Life.....Part 1
"I'm Frustrated.....and I'm Tired...It's almost evening again and i've been up for 41 hours straight. I can't feel myself....I move like a machine...careless...unattached. I don't know if im more hungry or more sleepy anymore. Just numb. dirty. tired. frustrated. I got tons of work to do tomorrow for tomorrow...and it's just piling on me right now. But like a miracle, i survived yet another duty and i'm happy to go home to my empty bed...my empty social life...and my empty lover's arms. What a cheese. I was walking past this corridor, making my way out..when i glimpsed at a small kid...crying...not exactly crying...but tears were in his face...but like a soundless cry...he stares at the bodies of his dead parents. Like he was praying...swearing...or making promises that usual grievers make when people die.I muster up whats left of myself and try to do this thing we doctors do to comfort people. I must have done it a million times before....you try to say stuff...and hope you get through...or even just to lighten their load. Doctors are very keen people...they can tell if their doing it wrong or if their bullshit will actually work. So i arm up on comforting words...and i talk to him...His name is bruce. He didn't seem all too interested with what i had to say. I began telling him about life...moving on...how hard it's gonna be but he has to be strong...give some meaning to it all...that it wasnt his fault...and that he has to get pass this. I tell him what i thought he needed to hear. Like a dumb person who thinks he knows everything. Frack! I didn't care anymore...i just wanted him to feel better...even just a little bit. So maybe i'd feel better too and sleep better. But it dosen't work. He stands there scatterd in a million thoughts, grasping, swearing...tears flowing out of his eyes...and he dosen't care...
Just as i was about to leave...he asked me with a creepy voice of a child..."Why do you still do it? You know you can never stop death?"...i was strucked...I never expected to be strucked. I'm tired and this kid begins to question what i do. I'm strucked. Haven't i done enough? Such a unthoughtful question. I was about to begin to explain...or use some rational bullshit again to get it over with...when a patient in the corridor codes. I place my things aside...and began to run the code...resuscitating the patient. It wasn't my job anymore...my shift ended. But i was the closes doctor to the patient. None of it really matters in that moment. I just do what i do. Rationality aside...fairness aside...selfishness aside...i try to save this persons life. He begins to flatline...i take a whack at the paddles after intubating the patient. It takes me about 8 minutes...but the patient was revived. As soon as a doctor relieved me of the care...i gather my stuff again and make way. The little boy was apparently watching. His eyes were lost in thought. He began to ask again...with a creepy kid voice..."Why do you still do it? You know you can't stop death." Maybe i was just too tired to care anymore of what he thought. You feel a "GIVE"...when your too tired of this bullshit life...honesty rises...like a subconscious thing...you cut loose and say something natural...something true. I tell him with what cracking voice i had left: "What are you talking about kid, I stop death everyday." I was proud and for the first time i stunned him. He flinches...trying to absorb the honesty...a million thoughts racing in his head...he shakingly asks: "But...who saves you? Who will take care of you if your already there?." i didn't know if he was talking about me or himself anymore...confused on what he wanted me to say...but again i answered..."It dosen't really matter does it? It won't matter to the people i save today...it won't matter to the people you save tomorrow. No one will understand...save you". He stares at me...and i could see that he understood something that people don't usually understand. it's something i don't fully understand myself. People from his family finally arrive to embrace him and try to do what i had failed to do....to comfort him. But as i walked out of that hospital....i looked back...and i saw his eyes staring at me...hanging on the silly little words i just said. I didn't care what he thought about it anymore...I was just plain dead tired. I came back the next morning, only to find out that the little boy's name was bruce...bruce wayne. It hits me for a second...I got strucked again...I ponder about it for a few minutes...but then, it began to "don't matter". As i was swamped again by people...trying to find the life they have lost. Trying to get back to the life they once had."
I wrote this story in the hope that people will be given a chance to see what doctors are and not just what they percieved them to be. All doctors are different. Some are crazy, some selfish, some nice, some are amateurs...and some are really good. Just like the regular people. But they just deal with something very, very serious....very precious to us all....Life. And that is why they have to be more than just regular people. They have to be something else entirely....to be able to save that life. I began writing this and i used all 10 doctors in my block to inspire me. They are, faults aside, the best group of doctors i wanna work with. I had some really fond memories that year. I just hope some of it will never "don't matter" in the future as i go along.
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