Getting Through the Day

One of the best things about being in medicine is that I get to meet people -- some I get to like and even get to be friends with, while some I just can't stand to see the sight of.

As I arrive around 6:45 am and get off the elevator, I enter the ward rooms I give a smile to Lolo G who is finally going home after spending nearly a month in the hospital. Their family is pretty remarkable as they've pulled together to get Lolo G through obstruction, intussusception surgery, post-op stroke and hypokalemia, to finally going home. They aren't the richest patients, but as people they are just as wealthy as most people. They've never grumbled about the costs, or the treatments, but trusted us to do the best thing. Now I'm just happy to see Lolo G smiling, toothless as he is, as his wife and daughters share a laugh around him. We go through a hundred wars with disease, dilemmas, and treatment failures, but I'll take them all on to have even just one victory such as this.

I leave to go on with my rounds, I see Mr D's family. Their outlook is not as good. His disease is an intracerebral tumor bleed and with alcoholic liver cirrhosis, makes it impossible to operate on, not counting the money they don't have for the surgery. The hemorrhage, plus the encephalopathy has gradually taken over his consciousness and is slowly bringing him to the brink. I look at his mom, every so often tears flowing down her face at her beloved youngest son, and pleads to me to help her. My heart breaks knowing full well the prognosis. I give her a "hang-in-there" smile and move on. Mr D would pass away that night.

Each patient has his or her own story, his or her own life, and happenstance has made me a part of theirs.

I'm just amazed at this job sometimes -- I guess, it's just me realizing all over again, I love what I do.

There are times that I just feel really really tired, burdened by responsibilities and the demands that the residency program and the profession brings, but at the end of the day, when I get the chance to lie down and sleep, I realize, I wouldn't have it any other way.