I met a couple of people recently who got me thinking. A young lady who has recently lost her loved one. An old man giving up on life and refusing to fight against his disease. Another with newly diagnosed end stage cancer and yearning to cling on to any hope we can give. We can only shake our heads and whisper 'what a shame' because we know we can't even begin to comprehend what this people are going through. They ask, 'Why me?' or 'How can this possibly happen?' But at the end of the day, one simply has to accept that such questions are only meant to be asked, and rarely to be answered.

I lost something very precious recently. It is nothing near what the people mentioned above have lost, but it still has resulted with me battling with the One upstairs, sometimes to the extent that I have been tempted to shut the door on Him. I've tried to be still and listen for what He is saying. But it has been pretty impossible to get an answer at times.
I know the model Christian answer would be to say, 'in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him. No good thing will he withhold'. If one could truly believe it as carelessly as one could say it, then the world would indeed be a much more bearable place to live in.

But I suppose there in lies the central message of our belief - faith. Faith to believe that the one we believe in actually laid the earth's foundation; halted the proud waves of the sea and commanded, 'this far you may come and no farther'; and is above all, willing to endow man's heart with His complete love and grace. When Job was questioned by God, he could only answer, "I spoke once, but I have no answer - twice, but I will say no more." True indeed, what else can we say? We yearn for control, wanting to know what's going to happen, and thinking that we could shape life to the best we want it to be. But it doesn't take one long to realise how little our human mind can comprehend and how few answers we have.

It is sometimes incredibly hurtful when we become aware how little control we do have over our lives. And maybe, the only way to heal the disappointment and hurt is to let go, allowing the One who created us in the first place to have control and trusting that He has the best in mind for us.

3 months into the rest of my life

So it has been 3 months and counting (and it goes on counting now until I retire from Medicine or marry a very rich guy). Much have happened, much have changed. I've lost count of the number of times the FY1s in my ward and I have said to each other with intense passion, 'I hate my job so much!'

But at the end of the day, I realise that we only say it as a reaction to all the stress at that point of time, and in actual fact, I can't help but love my job. Rarely does any job give you an unending emotional roller coaster ride on a day to day basis. And I don't mean any sarcasm in that remark at all. The stress when there are 101 jobs, the joy when a patient looks you in the eye and utters a sincere 'Thank you', the fear when a patient is deteriorating in front of your eyes, the excitement when you've manage a patient well and he's improving, the encouragement you get from your seniors when they know you're stressed, the sadness when I certified my first death...and the list goes on.

And I've realised something else that Medical School doesn't really teach you. It's one of those things that folk say you learn on the job (as Lena nicely phrases it in her blog). Very few jobs place one so close to the hard fact that one's death is inevitable. There was a Friday when I left the ward, knowing that I won't see one of my patients again when I come back on Monday, not because he was going to be discharged, or to be transferred to another ward. But because of the simple yet harsh reality that he was dying.
I've observed with a mixture of fascination but also anger and disappointment at the emotional detachment that some doctors can have towards patients. But I forgot, that to a certain extent, this is the only mean of self defense mechanism that a doctor can adopt to save him/herself from emotional overload and fatigue. And maybe that's what I need to have as well. I have at many times pondered the vast disparity between the ideals of this profession that Medical School teaches you (i.e. to act to the best interest of the patient) and the reality of the service that we can provide. And it didn't take me long to realise that if I keep working as if the ideals equal the reality, I will indeed lose my sanity.

Maybe, I love my job so much because it is what gives my life meaning. Without it, I really won't know what to do with myself. Which is sad, in a way. Because it could mean that my life equals work and nothing else. I scared myself one day when I was working way past my shift, and the nurses were urging me to go home, and the thought dawn to me that I actually quite enjoy staying in the ward working because there's nothing much to do when I go home anyway. Now that is a really scary thought, because it simply means Aiky is really turning into a workaholic with no social life at all (which is already true to a certain degree).
There were days when I could have put my foot down and said this is it, I've worked past my shift, and I need to go off for prayer or CF meetings. But I didn't, and I just worked on with the full awareness that I'm willing to miss my usual Christian meetings for work. I guess I have allowed myself to drift into the danger of placing my work above my faith. Not good, indeed. All these is certainly taking a toil on my relationship with the One above.

Anyways, enough of all these thoughts and reflections (eeks! maybe that's what the Dundee medical school curriculum has trained us to be!! If you're a Dundee 5th yr medic stud or graduate, you'll know what I'm talking about!) I've just came back from Prague for my annual leave. It was a good trip, except for a major hiccup towards the end of it. But all is fine, or rather, will be fine. Back to work tomorrow!