He is 36 years old, happily married with two kids.
"Just a simple headache," he thought, "it would just go away."
2 years down the road, he was diagnosed with brain tumour.
He took it all with stride, and underwent the operation.
As I took blood from him that day, he hesitated.
"Why more?," he asked gently.
All I could say was that I had to, and I was sorry.
He turned over, and sees his wife seated there, tired, yet by his side all along.
He reached for her hand.
And, though wary, he smiles.
His tumour is incurable.
He knows his time is short.
Yet his bravery against it all...
Awakens me.
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A young man.
Braved the land and sea in seek of fortune and life.
Found a job, yet a few months later, developed an earache, and ended up unconscious one day.
The infection, has spread to his brain.
He was operated on, and placed on a machine to help him breathe.
With every day that passes, I see him slowly drift away, until even we can do no more.
He was only 21.
He had so much waiting for him.
The fragility of life...
Awakens me.
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He was a middle aged gentleman, with a list of diseases long enough to cover all specialities twice.
He has a tragic story, of one where the wife left for greener pastures.
He can't walk properly, and is mentally unstable.
He goes around with faeces and urine leaking behind him.
And he screams notoriously in the ward, and hates being restrained, and loves to attempt being superman and jumping out of his bed, getting his feet and hands all entangled in the sides.
He pulls out every single thing that we put in him.
He is hateful.
There were times where I wanted to slap him because he was too irritating.
Yet, his mother remains by his side, taking care of his every need.
I do not comprehend it.
But a mother's love...
Awakens me.
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He is a farmer.
Had severe headache one day, and unconscious in the other.
There was bleeding in his brain.
The operation could only do so much.
He then developed fits, and could not move the right side of his body.
He has to be fed through a tube thru his nose, and he needs care for every daily need.
His wife is at home, plagued with various diseases.
His son has to work, in order to put food on the table.
And the one who is caring for him daily in the ward is his daughter-in-law, who faithfully cleans him, feeds him, wipes him, turns him.
It is not a simple job, caring for an elderly man who can't even respond to you, for more than a month now in the stuffy ward.
Yet her loyalty towards the family....
Awakens me.
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I believe that in my 5 weeks of neuro, I've seen much, and learned much, as much as I hated the subject.
I still don't know how to read a CT brain properly, and honestly, I don't really care.
There were days were I just feel like crying, and throwing in the towel, because it is all just too much to bear.
It is a cold posting...
Yet I leave with all these little life treasures that warms the soul.
It is said that in neuro, we grow vegetables.
But on a cold, rainy day, and when you're feeling ill...
Vegetable soup is the best remedy.
They say that the joy of doing neuro is seeing the miracles.
I've yet to see any, but in it's own way, it had shown me life in other ways.
And these lessons, I would take with me whenever I go.
I guess that for a mere 5 weeks of my life, it wasn't all a waste after all.
- jess, awakened -