Thrombectomy count = zero
Almost wrote a very lonely,sad and dispirited post earlier this afternoon. No stroke calls in the night, went to radiology early, no one talked to me (not true: the registrar said my English was very hard to understand, much harder than an Australian), and then went to main theatre to catch up with the anaesthetist I’d been emailing before I arrived. He hardly speaks any English, so after ascertaining that I could speak un petit peu of French, he then spent the rest of the morning speaking French to me. This included talking about the cases for next week, helping with a failed intubation, preassessing a patient in clinic, and going over the entire awake craniotomy protocol. Exhausting. People only seem to be clinical for half a day here, so in the afternoon I snuck out, back to my Airbnb for a break and some wallowing. Felt very sorry for myself, sent a passive aggressive text to one of the radiologists, which I instantly regretted and to which he hasn’t replied. After that I went for a long walk in the sun, felt better and decided to pop back into radiology to see what was happening. There I met someone else who is hanging around waiting for people to have strokes – a Russian radiologist, who was very nice, speaks no French and has a dream of moving to Marlborough one day, of all places. It was just nice to have a conversation with someone during which I could understand more than 50% of what was being said. Even better, we then had a thrombectomy false alarm – we were all ready to go but unfortunately the patient had already got better. Still, it was the closest I’ve come so far, and the radiologist has promised to ring me if anything comes in overnight. Fingers crossed. It’s just that I miss my family and my friends and my dogs, home is a long way away, and I don’t really know what I’m doing here. Sigh.
ps. Good timing! My supervisor just WhatsApped me to invite me to dinner with his family on Friday. That’s one dinner I won’t have to eat alone.