and so i've . . .

Moved to a different fire exit. One with an entirely different view :)

good friday

It has been a very good Friday.

I fell into a deep slumber last night, tired after the day’s activities. Post-call, but with no admissions, I woke up refreshed and hopeful for the day to come. Now, as the day comes to a close, I couldn’t be more satisfied with what has come to pass.

Today, I am grateful for compliant patients who come back for follow-up, who take their medications as directed and follow doctor’s advice.

I had a patient with Pulmonary Tuberculosis who has been religiously taking her multi-drug therapy. She came back for follow-up after having been diagnosed with pneumonia, now much improved yet still taking her medication and following her doctor’s advice.

Today, I feel very grateful for the people I work with. I am grateful for excellent professors. I am very grateful for doctors/residents who are blessed with a good clinical eye, who have had years of experience handling a varied mix of ailing patients and yet retain that air of wonder every time a new patient enters the clinic.

I am grateful for residents who respect their clerks/interns, who share their knowledge and experience, and impart the proper values and attitude by example. They have my utmost respect and deserve the same from their patients and colleagues.

Today, I was humbled by my patients.

Today, I was a good would-be-doctor.

Pahabol:

Today, I had a classic case of Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo or BPPV. I knew the right questions to ask for my history and the right examination to do - which obviously led me to the diagnosis. I’m glad. I’ll get to the drugs soon enough.

"special"

I have been feeling tired lately. It’s like I’m never well-rested after a night’s sleep. I have already cut my caffeine intake and have been eating well but I still feel the same. I feel old. Maybe it has something to do with finally graduating from Medicine in a month and half’s time. More pointedly, I suppose it has something to do with being another year older at the same time.

I am twenty-six years old and I already feel old. My co-clerk who sits beside me during lectures is at least 14 years older than I am and although he complains of always feeling tired he seems to be doing better than I am.

I am twenty-six years old and already my mortality is haunting me. I suppose it doesn’t help that when I used to be obsessed about death and dying I believed I would probably be dead by the age of thirty-five. Some days I like to believe that my inactivity is making me feel tired. On other days, reality hits me and I understand that laziness rather than inactivity is the problem. I have become complacent.

Every day I sit in class and observe that I’m the only one who even bothers to read my Family Medicine manual. I sit in class as we wait for professors and I use the time to read a little on the most recent outpatient case I have handled. I take this extra effort to do better and yet I feel more stupid than I have ever felt before. I will be graduating with a degree of Doctor of Medicine in a month and a half. Although this doesn’t give me the license to be smug about this small triumph I should at least feel good that I have attained something. Yet all I feel is insurmountable stupidity all because I have become complacent. I have not achieved what I should have. I should have been so much better all because I know I could have been.

Yes, I need something to pick me up before I actually fall down.

* * *

When I was driving home, I just thought of the word “special” . . . I was very grateful to have heard it again. Because we all forget sometimes. And I think everyone is special in their own way.

- The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Stephen Chbosky

february

It is the first of February. I am feeling a little sullen, nostalgic as always for the rotation when vast amounts of time were not at hand and feeling bored is not an option with the amount of work to do. I have been irritable of late, feeling a little too unappreciated and taken advantage of. People I have learned to care for make me shake my head in regret for the helping hand I have extended. Some people need helping, others just need the attention. Whatever advice or aid that can be given is wasted.

It is the first of February. I am listening to a Lonely Planet podcast on road trips, the closest I can get to traveling at this time. In April I am planning to whisk myself off to Iloilo to attend my best friend’s graduation than hopefully hop on to Cebu or Bohol. As always, the things that are holding me back are money and going around to asking permission from family.

It is the first of February. As much as I gave a sigh of relief on the last day of my last toxic rotation yesterday I flounder at the thought of having nothing to do. I anxiously fidget as the end of clinical clerkship approaches and fear the great changes that will once again take place.

It is the first of February. Already I am missing the good times.

holiday cheer

24

I was on duty on Christmas Eve. What should’ve been a much needed time with family turned out to be a slow night on OB duty. Noche Buena was cold Chicken McNuggets meal. Not that it would’ve been much different if I weren’t on duty. I stocked up for a lonely Christmas with whole wheat cereal and a liter of non-fat milk only.

As Christmas day approached I chose to isolate myself in the empty labor room and sleep. I would’ve slept until morning if I hadn’t been awakened by a resident who was looking for drinking buddies. I wasn’t really up to it, nor were my other co-interns. So wiping sleep from my eyes, I downed a couple of glasses of white wine (the bottle of Tequila had been emptied earlier) as the already drunk residents called every contact listed in their mobile phones and greeted each with a slurred “Merry, merry Christmas”.

25

I got home from the hospital around lunch on Christmas day and went straight to bed. I woke up minutes later too lazy to get up or go out. I ended up watching old ER episodes the whole afternoon.

26

The streets were almost empty the day after Christmas, the distance between cars measured in kilometers instead of the usual fraction of a meter. All I could say was, “it’s just another day on duty”.