Excuses

Call months are rough because of the 30+ hours you have to spend in the hospital every fourth night. I think it is really the fact that I am awake from 5:30 am until 2 or3 am on those nights that make it hard. If I actually had the chance to get some sleep, I wouldn't mind having to sleep at the hospital (except for the fact that our call room is so damn cold). The flip side is that on the days that we aren't on call, we only have to stay at the hospital until our work is done. Most days, that usually ends up being 4 or 5 pm. We have conferences to go to during the day, clinic once a week, and my day off is always a weekday, but weekends... those are a different story. My intern is off on weekends, so it is just me, seeing the patients, putting in orders, making sure everyone is tucked in. I always get out early on weekend days, but today we only had 6 patients and they were are so completely stable that I was done by 10 am. It was almost like having a day off.

So I went running today, and realized that this was the first time I had been in the sun (not counting the walk from my car to the Target entrance) since we got back from Peru. I make a lot of excuses for not exercising. I get up really early. I have to make dinner when I get home from work. I need to sleep when I'm post-call. As I was running though I realized I'm always going to busy. If I use "being busy" as an excuse for not exercising, I'm never going to leave the house. I will become pasty white from lack of sun (more so than I already am), I will develop vitamin D deficiency and osteoporosis, and I will need to take the elevator up one floor because I will be too out of shape to take the stairs. I don't want to be that person. I need to stop making excuses and just leave the house. It really is nice being out in the sun. And if it keeps from breaking a hip in my old age, it is definitely a good thing.