A Mother's Last Lesson

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It is past midnight on the ward. The silence is punctuated by the occasional beeping of infusion pumps and the soft sobbing of relatives. I have just signed the death certificate of an elderly lady.

I offer my condolences to her eldest son and walk away. As I fiddle with paperwork at the nearby counter, I hear the youngest son's voice, cracked and hoarse from crying.

"I can't believe she's gone."

"I know." The eldest brother's voice, also hoarse. "She's at peace now."

"I-- I should have spent more time with her--"

"She loved you. She didn't blame you. Ever."

"She was my whole world. I just liked to pretend she wasn't--"

"She knew. Always."

The younger brother lowers his head and sobs silently into his arm. I try to focus on signing tags. A few seconds pass. I hear the younger son's voice again.

"I...I don't know how to go on."

"We must."

"Easy for you to say. How do I-- how do I live-- " His voice cracks.

"Because we are her sons. And that is how she raised us." The eldest son straightened up. "If she didn't teach us to be strong enough to live without her - she would have failed as a mother."

The eldest son reaches out and squeezes his brother's arm gently.

"Yes. Okay." The younger son wipes his eyes.

I gather up my paperwork and leave the counter. As I walk away, I hear the younger brother's voice one last time.

"Thank you, brother."

"Thank her." The eldest son's voice sounded steely now. "For making us strong."

How To Start Blogging Again (For The Twenty-Second Time)

Hey kids! Can you guess which partly-famous ridiculously attractive blogger has tried to restart his blog more times than Donald Trump has insulted people while trying to become President? (Okay actually, I think Trump might have beat me on that one. The New York Times has compiled a list of 199 things Trump has insulted, including Great Britain, a Neil Young song, and a podium in the White House. --Ed.)

In all seriousness though. I've tried to restart the blog a few times since I started blogging less. This blog is actually ten years old this year* and used to be quite popular, even earning me a writing gig in The Guardian at one point. But as I explained in an earlier post, I stopped writing about trying to become a doctor - because I actually became a doctor.


Despite six years of medical school, it completely overwhelmed me. It was a complete shock to my system. Like Jeb Bush's presidential campaign, I struggled to find purpose and eventually surrendered, being content to just exist from day to day with no greater goal than to survive until the next morning. I'm not ashamed to say, I lost track of a lot more things in my life than just this blog, and I'm still paying the price to this day.

My sister, a wiser doctor than I, gave me one very good piece of advice during this tumult. "You have to force yourself to function," she told me before I started my junior doctor job. "Give yourself two months to get used to any posting, then force yourself to function like a normal human being. Go out. Meet friends. Watch movies. Don't let let it overwhelm you."

Wise words - but it took me years to learn them. And so here I am. Like Kanye West's bank account, my readership has dwindled to almost nothing, but I feel the itch to write again. 

Let's try this again, shall we?



*My first two thoughts on realising this:
1. Yay ten years!
2. OH GAWD I'M THAT OLD

Why I Stopped Blogging

Okay. So I haven't exactly been blogging as frequently as I promised. (Understatement of the Year Award. --Editor) I've tried coming back here and there, and I've tried writing shorter posts instead, but the real reason I stopped blogging is a lot simpler. In fact, it's five words.

I became a real doctor.

Yes, after years of pretending to be a doctor in medical school, years of looking forward to finally putting "Dr" in front of my name and not being a piece of unwanted furniture on ward rounds, I actually graduated and got a real job. (If you hear a distant "thump", don't worry. It's just the sound of all my medical school professors fainting in shock. -- Ed.) I finally got my orientation, joined the workforce, and became responsible for  the lives of hundreds of patients who rely on me as their first line of defense against every illness known to mankind.

It scared the shit out of me.

How I feel every day. You may think I'm joking. I'm not.

To be honest, it completely overwhelmed me. For my entire first year, life was little more than work, eat and sleep. My already ridiculously poor time management skills withered to nothingness, I lost touch with friends and family, and I sometimes slept in the hospital to save travel time. (Yes kids! All the horror stories you heard when you first decided to do medicine? Totally true. MWAHAHA! Seriously, go to law school instead. --Ed.)

But the reason I started this blog is because I thought since my life is so full of misery, I might as well share that misery with other people and entertain them a little. So even while I was suffering, all these stories built up in the back of my mind, and it wasn't long before I felt the urge to write again. But then I remembered the second reason I stopped blogging:

I was scared of being discovered.

Anybody who's read this blog for a few years (that's like, three people now, I'm sure --Ed.) knows that I've lost fellow bloggers and friends who shut down their blogs because of pressure from work. And every doctor owes confidentiality to their patients. Even though I change details of all my patient stories on this blog so that none of them can be identified, I am not anonymous. I know patients' relatives who've googled my name and found this blog. And I'll admit it. I'm scared the same pressure that shut down other blogs might force me to close shop too.


But in the end the reason I'm writing this is the same reason I started this blog; the same reason anyone starts a blog or a Twitter account or even a Facebook note. I love to write. And working as a doctor gives you PLENTY of things to write about, even if they're just bad jokes about patients throwing up repeatedly all over their doctors' brand new Padini shirts. (Not that I'd know anything about that. Cough. --Ed.)

It's been over two years since I've been a real doctor. And how do I feel about it now?

It's still terrifying every day.

A Death In The Family, Part Two

For the first part of this post, about the ultimate lesson that death teaches us, including some truly inspiring comments, click here.

