er. hello again.

Hi. Sorry I’ve been gone for a bit. Stuff changed and I wasn’t really in the mood to write about it…

There were two main reasons for this

Firstly, I hated hospital medicine. Hated it. As a result I felt rather cavalier about my career. My main thought was this; ‘Sod nights and this awful arcane, hierarchical military system, where no one treats anyone like a human. Not doctors. Not nurses. Certainly not patients. If I get busted for writing a blog and sent down in chains by the GMC for having feelings and ideas about the way things are, then who gives a shit? I can go back to writing instead.’

But then I started my 6 month GP placement. And my next thought was this; ‘Oh! Hang on a minute. SHIT. I quite like this. I’m allowed to be a human. I’m allowed to treat my fellow doctors, nurses and patients as other humans. I’m allowed to be frail. And ask questions. And learn. And speak to people with dignity and respect – and likewise be spoken to with dignity and respect. SHIT. I might actually be able to make a difference. To help people with their depression and their boozing, their worries about their kids or their husbands. To support people with chronic, or terminal illnesses, to help prevent people developing these illnesses by supporting them to give up smoking, or lose weight. SHIT. I don’t want to get busted for having a blog, and lose the opportunity to do this.’ So I stopped writing.

The other thing that happened was I got pregnant. And I was so busy vomming, and refluxing, and growing cankles and nipples like burgers, that I didn’t really have the time, or the inclination, to navel gaze. And soon my navel had disappeared out of sight anyway.

But about two weeks ago I gave birth (more of which in another post) and I’m on maternity leave. And I get to look at this whole medical thing with fresh eyes. And if I write about patients it won’t be contemporaneous. And they’ll be easier to disguise, and thus maintain their privacy. And my baby doesn’t sleep. So there are an awful lot of long, dark teatimes of the soul at 4am. And writing facebook updates instead of blogging isn’t nearly as satisfying. So here I am, blogging again, listening to the gurgling from the other side of my laptop screen and hoping she lets my poor, shredded nipples alone for long enough to finish a paragraph.

I hope this won’t become some dull ode to motherhood, filled with gripes and advice about cabbage leaves. But it might do. Feel free to run away if it does. We’ll see. In the meantime, it’s good to be back. And if any of you are still here, reading this, thank you. I’ll try not to bore the shit out of you.