Take care of you.

"It's a lifestyle choice..."


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After doing my rounds on my patients last Sunday, I still had a few minutes to spare before Sunday Mass at the hospital chapel was supposed to start. I knew my friend Pettie was on duty at the hospital (I wasn't), and so I decided to bring her some doughnuts and coffee. 


I called her to check if she was at the pedia ward at the time, and when she picked up, I went the way I usually call her, "Hoy, Petula! Are you on-duty?" She laughed, and I had to go, "What's so funny?" And she said, "Sorry, I didn't know my phone was on loudspeaker, everybody in the callroom heard you say that 'crisp' way you talk, and they all laughed." 


(Err... yeah. My bad. Pettie is short for Petula, but for fun sometimes (and because of familiarity), I call her Petula. The crisp Cebuano accent is also part of it. )


So when I got to her ward, i just dropped off the coffee and left. The Pediatrics ward (and anything involving these little kids) is one of the busiest wards in the hospital. When I saw her, she looked pretty harassed, and even though it was just 11:50 AM, she looked like she'd been working a day already. "Hey Man, here, you better have this too," I said, as I handed her the iced coffee. They were just about to start their patient endorsements, and as usual, she was in a hurry.


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Later, for dinner, I met up with friends of mine from school. Actually, they were a year ahead of me, but since I hung out with them alot back when we were in medical school, it wasn't any different when I got to  start residency. I was always a part of the group, an honorary class member. We had dinner at a Persian restaurant, called Arya at the mall, and had coffee afterwards.


As always, we had a good time. The POC Ortho Boys JoeJoe and Tope were there, Chamie and I from PGH Psych were there, Roxanne from Adventist Medical was there too, along with Gen from Pedia and Vera from Patho (who happens to live in the next building).


 These get-togethers are always fun for me. Especially since lately, I've been having spells of homesickness, or loneliness every now and then, which is totally uncharacteristic. I live alone in a relatively big house (and it doesn't have cable or internet access, that's why) and although I'm not complaining about my digs, sometimes it's just good to hang out with familiar faces.


If there's anything basic  I've learned in Psychiatry, it's that, to survive, you need to have a good primary support group...otherwise, you'll fragment and have a psychotic break (but that's like, in the worst cases of course). 


We talked about people, the news, work, new research, plans....just the usual. It's like having a family, where you take care of each other, I suppose. 


Gen Yap made a joke about how we Psych people were so "non-toxic" we could go about in heels and skirts, doing the "rampa". "Hey...it's not all that cushy a job, Gen, listening to people talk about their problems and helping them through it is not that easy."


(Hell, I think I'm even developing a permanent crease in my forehead from holding my "Interview Face" for long periods...:-))


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Sometimes I think, that freedom of choice comes with a price. You put yourself in a place full of the possibilities of a great adventure, but you know fully well that there are also things familiar to you that will have to leave behind, even if temporarily.


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My friend Pettie makes great sandwiches. One time, when I was from duty, and didn't have any dinner, she reached into her bag and said, "Hey, I made you a sandwich." Tuna on Wheat Bread. Yum. (One of my favorites.)


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I do stuff like that for my other friends as well, it's not that I expect them to pay me for it, or expect them to give me the same thing in return, I always thought that if you could make things just  little bit better for another person, then you should. 


We all need to take care of each other around here. :-)


:-)


Anyway, Good night. (I'm on duty tomorrow.)


~ Sonia.