Sick Day

This morning, I did the unthinkable.

I called in sick.

I was supposed to be on call at State Hospital today, right? No big deal. And I'm on with an attending I like very much (possibly my favorite of the State Hospital medicine attendings), and I've got a decent moonlighter, it really shouldn't have been much of a deal at all. It's overcast and damp here today (even if it is 68 degrees out), so it's not like I really even could resent not having the day off.

And then...well, I was not feeling well when I got up this am.

You cannot believe the arguments I had with myself. I could probably manage. But I had a fever. But things aren't often very hectic at State Hospital, it was entirely possible I could spend part of the day hiding in the call room and possibly even get a nap in this afternoon. But I didn't feel good. But I've gone to work sicker - in fact, I went to work sicker than this last week. But my co-intern when I was on Medicine came in to work when she'd had food poisoning all weekend and had barely stopped throwing up. But I've covered for my sick colleagues on at least three occasions. But I was being irresponsible. But I was being responsible to myself - I was sick all last week, and this past week I've come home and crashed pretty much every single day. I've gotten nothing done despite the fact that I haven't been working very many hours. The only thing I think I've accomplished was passing my flu bug to my current co-intern, unless it was our senior resident who did that, because she was sick, or our attending, who was also sick, or any of the other sick residents (you know, or patients). And it's entirely possible that I wasn't quite better to begin with and either just got sicker, or I got reinfected from him (or her or him or them). But maybe I was just being neurotic. Maybe I really didn't feel all that bad.

Well, but maybe I did. I'd had a rough night. I'd been hoping to feel better all night, but still felt crummy. I had a little fever. I was sore and hot and congested and shaky going to work was not going to make me any better.

So I called the doc in charge of the medicine group, and said, I'm sick. I'll come in if I have to, but, I'm sick.

She basically said, wow. This is inconvenient. I don't have my phone list at home. I can't make the attending take call, he's on (home) call all weekend, that would be "humanly impossible" (what?) and also illegal (no it wouldn't. There are no work hours restrictions for attendings. Mostly because they don't need them). I really wish you'd called me yesterday.

Yeah. Can you imagine? "Hi, this is Kate. I'm going to be sick tomorrow. Could you rearrange the schedule now so we can accommodate that? Thanks."

Makes perfect sense.

And, I can't quite figure out why this was such a crisis. Usually, the attending is there until 5pm, when the moonlighter shows up. Who sometimes leaves at 11, or sometimes stays all night. Why they couldn't just carry the first call pager is a little bit beyond me.

I mean, what exactly is it that the intern can handle that's too overwhelming for the board-certified and experienced senior physician?

Anyway. So she fusses and frets and says, well, I'll try to make some calls...but you might need to come in anyway. I don't know who I can get to cover (because, it's not like that department employs a whole pool of physician extenders and moonlighters and locum tenens docs). You might need to come in at least this afternoon, for the night. So I got up, and showered - just in case she decided I needed to come in - and at some point remembered that I was probably supposed to call the chief resident and let them know. So I got dressed, and looked up which chief was taking those "emergency" calls this month, and paged him, bracing for the same kind of reaction from him, or worse (you know, like the couple of times I had to call in sick in my old program).

He says, "don't worry about it. We'll get the shift covered. These things happen. Now, what do we need to do for you? Are you okay? Do you need anything?"


I almost cried.

But no, I don't need anything. I have the TV remote, a pillow, a blanket, my couch, lots of fluids, and my dog to take care of me. Honestly, what more could I want?

::sigh:: Once again, though, I'm forced to ask myself, what the hell's wrong with the medical profession? We don't take care of ourselves. We work ridiculous amounts of hours, we expect perfection where it cannot be had, we expect our bodies, psyches, and spirits to be more than (less than?) human. Which is very different than what we expect from our patients. Or anyone else, for that matter. Stupid.