The Borrelia Blues

I'm a junior in high school. It's only the dawn of winter in East Lyme, CT although it feels as though January's chill has settled upon the concrete surface of the tennis courts at Connecticut College, where the tournament for our high school's conference is taking place. I'm wearing my tennis skirt only out of courtesy for the sake of a team uniform, with bulky wind pants swishing beneath the skirt's white pleats. I see my parter bouncing her tennis ball as she heads towards the baseline, and I take my place closer to the net. We are facing match point. We know we shouldn't be. We're inherently better than the opponents that are standing across from us with their knees bent, ready to pounce upon whatever Liz 'serves' their way. But we're here, and there's probably no way of getting out. Or is there?

A surge of confidence overwhelms me as I raise my racket to head level. Yes, we're facing match point, but haven't so many done this before and raced onto victory? The 20 degree weather that seems to stiffen my muscles more with each passing moment all of a sudden becomes something I can ignore. I turn my head over my left shoulder, seeing Liz prepare for her serve. She's got a great serve, one that I've depended on for the whole season. There haven't been many matches we lost the whole season.

"Cummon Lizzie Belle," I say, using my nickname for her, "we can do this!" She pauses and looks up at me from her position just beyond the baseline.

This isn't a moment of life or death, or anywhere even CLOSE to that. Yet, I will never forget the look on her face. It's one of defeat. Her eyes are blank, her shoulders slump. She couldn't even get the ball over the court if she wanted to with posture like that.

"Yeah, ok" she says out of courtesy, not even attempting to force a smile.

I can't remember if she double faulted that point, or if the other team won the match by the way of a winner. We might have also made an error. I just remember that we lost that next point. And I wanted to win it. But, I was helpless as the player at net.

For some reason, I'm thinking about that moment so many years ago as I write this entry. It's because of how my day went. My morning was awful. Not because it had to be, but because of my attitude. I had 10 complicated patients to see and write notes on before 7:30 conference. I hadn't seen them since Saturday when I was post-call. I was scrambling around trying to keep everything straight and before I know it, it's 7:30 and I still have 3 patients to see, whom I somehow see in the next 15 minutes.

Around 7:45, I walked toward the conference room ANGRY. How come I have to be so late to conference, when I feel it's my protected time to learn about a topic? Why can't I be more efficient? Why is our system the way it is? Why can I NEVER find charts in the morning when I really need them to be where they're supposed to me so I can do my job? Why do the nurses give me such a hard time when I take away their charts from their oh so special signout during shift change?

I angrily turn the knob on the door entering into the conference, where I'm surpised to find only a few residents sitting around talking. There is no presenter. There is no lecture.

"No need to sign in," says the chief,"there isn't a lecture today."

I do hear what she says, but decide that it doesn't matter whether there is or isn't a lecture. I sign my name on the sign in sheet. Dammit, someone is going to read this dumb sheet that indicates that I made the effort to come to this dumb non-existent lecture. With a scowl on my face, I sit down in a chair and try to take some deep yoga-like breaths to calm my sympathetic nervous system down. It's of no use... the damn catecholamines have already been released. I almost let the tears roll in front of my collegues, something that my upper level would tease me about later, "Hey whippersnapper, if you feel like your eyes are about to squirt, lemme know and I'll write some of your notes."

Now that I think about it, it was so dumb to let myself get all worked up that way. The rest of the day was great. Even though my upper level wasn't around, I felt like I managed the team well. Morning rounds was really efficient. I knew everything my attending wanted to know. We discharged 3 patients. We saw almost everyone except for one patient. I was even able to tell my attending about a disease one of our patients had since he wasn't able to read up on it during the weekend. For once, I had read about it. We didn't break for lunch until 1:30 and I was very tired and hungry, but I felt good. The rest of the day was no exception. By the time evening signout rolled around, I was quirky and cooky and back to my old self, having fun with medicine.

What does this have to do with that tennis match so many years ago? It really is ALL about attitude in how your approach your day. You can go for it - you can give just a little bit more effort, or you can resign yourself to a losing score even before the last point has been played. I wonder how that match may have ended if I had been serving that day, or if the ball somehow happened to come my way near the net. I had the right attitude, the one required to get the win. Maybe a bit too much of a sports cliche here, but I kinda liked how my day ended :) See, that's a smile!