My Early Valentine Present

This morning, an 82-year old lolo consulted at my OPD for his regular check-up. He was a hypertensive, post-stroke patient, who had to travel all the way from Caloocan by himself, assisted only by a make-shift cane. He was gaunt, with half of his body paralyzed by the stroke, and with one eye blinded by an untreated cataract. He was a retired teacher, left to fend for himself by now grown-up children. His travel to PGH must have been very hard for him, his standing in line since 4AM probably took an entire day's strength. He refused to give up. He refused to complain. He was just a silent presence, among the hundreds of other patients waiting outside the 1BO4 complex.

Lolo was still relatively in a good state - both brain and brawn. His mind was still sharp. He can still recite his medications and their dosing schedules. He claims he has religiously taken them, as long as they are available. And so despite his old age and illness, Lolo's love for life pushed him to endure the ordeals of a PGH consult so he can get prescriptions for drugs he will eventually beg from PCSO and from the offices of our country's politicians.

So this morning, I handed him his newly filled up prescriptions and his clinical abstract. I again reminded him to find someone who can travel with him during his consults since his other eye is starting to fail too. But he said no, he will be alright.

Before he left, Lolo fished out something from his worn-out canvass bag. It was a small package wrapped in bond paper, held together by a rubber band. Meekly, he said with a huge smile, "Advanced happy Valentine's Day, duktora." I gratefully accepted the gift and led him towards the door.

Low EQ as I was, I hastily opened my first Valentine gift for the year. Wrapped in the bond paper were 3 bars of Choco Mucho chocolates. Despite the busy clinic, I couldn't help the tears.

The gift - P20. The experience - priceless.

Definitions and Identities

This post will probably be evidence of how schizophrenic I am. I just can't seem to make up my mind on so many things. After a short-lived burst of anger a few days ago, I am now back to my old normal self - that self that adores His Royal Weirdness - the good, the bad, with the imperfections themselves making the entire Baffling Phenomenon wholly perfect. While Dr. Jekyll basks in the glory of this unadulterated though bewildering spiritual connection, the insatiable Ms. Hyde aspires for the banality of formula love stories - to sacrifice what is utterly mysterious and terrifying for a more predictable and less riveting ending.

Last night, as I and my Baffling Kindred were musing about Grace and the strange but exciting design of things, I just realized, "Oh my God, what have I wished for? Please save that adventure you have planned for me from it's greatest enemy - myself."

Aung San Suu Kyi once said, "How wonderful it is that we do not know what tomorrow will bring." Jesus himself reminds us that tomorrow will worry about itself. I have such little faith...

Now that I'm past anger stage, acceptance comes. But it has nothing to do with the acceptance of a state of loss, or the mourning over something that wouldn't come. It's the acceptance of the reality of mysteries, that some things that happen can just elude logic - the highest currency of the human mind.

Last night, I had another amazing conversation over dinner with To-Whom-This-Post-Concerns. And though the probability of him ever reading these posts is extremely low and even minute, I have a duty to put some things into writing: There's no anger at all, there never was, and there never will be.

To-Whom-This-Post-Concerns, His Royal Weirdness, Him That Bewilders, The Phenomenon That Baffles, Birthday Boy #3, My Good Friend J - I have called him a lot of names in this blog. I have never defined him, and perhaps, for a long time, I never will.

For to define is to limit.

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"Romance lives by repetition, and repetition converts an appetite into an art. Besides, each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved. Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it. We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.”

“Even when one has been wounded by it, Harry?” asked the Duchess, after a pause.

“Especially when one has been wounded by it,” answered Lord Henry.

- From The Picture of Dorian Gray

My Inner Caulfield and Kubler-Ross

I'm not going to write about my usual mushy, sentimental stuff about the favorite topic - not just my favorite topic, but the be-all and end-all of this blog. If my readers have noticed, there's a certain theme in these writings, a frequent and pervading issue. And I'm not referring to my angst over my job as a doctor, for chrissakes! I'm referring to the reason why this proverbial walk on water started, the shell that was empty but I just couldn't throw away, that strange cosmic dust that I misconstrued to be the same as my own just because I happened to breathe it in, by some absurd twist of fate. Ahhh, 5 years of ultimate insanity.

