Why I am not a doctor

This morning when my daughter coughed and then said in a very weak voice, “I've got boogers in my throat now.” I replied, “It won't kill you. Get ready for school.”

As I carried on with my morning routine I thought to myself, “Now that is why I am not a Doctor.”

This may not be your automatic reaction to a less than compassionate comment but it is mine because doctoring was once in the realm of my possibilities.

In another lifetime I was a kinesiology (study of human movement which leads into occupational therapy, sports medicine etc.) student at Dalhousie. In my first year I found that although anthropology was my hearts true love, human biology was my actual intellectual strong suit. I memorized, I analyzed, I dissected. I got straight As and was on the Dean's List.

For me it was easy, it only required time—the concepts and facts of human biology were simple. They were a story. Every process in the body had a beginning, middle and end; similar to the construction of the simplest fairy tale. The Krebs cycle; a story. The digestive system; a story. Hormones and their feedback loops; a story. The body is a story if only you know how to read the book. And I did.

Stories have always been part of my life and part of what I do. I have been writing stories since elementary school and it was only natural to bring this perspective to my pursuit of biological knowledge. It was a strategy that worked and it worked so well that I found myself thinking outside of the kinesiological box and looking at MCAT (Medical College Admission Test ) prep texts.

With such a command of biology one may ask what kept me from scaling the heights of medicine all the way to the top of the heap as an MD? Books, labs and exams were all great—in fact I loved them all-- but in actual medicine, on the ground, in the hospital medicine, you have to deal with sick people. And I hate sick people.

I must revise that sentence, I hate sick people who are only moderately sick. Sick people who are dealing with their illness stoically while their bodies are wracked with pain—those people I love. I often am one of those people and that is why I hold the other kind of sick people, the sick-enough-for-the-hospital-but-still-mobile type of sick people, in contempt. It is this sort of sick person, who are the majority of sick people, that I knew I would never be able to face on a day to day basis with any compassion or bedside manner. I would tell them, as I have told my slightly sick, over-exaggerating child who wants to spend the day at home from school, “It won't kill you. Suck it up.”

My lack of compassion for the slightly sick comes from, as I mentioned above, my many experiences in the horribly-sick, wish-I-was-dead-to-end-the-pain category. As a life-long sufferer of bowel obstructions I know pain. I know sickness. I know how to keep my head down and get through it. I know that if you can talk, it doesn't hurt that much. If you can walk, you should keep moving. If your not almost dead, keep living.

One incident from my teen years is particularly emblematic of the kinds of experiences I have had that have lead me to be such an unsympathetic person vis-a-vis sick people. I was 17-years-old and in the Misericordia Hospital in Edmonton. I had a bowel obstruction as usual. I had an NG (nasal-gastric) tube stuffed up my nose, down the back of my throat and into my stomach to pump out all the accumulating gastric juices which were prevented from exiting the body by way of the normal route due to the obstruction. Beside my bed was a 4-gallon jar with a small pump attached which was emptied of the dark, green, repugnant sludge that was sucked from my body several times a day.

I had a intravenous drip. The insertion point was constantly getting infected and my forearms were swelling from the fluid that leaked out of my unnaturally small blood vessels.

I could not eat anything. Could not drink anything—not even ice to relieve a dry mouth. I was NPO.

Stabbing pains in my stomach were only slightly relieved by needles of Demerol every four hours which resulted in pains at the injection site that still ache on extremely cold days.

After a week the NG tube was pumping fecal material (I hope you all know what that means). There was nothing left to do.

I went home.

I was starving. Yet I could not eat. Everything I did eat was retched back up in short order.

I was desperate. I began just to chew food and spit it out. At least I could satisfy my taste buds if not my hunger pains.

After a week of not eating at home I went back to the hospital again. Had an NG tube inserted again. IV again. And returned to the same hospital room, again.

Now here is the thing I have not told you yet about this experience which turned me into the I-hate-slightly-sick-people person that I have become; in this room I had a roommate. She was a senior lady with a head of wooly white hair. She was slight in size but her complaints took up the entire room.

She paced our room everyday from window to door only pausing at the window of our 8th floor room long enough to say, “I want to jump out the window,” or a variation of that theme.

I never knew what was wrong with my roommate. She looked perfectly healthy to me. She had no IV. She could walk on her own unaided. She slept through the night. The only problem this lady really had, as far as I could tell, was that the minute I could get out of my bed I would head over to the window hoist it open and invite her to jump.

I think this experience and others like it over the years have sucked the compassion for sick people out of me. I am compassionate in other instances but not this.

Knowing this about myself was a good thing. I'm not saying it's a positive side of my personality. A little more compassion for the slightly sick would come in handy—particularly in the profession of parenting. The saying is, 'Physician, heal thyself'. It should also be: 'Physician, know thyself,' because if you are like me and love the biology, the pathology, and the labs but not the people you should never go down the MD trail.

I write this as a cautionary tale. An aptitude for biology does not indicate a future practicing medicine. Research is a perfectly respectable profession. Just saying.

Lucky people?

This morning on Facebook I saw this post by my cousin Dan Haley who is a State Trooper in Colorado:

Tonight was one of those nights where I really felt I had an impact on a few lives. Feels good and reminds me why I do what I do.

I replied:

Lucky people have professions where they can see the positive impact of their work. It's very rewarding.

