While I’m technically not on a ward month now, I’m spending about 11 hours a day in the hospital. Which is not as bad as it sounds, I guess. I dig working on the wards a lot better than working in the ED, frankly.

But my allergies are acting up like crazy. By the end of the day, I feel like the inside of my face has been scratched and abraded by cat claws or something, and my nasal passages are full of thick green snot. (I know. TMI. At least I’m not talking about feces. Or seminal fluids.) I’ve been too lazy to actually buy more Claritin™ (or, more accurately, loratidine, since thankfully the stuff is now available generically over the counter.) I was trying clemastine for a while, but the stuff really does work for 12 hours. Since I’d take it right before going to sleep, and since my alarm is currently set for 5:15 am, I would totally drag until about lunch time. So I’ve switched to chlorpheniramine, which only lasts for 4 hours. Which lets me go to sleep without drowning in my own mucus, but which unfortunately does nothing for my sinuses for the rest of the day.

But enough pharmacology.

The problem is, my long hours combined with my autumnal allergic rhinitis is leaving me seriously drained by the end of the day. By 6 p.m., all I want to do is sleep. And lately I’ve been giving in to the impulse. If I don’t set my alarm, I’ll sleep all the way until 5:15 a.m. But if I just take a nap, I’ll wake up and won’t be able to go back to sleep until 1 am.

Thank God I have weekends off.

I’ve been trying to confound my exhaustion with some late-night caffeine intake, but this is liable to keep me up all night.

This chemical lifestyle is kind of scary if I think about it too much.

Ah well.

So after my requisite nap this evening, I decided to head out to Krakatoa because I hadn’t been there for a while. Much to my chagrin, they close at 8 p.m.

But the drive was pretty cool. On my right, the sun was setting behind Pt Loma, turning the western sky a blazing orange. On my left, the full moon was rising, looking enormous so close to the horizon. Thanks to the ludicrous location of Lindbergh Field, planes seem to come ridiculously close to the ground long before they land or right after taking off, and I caught the sight of a plane looking like it was rising up from the ground in front of me, about to smack the full moon.

The song that was playing on my iPod was ”No Cars Go”, except that it was the techno cover version by Vitamins For U. It was actually pretty sweet.

I wish I could just hold on to this weird feeling of optimism. What would it take for me to escape the shadow entirely? To not live under this impossible cloud of despair that, despite everything, has somehow still not managed to suffocate me.

I don’t want to die this way.

Here’s to hope. And more than a little luck.