Sick Day

I am taking a sick day today.  This is the first sick day I have ever taken at this job in 1.5 years, and really, the only sick day I think I have taken in all of my medical training career.  I always feel guilty about taking sick days.

Two days ago I was in the OR all day with difficult cases which required me to do a lot of pushing, pulling, and of course, a lot of standing.  At one point I was pushing on a lady’s belly so hard (because her baby was stuck at the c-section) that I actually felt something in my own belly – and I realized I had been pushing harder than my body can handle right now.  If my day had ended at 5:00pm like normal, I might have been okay.  But, I was on call.  By about 10:00pm, I was starting to have cramping.  It wasn’t bad, but it was starting up, my legs and body were also sore, and I still had more than 8 hours to go until my shift was over.  Things only got worse through the whole night.  I tried to sit when I could, but that didn’t seem to help too much.  I had to go to the OR again, where we had another difficult delivery (and again, I was doing the pushing).  By the time my shift was over, I was constantly cramping and in pain.  I couldn’t even stand up or walk without holding back tears.  I managed to get out of the hospital by 7:00am, and when I got into bed, I just started crying – I was hurting so much.

I eventually fell asleep and had a broken sleep until 3:00pm.  Every time I moved in my sleep, I would wake up from pain.  After getting out of bed and moving around, I noticed some cramping starting up again.  It was never as bad as the night before, but it didn’t let down all night.  Despite knowing that this was likely happening because I was “working too hard,” I went in to the hospital just to be safe.  Since I see women who come in with cramping at this same gestation all the time, I knew what they were going to do and what they were going to say to me (after all, these are my colleagues).  I also got up the courage to call in sick for today – so that I could give my body a good rest.  I’ve got a weekend of heavy call coming up starting tomorrow, and I’ve either been on call, working, or post-call (the day after call when we go home to sleep) every day since December 28th, including over last weekend.  My body is clearly not coping…

Every thing turned out okay at the hospital: my cervix is closed and I have no bladder infection.  My doctor told me to take it easy and get some rest.  I made it home by 11:30pm when I promptly went to bed.  I woke a few times in the night with some pain, and then when husband and kids got up and out of the house.  However, I seemed incapable of getting out of bed until 10:30am.  I feel like I could sleep even more… Maybe I should, seeing as how I took off this day to rest, and all.