it's like running

Running hurt at first. Sometimes during, always after. Occasionally, even before - anticipatory pain.

MEPN is like that.

I haven't used my brain like this in a while. Even in pre-requisites, there was room to breathe. Even working full-time and taking pre-reqs full-time wasn't like this.

I am truly, truly brain-dead.

I try to read and words swim on the page in front of me. I try to take notes - look up and define terms, summarize what I learned today - and I just can't do it.

Does this mean I am broken and can't do it? Probably not. More likely, I need to train. Really, really efficiently.

They took it easy on us this week. Shorter days, classes that were more of an overview or orientation as opposed to lecture and work, a full day off from clinicals tomorrow. I get to saunter over to campus at a luxuriously late 9:15 for some team building. This week has been easy and I am beat. I semi-dread next week, with its normal crazy pace, actual assignments due, patient care beginning to move into my hands.

I am in such pain from the thinking, the synthesizing of information, the reading, the novelty. And what does a runner do when she is in pain? She takes a rest day. Rest up, repair damaged tissues, prepare for further damage. Except instead of delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS), I suppose I am having delayed/immediate-onset brain soreness (D/IOBS - not a real term at all, except on my blog). Nonetheless, I expect that resting up now instead of cramming in more info is going to be helpful. Leave me some brain to cram tomorrow.

That is how I justify my wine tonight. It is also how I concluded that I have permission to be totally worthless every single Friday night after clinicals. I will be eating take-out, drinking booze, and either zoning out alone with a movie or hanging out with other MEPN folks to debrief (in a HIPAA-compliant fashion, of course) and de-stress.

MEPN is crazy. I was so cocky, thinking I was so ready for it, and I was wrong, wrong, wrong. I am quite overwhelmed and a little behind. Already. On day 4.

It's going to get better, I'm sure. I will keep running and wine-ing and whining and it will all be OK.