A Week Off

My first week of general internal medicine (as opposed to the GI medicine that the last six weeks was focused on) is going well, primarily due to the fact that we do not have hospital hours this week. This meant that aside from reviewing a few charts at the hospital on Monday, we did not do anything this week.

However, the brief experience I have had in this rotation is already a breath of fresh air. Solving the riddles of what a given patient has, in terms of learning what orders to send for as well as what to treat with, is so nice. Perhaps what makes the biggest difference in this compared to previous rotations is that I already know enough to sound competent; in the rest, I had a world of studying to do that I never completed till the end of the rotation. I feel as if I have already impressed the doctor a little bit with the diagnoses I have come up with (even if none were what the patient actually had).

Anyway, since I had the week off, my mom came down and we decided to stay in Galveston for two nights. Since it has been a fortnight since school started, the place is pretty much dead. So not exactly what one hopes for when one finally has a reason to leave one's apartment, but there are worse things.

Speaking of which, one point my mom was emphatic about as we discussed some psych issues is the value of life. She spoke of how good it is, how it is better to be alive than not. I disagree. Being alive is exhausting, and the amount of even mildly unpleasant times seems to far outweigh the amount of pleasurable times. And I had thought that before I had the experience of breaking down my emotional walls for a period of time. Even when I was constantly surrounded by funny and supportive friends, I still wanted to die at any given time. This is also because the Apostle Paul spoke so well of life after death; it is rough when your passive suicidal ideation is apparently theologically sound.

In other news, girly texted me last week saying "Miss you!" I wanted to reply "Oh. Kay." but decided to be better and returned the sentiment, despite the fact that I do not have any particular desire to see or interact with her (largely in response to her expressing this position of no desire to interact toward me a few months ago). She also responded to something funny I posted on Instagram. Hopefully I can avoid running into her, or, perhaps better yet, rise above my resentment in such a way as to be both kind and honest when I see her.

I take comfort in the fact that the GI doctor I worked with did not meet his wife until residency. That seems to me to be the most practical way. She is a physician's assistant, I think. Of course, I am so annoyingly particular that it is difficult for me to scrounge up hope in the field of romance. But I did learn some lessons from allowing myself to like a girl. For instance, I must never make assumptions regarding their faith; this one turned out to be new to the faith, and unwilling to read her Bible, though she casually read other material frequently. There were also selfish aspects which I thought were playfully charming, but in the long run, would likely be frustrating to me. And of course, she was tied to her mid-level job to an extent that I felt burdened to try and aim rotations and residency toward her in Dallas (a city I do not particularly care for) rather than toward what would be best for me and my future goals as a physician. Oh, and in general, it felt as if most of my part in the potential relationship was reactive. One of the last things she said to me (when we were talking about anything real) was not to worry, because we were good. But I was the one who had a problem with her, not the other way around. She was like my family, only seeming to understand things as they related to her, rather than using empathy.

It is why one prays about dating, and why one asks for more holy men to pray with them, before committing to anything.

The Search And The Journey

Can I be frank? I am just not like other humans. Not like other guys. Sure, I desire companionship and such, but what gets me going more than anything is this idealistic prospect of saving the world. This whole doctor thing is a means to achieve that, in a way, but as I am staring at that light at the end of the tunnel that is my MD, I cannot help but think that this most noble of professions will still fall short. The dastardly corruption of this world is so awful, the willingness to allow suffering so prevalent, that it seems as if any participation on my part would hardly do anything to assuage such grievance.

Back in high school, I wrote a poem about how contentment is something that I avoid. That theme continues to resonate with me. I am so very rarely content with where I am in life, with what I am doing, that I at some points must take pause to wonder if I will ever reach whatever my aspirations may be. I am roughly seven years away from my proposed death date, and my sneaking suspicion is that I will not achieve whatever it is that I aspire toward before that day.

Some people can be happy with the pursuit of happiness. I, unfortunately, am either too stupid or too intelligent to allow that pursuit to dominate any notable facet of my world.

I have had much to drink and my eyes are actually closed as I type this, so hopefully it is all very insightful and brings a body to the point of extreme revelation. Or whatever.

Goodnight. Continue your search and bask in the journey.

What's Here And What's Far Ahead

This rotation has been the most enjoyable. It is the closest thing I have seen thus far to what I hope to be. It also raises questions for me. The doctor is from a small town in Texas and is very sarcastic, as are his staff. He is nearing his mid-40's and is wrestling day to day with the struggles of balancing work and family. He gives more time to patients than any doctor I have seen, but that aspect does not pay anything extra, so he tends to get to work early and stay later than he may please, and in the end, he makes less money because of the quality of his care.

To what degree will I become like that? Will I even have a family to balance against work? Maybe work will become my everything and that will be reality.

Since it is on my mind, and no one reads this anyway, girly I was liking before posted a picture of herself with what appears to be a new significant other. The feelings that rise up unbidden are annoying. She and I would not have worked together (I let her know I liked her before I was aware of how little she knew or desired to independently get to know about God and the Bible). Yet at the same time, a part of me is jealous. I suppose that it is largely due to the fact that when she was emphatic that she wanted to be friends, she was also emphatic that she did not care to see me or hear from me. And that was after cancelling plans, so it felt...severing. But her daddy issues play into a lot of how she deals with people, so I need to bear that in mind now that my brain works. Hopefully the new boy toy will help me to put her out of my mind.

As always, I am enduring life while setting my eyes a year (or two) ahead. Next year, I will take the next biggest exams of my life. And then freedom to some degree. I will, at some point next year, acquire my MD, and then presumably try to find some work that is at least loosely related to that in order to raise money for my trip to Asia in spring 2020. 6-8 weeks trekking through Southeast Asia, since that will be my last to do so before residency begins.