The Weight of Work

I am caring for a lot of very sick people right now, which isn't typical.  Most of my patients have chronic, slowly progressive illnesses, so a lot of the work that I do is just checking in on generally healthy people to make sure that everything is okay.  Lately though, things haven't been okay.  I have patients going for major procedures, patients in hospital, and patients approaching the end of life.

I know that this isn't about me.  The people most affected by this are of course the patients themselves and the people who love them.  And yet, this is hard for me too.  It is hard to be witness to suffering, particularly when there is nothing in my medical bag of tricks that I can use to change the outcome.  I can of course offer comfort and support and symptom control, but dammit, sometimes I just want to fix it.  I want life to not be the way it is, with illness and death and all of the other bad things.

So tonight I'm lying low.  I've passed on trivia night, and I'm sitting in my sweatpants with a steaming bowl of spaghetti bolognase and a cuddly cat.  And I'm grieving all of the things I cannot change.

Why Are You Thinking About Retiring So Early?

As I was reviewing the consult service list with my resident earlier this week, I started to feel strangely unwell.  Cold, clammy, nauseated, and dizzy to the point of almost passing out*.  The feeling passed quickly, so I did what any "good" physician would do and soldiered on through my day.  Unfortunately, the feeling came back twice while I was talking to a patient and his family, and I felt so sick that I thought I might black out in the middle of the hospital, so I finally conceded that I couldn't stay at work any longer.  Thankfully the service was slow, and I was otherwise just catching up on paperwork, so it was possible for me to make a quick exit and drive my sick self home.

My sick self was pretty darn sick, so I spent the rest of the day lying on the couch with two cats applied to my abdomen.  After exhausting my blogroll and all of the interesting television that I'm allowed to watch (I mostly watch shows on Netflix with M, who would not tolerate me getting ahead of her), I started reading through some of the old comments on my blog.  One of them in particular, from Zed at Mind the Medic, stuck out:

"I hope you don't mind me asking but why are you thinking about retiring so early?"

I was apparently too lazy to respond to the question at the time, but I feel like it deserves to be revisited, as it's something I think about often.  And the answer is pretty simple:

"Because I'm often happier when I'm not working than when I'm working."

This isn't something that physicians talk about all that often, because our careers are supposed to be our callings.  We're supposed to be happy to make all the sacrifices of time, energy, and stress that we do because they are more than made up for by The Great Privilege of Saving Lives.  And yes.  Some days my job is a great privilege, and some days I even get to save lives.  But a lot of days my job is exhausting and tedious and almost unbearably stressful.  And on those days, I sometimes dream of being retired, even though I'm only 40 and two years into my career.

Over the past 14 months, since I achieved the much coveted net worth of zero, I've managed to save up enough money to live off of for about 3 1/2 years.  At my current rate, I expect that I could retire in as little as seven years, although that would definitely be more a state of Financial Independence than Financial Freedom.  It gives me great comfort and a feeling of security to know that, if I want to or need to, I could walk away from working at that time.

Although, the reality is that I may choose not to walk away.  The more financially secure I become, the more freedom I have to do things that make me happy at work, like take time off.  Financial security also makes me feel much less stressed about work and and how much I'm earning, which in turn makes it easier to like my job.  My dream is to hit the point of being Financially Independent but to enjoy work enough that I have no desire to retire yet.

But if that isn't the case?  Then it will be really nice to have the option of retiring early.

*The eventual diagnosis:  possible early anaphylaxis to a medication that I've been taking for 18 years, complete with really spectacular urticaria.  I may need an Epi pen.

*Edited to add:  Thanks to Physician on Fire for including me in his Sunday Best list. If you've just discovered this blog through PoF, then welcome!  Please leave me a comment to let me know who you are.*

The (Hopefully) Lowest Point of Our Trip

Me to my girlfriend at 3 am this morning:  "I think I'm going to have diarrhea again.  Do you need to vomit, or can I use the bathroom first?"

#alwayssaynotouncookedvegetables