It's done. I'm back.

***

Three quotes that, in my opinion, sum up the ultimate lesson that death teaches us:

“The great tragedy of the average man is that he goes to his grave with his music still in him.” 

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American poet

"One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon--instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today." 

-- Dale Carnegie, author, How To Win Friends and Influence People

"I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather that my spark burn out in a brilliant blaze than be stfled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.

The proper function of man is to live, not to exist." 

-- Jack London, author and journalist

So go. Live your life; I mean really live it. Seize your day today.

For more inspirational quotes, you can follow me on Twitter or like my Facebook page.

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A Death In The Family

Recently there was a death in the family.

It wasn't anyone very close, but close enough that it's been taking up all my time, which is why I haven't put up the stories from the comments on The Question Everyone Should Ask Themselves. I've seen quite a bit of death lately, and it makes me ponder.

Death has an effect on everyone. It reminds you that however young or old you are, however healthy (or fatass unhealthy) and however ridiculously good-looking (like me) you are, we all die. It will all end someday.

As a doctor, death changes you. The first few times, anyway. If you let it affect you, you're protecting your humanity. But if you harden up (as all doctors do eventually) and don't let it affect you, you're protecting your heart.

I still remember vividly the first time I pronounced someone dead. It was an elderly grandmother sitting alone in her hospital bed. The family had all left the previous night, and she died in the early morning. The senior doctor and I walked into the room, and there she was, lying on the bed, perfectly still. I remember wondering what a dead body would look like just before entering her room. It didn't look very different from a sleeping person.

The doctor taught me to listen for the heartbeat for three whole minute, then check for breath sounds, then check for a pulse. Having watched too many horror movies (or Scrubs episodes) I kept expecting her to jump awake at any moment and scare me right out of my pants. But of course, she lay perfectly still. Nothing. She was truly gone.

What is the ultimate lesson of death? We already know. Every day we watch movies that tell us, listen to music that tells us, talk to old family members who tell us. Yet still we never listen. The lesson is - life ends. Yours will end someday too. Maybe even today, maybe tomorrow. So we truly should live with no regrets. We truly should act as if every day was our last. As George W. Bush's pastor in the Oliver Stone film 'W.' tells him - "I want you to treat everybody you meet - your friends, your enemies, EVERYBODY - like they were going to be dead at midnight".

But living like that is hard. We tell ourselves it's human nature to plan for the future. If we truly lived like there was no tomorrow, we'd all be out partying and looting and killing our politicians and I'd be gang-raped by every nurse in the hospital (I'm joking. Partly). So maybe we can compromise. Maybe we can start by being nicer to each other. Because death hangs over all of us.

I'll be back next week. In the meantime, if you have any stories of what death means to you, please share them in the comments.

The Question Everyone Should Ask Themselves, Part Two

If you haven't read Part One of this post, I strongly recommend you do before reading this.

In my last post, I promised to ask you a question that everyone should ask themselves before they die. I know I joke about kids reading my blog, but the truth is I don't have many young readers (well, besides the Beliebers who occasionally send me hate mail for my Justin Bieber memes). Most people who come here have graduated or are studying for a degree.

I bet you've worked hard to get here you are now. I want you, for a moment, to think about that journey. To remember your hardest, darkest hours, as well as your greatest triumphs. I want you to recall some of the faces you remember from those times. To feel the pain, the sweat, and the joy that all those moments brought you.

Now. Considering all you've endured to be where you are today. I want you to look back on it all and ask yourself -

Was it worth it?

Did you end up exactly how you thought you would end up, all those years ago? Are you doing what you imagined you'd be doing?

Do you love what you do?

One of my drama directors back in Cambridge asked us this once. He said at the end of every play, he'd ask his cast and crew this question. And his goal as a director was to make their experience so enjoyable that they answered yes.

Let's face it - I didn't want to be a doctor. If I could go back in time, before I went to med school, and do something different, I would. Because I may be a good doctor now. But I could have been a great something else.

But I lacked the courage to chase my dreams. In my second year, a friend of mine from another college failed many papers. When he went to see his Director of Studies to arrange resits, his DoS told him frankly, "I've seen this pattern of results before. It usually means that deep down inside, you don't really want to do medicine." My friend took his advice, and left medical school. He is now earning a six-figure salary at a law firm in London, and wakes up every day knowing he loves what he does.

I envy him.

But like Darth Vader said to Luke, "It is too late for me, son." But not for you. You can still change your life. So ask yourself today, "Was it worth it?"

I sincerely hope the answer is yes.

The Question Everyone Should Ask Themselves, Part One

I was going to put up a post with a bunch of stuff that made me laugh in the past few days. But some very serious issues have been eating at me for a while now, demanding to be written down. I can't ignore them much longer.

I don't care who you are or what you do for a living. I want you to answer a question. A question that everyone should ask themselves at some point in life.

First, if you can, watch this video. It shows CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr Sanjay Gupta, a successful broadcaster and brain surgeon, giving the commencement address to the graduating class of the University of Michigan last week. He's funny, he's engaging, but he has some very important life lessons to teach.

It's 20 minutes long, but it may change your life.

 

 Notice how he breaks every lesson down. Write them down. Remember them. This man got a standing ovation from 40,000 people that day.

Now I want you to come back tomorrow, whether you watched it or not. Because I will ask you a very important question. A question every person in this world should ask themselves before they die.