Hard decisions

 

This weekend I had to work. Not a new thing but it had been a bit of a hard week - Master 0 is getting new teeth and hadn't slept terribly well, Mr. 4 getting up ridiculously early, things to get done keeping us up ridiculously late. All in all I am a bit tired and cranky about having to be gone all weekend. Today is cold and the boys offered to pick me up on the way home from swim lessons which I happily agreed to. It was not my day to stay late but in general you don't want to leave if things are busy as the person covering is on another floor and not quite as available as you would be. Right before I left I heard that a sick person was coming up to the floor. Unfortunately a few minutes later the boys called to say they were here. Technically I could go and in the end I did but I felt guilty. So guilty I called the late person and asked them to check in on the person. And even then (knowing this person was well-covered with very attentive doctors taking care of her) I felt terrible. Technically it's my team and my responsibility. It doesn't help that she's younger than I am and very sick with no immune system to help her right now.

It's so hard to find the right line between family and work especially when there are sick people at work and things to learn all the time and kids who need you at home and are growing up all the time. To do everything perfectly really just requires me to be in two places at one time which is not possible (as much as I want it to be). I want to do my job well and I want to raise my family well. So sometimes I choose one and sometimes the other - always feeling guilty about the other. I hope that this will get better as residency ends, as I get wiser about my life, or as I figure out how to clone myself, but I fear the tension will always be there.