Uncertainty, or, 2018: A Retrospective

What a year.

Did anyone else have a really eventful 2018?  I certainly did.  The time passed so quickly that I'm tempted to say not much happened, but that is completely wrong.  Enough happened this year - and enough is happening next year - that I've decided to do something I've never done before and try to look back on the year as a whole.



On the professional side, I changed to full time emergency medicine.  That was something I'd given up on years ago even though it's what I'd originally wanted - in fact, was what I wanted right up until I stopped wanting anything from medicine.  But this year I feel like I got to live my best EM life!  I attended my first big national EM conference, which was a blast.  I saw a whole bunch of things I've never personally managed before, from severe carbon monoxide poisoning to being a bystander on scene at a trauma (terrifying!  never again!) to adult intussusception.  Overall I feel like I grew from a junior member of my group into a more experienced and reliable physician, and I really like that.  I can tell I've racked up professional trust with my colleagues; it isn't that I ever did something to make them not trust me, but rather that there's no shortcut.  People have to see that you know what you're talking about before they will rely on you, and that takes time.  It's a privilege to know I'm putting that time in.  It's a gift to enjoy medicine again.

Even though my job is very exciting by nature, I arguably had a more tumultuous personal life this year.  I had the privilege of travelling to no less than three weddings this year, all for friends/ family I love dearly.  Given the amount of important life stuff I've missed over the past ten years, this was pretty heady stuff for me.  I started to write again after a years-long hiatus.  I had a totally undangerous but very real brush with PTSD (did I not tell you about that?  A story for next time).  Because of that, sleep has been a fickle friend, at times leaving me so exhausted I'm nearly seeing double.  My husband made the decision to change career paths both much earlier and more drastically than we originally anticipated.  Oh, and I was diagnosed with an incurable, progressive neuromuscular disorder.

I mean, that's a lot, right?

With all the ups and downs, the travel every other month, the massive life-changing upheaval of my condition, by the end of the year I was emotionally tapped out.  It's why I haven't posted much lately.  I worked Thanksgiving and Christmas and my husband and I didn't go anywhere or see anyone.  The quiet has allowed me to start to get my bearings somewhat.  I'm used to feeling like I accomplish things every year, but this year I feel very much like 2018 happened to me, like I was a passive recipient of the events in my own life.  I think I'd like to reclaim some agency.

You know, for most of my life, things have felt almost like they were on rails.  I don't know if anyone else can sympathise with that.  I chose a career that is very demanding, yes, but at the same time has a very defined track.  I remember saying to myself countless times that all I had to do was follow the plan.  High school.  College.  Med school.  Residency.  Just follow the plan and everything would turn out.  And I suppose it did, more or less.  But I am thoroughly out of plans now, and I've never been in this place before.  I reached the end of the list.  I've run out of rails.  How could I not have noticed that all my plans petered out around age thirty?  Although I suppose it wouldn't have mattered if I had planned clear out until I die at age 82; I never could've foreseen where I am now.  I had no idea I would be diagnosed with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease or the extent to which that would change my life.

And so here I am.  No plan, a checked-off list.  I'd actually be content to cruise along like this for a few years, just study and work and live and improve in my faith and my craft and my relationships, but because of my disease I don't think I'll get to do that.  It won't be the way everyone else gets to do it, at least.

So... now what?

What the hell am I meant to do now?

Where will I be in a year?

For the first time in my life I honestly cannot say.

Perhaps the better question is this.  How do I face the uncertainty of the rest of my life, both short- and long-term, and to what extent do I try to plan?