February 1, 2008 12:41am

Anxiety is a bitch.

I realized that the less I blog, the more I feel ill with anxiety. I think writing gives me a chance to put my thoughts down and consider what I'm really upset about.

At the moment, I am most worried/frustrated about school. I'm almost done with my OB rotation and I will be moving on to Surgery and Emergency Medicine. Both give me nightmares.

Sid I mention that on my first day of surgery in OB I went horizontal 25 minutes into a hysterectomy?

Well, I did.

Clearly, the operating room is not the place for me.

I hate things moving fast. I hate making quick decisions. I'm more into the kind of medicine where you can evaluate and research a bit before deciding what to do (nobody is about to die immediately). I'm also clumsy and have a wicket tremor. If I hold a mug of coffee, my hand shakes so bad that I often spill it on myself. I am a glass is half empty kind of gal out of necessity. I can't exactly hit a vein with any sort of proficiency, but it's really embarrassing explaining to people (even doctors and nurses) that I'm not just nervous, I have a medical condition that normally really old people have.

I've also been really anxious about money lately. This is probably because I don't currently have a job so I'm not making any money. Mom helps me out tremendously so I can have a roof over my head and eat and have books and toilet paper, but I feel guilty every single time I spend money that isn't really *mine*.

Tonight, the power went out around dinnertime. I called the power company and the very pleasant recording told me that it will be restored by 4am. I assumed this meant it was a major catastrophe and I needed supplies. I drove to Wal-Mart (which still had power) and bought lots of batteries, a battery powered lantern, apples, bananas, 3 cans of soup, some non-refrigerated snacks, and a piece of chocolate cake. The plan was to stock up on things that didn't need to go in the fridge and enjoy the night with my lantern and read. I got to the checkout and the whole thing came to about $70 (mostly because of the batteries and the lantern). On the drive home, I realized that power had been restored and there would be no evening of roughing it.

Guilt over the purchases immediately began.

Why is it that I can appear so calm and together, yet have this internal war going on?

food and I aren't getting along very well right now. My stomach churns as soon as I swallow a bite, and last night I had reflux so bad that I had to go to sleep sitting up.

Tonight isn't looking very promising right now either.