Friday, September 26, 2008

Pre-O del Lago

To (force myself to) be the optimist, I'm just happy I'm able to run tomorrow.

At the end of August, I still had to get out of my midnight-ending shift today (Friday 9/26). Despite my request to have the day off, my scheduler, who *usually* tries to let me do my runs without working until 2am the evening before, had scheduled me for noon to midnight, which not only screws up the sleep, but would have precluded making the mandatory pre-race check in. Probably has something to do with our being short staffed, and the several other scheduling requests I had to make for the month.

The problem is, Friday noon to midnight is a tough sell, and I'm working so much, I didn't have a free Friday on which I could cover the same shift for a person who might have the 26th off. Everyone's working over full schedule as it is, and people have plans. I did find someone who can could work that shift (Mickey below), but he was working 6am the next morning, so I had to call the 10am to 10pm person and ask if she'll switch to noon to midnight..... and then a bunch of other people. In return for his favor, I offered to do Mickey's overnight shift on the 1st, which was painful, since it eliminated the essential recovery day following my overnight shifts, and was a particularly hideous night.

In addition, though I can work 6am today, I can't stay until 3pm and make it to the pre-race meeting, so I need an afternoon doctor (Shakira!) to come in early.

So it ends up being a complicated switch ultimately involving 4 of my colleagues. But since one person not being able to do the switch makes the whole thing fall through, I must've contacted about 3 times that number for other possible trade scenarios. Here's the email I sent in the end to the schedule maintenance people (names changed, and then further tweaked to avoid any lawsuits).

Monday September 1st:

  • Ultrailnakaman will work the Fremont 23-630 (not Mickey Rodent)

Friday September 26th:

  • Mickey Rodent will work Hayward 10-22 (not Braised Daisy Duck)
  • Braised Daisy Duck will work Hayward 12-24 (not Ultrailnakaman)
  • Ultrailnakaman will work Fremont 6-1330 (not Goofy Dog-Bear-Thing 6-15)
  • Goofy Dog-Bear-Thing will work Fremont 8-17 (not Mickey Rodent)
  • Shakira! will work Fremont 1230-24 (instead of 14-24, same 1 hour overlap with the first shift)
Plus a self-deprecating thank you to thank all those volunteering to help me out.
  • Thank you everyone for offering to make these changes so I can make it to the mandatory check-in at Granite Bay (northeast of Sacramento) that afternoon and pursue my meaninglessly stupid hobby all the next day, especially Mickey, since I know he really wanted to labor on his overnight on Labor Day in celebration of labor. Also thanks to the people I cc'd who offered to switch but won't need to (just giving a heads up). I love you all. xoxoxo
So, I'm just glad I can run Rio. I have great helpful colleagues that will mess with their already full schedules. I am SO-O-O-O lucky!

Lucky lucky as a braised Beijing ducky. Never mind the flu thing going around, involved my nose, my head, my whole body, and my gastrointestinal tract which will probably result in at least 20 minutes of pit stops tomorrow. Feeling extra exhausted from 4 instead of 3 overnights this past weekend. Usually I have trouble falling asleep at night initially, but this time I couldn't get enough sleep. And I didn't. Two night ago we had to host some a meeting at our house and to my exhausted agony, it went WAY later than I had wanted. The insomnia came.....last night-- the crucial night before the day before. Oh well, think positive--it's really the...night before the night before the night before that counts!

I walk into work this morning, and who's working but the scheduler (also an ED doc, he gets adminitrative time to do the schedule). Despite my normally better judgement and restraint, at some point, I think after one of my overnights last weekend, I subtly asked him why he screwed me over this month. "Oh powerful and almighty scheduler your Highness, did I do something to make you hate me?" or something like that, minus the sarcasm. Oh, I can't remember, I was so sleepy at the time.

This morning, before he can finish signing out his patients to me, an ambulance brings this guy in, not dead, but pretty close. Scheduler helps me out (he's still being paid anyways) and puts a central venous line in the guy's right internal jugular shortly after I intubate him. I thank him for starting the line, and he apologizes again for having scheduled me to work today, and wishes me luck on the race, and I make no sarcastic remarks, but mention that I'm going to ask for vacation months in advance for future 100-mile races. I work my butt off for the first two hours with my first and a couple other patients. The 8am doctor comes in and there are no patients for 90 minutes, while he sleeps in his chair.....I get some time to start this post before it gets busy again. (I guess I'm thankful it let up enough for this too...)

My other two 100 milers involved a trip somewhere with extra family to accompany my wife and kids. This time I'm just leaving them. Big domestic political expenditure here. But some vacation plans with her family to make up for this soon.

Uh, oh, more patients coming in.....will I get out of here to carpool buddy Joe Swenson's house in time? .....well, definitely not if I keep working on this post..... gotta run!

first published, Friday, September 26th, sometime in the morning

3 comments:

Rick Gaston said...

Crazy all the juggling that you do for these races, events in themselves. I'll know if you made it when i see you. I'm coming early for my pacing duties to catch the front runners coming back to the high school. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to catch some of you with my camera. Good luck.

Steve Ansell said...

Dude...that's just plain SICK! You need a doctor, doctor. Have a great race!

Jenny H. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.