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. Kubler-Ross once said that we don't necessarily go through the stages of mourning in this order. She's right. I've gone through all the other four, and anger just happened to sneak in today. I'm there alright. This thing - no this Phenomenon - can come in and out of my life, and yeah, it's really alright. This Phenomenon can happen again and again and it's not going to change - it's still going to be a phenomenon - extraordinary, enchanting, and strange. Twenty years from now, This Royal Madness will probably drop by my life again and I'm going to be as enthralled as Day 1, taking it up all over again as if nothing happened in between.

My Christian faith tells me to be patient. Common sense tells me to invoke the comforts of amnesia and just totally forget everything. Kubler-Ross tells me to just go through the stages of death and dying and let healing happen. She doesn't know I have nothing to mourn about.

For now, I'm just so goddamn angry!


(This post was influenced by my recent rediscovery of Holden Caulfield. Giving a damn about JD Salinger's death when I hated Catcher In the Rye when I first read it is such a phony thing to do. But then I'm rereading it now, and I realized there's a Holden Caulfield brewing in everyone, waiting to show up in a red hunting hat, screaming at the world in pure unadulterated anger. There's a phony in everyone and in everything too. But, ahhh, love is the phoniest sonnofabitch of all!)

Random Notes From A Pissed Off Mind

I just turned 30 last Monday. I had expected fireworks or shafts of light or epiphanies to greet my 30th year. Instead, there was nothing - just the usual hospital routine on a post-duty Monday. After making rounds on my patients, I spent 3 hours dozing through the hemodynamics conference which has, in my lowly opinion, surprisingly become boring, halfhearted and full of intellectual gibberish. My consultants, in their attempt to give me a little bit of joy and semblance of a celebration for my birthday, made their rounds quick and short. Go home early, they said. Have dinner with family and friends. Have a great time. It's your birthday, celebrate. Celebrate, my ass.

Instead of going home early, I spent my free afternoon napping on the rickety bed of our callroom. There were several calls from old friends, which of course, in my silly, unemotional, anhedonic way, still warmed my heart. After the sun has set, I commenced my routine 15-minute walk to my apartment in Nakpil.

As I was walking home, I couldn't help but wonder, "So this is me at 30, huh? What's the fuss about being 30?" No wonder my parents never even bothered to call, and my oldest near-40 best bud only sent an unembellished 2-word "happy birthday" text message. They must have known. There's really no big deal about being 30 at all.

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Unemotional as I was, I still wanted to do something different for my birthday. And I did! For the first time after a long long time, I studied my Cardiology textbook. Ahhh, my shiny, good-as-brand-new Braunwald was finally opened, and for the next 3 hours, colored with yellow, orange, and green Stabilo highlighters. I didn't have a party, I didn't even have a glass of wine or a bottle of beer, and no, I never blew candles on a birthday cake. But I highlighted 20 or more pages of my chic and flawless Braunwald. Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me...

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It's my end-of-the year exam tomorrow. And as always, I'm bound to fail it, grandly at that. It's not like it's going to make me sad. A grand, big-time, audacious failure is what I deserve. If I get 30%, i would be laughing already. I believe exams should accurately reflect what the trainees have learned during their training days. A 30%, for me, would be an overestimate. I do believe my testmanship skills are already on their full gear with that score. And I have great testmanship skills, I even give lectures on that!

Tomorrow, I intend to make a statement. My failure, which will probably irk a lot of my teachers' sense of pride for their beloved home institution, should be worth all my embarrassment, self-esteem attacks, and the realization that my brain is all dried up and good-for-nothing. My failure should display a clear assessment of what I learned and what I have become as a cardiologist during the past year: NOTHING.

I have learned nothing. I'm still that big, ugly girl, awkwardly dressed in a long white coat, pretending to be adept at all problems of the heart, but I know and I am nothing.

So go ahead, Jean, fail that exam. And if they will be alarmed, thou shalt not fail in vain.

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This afternoon, I gathered enough strength to ask my good friend who recently lost his mom how he is. I'm not a bad friend, unemotional and extremely cerebral though I am. But when it comes to this particular friend, words just seem to be too much. For some strange cosmic reason, we somehow manage to convey important statements without saying a thing. That's how really good friends are supposed to be, I guess.

