I seem to go from one extreme to the next with nothing in between. Most days it almost feels like there is no real purpose to life just routines, no enjoyment, just responsibilities. I always keep thinking that if I just finish this one test, this one semester, then I'll truly be free, truly be happy, not really knowing what happiness is. The interesting thing is I don't know what makes me happy or satisfied anymore, so how the question is how can I possible be fulfilled if I don't even know what that will take?
The question I keep asking myself is this why I've studied so much for the past 5 years in uni for, to be miserable? It's funny since today while visiting a condo development presentation, I seemed to have recognized a familiar face from the area back when I lived there who is my own age (24ish), what surprised is that she has a kid a husband....I couldn't stop thinking how young she was and how could she have a baby already? Now of course me being me, I couldn't get the nerve to talk to her because I couldn't even remember her name....but I really wish I could have.
I almost felt as if I hit an invisible wall that I couldn't penetrate and felt stuck from moving forward. In a way it reminded me of my failures in my social life. For all the success I have in school (which I still don't think is adequate), I don't feel like I am accomplishing or growing in my social life. I have no boyfriend, no prospect of a boyfriend, and no place to actually meet anyone. I am very picky and am not willing to accept anyone that does not satisfy my many criteria. If that wasn't enough I have a very moody personality, cannot flirt, and am afraid of going out...so how can I even meet anyone? How can I get married and have kids, if I haven't been in a relationship for longer than 1 month?
Now that I'm done my last unit, am I doing anything fun? no, of course not. My typical day includes acting as a nurse for my grandfather and putting drops in his eyes, as a physio to my dad and attempting to get him to seek professional help, as a diagnostician to my mom and attempt to research the cause of her vision loss and get her to see a specialist. Now I've also added 1 hour of exercising on the weekends at home with a make-shift gym, and of course the now never ending emails and texts regarding the research project....did I mention dealing with my cat's tooth infection?
I still do not have any appetite to eat, and have to force myself to eat at least 3 small meals/day, have lost the 5 pounds I need to have a constant period and therefore have started skipping periods again. I have also started loosing my hair to add to the other growing issues...
The time that I do have, I try to just shut the door and work on my research project but end up looking at the newspapers and going on fb, and forums and being completely unproductive and end up becoming even more miserable...should I get a new hobby?
The only thing I think about is money, but after today and seeing my friend with a kid, I think what's the point of money if you can't share it with someone, or be unable to go out once in awhile and enjoy life?
I'm just tired of the constant uncertainty of the future, the constant pressure to do well and succeed and be able to do it all. There is only so much pressure a person can take before losing it and a lot of people cannot seem to understand this....I feel responsible for the health and welfare of all 4 members of my family and yet cannot keep up with all the medical issues that keep surfacing daily all the while completely ignoring my own issues. Everytime I go out I feel guilty because I know that my mom has more work to do keeping the household running, and it seems everytime I go out there is a new emergency that occurs. Everytime I also have to think carefully will I get sick, will I infect all of my family? Will it take months and many meds for them to recover from a simple cold?
I also feel a pressure from my parents to finish and start supporting myself and helping them.....my dad is approaching his 60's and wants to retire in 5 years, but for him to do that comfortably he has to know that I can support myself, which isn't unreasonably but it's more pressure on me to finish well...get a good full-time job preferably close by....and of course they want me to get married and have kids...preferably soon.....Can I actually live up to all those expectations?
I don't know what the solution is to my never-ending stress, constant emergencies, and high expectations...maybe the solution is to unplug my life at least a little and try making goals for the future...and I probably do need something to help me destress a little and I will probably try reading at least a little each day to distract me from my own life...and maybe I have to try to set up some schedule to try to accomplish the things I need to accomplish. I will also try to set up some boundaries and try to reduce the expectations I keep feeling since it is not helping me and is making me more stressed.
I have to accept the fact that I can't do everything, I can't study in school full-time and then try to also find a boyfriend...given my family responsibilities it is just too much....that also means letting go of the guilt I feel daily and trying at least to do the best I can but knowing that it is impossible and all I can do is try my best to stay on top of everything.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Accepting a bad hand in PT school
It is tough to swallow a bitter pill, especially in life. I came into this program optimistically thinking that everyone tries to keep your interests at heart, but I quickly learned its not the case. Being in a class of 80 people in a way it is understandable that not everyone will get what they want in terms of placements or research choices but it is still hard to accept. I feel that the faculty really don't care what experiences we have as long as we get through the components of the program and I feel this is a very unfair way of doing things. We're also not given full information about placements and are just asked to pick blindly not knowing the exact unit, what it entails and what clinician will be there.
