In residency, there’s a saying: The days are long, but the years are short. In neurosurgical training, the day usually began a little before 6 a.m., and lasted until the operating was done, which depended, in part, on how quick you were in the OR.

A resident’s surgical skill is judged by his technique and his speed. You can’t be sloppy and you can’t be slow. From your first wound closure onward, spend too much time being precise and the scrub tech will announce, “Looks like we’ve got a plastic surgeon on our hands!” Or say: “I get your strategy — by the time you finish sewing the top half of the wound, the bottom will have healed on its own. Half the work — smart!” A chief resident will advise a junior: “Learn to be fast now — you can learn to be good later.” Everyone’s eyes are always on the clock. For the patient’s sake: How long has the patient been under anesthesia? During long procedures, nerves can get damaged, muscles can break down, even causing kidney failure. For everyone else’s sake: What time are we getting out of here tonight?

There are two strategies to cutting the time short, like the tortoise and the hare. The hare moves as fast as possible, hands a blur, instruments clattering, falling to the floor; the skin slips open like a curtain, the skull flap is on the tray before the bone dust settles. But the opening might need to be expanded a centimeter here or there because it’s not optimally placed. The tortoise proceeds deliberately, with no wasted movements, measuring twice, cutting once. No step of the operation needs revisiting; everything proceeds in orderly fashion. If the hare makes too many minor missteps and has to keep adjusting, the tortoise wins. If the tortoise spends too much time planning each step, the hare wins.

The funny thing about time in the OR, whether you frenetically race or steadily proceed, is that you have no sense of it passing. If boredom is, as Heidegger argued, the awareness of time passing, this is the opposite: The intense focus makes the arms of the clock seem arbitrarily placed. Two hours can feel like a minute. Once the final stitch is placed and the wound is dressed, normal time suddenly restarts. You can almost hear an audible whoosh. Then you start wondering: How long till the patient wakes up? How long till the next case gets started? How many patients do I need to see before then? What time will I get home tonight?

It’s not until the last case finishes that you feel the length of the day, the drag in your step. Those last few administrative tasks before leaving the hospital, however far post-meridian you stood, felt like anvils. Could they wait till tomorrow? No. A sigh, and Earth continued to rotate back toward the sun.

But the years did, as promised, fly by. Six years passed in a flash, but then, heading into chief residency, I developed a classic constellation of symptoms — weight loss, fevers, night sweats, unremitting back pain, cough — indicating a diagnosis quickly confirmed: metastatic lung cancer. The gears of time ground down. While able to limp through the end of residency on treatment, I relapsed, underwent chemo and endured a prolonged hospitalization.

I emerged from the hospital weakened, with thin limbs and thinned hair. Now unable to work, I was left at home to convalesce. Getting up from a chair or lifting a glass of water took concentration and effort. If time dilates when one moves at high speeds, does it contract when one moves barely at all? It must: The day shortened considerably. A full day’s activity might be a medical appointment, or a visit from a friend. The rest of the time was rest.

With little to distinguish one day from the next, time began to feel static. In English, we use the word time in different ways, “the time is 2:45” versus “I’m going through a tough time.” Time began to feel less like the ticking clock, and more like the state of being. Languor settled in. Focused in the OR, the position of the clock’s hands might seem arbitrary, but never meaningless. Now the time of day meant nothing, the day of the week scarcely more so.

Verb conjugation became muddled. Which was correct? “I am a neurosurgeon,” “I was a neurosurgeon,” “I had been a neurosurgeon before and will be again”? Graham Greene felt life was lived in the first 20 years and the remainder was just reflection. What tense was I living in? Had I proceeded, like a burned-out Greene character, beyond the present tense and into the past perfect? The future tense seemed vacant and, on others’ lips, jarring. I recently celebrated my 15th college reunion; it seemed rude to respond to parting promises from old friends, “We’ll see you at the 25th!” with “Probably not!”

