Weakness at Work

The day is long. Stressful. So-and-so has a lytic lesion at T1. Mrs. X just got intubated and is in the ICU. Mr. Y has called 10 times in the last hour about his upcoming prostate surgery. It's stressful. It's wonderful. It sucks. It's amazing.

My job is so diverse. A million different decisions occur every day. Affects so many people. Being a doctor is being a lifelong student of people. And, God, sometimes, I just want to curl up in a ball and cry. But, I keep coming back. I love it. I hate it. I need the money. Screw the money. I should have been a dermatologist.

And then it happens. A flirtation. An intimacy. You work with someone. You're getting crushed in the hospital. The job is killing you. You're there all the time. Hey, there's that nurse smiling at you. That married pulmonologist complaining about her accountant husband. The secretary with the deadbeat dad/husband.

The Weakness. It hits us all. You justify it, saying you're stressed. You say you're overworked. That no one understands you. But it's not true. I've seen it before so many times. I see it all the time now. A dalliance. A brightness to the day. A smile. A shared story.

I used to wonder how people had affairs. It seemed so abstract to me. I don't wonder any more. I see it all around me. It pulls me. It probably pulls my partner. The combined beauty and curse of our Internet modern life is that we have endless choice. Endless exposure to anything. Not just my city or even my state. Europe, the world, anonymous.

Maybe it's just the natural hormonal infidelity that grips all people in any line of work. But, I see the cliche doctor's affairs all the time. I see it. I understand it now. I've just got to avoid it all and just go home and work out or something.... just meditate. But, I see it.

The chemo part is easy. It's the living that's tough sometimes.