Sunday, August 10, 2003

Talk about a guilt trip

Jay posted a message about my recent disappearing act. I have to admit that guilt trip has worked…

The reason that my posts have recently been few and far between is that I have been helping out a friend. It is the same friend who I have spoken about who has MS.

As a side effect of some of her treatments for MS she has recently had one of her hips replaced. It is sort of hard to explain but one way to stop her exacerbations (bad attacks) of MS is to give her steroids and that has resulted in destroying her hips. (Now I know why athletes seem to have hip replacements at such a high rate.)

The cool thing is that she was able to get the minimally invasive surgery with the plastic hip. Normally that would have been a four-hour surgery with a two-week recuperation time. Unfortunately with her MS there is no way that this would go ‘normally’ she was in surgery for just under eight hours and even now two weeks out from her surgery she needs someone with her at all times.

This is where bad news becomes good. I did not get my dream job that I was perfect for. As I was about to spiral into a bottomless depression at my sad lack of employment and seeming inability to get a job my friend called and needed my help. If I had gotten that dream job I would not have been able to help my friend now when she needs is so badly.

To be honest, the last couple of weeks have reminded me clearly why I choose not to go into medicine. I am almost constantly exhausted because taking care of her is a full time job – unfortunately one that I am not being paid for. What time I get online I use to catch up on my favorite blogs however, my time helping my friend these last days has left me drained and intellectually empty.

To be honest there are only so many ‘Bionic Woman' jokes you can make to your 30 year old friend when trying to cheer her up after a hip replacement.

Hopefully this coming week I will get back to a regular posting schedule. My friend is doing much better and I should be able to cede my nursing duties soon. I am very sorry for the lack of posting.

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