I swear i couldn't understand how one of my seniors talk. He is also a foreign graduate but i think he has some lisp or something so when he teaches me something about mechanical ventilator, all is hear is



"So Lu-wish, wash weee huv hir iissh dee bentilashor too helph the fayshents breath... "



I am in danger of either a. turning the ventilator off and the patient can't breathe, or b,turning it all the way up and their lungs would explode. I'm exaggerating.



*

I went to visit one of my patients, the one who was dying already. Cancer to the brain is not good. Hey mrs. M! how are you doing? You look better. I was just talking to Mr. M, your husband of forty years.



And Mrs M gets a twinkle in her eyes.



You know, he's my second husband. The first one physically abused me. So when i met him, i didn't put much faith that our marriage would last. I just thought, well let's give this a shot. And now here I am forty years later, still very much in love with him. When he walks in, he is my sunshine. He is still my sunshine after all these years.



Wow.



I was writing my progress notes teary eyed.



i was saddened that their love would be cut short.



I felt like i was treading on sacred ground. How could they defy the statistics? How could they love like that? After all these years?



Don't get too emotional cheen. I told myself while writing on her chart.



I have gone in and out plenty of hospital rooms, and i have yet to see a love as tender as what mrs m and her husband had.

*

You are too naive louise! My friend exclaimed. You look at the good in people too much when they could be hurtful and just plain selfish.



I don't know, i'm not naive. i just know, i really belive, deep down, people are good and that they may act differently outwards, but inside, they want to do what is right, they just don't know how. Maybe it's something that developed in me while i was growing up. I needed to see the good in certain people to cope up, to understand and to make sense of everything. I guess that just extended to a wider coverage several years later.



*

Nurse in the ICU puts her arm around me. See, she says, you could eat and share our christmas dinner at the backroom, but don't invite the other doctors, because we don't like them. We only like you. I look up at her, my mouth stuffed with ham and cheese. I don't know if that was something to be proud of. I felt like i was betraying my kind by eating. What's wrong with these people? Let's give peace a chance.

*



Be this. Be that. Don't smile a lot. Don't embrace people too much. Don't do this. Don't trust.



Everyone changes when they come here. Don't try to fight it.



Well i'm choosing to fight this battle then. Why should i be cynnical? Why should i lose hope? Why should i be jaded? It's a tiring fight sometimes... well most of the times. Hard pressed on every side.