Arrival

Firstly, a drive to the beach to witness the blue. Then the post office, my unloved mail from December crammed in, waiting.

And the new place.

Oh good, a clock radio. Too many coat hangers, not enough shelves. No hooks – will have to fix that. So many cleaning products – helpful, but limited cupboard space. Really – three tubes of alfoil?

Stereo better than the last place, TV smaller (good). A couple of leftover novels, the Kimberley Tide Guide. And – intriguingly – Singing in the Rain.

Rearrange the glasses, wipe down that bench. Where to put the cereal? Oh, there’s no pantry.

Off to the supermarket – soap, stick-on hooks, mustard and hand towels. The daily unobserved objects that smooth out our lives. I can settle in – now I own tissues.

Lamp can go in that corner, my books between the speakers. Melbourne keys in suitcase pocket in anticipation of panic a month hence. Designated miscellaneous drawer for chargers, hard drive, extraneous car key rings. Yoghurt and milk and earl grey tea; chocolate I brought with me.

So, home for half this year officially adopted. Co-opted. Explored and rearranged. Transitioned from generic to somewhere of my own.

But what to do with the 3-foot pearl lugger?

Things I might have missed

The sneaky smile on the girl's face as she reaches across the tram aisle, lemon tart in hand, to feed her boyfriend squashed into the doorway.

The slight tilt of the businessman's hips as, intent on his phone, he waits for the lift. The light spilling across the domed expanse of the reading room, his unconscious pose perfectly framed.

The phrasing of a friend in the flight of her revelation: a journey of great messiness.

The challenge whispered across the blank page of the year:

Be present.

This is the trick to creative work: it requires a slip-state of being, not unlike love. A state in which you are both most yourself and most alive and yet least sure of your own boundaries, and therefore open to everything and everyone outside of you.

...the fragile constructions of grey breath and thought that were his theories for changing the world without setting foot in it. 

My boundaries weave in & out - broken away by a night in the air, holding onto a small foot through a perspex cot. Back as I discuss discharging patients we can't find, reporting to child protection. Blown away again as the toddler with head lice reaches for the pearl hanging around my neck.

Medicine is creation, at times: the art of sifting for the treasure, the piece that completes the puzzle. The shared building of future hope, the push to trust in another. This point of connection teeters out beyond the edges of comfort, requires a willingness to set foot in the world, to be bruised by it and, at times, to be swept away.

A slip-state of being.



With thanks to Anna Funder, whose words I have cherry picked for my own ends.  

I define myself by what I do.

I've known this for a while. Ever since my year 12 biology teacher suggested that, in fact, he did think I could do medicine, it's been me. Ok, so I've been other things too - a bookshop sales assistant, a friend, a public speaker, a daughter, a foreigner - all of which have been more or less terrifying at times - but it comes back to this.

I want to be good at it. Others can be better, but I want to live up to my own expectations. And sometimes, I don't.

Does that make my expectations unreasonable? Sometimes they are. I talk through them with others and occasionally have to be reminded that that's ok. As long as the outcome is good, or not bad, then the process can be acceptable rather than perfect. I'm just as human as the people I treat, and must remain grounded in that.

The last few weeks have shaken my confidence - or at least, made me re-evaluate my expectations. The kids involved are fine - and my involvement with them helped them towards that outcome. But my idea of my own responses, my own level of practice and perhaps even my sense of who I am, has taken a hit.

Is it the settling in crash that did not yet happen? Perhaps.
Is it the new consultant imposter syndrome, that would be inevitable wherever I practice? Perhaps.
Is it being tired, in an unfamiliar place in the middle of the night? Quite possibly.
Is it that I push beyond my comfort zone? I should not then balk at feeling uncomfortable.

Is this where I am supposed to be?
I think so.

Is it who I am?
It's a big part of it.

Can I do better?
Yes.

So I look back, look for areas to strengthen.
And keep looking forward. 

I've been drained recently. New environments, new people, new systems. Being called in the middle of the night and needing to perform. Flying. A lot. The heat. The intensity of others, and the inability to control my time.

This spoke to me today.

Via Sarah.

Sometimes, life just happens.
And you run along trying to play catch up. Or wondering if it's all an elaborate joke.

I'm pinching myself. And still grinning.

Tuesday afternoon

I wake up at one. The sun's shining. I lie awake, not asleep but with my mind empty.

Abruptions are terrifying. One minute, a pregnant mum is clearing the table, settling bickering, yelling at her kids to brush their teeth. The next, she's semi-conscious with a blood pressure of seventy.

I got the call and ran - jeans, bag, oh where are the keys - and made it to the operating theatre two minutes before baby was dragged from a uterus full of blood. Is that a pulse? CPR, lines, fluids, adrenaline, blood, new lines, more adrenaline. We get a heart rate, get back to the nursery.

And then the night begins.

Last night, I witnessed a team coalesce and fight for two lives. We emptied the blood bank and the contents of every drawer. My two shining colleagues with whom the vigil passed kept going longer than I - into the belly of the jet and on to the South. This little baby isn't destined to stay with us long - but he has now been delivered to a shiny white hospital two thousand kilometres away, who can do tests and talk to his parents and help them make decisions they could never imagine.

And us? We were delivered into daylight. Into stupefying sun and the scraps of dinner and the emptiness of sleep.

And the unrecognised joy of simply keeping going.