As I approach my accident’s six month anniversary, I’ve started “real” work again. The last two weeks of February, I took call in the hospital twice. That’s 24 hours being ready to take on Ob-Gyn emergencies, do deliveries, whatever. For me, that’s the easiest of my several tasks as a doctor, including surgery, and seeing patients in the office. The simple fact that I was able to get up, put on a white coat, and talk to nurses, patients, families, and write notes in the chart, wake up and answer the phone – all that was scary to me before I did it.
I was fearful of all sorts of handicaps I might have. Like my husky voice, my lack of teeth showing, my off-kilter lower lip, my stamina level, my weakened wrist flexors and interosseous muscle in my right arm. It is taking longer to actually hand write notes (which we still do in the hospital), and I do sometimes forget the lingo, like computer macros which used to be second nature. But the actual process of thinking through medical problems and communicating to others about diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment – that resides somewhere much more hardened in my memory, and seems impervious to loss.
It’s not the first time I’ve been through something like this. From 1992-1995, I did no clinical work at all, and after that, just a half a day a week, when I was head honcho Medical Director. After I retired from that, I took my three month sabbatical to bike across the country with my family, then took a 2 week refresher course and 2 more months of proctored work, and bounced back in to full time practice. Much of it was like riding a bike. The thought patterns were all still there, as were the physical knowledge. Things just went slower for a while, but gradually it all came back, eventually even better than before.
The same thing seems to be happening now, even after only five days of actual work, 3 in the office and those 2 days on call. Typing notes, cruising through my schedule – my brain has never been silenced or even slowed by my accident, just my hands, mouth and voice. Dealing with the new reality of how my body works provides an amazing level of focus for my patient care, allowing me to avoid any distractions and devote better attention to the problem at hand.
While I’m engaged with a patient, a nurse, or a colleague, my brain has no time to concentrate on the little issues which I find so distracting at other times. Specifically, the arm pains and finger tingling and numbness. And, I love having more metrics to follow to see forward progress. How it becomes easier and less painless to do the little medical procedures. How typing out a chart note or patient instructions becomes more mechanized and faster. How eating/swallowing has become just that much easier.
So what I’m saying is, getting back to skiing and back to work has been a big milestone for me, and so far successfully achieved. Next up will be doing actual surgery. Soon to follow will be my high altitude camp in May, and then the Ironman in June. In July, I hope the oral surgeon can start implanting the screws for my teeth into my grafted bone. My journey to a new me will be a lot more complex and longer than I initially thought – I thought I’d be back to normal in “no time”. But I think in some ways, I’m coming back better than before, and those are the qualities I should keep paying attention to.