As I became further frustrated with the occupations of my mind, I decided to try to make myself have a crush on that model friend of mine again. It did rid me of the preoccupancy of thoughts of that disliked one, at least for now, but I still struggle with what to fill my mind with at night. This provides me with an inclination to drink, but that is an unhealthy habit to maintain chronically, so I am obviously looking for alternatives.
Dreaming of travel was once a viable alternative thought process, but I am unfortunately unsure of whether I can reliably plan for travel within the next year. You can fall in love with places without worrying about consequences on either side, emotional or otherwise.
I foolishly scheduled what are likely to be my most difficult exams for the next two Sundays in a row. The train of thought was that it would be a relief to be finished with exams for awhile, especially since I am approaching my last two rotations. Unfortunately, I overestimated my motivation levels leading up to these test dates. My practice scores are notably below passing and I have not finished reviewing said practice tests quickly enough to feel like I am progressing at a realistic pace. So here I sit at Starbucks, realizing that the added busy sounds of the coffee shop do as little for my ability to focus as the thought echo-provoking silence that awaits me at my apartment.
The missionary leaders with whom I have worked in the past are doing a trip to Kenya next year. They would potentially want to use my "new skills" to incorporate a medical aspect to the trip. I will of course have to inform them that I am still very much a student, but could certainly assist a physician if one decided to join us. In any case, that sort of trip, similar to the one that first put faces and places to this calling of mine, would probably help me in stirring up inspiration within me. But money is very much an issue. If all goes as planned, I do not expect to have time to raise funds. In fact, I am unsure as to how I will manage to pay for school, and residency applications, and all of the other expenses that are headed my way within the next year. So maybe it just has to be up to God, which is probably what it actually is anyway.
Wednesday, September 26, 2018
Saturday, September 15, 2018
Dislike
I do not like disliking people. It rarely happens because I tend to assume the best and also empathize. But the thoughts I have toward that girly are specifically of dislike. She changed her relationship status the other day, a few weeks after texting me "Miss you" and I replied with a pretty disingenuous response with similarly kind sentiments. I could probably think better of her except that her method was to blow me off and make it clear that she did not want further communication, that we needed a break. It was difficult for me to discern what there was to break from, especially since we were just friends and she was emphatic on preserving that friendship.
In any case, cutting off communication seemed in her mind to be the way to fix things. For me, communication is actually the preferred method of fixing things, and breaking off communication after one party has been hurtful to the other tends to lead the hurt party to resent the transgressor.
As I said, I do not like feeling this dislike. I decided today to stop sending her funny tweets (one of a group of people who receives them). Hopefully I can simply avoid seeing her, like ever. If I do see her, my forgiving nature will likely take over and I will be able to get over this. But the dislike is a feeling that has remained in my mind, and has been allowed to grow stagnant there.
I prefer to think the world of everyone else, so it really sucks to have someone lower themselves in your eyes. She resented me thinking so highly of her before, so even that aspect factors in to make me feel justified in mentally placing her with a more inferior group.
Ugh, I do not like thinking of people like this at all. It seems to bear no benefit for anyone.
In any case, cutting off communication seemed in her mind to be the way to fix things. For me, communication is actually the preferred method of fixing things, and breaking off communication after one party has been hurtful to the other tends to lead the hurt party to resent the transgressor.
As I said, I do not like feeling this dislike. I decided today to stop sending her funny tweets (one of a group of people who receives them). Hopefully I can simply avoid seeing her, like ever. If I do see her, my forgiving nature will likely take over and I will be able to get over this. But the dislike is a feeling that has remained in my mind, and has been allowed to grow stagnant there.
I prefer to think the world of everyone else, so it really sucks to have someone lower themselves in your eyes. She resented me thinking so highly of her before, so even that aspect factors in to make me feel justified in mentally placing her with a more inferior group.
Ugh, I do not like thinking of people like this at all. It seems to bear no benefit for anyone.
Saturday, September 8, 2018
What Matters
I finally worked a full week (well, not Tuesday) in the hospital. It was so good. This is the first time that I have genuinely thought that I could make this my life, my career. Unlike all of the specialty medicine I have previously worked in, this involves everything. This week, we worked on the orthopedics floor, which often meant that every patient was old or sick enough to have had a bad fall and break something. So the broken parts are managed surgically and with physical therapy, but you are also checking on their comorbidities. Some with internal bleeding, others with pneumonia, or leukemia, or something else. So there is always the challenge of bringing to mind everything you know about this wide variety of diseases, and it is just so fulfilling. You get to establish a short-term relationship with a given patient, knowing that you will likely only have a few days with them at most. And with this rotation, the best part is that when I take a patient's history, the doctor is not going to repeat my actions. What I do genuinely matters to an extent.
We also went to happy hour yesterday with some hospital staff and other medical people. I do not know who was covering the bill, but I left with the knowledge that it (and my meal) was free. I also learned through that that there are occasions for which I should most certainly wear my white coat outside of the hospital (up until now, it has mostly attracted beggars asking for money when I have worn it elsewhere).