After a little thought I decided this would be a good topic to write about—how lucky it is to have a job that touches other people. When I had originally seen Dan's post I was going to respond that in both of my accidental professions—teaching and journalism-- I had occasionally had the same feeling; the work I was doing was having a real impact on a people's lives. In the end I made the above response because I didn't want to appear to reduce the importance of what he does by comparing it to what I do. I do impact lives in my work but my job doesn't ever require me to put my own life in danger.

So I started thinking about how I would begin this post and my first thought was:

Lucky—people who win the lottery aren't lucky, people who find money on the street aren't lucky, etc, etc...People who are lucky are the people whose professional lives make the world a better place.

As I searched the internet for other 'lucky' examples I could use in the previous paragraph, I realized that people whose professions make the world a better place are not lucky, they are idealistic, ethical, political, compassionate and a few more adjectives I can't think of at the moment none of which relate to luck.

People who do the type of work my cousin does don't do it because they are lucky, they do it because they want to make the world a better place. What is lucky are occasional glimpses of the beneficial results of their work.

As a teacher it often takes years before I see the success of a student. I am just adding bricks to the foundation of their lives—it takes a lot of bricks to make a house and I may never see the finished product. In rare, extremely special cases, I can see a student's mind open, see a concept grasped, and confidence expand. Those are the moments I teach for.

As a journalist/writer it is often harder to see the direct impact you have on someone's life. I have been fortunate enough to have had a few stories that were so immediately important that they made a noticeable impact. Those are rare moments and I cherish them.

I am not exactly sure what the point of this post is except to serve as a declaration against luck as a force for good in the world. Good comes from the people that make it happen. It's not lucky that my cousin is a State Trooper. It was his choice. A choice we can only hope others will also make. What we need in the world is not more luck but more Dan Haleys.

I can not finish this piece without linking to an article about my cousin Dan who was awarded a medal for heroism by the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission in 2012 for saving the life of a child. It's my privilege to call this man family.

Past lives

There is a package carefully wrapped in brown paper sitting on my desk. It has been there for almost two weeks but I can not open it; at least not yet. I am hoping that writing this may help me get to the psychological finish line that will allow me to tear the paper and read what I know is inside. Inside is a book and that book is tangible proof of everything I left behind in my last incarnation; my Thai life.

The book, Bangkok Blondes, was a project the Bangkok Women Writers Group published in 2008. For the year or so before its publication I, and several other key members of the writers group, worked furiously researching publishers, writing book proposals and calculating funding requirements for self-publishing. We held semi-regular meetings outside of regular group meetings and frequently overloaded ourselves with research on publishing to further the goal of the group.

We were close to getting the book off the ground when my relationship with my partner became untenable and I decided the best thing for me and my child was to leave the country—there was really no way to leave my partner and stay in the country; I needed distance, I needed half a planet between us to regain my sanity and ensure my safety.

In a period of just over a week I decided to upend my life and return to North America where my family would welcome my daughter and I with open arms. This was not an easy decision. It not only meant putting an exclamation mark at the end of the relationship with my partner it also meant leaving behind a life in which I was very comfortable.

Asia, and Bangkok in particular, had been where I had spent the majority of my adult life. It was in that place that I had learned who I was and what I was capable of doing—artistically, academically, and professionally. Leaving that all behind, particularly when I was on the cusp of fulfilling a major life dream (the book), was a personal catastrophe.

Some might suggest that I needn't have run so far as to cross 12 timezones but those are people who have never been scared of their partner. Never had him follow you down busy streets, on trains and taxicabs to work. Never had him accuse you of having an affair with evidence that he had unearthed by examining the trash of an entire apartment building. Never dealt with jealousy, obsession and anger everyday.

I left the country I loved because I felt I had no choice. I felt there was no other way to get my life back.

I left with one suitcase, a stroller and my baby.

I flew over continents and through time sloughing off my old life like a snake skin you might find in the jungle. My reincarnation to a life more ordinary.

This week I am free. I have sole custody of my children and my former partner no longer has a say over where I go or what I do in my life.

Through this ordeal—the back and forth between the lawyers—my former partner stated that he felt I didn't like him much. My immediate reaction was that—of course I didn't like him; his actions were constantly causing my children mental anguish. But yesterday as I sat looking at the unopened parcel on my desk I realized I also resented him for the life I lost. My friends, my writing, my work—it was a life I loved. Bangkok, I miss you daily.

The package remains a painful reminder of what I lost, what I wish I hadn't had to give up:

Slow mornings eating banana pancakes at the Atlanta Hotel.

Fast rides on motorcycle taxis.

Lazy brown river flowing past my favorite tree at Wat Chai.

River taxis.

Chulalongkorn, the calm campus in the middle of the city.

Easy, affordable child care.

Street food—som tam, Larp moo, Mussaman curry.

Students with names like—Bomb, Bank and Benz.

Rock climbing at Railay Beach.

Sitting in the open door of a train heading up country watching the paddy fields drift by.

In my new life I walk through town with a good friend and come home to a house that is mine. I pick my children up after school and my father drops in for a visit.

I love it here. I have a new list; a list of loves in this place. It is a long list.

Today might be the day I open the package. Am I ready to examine past lives? Perhaps I'll wait until I am through this turn of the wheel.