Rest and Relaxation

Sorry I have been so quiet on here, it has been a deliberate decision. I was having a distinctly bad patch back there. Work was completely crazy, and I was struggling. As a general rule I don’t particularly struggle. I definitely have bad shifts and bad runs of shifts, and I definitely have stressful shifts where I feel stressed, but I wouldn’t say I have ever really ‘suffered’ from stress if that makes sense. Generally when my shifts are done they’re done, and I move on. You get a great shift every so often and it washes away every bad one and makes it all incredible again.

Recently though it felt different. I wasn’t throwing each shift off afterwards. I would walk through the doors of the department and feel my heart beat faster and my chest get tight and my eyes start to sting. I would feel deathly tired, a different tired to all those years of sleep deprivation I had waded through somehow. I felt close to tears a lot. When somebody asked me a question I wanted to tell them to just leave me alone, ask someone, anyone else but me. Everything was too hard, too much. The very sight of the new doctors who started at the beginning of August with no real idea of how Emergency Medicine works, walking towards me with the weight of expectation in their eyes, just made me want to scream and run away.  I couldn’t make decisions, just didn’t know the right thing to do.

Somehow I made it to the start of my annual leave, counting down every second. I am incredibly glad that I had that leave booked because I suspect if not I would have been heading to the GP and talking about going off sick. That would have been a first for me, the girl who has had four days sick in the last ten years. I genuinely felt unable to function, and I have never felt that before. It scared me if I’m honest.

So, my timely annual leave arrived along with the awful weather of course, and a stinking cold on my first day as tradition dictates. I’m kind of glad of that as it forced me to go a little easy on myself. Forced me to spend some time in bed reading. I set myself some clear boundaries too. I decided that I wasn’t going to check my work emails at all. I wasn’t going to do any studying. I wasn’t going to look online at the wait to be seen or how many patients were in the department. I wasn’t going to go in for any teaching or meetings. I was also going to try to limit my general time online. I deleted my Instagram app, I haven’t posted on Facebook and I have been quiet on here too. Whilst I have done some lovely things with friends and family I haven’t been trying to get perfect photos to share and I haven’t been trying to show what a lovely perfect life I have for social media. So sorry, no photos of my beautiful children frolicking on beautiful Cornish beaches, I’ll keep them for myself this time.

I have been reading a lot. I’m sticking with kids books though, Tom’s Midnight Garden, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Swallows and Amazons. That’s all the excitement I can cope with right now. I have found them perfectly soothing. I haven’t been watching much telly, I have two episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale to finish that I just cannot face yet. I have been going to bed when the children do and getting ten hours sleep a night. My eye twitch has almost stopped at last, though the dark circles remain.

I apologise to anyone I have seen whilst out on our adventures. I haven’t felt much up for conversation and haven’t managed much more than Hi and a smile when we inevitably run into other people making the most of Cornwall in summer.

I will be back at work before I know it, and I am already feeling anxious about it if I’m honest. The doctor I am, and I want to be, has time for my colleagues, time for questions and to teach and give advice. I have the mental space to be able to deal with stressful situations and to make hard decisions. I have the heart to properly listen and to smile and to share. I wasn’t that doctor for the past month and I am worried that these two weeks won’t have been enough to get me back to that point. But I am trying to be gentle and kind to myself, and hopefully you’ll forgive me if I have snapped and been short with you, and go a little easy on me, as I am trying to be with myself.

I am trying to look on the positive side. I hope that the worst of the summer swell in population will have passed with the bank holiday weekend. I am hoping that the new junior doctors will have settled in, have gained some idea of what Emergency Medicine actually means, had their corners rubbed off a little, and not need quite so much from me.

The other big change will be the start of the school term, and with that my youngest being away from us in the daytime five days a week. I am looking forward to days off actually feeling like that, rather than spending every moment with a very hyper, constantly busy, always with a plan and a scheme and a job for me to do, four year old. I am not feeling at all empty nesty about my youngest starting school. I am only the tiniest hint of anxious and nostalgic about it. Mainly I’m excited about all the new things he is going to learn. Excited to see his world open up before him as it did for his sister. Excited as he learns to read and write and be able to join in all the things he currently feels excluded from. I think it will be a positive step forwards for us all.

