another call weekend — check!
as call weekends go, this one was a breeze! things finally started heating up last night, but there was nothing i really had to do very much for.
it’s so funny how much more relaxed i am about the on-call pager compared to just one year ago! big differences:
✔ really feeling comfortable with most things that i get called about. truthfully, there are only a handful of things that parents page us for: insulin pump failure/DKA, sick kid with hypopituitarism, other medication side effects [headache on growth hormone, for example] and far-and-away-the-most-common: “i’m out of my medication and i’m on my last tablet/injection of [fill-in-the-blank]!” no matter what the reason, parents will often call with a high anxiety level, but now i am able to really try hard to get them to calm down on the phone [more pleasant/productive for all of us], and direct the line of questioning to what i really need to know.
✔ my sensor for ‘not-an-endocrine-issue’ is much more finely honed, and i have learned to redirect a parent quickly to their pediatrician if the call is about nosebleeds or god-knows-what-else. i used to have LONG conversations about these things only to realize that the issue had nothing to do with the patient’s endocrine issues. now, i gently [but sometimes firmly] redirect these patients to their general pediatrician’s call-in line.
✔ i know when to call for help from an attending. since i don’t need to do this as often anymore, i feel much more comfortable doing it when i need to.
✔ i set up my weekends better. great activities for home call?
– having others over for informal meals [it’s no problem to duck over to my computer for a sec to answer a page].
– reading – either work-related or for fun
– home organization or cleaning projects
– watching movies at home
– workouts: now that my runs aren’t so serious anyway, i have no problem carrying my phone [with my pager signed out to it] and stopping if need be. i also worked out in my apartment gym on saturday and did a home yogadownload. no problem!
[bad activities = going anywhere crowded/noisy, going to concerts/movies/live events, live yoga classes, driving long distances]
so, i am happy to say that this part of my job has become considerably easier and less stressful than it used to be after a year of doing it.
maybe next july i’ll feel similarly about the lab!
glee festivities
my sister came over last night for a glee project-watching party last night, and while she didn’t end up staying for the show, we did have a fun time making calzones.
. . . and a mess in the kitchen!
i improvised a spinach dip for a snack while we were working:
spinach / yogurt / feta / ricotta / sour cream / lemon juice / S+P / paprika
josh ‘helped’ by sewing fake blood vessels together while we baked. sounds good to me . . .
our finished product:
not picture-perfect, but not bad!
we used sara moulton’s food processor pizza dough, using 1/2 whole wheat pastry flour; the filling was an improvised combo of chicken sausage, peppers, onions, and mozzarella. sometimes it’s fun to freestyle it a little in the kitchen.
pretty
currently, i have no need for notebooks. but maybe you do?? i love these recycled leather journals from kate’s paperie and the RAINBOW of colors available!
3/$15 is somewhat tempting, but my collection needs streamlining as it is.
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7.17.11
workout: 30 minutes outside on my usual loop [it wasn’t even that hot at 10 am!] + a detox flow from YD
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