Based on our picking our research project, we were basically asked to rank 10/18, and were told that we would get top 5 when of course a lot of us didn't, and got stuck with projects we didn't really want but were forced to rank. The hardest thing to accept is that I know now that some people will get more opportunities later on when they graduate because of the research that they did and the connections that they made, and that is what annoys me most.
I quess I'm just tired of the unequal opportunities we get that are based on nothing but luck. Now I can't say I would do a lot better if things were based on marks since I'm definitely not top of the class. To me I quess it's just another thing to add of things that I can't control and is unfair.
The placements is a whole other story since there is sometimes no logic on who get's what and it really is based on luck. I have had to employ some really interesting strategies to at least try to get what I wanted, and it usually means accepting something that I don't necessarily want but willing to accept so as not to get sent 2 hours of travelling in the opposite direction. I've felt guilty because some of my friends aren't so lucky and I don't always give the best advice on what they should choose.
Compounding all the other issues is of course that my grandfather has had to move in with us temporarily due to a bad eye infection where we have had to give him 4 diff types of drops 4 times/day, and its complicating matters in our family and making all of us more stressed and he's becoming more depressed.
I quess I have to accept that I don't always get what I want, and I just have to make the best of it because in life you rarely get what you want, at least that's what I learned from my life so far.
Based on our picking our research project, we were basically asked to rank 10/18, and were told that we would get top 5 when of course a lot of us didn't, and got stuck with projects we didn't really want but were forced to rank. The hardest thing to accept is that I know now that some people will get more opportunities later on when they graduate because of the research that they did and the connections that they made, and that is what annoys me most.
I quess I'm just tired of the unequal opportunities we get that are based on nothing but luck. Now I can't say I would do a lot better if things were based on marks since I'm definitely not top of the class. To me I quess it's just another thing to add of things that I can't control and is unfair.
The placements is a whole other story since there is sometimes no logic on who get's what and it really is based on luck. I have had to employ some really interesting strategies to at least try to get what I wanted, and it usually means accepting something that I don't necessarily want but willing to accept so as not to get sent 2 hours of travelling in the opposite direction. I've felt guilty because some of my friends aren't so lucky and I don't always give the best advice on what they should choose.
Compounding all the other issues is of course that my grandfather has had to move in with us temporarily due to a bad eye infection where we have had to give him 4 diff types of drops 4 times/day, and its complicating matters in our family and making all of us more stressed and he's becoming more depressed.
I quess I have to accept that I don't always get what I want, and I just have to make the best of it because in life you rarely get what you want, at least that's what I learned from my life so far.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Invisible Illness
Last week was Invisible Illness week and Kerri has inspired me to write a bit about it. http://kerriontheprairies.com
My own life is probably not the best example since I don't feel that I'm that different and have to adapt my life that much to cope, and I'm lucky that way. I look normal and healthy and most of the time I am. My asthma is very mild, and if I avoid my triggers I don't have an issue. The problems arise when I try to do something out of the ordinary...this past week, I decided to go to a restaurant with my friends downtown and there was a lot of construction and dust, and that set of an asthma attack which I haven't had in a while and was sort of unprepared for. I started wheezing, hyperventilating, coughing and feeling lightheaded. I of course, tried to hide it for a while and didn't want to make them alarmed but in the end I told them I couldn't go through another construction zone because I couldn't breathe. At the restaurant my breathing thankfully normalized and I forgot all about it.
The incident though got me thinking about the small things I do to try to avoid triggers and how it can inconvenience some people. I generally try to avoid walking downtown because of the dust, cars, pollution and smoke. I try to avoid touching common surfaces (busses), and avoid sitting next to people that cough to not get their cold since its a major trigger. I no longer eat any food outside of my home with my hands for the above reasons, and I almost never accept food from other people also due to the fear of getting sick. Most of these things are really minor to me but for some reason other people find it a bit crazy (just a bit) and even when I explain my logic they still don't truly get it. For them, if they get sick, its just 3 days of a cold, and most can go to school and function normally. For me though, its usually a week of staying home, in bed, with a severe cough and sometimes fever, chest-tightness and wheezing, and them possible another week of antibiotics because the bacteria multiplies more readily. It's ironic that with my phobia of getting sick, I decided to go into the health care field.