Yet there is dynamism in our house. Our daughter was born days after I was released from the hospital. Week to week, she blossoms: a first grasp, a first smile, a first laugh. Her pediatrician regularly records her growth on charts, tick marks of her progress over time. A brightening newness surrounds her. As she sits in my lap smiling, enthralled by my tuneless singing, an incandescence lights the room.

Time for me is double-edged: Every day brings me further from the low of my last cancer relapse, but every day also brings me closer to the next cancer recurrence — and eventually, death. Perhaps later than I think, but certainly sooner than I desire. There are, I imagine, two responses to that realization. The most obvious might be an impulse to frantic activity: to “live life to its fullest,” to travel, to dine, to achieve a host of neglected ambitions. Part of the cruelty of cancer, though, is not only that it limits your time, it also limits your energy, vastly reducing the amount you can squeeze into a day. It is a tired hare who now races. But even if I had the energy, I prefer a more tortoiselike approach. I plod, I ponder, some days I simply persist.

Everyone succumbs to finitude. I suspect I am not the only one who reaches this pluperfect state. Most ambitions are either achieved or abandoned; either way, they belong to the past. The future, instead of the ladder toward the goals of life, flattens out into a perpetual present. Money, status, all the vanities the preacher of Ecclesiastes described, hold so little interest: a chasing after wind, indeed.

Yet one thing cannot be robbed of her futurity: my daughter, Cady. I hope I’ll live long enough that she has some memory of me. Words have a longevity I do not. I had thought I could leave her a series of letters — but what would they really say? I don’t know what this girl will be like when she is 15; I don’t even know if she’ll take to the nickname we’ve given her. There is perhaps only one thing to say to this infant, who is all future, overlapping briefly with me, whose life, barring the improbable, is all but past.

That message is simple: When you come to one of the many moments in life when you must give an account of yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been, and done, and meant to the world, do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man’s days with a sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my prior years, a joy that does not hunger for more and more, but rests, satisfied. In this time, right now, that is an enormous thing.

“All men have stars, but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are problems... But all these stars are silent. You... you alone will have stars as no one else has them."

"In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars will be laughing when you look at the sky at night..You, only you, will have stars that can laugh!" 

"And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me... You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open your window, so, for that pleasure... And your friends will be properly astonished to see you laughing as you look up at the sky! Then you will say to them, 'Yes, the stars always make me laugh'."

- Lifted from the Great Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

Even Youths grow TIRED and WEARY, and YOUNG MEN stumble and fall; but those who TRUST IN THE LORD will renew their strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

According to Wikepedia (hahaha.. shaddap, wiki is my new BFF), Grit is defined as:

"Grit in psychology is a positive, non-cognitive trait based on an individual's passion for a particular long-term goal or end state, coupled with a powerful motivation to achieve their respective objective. This perseverance of effort promotes the overcoming of obstacles or challenges that lie within a gritty individual's path to accomplishment, and serves as a driving force in achievement realization. Commonly associated concepts within the field of psychology include "perseverance", "hardiness", "resilience", "ambition", "need for achievement" and "conscientiousness". These constructs can be conceptualized as individual differences related to the accomplishment of work rather than latent ability."  

"Wake me up when September Ends - Green Day" 

I don't understand this extreme feeling. It's as if there's a big chunk of meat inside my chest each day.

If there's one thing that life has taught me, it's the ability to know yourself :)

It's wonderful that there is a silver lining in life. If there's one thing I gained, it was the ability to know myself.

And so, thanks :)

....

A dog would do, but that's work. Maybe a gold fish. Haha <3

Pressured to be back in my size ASAP causes stress. This time, maybe just wait.

<3

After enduring 10 years of medical education, I realized I have put some good amount of weight.

Stress. Binge eating and the like, has placed me in this current weight. HAHA.

Now, that I have all the time in the world, I realized that shredding down can be achieved.

I thought fast results would help but then I realized that I should be patient with myself.