On Monday, we had a patient die. We saw him for the first time in the late morning, breathing fast, not conscious, with his wife telling us about how wonderful of a person he was. Then, after lunch and more rounds, we went back to pronounce this patient as deceased. I have only seen a few dead bodies in my life. This is the first I have seen that was a patient. Granted, it was not my patient and I did not know them, but there was something there. The doctor told us about checking the pulse, listening to the heart for a full minute, then checking the pupils for nonreactivity (I rechecked the pupils after she did so). The wife claimed that he had been dead for something like 40 minutes, and the fingers on one of his hands was beginning to turn blue. She commented that the other hand must be maintaining its usual color because she had not stopped holding and kissing it for the past hour.
I hope that I remember to take the time to stop in the future, to preserve the memories of these things. My mind is not naturally designed for medicine, so perhaps my perspective could lend something to all of this.
We also went to happy hour yesterday with some hospital staff and other medical people. I do not know who was covering the bill, but I left with the knowledge that it (and my meal) was free. I also learned through that that there are occasions for which I should most certainly wear my white coat outside of the hospital (up until now, it has mostly attracted beggars asking for money when I have worn it elsewhere).
On Monday, we had a patient die. We saw him for the first time in the late morning, breathing fast, not conscious, with his wife telling us about how wonderful of a person he was. Then, after lunch and more rounds, we went back to pronounce this patient as deceased. I have only seen a few dead bodies in my life. This is the first I have seen that was a patient. Granted, it was not my patient and I did not know them, but there was something there. The doctor told us about checking the pulse, listening to the heart for a full minute, then checking the pupils for nonreactivity (I rechecked the pupils after she did so). The wife claimed that he had been dead for something like 40 minutes, and the fingers on one of his hands was beginning to turn blue. She commented that the other hand must be maintaining its usual color because she had not stopped holding and kissing it for the past hour.
I hope that I remember to take the time to stop in the future, to preserve the memories of these things. My mind is not naturally designed for medicine, so perhaps my perspective could lend something to all of this.
Friday, August 24, 2018
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.
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.
Monday, August 20, 2018
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.
Saturday, August 4, 2018
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.
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.
Saturday, July 7, 2018
Inspirations From Lamentations
Since last post... well, I finished my OB/GYN rotation the other day. It was relieving to be done.
I met up with a girl for drinks at a brewery after we connected through a dating app. She was pleasant company, but did not seem pleased at the revelation that I am not really looking to date, since dating is more serious for me.
I matched with a girl on tinder who is actually in Colombia. Oddly enough, we have kept up our conversations. She is extremely attractive, but skipped right past when I mentioned God, but I will likely venture toward having a lil' crush on her for now. By the way folks, that is progress. I am once again normalizing to my own brand of normal in which I have distance crushes.
Though I had to deal with those previous issues, I may still have some feelings that I have been suppressing. Maybe I need to let those out tonight, let myself feel before my next rotation starts.
I read the book of Lamentations the other day. It is presumably written by our dear depressed prophetic friend, Jeremiah, and despite its title, it has a more inspiring passage than perhaps any found in the book named after him. This passage is about the fall of Jerusalem, and, in the midst of seeing the desolation of that city, which to many represented something of a metaphor for God's presence, the author found it pertinent to write this.
"I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss. Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, 'The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!' The Lord is good to those who depend on him, to those who search for him. So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord. And it is good for people to submit at an early age to the yoke of his discipline." Lamentations 3:20-27 NLT.
In the midst of watching his current world crumble, he still specifically decides to hope as he is reminded of God's unfailing love. But another striking aspect to me was that last sentence, where the author says that it is good for people to submit at an early age to the yoke of his discipline. I have often thought that my early submission feels dumb. Life so far has felt like training for a day that will never come.
Since nationalism and Christian culture are so unfortunately politically entwined these days, encouraging words like those above seem to fall short. I seem unable to articulate further... perhaps this is what the exile felt like.
I met up with a girl for drinks at a brewery after we connected through a dating app. She was pleasant company, but did not seem pleased at the revelation that I am not really looking to date, since dating is more serious for me.
I matched with a girl on tinder who is actually in Colombia. Oddly enough, we have kept up our conversations. She is extremely attractive, but skipped right past when I mentioned God, but I will likely venture toward having a lil' crush on her for now. By the way folks, that is progress. I am once again normalizing to my own brand of normal in which I have distance crushes.
Though I had to deal with those previous issues, I may still have some feelings that I have been suppressing. Maybe I need to let those out tonight, let myself feel before my next rotation starts.
I read the book of Lamentations the other day. It is presumably written by our dear depressed prophetic friend, Jeremiah, and despite its title, it has a more inspiring passage than perhaps any found in the book named after him. This passage is about the fall of Jerusalem, and, in the midst of seeing the desolation of that city, which to many represented something of a metaphor for God's presence, the author found it pertinent to write this.
"I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss. Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, 'The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!' The Lord is good to those who depend on him, to those who search for him. So it is good to wait quietly for salvation from the Lord. And it is good for people to submit at an early age to the yoke of his discipline." Lamentations 3:20-27 NLT.
In the midst of watching his current world crumble, he still specifically decides to hope as he is reminded of God's unfailing love. But another striking aspect to me was that last sentence, where the author says that it is good for people to submit at an early age to the yoke of his discipline. I have often thought that my early submission feels dumb. Life so far has felt like training for a day that will never come.
Since nationalism and Christian culture are so unfortunately politically entwined these days, encouraging words like those above seem to fall short. I seem unable to articulate further... perhaps this is what the exile felt like.
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