time. I just don’t have the mind for details that Internal Medicine requires. I simply don’t remember off the top of my head what the 1st line drugs for hyperthyroidism are or the top 10 systemic manifestations of rheumatoid arthritis, let alone what are the differences between 2nd and 3rd generation cephalosporins. (If that none of that makes sense to you, don’t worry, it doesn’t make any sense to me either.)

I have learned a lot. I can dictate discharge summaries, I can read nurses notes, I can muddle through all the chemistry and coagulopathy studies that come back on each patient. I can write a progress note in my sleep (literally, my 1st call shift = 2 hours of sleep in a 36 hour period). I can take information from the unbelievably amazing staff that we work with and amalgamate it together to help my patients. I can speak nurse and physiotherapist and pharmacist and occupational therapist and social work, more and more fluently every day. I can translate in between.

I can calm and help a patient who is fighting to breathe. I can talk to family members who are afraid that their mother’s cancer has come back. I can reassure and comfort and explain what that brochoscopy is actually going to be like and what we hope to learn from it.

I can listen.

I think that these skills are even more important that being able to rattle off a differential diagnosis for the top 14 causes of haematuria. Because really? I can always look things up on dynamed. Lexicomp will always have the doses for me, and even if I screw them up, the amazing pharmacists will call me back and say “um… did you mean 750mg? or 250mg?” and they never tag on “you moron” to the end of their phone calls. I love the hospital pharmacists. Unfortunately, I don’t get marked on my ability to explain a procedure to the patient, or on my ability to comfort a family member. I get marked on my ability to answer random questions about the path of the radial nerve and all it’s functions. I am praying for a pass. And I’m trying to be grateful, that after next week, I won’t have to answer 3 am pages that start with “Mr. So-and-so’s breathing is getting worse… could you come down and take a look at him?” or “Mrs. Such-and-such’s blood sugar is still at 24… what would you like us to do?”

Those pages scare the shit out of me. So much so, that I have been too terrified to go to sleep, even if we do get a minute to rest. So, call has become a place to channel my fear and panic into something productive and soothing: I’ve been knitting. Simple patterns, with simple durable wools, that mean I can do endless rounds of stockinette while willing the phone not to ring.

{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Yes, it’s a little late, but 0645 on Saturday still feels like Friday night.

I start my clerkship tomorrow with a 12 hour shift in the ER.

IS THIS MY LIFE?  SERIOUSLY?  wow. I keep vacillating between abject panic and complete euphoria.

Since 2011 is going to be so very full of hospital life (read: hard work, intense emotions and not a lot of space for me), I’m going to use this space to try to remind myself of the parts of me that won’t get a lot of attention.

Like my ‘family’…

Mooknee isn’t too sure being a handknits model- even if it is a special 60th birthday gift for my mum.

Louet Gems Sport weight- 1 skein- hand dyed a shocking colour of pink by a friend in the Vine Lace Scarf pattern from Sock Yarn One Skein Wonders over 22 stitches instead of 31 (2 repeats instead of 3).