Still not in the shape I want to be.


....


Getting there.

I thought I had to reformat my laptop once more.

Accidentally did something. Hahaha.

Thank you Google! Thank you tech geeks for saving my life.

I just honestly like figuring out CS commands on my own. Hahaha ;0

Some people only look at life through eyes that seldom gleam
while others look beyond today as they're guided by a dream
And the dreamers can't be sidetracked by dissenters who may laugh
for only they alone can know how special is their path

But dreams aren't captured easily;
there's much work before you're through
but the time and efforts are all worthwhile
when the impossible comes true

And dreams have strength in numbers
for when a common goal is shared
the once impossible comes true because of all who cared

And once it's seen as reality a dream has just begun
for magically from dreams come dreams
And a walk becomes a run

But with growth of course comes obstacles
and with obstacles come fear
but the dream that is worth dreaming
finds its way to the dear

And the dream continues growing
Reaching heights before unseen
And it's all because of the courage of the dreamers
and their dream.

Sometimes I wonder, if my life is just meant for this.

Sometimes, I dream that my feet takes me to places.

Places that I never knew existed.

Places that my heart wont dare.

Sometimes I wonder if this is all that life can offer

Sometimes, my mind wonders... as it stands still in awe...

to Places that the heart silently dreams

to Places that the mind slams shut

And reality comes vividly back

Back to where I am

As I wonder on...

....

Is this the thing we call life?

There is a terrible pain in the left side of my heart. I can't seem to get it off my chest. Thinking of all my classes in internal medicine, I'm deciphering the various differential diagnoses I could get.

Am I having a heart attack?

Heart indeed. But no, not an attack. Just a case of emptiness.

It's funny how you possess that left side of my heart. Why not occupy this right side as well?

I don't know.

But these past days, all I know is that I feel pain.

You...

One day you will see that you were wrong about me.
One day you will see that everything I ever did was all for you
One day you will see that all of these was for us

Maybe.

But all I know is that one day, one day, one.... dayy..

One more day.

Soon.

It's 12:21 AM. But my mind is racing.

I have been in deep thought for the past 2 days. I need to get this off my chest.

At present, all I could think of is the future.

Weird.

I'm that type of girl. I don't function without a plan.
Some just go with the flow, but for me. I can't.

I'm the go get it girl. I need a tangible something so that I can get it.

I'm thinking if I should go straight to residency or to follow my frustrated set aside dreams of writing, travelling, shooting for a video podcast and modeling. <3 (The last one is a long shot tho, haha)

Seriously, I have given so much thought on this.

Medicine will always be my passion and my love. But there is this part of me, another girl inside of me... wondering, just what if?

It's just gonna be a year anyways. But my fear is, I wish I could still get into the residency of my choice.

Becoming a pediatrician is still my dream.

But the excitement of the unknown... to follow where my dreams will take me.

Now that's something <3

Heart don't fail me now. Yes Anastacia. You and I, both <3

Kuya, 6 years today. Words can't describe the grief... but there is a reason behind everything. One day, we will meet again. Thank you. You are always with me. <3 Miss you everyday, love :)

These days, it's different.

I was amazed with the results.

New Layout. Finally. Finally something that goes with my minimalist persona. :)

Maybe this would make me write more. Facebook statuses (HAHA, God forbid) have been the new blogsites these days.. but then, I hate the nosy silent Facebook users (who secretly whisper when you're not around while flashing their fones to each other in dismay.. boo you whore).

So, enuf said. It's no longer the social media platform for updates. lol.

Will try my hardest for lengthy posts and to write again.

Board Exams are coming up. Focus. FOCUS. F.O.C.U.S

Layout you kept me up at 3am.



And yes, P.S.

WHAT THE SHTTT*&%^? Emo feeds and posts do we have going on here. Hahahaha.

I apologize for my sudden outbursts for the need to write off the feelings on the internet for social validation.

HAHAHAHA.