Anyway, I asked him when they're burying Nanay. Having cared for her for more than a month, I would have wanted to be there when the family says their final goodbyes. And yes, I have loved her, again, for some strange cosmic reason, or more appropriately, perhaps for no reason at all.

I had quite expected my friend's response. They have buried her already, last Tuesday. He didn't bother to inform me. He assumed I knew. He was even wondering why I wasn't there.

Assumptions. Perhaps this entire relationship was based on wrong assumptions. Perhaps there's really no such thing as strange, cosmic relationships after all.

I hope one day, my friend and I would really get to talk, bring out all the assumptions in the open, and discuss things out loud. When words come into play, reality is obscured - I know this and I subscribe to this notion fully and without doubt. But sometimes, words would have to be used.

On the other hand, my friend and I may have had assumed a multitude of wrong ideas about each other for the past years. There are just some things that need no talking about. This bond, however, isn't assumed. It's a strange, weird, spiritual connection. And though I assume he doesn't know, I do. Oh yeah, ever since Day 1, I do.

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One of my newest and dearest friends, very sweetly and thoughtfully, celebrated my 30th birthday with me last weekend. The trip to the mountains, the flickering city lights, the cold January breeze, the warm company and amazing conversations - they were all better than any party or gift or milestone I could ask for. To whom this may concern, yeah, I know you're reading this, thank you for putting up with all the crap that is me. I can never thank you enough.

An Elegy for a Mother

A few days ago, a dear patient passed away quietly, in the arms of her beloved son. The passing was poignant, like a strange, sweet draft of air you would have wanted to inhale deeply for a long long time. Every movement of the chest, that empty distant look of her dark eyes, that feeble grip of the cold hand, everything is playing back again and again in my memory. For more than a month, I have watched a miracle unfold, borne out of the pain and anguish of suffering and threat of death. I have witnessed how hope can endure, how love can be conveyed without words, how family can withstand even sickness and death, how laughter can go on despite suffering.

To Mrs. L, for the strength you showed, for everything you allowed me to do, and for everything you left behind, thank you.

Consistency

This weekend, I've been hearing the stern voice of my beloved boss, Dr. ADM, in my head again and again. "Jean, be consistent!" Irritated by my incessant lack of regularity and cohesiveness in my decision making, she has repeatedly reprimanded me and has given me constant reminders on my need for a stronger, more predictable and definite set of principles, and a less stormy reaction to circumstances.

While I have long discarded my control-freak-obsessive-compulsive-stickler-for-schedules-and-itineraries attitude, I occasionally get bouts of this disease. Each time I get this, I hear Dr. ADM again, "Jean, be consistent." Hence, I have decided to be patient, to move away from rigid routine and schedules and be more flexible. I have decided to be lenient, to tolerate the imperfections others, to never get mad, and to be gentle at all times. I have to stick to this decision. And I have to stick to this decision consistently.

This weekend, I had a terrible bout of this dreaded disease of mine. A good friend became the unfortunate witness to the appalling inconsistencies of my personality that I almost lost him completely (something tells me I already did). The characteristic temper that made me smash guitars, break mirrors, or even shout curses at shocked, unsuspecting patients overpowered me again. Yes sir, this "shy" lady did not get a formal complaint filed at the Commission on Human Rights for nothing.

Anyway, my poor friend, one of the greatest I've ever had in years, and perhaps the gentlest and most patient person I've ever met in my 30 years of existence, became the unfortunate witness (or victim) to my verbal tirades and futile seething rage. There were no bottles broken or bleeding noses, but there were prides smashed and hearts bruised. Indeed, sticks and stones may break our bones, but words can break our hearts. The inevitable result was a relationship that's permanently scarred, or perhaps even fatally severed, a good friendship that is perhaps now irrevocably gone.

No apology can ever be enough. No explanation or justification can soothe the hurt I caused. I have inflicted wounds I don't have the capacity to heal. Will forgiveness come? Sigh, I can only wish for it, and wait, and wait... Que sera, sera...

On second thought, I realized there's that one pervasive, recurring distinction in my life, thank goodness! That L sign on my forehead - I guess that's my enduring, constant, unrelenting feature. Haha! Loser! In that aspect, I AM unbelievably consistent. So perhaps, well at least, I'm not that unpredictable after all.