Chvi

Life is short. Talk more.

I haven't been here in while bc I guess I'm waiting for things to quieten down. And with 2 wks til exams, well, I guess being stuck at home has helped w the quietening down.

Alot and very little has happened in this period.

Perhaps to make it less creptic, my last post refers to the death of my cousin, 45 yo, survived by 2 daughters, 21 yrs old and 7. She died of what I can only assume was severe acute pulmonary odema caused by her lung cancer. She found out 4 months ago.

I think that the period leading up to it, I had a semi abnormal rxn to the info, ranging from being a little obessed with trying to read more on lung cancer, to feeling fairly frustrated when i couldn't get the info i wanted, to not wanting to see it in ANY PATIENT w lung cancer. WASN'T I LUCKY (sarcasm) then, that my week in pallative care came up and let's face it, lung cancer is one of the worse of the cancers and yes, many pallative care patients have lung cancer.

I think her death was both a shock and yet expected. I expected it to be months, but I thought more so in 8 months rather than 4. The hardest part for me, was watching her 2 daughters. Especially the one my age. Bc I could feel how hopeless and despair and anger i would have felt, had my mother died the way her mother died. And it just isn't fair.

For a while, my outlook on life is that it is too short and u should enjoy life everyday. But medicine, or 4th year to be exact, is making that difficult. I think the constant nagging feeling in my head that a) u need to study and b) why don't u remember shit plagues the mind. But I must say, I do like to think that the song w the lines" What have u done to make u proud today" (or similar to that line) is a line I have lived by for the last few months. I do like to think there is one thing of my day that I can say I'm proud to have done. And usually, that falls into, U learnt abt back pain, or something similar. So even there's a positive.

I have been having lots of angsty thoughts harbouring lately but I suppose stress does that. I have big plans for the holidays, bc its time to turn that around. Angry, nasty Christine isn't even fun for me so imagine what others must feel like. I however, will continue to not waste my time on extended pleasantries w ppl who i just know, i don't get on. Bc life is too short to spend time trying to force friendships.

4th year is such a dud in Monash Medicine. I was talking to a 5th year, who made the plain statement: 4th year strips u of fun and freedom.

Sometimes, I really think it does.

posted by chvi @ 12:51 AM