Sunday, May 31, 2015

early to bed, early to rise



i pray this tonight.
lord, let me sleep early with much restfulness. let me have sweet dreams, or maybe stay in peace with no dreams at all.
let me feel safe in my sleep.
let me then wake early.  so that i can chat with you.  so i can breathe.  so i can relax.  so i can lower my shoulders and stretch to meet to sun.  so I can be ready to meet the day.  so i can beat the traffic.
wake me up, lord.  

amen.

Cheeziness. Reader beware.

I feel like i have been waiting for my OTL for the longest time.  sometimes, the wait makes me feel like i am going to die.  i have had my fair share of people who were like this quote presented above, like my angels.  but what i ask for now is not an angel…but the person.  
will he come?
will you come?
what do i do while waiting?
in my pure panic, i find myself praying to god that the man will be like a parking space.  let me elaborate.
many of my friends are utterly amazed at my capacity to find parking in places where no one else would find parking if their lives depended on it.  i don’t know why.  early on during my driving years, i found myself having the habit of praying to the “parking angel” (as taught by my sister) for a parking space as i step into the parking lot or parking building.  i would then roll down my window to listen for a care starting up, or the sound of the stick shift going into reverse and would rush to the empty parking space.  
i always thought: i would just need one space.  just one.  and that one would be perfect as long as i could fit it it.  
given that i would ALWAYS find parking, i am never worried every time i step into a full parking lot.  my FAITH is so intense that the parking would be saved there just for me.  and it always is.  without fail.
given this and contrasted with my lack of a man, i often find myself praying, “lord, why can’t finding my one true love be just like that one parking slot?  i just need one.  JUST ONE!” 
my close friend tells me to have faith on the one true love just like i do with parking.  even if i don’t see the parking space, i know it is going to be there.  
and if god can give me a small thing i desire, such as parking, who can say that there won’t be that one true love that i desire with my whole being?

next time i find that empty parking, i hope beside my car will be the car of my one true love.  :)  the best is yet to come.  while waiting then, i just hope to bask in that faith.

Patient love is messy...

today, a patient was admitted under my service.  under normal circumstances, this should have made me happy.  excited even.  this would have given me the opportunity to practice my clinical prowess, exercise my mind, give a chance to be good and help humankind.
problem was i hated her.  i didn’t want to admit her under my service.  it was the weekend and i just wanted to do plans forma.  she was shrewd to the point that in the clinic yesterday, i charged her nothing because she wouldn’t take my medical opinion and i didn’t want to see her again because she kept on ranting about finances.  yes, i understand that finances play a major role in a place where insurance was not the mainstay of health care, but the patient would not accept the alternative of being admitted under a service hospital either.  talk about being payish.
after i sent her on her way (hoping that she would indeed go her way which would be OUT OF MY WAY), she called back my clinic (after my secretary and i had left), seemingly as an afterthought and did decide to follow my advice.  even with no clinic schedule on a weekend, i told her i would be willing to see her in the morning given that i had activities lined up in the afternoon.  she had the gall to say that she could not come, and the even bigger gall to ask to be admitted under my service and NOT go through the ER.  
trying to perform my Christian duty, i called the hospital and dictated admitting orders, respectfully asking the staff to give the orders to her.  after it was all done and complete, patient then decides to admit herself the next day.  saturday.  afternoon.  when i had my activities planned.
i prayed to the highest heavens for her to find another doctor.  i prayed for her not to cross my path because i felt that my kindness was being abused by her shrewdness.  
as circumstances would have it, she did admit herself under my service.  i went to the hospital even if i feigned being out of town to step out of her way.  only to find out that she had herself referred to another doctor.  and as such, i was the third wheel.  i believe her exact words were “paano yan doc, eh di dalawa na kayoing babayaran ko?”  
i couldn’t believe hearing those words after i went out of my way.  so i said with raising temper that i could just take out my entry from the chart and prevent nothing happened.  and she said “eh paano yan doc, kayo ang naiintindihan ko.”  
in pure exasperation, i headed out of the room “hmmping” away, muttering “discout sa PF”.  i felt smoke coming out of my ears and my face turning red in pure anger.
my thoughts were: i shouldn’t have sunk to her level and been rude.  but, i am just human.  however, i shouldn’t have done it.  but she deserved it.  she was so disrespectful (would that be the english translation of BASTOS?).  i should have understood her because she was sick.  but she was admitted under me and she did not follow any of my advice.  but that is the exact thing doctors give.  advice.  and i, as a doctor, could not compel anyone to do what i think should be done.  
it was a good thing things would solve itself.  i get a phone call from the head nurse where the patient requested that she only be seen by the other doctor.  i was ecstatic to be able to get out of the way.  i signed out of the service and charged nothing.
one would think that i should be happy.  but i was not. mainly because i sank so low.  i should have kept my cool.  shown my doctorly love. but the alta in me couldn’t do so. 
how do you balance being kind (and prone to abuse) versus being right (and being prone to complaints for misconduct)?    
Epilogue…
well, too late to do anything else now.  at least i got out of it.  at least, i got a reflection paper out of it.  at least, i got my point across (i think, or did i?).  i just hope that this lapse on my part will have no repercussions for my conduct and my referral base in the future.  but if it does, maybe this is not the place for me. 

only time will tell.

REbirth


Long ago, in grade 4, to be exact, i remember that i often got good grades in all the writing i have done.  i would always write and journal. Maybe this was because this was the age before digital technology.  keeping everything in history within your reach depended more on handwriting rather than computers, more on film rather than digi-photos, more on paper rather than online social networking sites.  given that, i don’t know what happened.  maybe real life got in the way.  maybe the writing drive in me just died.  or maybe it didn’t die.  maybe that writing freak was buried deep within, overthrown by the me that became the doctor, the teacher, the house-maintainer, the sister, the daughter.  the writer in me just died.  or hopefully more aptly, maybe the writer in me just went to sleep.
so tonight, i call on to jesus, like the relatives of lazarus did, hoping for an awakening of that dead writer self.  there are so much thoughts to be shared, so much heavy feelings to be unloaded, so many fast, turbulent and imaginative thoughts that can only be tamed as they are put on paper.  
alas, i realize that writing is not really something that comes easily.  yes, it does come naturally.  right now, i can barely stop my fingers from typing.  however, the discipline of prioritising it, making the time, quieting the mind for the fingers to begin putting down the thoughts is as active effort.  beginning is an active effort.  however, once i begin, there is no stopping it.  i hope that inertia continues this writing so that the documentation will continue and i will never have to restart.  i hope that the writing will continue so that the thoughts will be down on paper and hopefully clutter less of the mind.  i hope that i will continue writing so that, in some way, i can cleanse myself of the negative feelings that i have and explode out into the world the overwhelming positive feelings i have (if any at all!).

It is not a question of whether i can.  i know i can.  it is now an answer that i will. :)