The Ex-Girlfriend’s Guide To Exam Stress 2
Sassy speaks again:
Sorry for the long break in communication, I know it’s been quite a while since I last wrote. I really haven’t been up to that much….I would like to say that I’ve been busy reading up about the effects of ranitidine on physiological deadspace (I think she’s taking the Micky about one of the MCQ questions from April here… - Ed.), but I haven’t!
Since the changeover, the last couple of weeks I have mainly been wishing the old gang of doctors would come back. No one likes change and ICU nurses are no exception. “Come back, all is forgiven!” I like to think that we’re not fickle but I know we are, and at the moment we wish we had the old guys back. Give it a year, though, and we won’t want them to leave. At the moment they are generally receiving what has been termed the “cuff pressure look” ( Me neither - Ed.) Funnily enough it was the EX who coined that look. It was the “cuff pressure look” that brought us together and since then my many looks have made me pretty well known. Sometimes I hardly need to utter a word, because a single look is enough. I heard an FY1 saying something about a colleague of mine the other day, all completely untrue. I didn’t speak to him, he knew by my face that he had said the wrong thing!! Poor boy, he’s not been the same since, but he’ll never do it again, so I’ve probably saved him from upsetting the next lot of nurses that he encounters.
So back to dealing with exam stress. My advice now looking back on our time together would be, book time to be together. Yes I know this sounds like I’m suggesting you give in and be second best to medicine and the timetable, but by booking time, you know you will get it (unless another book on propofol comes out!) and you can look forward to it.
I think I need to comment on the second best bit. I am not suggesting that you let yourself be second best or that you should adopt that role, but as I came to understand you need to realise how important medicine is to doctors. They spend years at med school and then years after that studying for post-graduate exams, so it’s bound to be. To be honest as much as I really longed for time together I was very proud of him and his dedication. Did I ever say that??? I hope I did and if you ever read this and guess I’m talking about you, I was.
I also think booking either a holiday or weekend break just before the timetable kicks in is a great idea. When your schedules allow eat lunch or dinner together, at least you get some time to talk and catch up. Learn to enjoy time on your own, catch up on things you have let slide. Exercise together; we ran together and he helped me train for a marathon. One thing I never did was tell him that all the studying occasionally got to me and that I missed my lovely boyfriend, I wish now I had said it. I’m not saying you should go on about it but everyone is human and I think in an adult relationship you should say what you think or what’s on your mind. Once he’s finished reading the geeks guide to cardiac output…OF COURSE.
Oh and get yourself on Facebook….if you are that way inclined. I most certainly am not and cannot understand what anyone sees in it. Virtual food fights…please tell me all you adult readers what on earth is all that about?? I may dig again about facebook but will try to refrain, you’re lucky I’ve stopped myself thus far! Oh and one more thing, just don’t try and help him study, even if you are a doctor, its just not helpful, be there when he needs you and when your window in the timetable comes along.
So the exams ended (well that round). I was elated and even more so when he passed. We never got the holiday because I then became the EX. It was sad, really.
Would I go out with a doctor again…..not if I could help it and he wouldn’t go out with a nurse I am sure. Even if I met another doctor and even if he was like Mc Dreamy. (Get it?? Grey’s anatomy?? No? Perhaps it’s a girl thing). I would probably make an exception for Mc Dreamy, after all Meredith did time and time again.
Anyway, I’ll be back again soon,
XX
To be continued…
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