Nose on the Grindstone

Daddy worked like a mule mining Pike County coal
He fucked up his back and couldn't work anymore
He said "One of these days you'll get out of these hills
Keep your nose on the grindstone and out of the pills."

                        -Tyler Childers

Boxer was the workhorse in George Orwell's Animal Farm. His answer to every problem, every setback, was `I will work harder!' which he had adopted as his personal motto.  He labored his entire life for his cause like no other animal on the farm, only to collapse in exhaustion and be ultimately sold to a slaughterhouse, so the ruling pigs could buy themselves a case of whiskey.

I will work harder, for myself and my loved ones- not for some pointless politician's pointless vision.

I clawed my back from unemployment, loss, and alcoholic oblivion, and found not one but THREE E.R. jobs I love. I work my ass off at all of them, taking on far more hours than any emergency physician should, well beyond  the official recommendations of the American Board of Emergency Medicine. Complete immersion of my specialty was my M.O. these the last three years' running. Far from feeling even a hint of burnout, I feel exaltation in the work; a sensation which completely eluded me during my drinking years, but now electrifies me. Maybe it was the love I lost for 18 months, which I miraculously won back, and I now choose to celebrate with gratitude and humility. Perhaps I am burying myself in something I am truly exceptional at in order to sidestep some the pain of having no family life. Maybe I just love making gobs of cash. My suspicion is that the truth probably lies somewhere in between all three explanations. I also realize there is no point in overanalyzing  it. It is what it is. I relish each day (or night) I work a shift, and that is all that matters.

I also recognize the recipients of the fruits of my efforts. 1/3 goes to Uncle Sam; 1/3 goes "back home" (ex-home); one third I get to keep. That last portion subdivided further into living expenses, savings, and spending money. And that's OK; the harder and more I work, the bigger the pie. These days, I'm thrilled to have a big pie. I have the skills. I have the drive. I have the energy.

Job satisfaction, distraction, income...that is likely the trifecta of what my career ambitions boil down to these days. I not only accept this, but enjoy it very much.....because four years ago I was living in a halfway house and visiting food pantries to feed myself. Now, I am putting my kids through college and buying my girlfriend jewelry by performing in a job I love, gifted back to me by my friendly neighborhood Higher Power.

I must work harder, Boxer would mutter. Well, me too. Not for the ruling pigs (well, at least 2/3 of the time) but for the noblest of noble causes- the security and well-being of myself, and  therefore my peeps.

I must work harder in my job to fortify my future and that of my children.

I must work harder in my workouts to fortify my body.

I must work harder in my relationships to fortify my love.

I must work harder in my program to fortify my recovery.

I. Must. Work. Harder.








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Intubating Alcoholics

Image
In the past week I have put three alcoholics on life support. The first one was 39 years old. He arrived to the emergency department by EMS unconscious with almost no blood pressure. I placed my ultrasound probe on his heart and saw it was beating alright,  just very little blood was entering his ventricles. This is because he was bleeding to death. When I intubated him I saw pooled blood in the back of his throat. His liver was so far gone, so cirrhotic, that blood could not easily pass through it, and the backup and created high vein pressures on sensitive areas like his esophagus and stomach, whose linings themselves were eroded from the caustic effects of constant boozing. He was literally hemorrhaging internally, and it took many units of blood to even get a pressure back. He made it to the ICU, and later that night, died. We later learned from family that he had moved back to town "to get sober." Case two was  a 53 year old chronic alcoholic who came to me con
Read more

Whiskey on the Walls

Image
Alcoholics in long-term recovery maintain a keen awareness  of any booze in our immediate vicinity. Whether sober a week or twenty years, we keep a heightened sensitivity to its presence in a room. So when my hospital chose to line the hallways with it, needless to say the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. These days hand sanitizer has become as ubiquitous as cellphones, face masks, and Bradley Cooper; you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a dispenser. Companies simply cannot keep up with the demand. This being the case, a local valley distillery came up with the brilliant idea to temporarily convert its operations from whiskey to full-time sanitizer production, and began to supply local medical facilities. My hospital has been buying the stuff in bulk, restocking its depleted stores,  and filling all its dispensers with it. Here's the problem. Distilleries using equipment which had been continuously producing hard liquor for years can't magically c
Read more

Baby Soul

Image
It’s  Baby Soul Day! In my younger teen years, I worshipped the iconic band Rush. At age 14 I was small, nerdy, intellectual, and afraid of my own shadow. Geddy Lee's voice, Alex Lifeson's guitar, and Neal Peart's lyrics encapsulated perfectly how I felt growing up in 1980s suburban North Jersey surrounded by big studly Italian boys and athletic Irish kids.  Neither the albums  Moving Pictures nor  Signals left my turntable *ever* unless I was simply swapping out one for the other. I hid in my room, pretending how I was going to somehow be cool, be accepted, break out. 30 years later, as I felt myself inevitably sinking in alcoholic quicksand, I read Neal Peart's memoir  Ghost Rider . Having lost his daughter to a car crash and wife to cancer within the same year, the legendary drummer one morning mounted his motorcycle and embarked on a two-year tour of the Americas, riding wherever the wind (his HP?) took him. While journaling his geographic adventures, he
Read more