But for the next two days I will make the most of every relaxing moment I have left. Mainly looking up from my book every so often to look at this view…

Slog

Is it just me, or has the year turned? I can feel the slide into autumn around me as I struggle out of bed in the dark mornings, turning on the lights, and walk to night shifts in the dark once more. I don’t mind too much as it’s still been the longest summer I can ever remember, and I know that Cornwall will still have some incredible, balmy days ahead of us. It normally manages to sneak a few heavenly ones into October, so I’m not feeling too gloomy about the inevitable changing of the seasons.

Gloomy, though is probably a fair word to sum up my prevailing mood. I am continuing to struggle with exhaustion, overwhelm and lack of motivation. At work I find myself grumpy, short tempered and hugely lacking any kind of empathy. I am currently counting down the days to some very long awaited annual leave, so I’m hoping that will be the answer, at least for now.

It feels a little like last year was when I took flight. I was full of plans and ideas and energy to achieve them. I’m starting to feel like this is the year I crashed. Realised it was too much, too big, too soon. Don’t worry, I’m not giving in, but I think my journey forwards is set to be a long, slow slog which will leave me bloodied and bruised, rather than perhaps the blaze of glory I originally envisioned.

So here is to five shifts, three driving lessons and one driving test before I am officially on the most needed annual leave ever!

That was then…

I’m finding myself in reflective frame of mind. A week today it will be my ten year anniversary of starting my job as a specialty doctor in Emergency Medicine at the Royal Cornwall Hospital. They’ve been a pretty great ten years if I’m honest, moving into my first proper house with my boyfriend, getting engaged, getting pregnant, getting married, becoming a mother, buying our home, becoming a pet-owner to three annoying chickens, becoming a mother second time around, growing a garden from scratch. It has not been a quiet, relaxing ten years.

I was suddenly hit by the fact that when I first introduced myself and my family on this blog I was a mummy to a four year old and a one year old. I am now the mum to a seven year old and a four year old. Come September they will both be in full time school. Life is now very different.

I own my own body once more. I am no longer holding a child at all times. I haven’t carried one on my body in a sling for almost exactly a year.

I couldn’t tell you the last time, but I haven’t breastfed for weeks and I think, after more than seven years we are done with boob at last. Both my children sleep in their own beds (in our room admittedly), but I get to choose who cuddles me as I sleep now, and I choose my husband and not my kids, who are far more likely to kick me or whack me in the face as they wriggle and turn and starfish in the bed. My brain functions more like it used to, now that it actually gets some sleep, and my body has started to straighten after years of holding and feeding and picking up and lying awkwardly in bed.

I wouldn’t really change any of it, but sometimes I do think about different paths my life could have taken. Most of my classmates from uni are consultants now, and I discovered yesterday that one of them is a real life, actual, TV doc!! I could have been on This Morning with Philip Schoffield and Holly Willoughby if only I had made different life choices. 

Whilst looking back at all that has changed in the past ten years I am drawn to look towards the future. I think, if I am honest with myself, that my baby days are done. I was turning out the attic cupboard today looking for our tent, and came across my stash of newborn cloth nappies. It’s probably safe for me to pass those on, but I can’t quite bring myself to. The same with my maternity clothes, and the cutest of the newborn knits, the last of my baby slings and all my books on pregnancy and baby names. I think that is a time that is passed, and the older my children get, the more distant those memories become. Now I am finding myself looking forward to introducing my daughter to Doctor Who and Strictly, watching my son learning to read and write, family trips with slightly less whinging, and who knows, maybe even the occasional lie-in. And where I myself go from here, who knows. Hopefully consultancy and a really fulfilling career, though hopefully not at the cost of my sanity or my family. Hopefully a really happy relationship with my husband, as adults and not just parents. Hopefully one day ditching all the worries about what might have been, and looking at the future with excitement and not fear.