New Beginnings

2013 has come. I guess the Mayans were not so accurate with their predictions, eh? All's well that ends well. No hurricanes, no earthquakes, no earth-swallowing catastrophes, no nothing - which is a good thing, by the way, because I got to spend my holidays at home in Cebu with my boboiboy and my family and friends. My Christmas holidays were awesome, by the way. We had Noche Buena, Media Noche, and a High School Christmas party in between. I also got to spend quality time with the love of my life, my little Andrei - who has grown big and talkative and adamant. Hehe. But he's a joy to behold and a joy to talk to. 

*gets tissue from the rack ~reminiscing*

Haha! I just miss him dearly.

Anyway, 2013 it is. It's a new year so this means a new beginning. I have to reboot my system, my whole existence, and learn from the mistakes of the past. I wrote in my planner that this year will be my year to shine. I am determined to do that and be that. I won't make any resolutions though because they have never really worked for me. Dreams and goals and inspirations will be my motivation. I'm excited for this year. I am happy. I am free. To new beginnings!

What Is Happening?

I am reaching the point where my brain is saturated with all that there is to know about the world of medicine. My brain refuses to process any information that I read from any medical text book or transcription. And for the past week, I noticed that my memory has not been as sharp as it was before. What is happening?

The First Happy Day of My Medicine Rotation

I am so happy today! And to think I'm on duty! Haha! Thank heavens!

I am currently rotating in Internal Medicine as of this posting and suffice it to say that since this rotation started, each day sucked for me for a lot of reasons.

(1) I am not inclined to the Medical field. I am leaning more towards the Surgical field.

(2) I do not like the ambiance of the department in general. There is something in it that I cannot pinpoint that sets me off.

(3) I tend to compare Medicine with other rotations and as we all know, comparison is the thief of happiness. Medicine just loses over Surgery, Ophtha, ENT, heck, even OB-GYN. (Obvious bang gusto ko talaga mag-surgery? Haha!)

(4) I do not like some of the residents in Medicine. Haha! Sorry. 

And because I carry all these "bitterness" so to speak in my heart each day since October 1, I really did not enjoy my rotation. It has its glory days of course (as with all other things), but when summing it all up, this rotation gives me a negative balance (parang I&O lang - pun intended).

But today was different. As I mentioned in my previous posts, I have been doing a lot of YOLO-ing, a lot of emo moments, a lot of reading regarding self-motivation and what-have-you's. Because of that, I decided to start my day right. I woke up early, did not reprimand my yaya, and went to duty. And then I went to the chapel to pray and thank God for this day. I went on to ask for forgiveness. I went on to ask for blessing. I went on to seek for His guidance. And it was a refreshing thing for me to do since I feel like I have been so independent for the longest time. I am at ease knowing that I can lift it all up to Him and let Him carry my burden. After the small chat with Him, I tried to study in the chapel since it was the only place in the hospital I know that is soothing, cold, smells like flowers, and most importantly, quiet. Haha! But then, my study was cut short because there were 3 consecutive code blues (will talk about this soon). After which, it was a pretty benign ER Duty Day followed by a meeting of all clerks, interns, and residents of SLMC regarding JCI Accreditation. We had patient endorsements after and then I had patient rounds with my senior resident. 

That is actually my typical duty day in Internal Medicine. Pretty much a-okay, right? But because the bitterness and the anger was so fueled up inside of me back then, I didn't really get to enjoy what this rotation had in store for me. Okay, so maybe the residents I work with now also had something to do with it. Haha! I don't really know the answer to that but honestly, I blame no one but myself because I allowed all the negativities to eat me up before.

Anyway, back to why I am happy today. I am happy today for a lot of reasons.

(1) I went to the chapel and prayed.

(2) I decided to smile.

(3) I tried to be open-minded.

(4) I did not entertain negativities.

There are probably a lot more reasons but that is all I can think of as of this moment. And I am happy no matter how mundane it may sound. The lesson I learned today was this: If I change, everything changes. All the YOLO-ing and the emo moments helped me change my outlook in life. My life is way beyond perfect. In fact, I still have several things to tweak to make it a notch above the norm. But the key, I have learned, or more aptly, re-learned (because I knew this already), is choosing to see a better perspective. My perspective back then was focused on the sad, the mad, the drab, and the flab. Right now, I must say I made a better choice by looking at a brighter sunshine ahead. And at this moment, I can confidently shout out to the world that this is the first happy day of my medicine rotation because of one choice I made to change my perspective. What about you? What's your choice?