Appreciating life

Once in a while - just like yesterday at work - I do get the question on how I appear so peppy and lighthearted when I'm practically dealing with depressing death situations on a daily basis. Of course I laughingly replied that I'm actually on a cocktail of mildly hallucinatory drugs.

Truthfully though, seeing death on a daily basis actually makes me appreciate lfe even more. They say seeing your first death as an intern changes you and it's really true. It has taught me several things actually - seriously patients do teach us quite a lot in fact.

For one, I do appreciate family more - and I do treasure the time I spend with my family. My future boyfriend had better be prepared for this but family actually does come first for me - career takes a seriously sad second or perhaps third place. Simply put, I've never had a dying patient who actually thought of spending time in his office with his books at his deathbed. :) At the end, almost everyone wishes to have more time with their loved ones - and surely no one wants to die alone and friendless in an icy cold intensive care room as the medical staff rush about with their defibrillators.

It also gives you an appreciation of the time that we have on our hands. We do rush through the hours sometimes, struggling so hard to achieve our goals that we sometimes miss the little things. Most of us work in the hectic ratrace hoping to save enough for some far flung future of tropical islands and sexy cabana boys - never actually knowing that those rosy dreams could be dashed away by a runaway schoolbus with a faulty brake as we cross the street - or as recent events show, a homicidal shrapnel from a pipe bomb. So really, it's actually okay to stop and smell the roses every once in a while. One of the reasons I do take the occasional break to do absolutely nothing except stare at the sky just happy to be alive.


Me perfect?! Do you see that tiny pimple on my perfect drum-tight ass?
Despite how shallow and superficial I might appear on certain posts :) I do know that looks aren't necessarily all that important. Even for myself. After seeing someone struggle with an atrophied limb dangling like a useless appendage, you realize that it's actually okay to be hideous homely. I'm certainly no Chris Evans ( hell. I'm not even in the same subspecies ) but at least I am somewhat hale and hearty, barring the occasional debilitating laryngitis... which is certainly not as bad as losing a limb after having a hungry machine munch unhesitatingly on your wriggling hands or having your skull crushed like so much cheap melon by a runaway lorry.

Good grief. I just realized that this has turned out to be a remarkably gory post.