Doogie Howser, MD

Today was my second day in a row of catching a baby within 5 minutes of arriving to work. What are the odds? This time around, the woman had been 6 cm 20 minutes before. I went into her room to introduce myself. The two things she said both struck me as odd:

1. "Is anyone else going to be delivering my baby? You look kind of young."

2. "I need to push now."

I quickly reassured her that I am, in fact, a real doctor and not Alaska's version of Doogie Howser and focused on the last statement. Lesson learned this week: when she says it's time to push, you have T minus 3 minutes before it's baby time. I gathered the nurses, prepped them all for the fact that she likely was going to have a large baby given her gestational diabetes and her last baby 7 years ago weighing just under 10 lbs. I gowned up, she pushed once to crown, then the head followed. I geared up to give a massive pull in order to ensure the shoulders did not get stuck. The baby literally exploded out with such force that it smacked my chest and a wave of fluid came crashing over me. Honestly. There were huge pools of water on the bed and floor. The sound of the baby hitting my hands caused the woman to gasp, "did you drop him?" I don't think I instilled in her much confidence. At any rate, if Shakira's hips don't lie, well, these Alaskan pelvises don't lie. It was another nearly 10 pounder. Just like that.

The rest of the day paled in comparison to my early excitement. A few discharges, a new admission (pancreatitis), and the social worker stopping me in the hall to ask me how many of my patients might die soon. Odd, I know. I have one patient on comfort care that will likely pass soon. My fellow FP has 2 similar patients on his side of the service. Three nearly dying patients can be a problem in a hospital with a two body capacity morgue. Not even standing room. Bad joke. She said this is not as big of a problem in the winter when they can put the bodies outside to store. For real. I didn't offer up the fact that there is currently an empty bedroom in the cranberry cottage.

I rounded the day off with a long overdue trip to the grocery store (out of ice cream! the horror!), which I have illustrated in the post below.