Uploading something that I’ve written a few weeks back. My uncle’s passed on after I wrote this, though. And so this shall serve as a little memoriam.

Today I was reminded of how it is to be on the flip of the patient’s bedside. More than five years of hospital training has effectively shaken off any residual fear or panic of witnessing a patient come in dead on arrival (sobrang dami kong ganto), in respiratory failure, or in some other bad form. I’ve learned to tune out the cries and hysterics and to project an air of composure so that my team and the relatives would take me seriously (except minsan akala nila sinisigawan ko sila pero bingi lang po talaga ako 😅)…allowing me to could focus on the one thing that’s most important—saving their lives.

I was so focused on that singular goal that at times, I forget about other important stuff. At times, when I’m too tired and too maldita, I’d be frustrated about families who just wouldn’t sign the End of Life Care Plan Form, couldn’t settle on any advanced directives, or would simply go the aggressive route despite repeated attempts to make them see that what they wanted to do was an exercise in futility and served to simply “prolong the agony,” so to speak. Heck, I already assured my mom that I already have EOLCP plans in place for her (“Wag ka mag-alala, Ma. Hindi kita papatagalin.” Agree siya dito hahaha) in all its morbid glory.

But seeing all my relatives red-eyed; witnessing my aunt shed broken-hearted tears as her daughter broke news that the love of her life wouldn’t wake up forever, three days post-arrest; and seeing a man, whom I’ve known for years to be active and vibrant, succumb to multiorgan failure, looking exactly like all those patients I’ve cared for detachedly in the ICU less than a year ago, made me take a step back.

I asked my cousin what their plans were on life support, dialysis, and other medications given that they already decided not to rescuscitate. And just like other families before her, she answered that they’d give all and keep him stable for now. I couldn’t help but remember how it was usually during this time that I would feel impatience for the lack of endpoint among these patients. And how I’d feel frustrated about being slow to make people sign EOLCP forms (they usually do in a matter of days, though).

I guess today, I learned to be more patient with my patients and their families. Sana lang next time pagbalik ko sa ospital hindi rin ako kalawit hehe.

Just a week ago, my sister broke the good news that she’s been shortlisted for a position at the London counterpart of their company. Of course, we were happy with the announcement although the prospect of a family member moving away seemed a bit daunting. According to her, this move would allow her to practice auditing in a larger scale. It would expose her to a bigger playing field, giving her an opportunity to practice the sort of auditing that is stumped by the relatively smaller industry here in the Philippines.

However, a few days ago, she expressed some doubts about the big move. Among many other reasons, one stood out for me. A colleague asked her to think about whether the job (which would entail moving her entire life abroad, away from her family and friends, and starting over in a land away from her support system) would make her happy.

I got a bit flustered with that. I’m no accountant but I know a lot about happiness in the workplace (or the lack thereof haha) despite being relatively new to my field. I told her that at her age (she’s in her mid-20s), she shouldn’t even be putting her happiness at the topmost (not saying that this should take the backseat, though. More on this later.) of her priorities and should instead focus on her long-term goals. Heck, I told her, I wouldn’t even stay and endure three miserable years of residency training if happiness was my primary goal. I might not have conveyed this properly, though. 😰

What I had in mind at that time was this article that I’ve read from a few years back. It floated the idea that hedonistic happiness is quite different from meaningful happiness. Hedonistic happiness seems to be more focused on the here and now while meaningful happiness tends to be geared towards long-term happiness, hence entailing sacrifices and a bit of misery. While that in itself is a bit difficult to discuss, the idea that each of us have different definitions of happiness makes the whole thing trickier.

And I think that’s the problem with us nowadays. We tend to put hedonistic happiness foremost in our priorities that we often neglect meaningful happiness. It’s not helping that finding your own meaning doesn’t come that easily nor do the results come instantly. I’m not going to pretend that I get the hang of this because I sometimes still end up with noncontributory decisions to my meaningful happiness, though. But I guess in this situation, it would be helpful to always remember our ultimate goals in life and to be open to hardships and suffering along the way. Otherwise, we’d end up going for choices that would be good in the short-term for our hedonistic happiness and then shortchanging ourselves in the long run.

So…have you found your meaning yet?

I told myself that I would refrain from putting up a “hello, world” post but what the heck?

For more than half of my life, I struggled to maintain an actual journal that would serve as my outlet. But since procrastination is my second nature and sustainability has always been questionnable with me, I always failed to keep one that would accurately chronicle any period of my life. However, fifteen years ago, I managed to put up a livejournal account. What once started as a writing exercise actually served as an on-and-off relationship of sorts where I would log in and out at the most random of years and update. Unfortunately, due to the extremely personal nature of some of the entries and the censure required of my work, I don’t think a lot of the latest entries there could be publicized.

It was actually because of this censure that I opted to write less and less. Afterall, less talk (or writing that could be used against you), less mistakes, right? Writing took a back seat for the past few years. And along that went my sanity.

Since I’ve been feeling more of my old self these past few months, I decided to try to get back some parts of me that I’ve lost from before and try to reintegrate it with the “new me.” Hence, this blog.

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I guess this is also the part where I write something about myself, eh?

Hi! I’m Alena. I’m a 29-year-old female, Filipino, who came in here for a writing exercise. I just took my Diplomate exams in Internal Medicine and am praying hard to pass so that I could move on with my life and start training in Cardiology.

Medicine basically defines me, especially these past few years. You take out medicine in me and all that will be left is an empty shell. While that’s not necessarily a bad thing in my book, it’s not necessarily good either. I do write sometimes but my heyday as a writer has passed, I think. In my good days, I’m usually the ball of energy in any crowd. In my bad days, I’m the overgrown kid throwing a tantrum in one corner. I used to think that I fit awfully in Medicine because I’m not “agit” or “masungit” enough. I still am not enough of those but I learned to grow into my own brand of a physician that I could somewhat be proud of. Haha.

In a rare free day, you’d see me curled up in bed doing nothing, watching crime/mystery/rom-com movies/series, or caught in a wikipedia spiral on serial killers. If you ask me what I love, I’d tell you it’s Harry Potter. But if you get me drunk enough with dark beer, I might actually admit that I’m a big fan of Cardcaptor Sakura and Li Syaoran.

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I haven’t really thought much about what sort of content I will focus on but I intend to make this a writing exercise of sorts. You would have to excuse the sudden shift to vernacular, though. Some things are better off said in tagalog. Or swardspeak. Char.

See you!