Clinical Site

Most people look forward to the end of the day. They long to flop into bed, ready to say hi to Mr. Sandman. I do too. Or at least I did until last week. I havent slept more than a few hours each night for the last several days. I lay my pretty little head down at night and sit and stew. I worry about where I will end up for my first clinical rotation.

I just found out today that Flagstaff is not accepting students this semester for clinicals, so that choice is off the board. My next choice is a hospital in the small town of Cottonwood, AZ, which is about 65 miles from Flagstaff, just close enough for me to live at home in Flagstaff again and drive each day to clinicals. Sure it means a lot of driving, but if it also means I get to live at home with my wife and cat, not pay two rents each month and have one food bill, then so be it.

Unfortunately, I am not assured this site. The way our system works is that everyone's name is put into a bowl and our instructor pulls the names from the hat one by one and that is the order in which we get to choose our site. A so-called "random" drawing. Not so random for me since I have just about the worst luck with this kind of thing as any human on earth living or dead.

Anyway, I'm in competition with at least 10 other people who want the same site as me. Granted I have 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th choices, but I would rather not fall back onto those, as they would entail endless driving, double rents, and a prolonged absence from my family (family = Becky plus cat), who I have grown quite fawned of as of late.

For these reasons, I have found it difficult, if not impossible, to get to sleep and stay that way for the last week or so. I know its silly because there is nothing I can change until the day we draw, which is tomorrow by the way, but still my little brain gets to working, and worrying, and I run over all the scenarios in mind until I'm so worked up sleep is not even on my radar anymore.

At least by lunch time tomorrow it will all be over one way or another. I just hope my historically bad luck takes a turn for the better and I get the site I want. I really need some stability right now, and actually living at home again would really provide that for me.

So if you happen to see a falling star tonight, please keep me in mind when you do your wishing. I will probably be up all night anyway, and I plan to do a lot of wishing of my own.