Of course this got me thinking about who else I know that also has an invisible illness. My circle of friends and family include people with hyperthyroidism/hypothyroidism, autism, bipolar, 1 eye blindness, Rheumatoid arthritis, PCOS, insomnia, food allergies, liver issues, depression, and leukemia(treatable).
In my own clinical experiences, I've interacted with people with parkinson's, MS, CP, stroke, ABI, cancer, alzeimer's, where depending on their stage/progression, might appear perfectly normal, but are using all the energy they have to make that type of appearance. Is it worth it though?
In the end the biggest difference we can make is advocacy and education. If more people understood the difficulties people with invisible and visible illnesses face, more would be willing to make adaptations to help make everyone's life a little easier. So next time you see someone coughing while you're smoking, consider putting out that cigarette; next time you frown when someone asks you to not being a peanut to school realize that you could save their life and next time you're frustrated that you can't understand someone's speech, realize that they could have had a stroke and are trying their hardest to talk.
My own life is probably not the best example since I don't feel that I'm that different and have to adapt my life that much to cope, and I'm lucky that way. I look normal and healthy and most of the time I am. My asthma is very mild, and if I avoid my triggers I don't have an issue. The problems arise when I try to do something out of the ordinary...this past week, I decided to go to a restaurant with my friends downtown and there was a lot of construction and dust, and that set of an asthma attack which I haven't had in a while and was sort of unprepared for. I started wheezing, hyperventilating, coughing and feeling lightheaded. I of course, tried to hide it for a while and didn't want to make them alarmed but in the end I told them I couldn't go through another construction zone because I couldn't breathe. At the restaurant my breathing thankfully normalized and I forgot all about it.
The incident though got me thinking about the small things I do to try to avoid triggers and how it can inconvenience some people. I generally try to avoid walking downtown because of the dust, cars, pollution and smoke. I try to avoid touching common surfaces (busses), and avoid sitting next to people that cough to not get their cold since its a major trigger. I no longer eat any food outside of my home with my hands for the above reasons, and I almost never accept food from other people also due to the fear of getting sick. Most of these things are really minor to me but for some reason other people find it a bit crazy (just a bit) and even when I explain my logic they still don't truly get it. For them, if they get sick, its just 3 days of a cold, and most can go to school and function normally. For me though, its usually a week of staying home, in bed, with a severe cough and sometimes fever, chest-tightness and wheezing, and them possible another week of antibiotics because the bacteria multiplies more readily. It's ironic that with my phobia of getting sick, I decided to go into the health care field.
Of course this got me thinking about who else I know that also has an invisible illness. My circle of friends and family include people with hyperthyroidism/hypothyroidism, autism, bipolar, 1 eye blindness, Rheumatoid arthritis, PCOS, insomnia, food allergies, liver issues, depression, and leukemia(treatable).
In my own clinical experiences, I've interacted with people with parkinson's, MS, CP, stroke, ABI, cancer, alzeimer's, where depending on their stage/progression, might appear perfectly normal, but are using all the energy they have to make that type of appearance. Is it worth it though?
In the end the biggest difference we can make is advocacy and education. If more people understood the difficulties people with invisible and visible illnesses face, more would be willing to make adaptations to help make everyone's life a little easier. So next time you see someone coughing while you're smoking, consider putting out that cigarette; next time you frown when someone asks you to not being a peanut to school realize that you could save their life and next time you're frustrated that you can't understand someone's speech, realize that they could have had a stroke and are trying their hardest to talk.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Dreading studying and accepting limitations
It's been a difficult couple of days and I'm officially sensory overloaded so have no motivation to study, and just get really distracted thinking about the last couple of days....it doesn't help that there are just too many distractions suck as family members coming into my room constantly and me not having the energy to tell them to leave...It also doesn't help that today's 9/11.
This test is hard for me to study since it is on emotionally difficult topics. Learning everyone about SCI, MS, Parkinson's, CP, Muscular Dystrophy, Polio, is hard because a lot of the time there is no cure and not a lot that can be done to improve people's life and functioning.
In a way I have lost all enthusiasm and motivation for studying the topics since they are so depressing. It's difficult because there is no one I can really talk since my family have their hands full with medical emergencies which are partly my fault, most of my classmates don't take things so personally as I do, but some things just trigger my emotions to bubble up to the surface and I have to constantly surpress them so that my family doesn't get worried. There is some help through the school but I'm too scared to access it since its not always as anonymous as we like to believe. So I end up supressing my feelings, studying from 8pm-3am since that is the time when I have some quiet, and forcing my brain shut itself off.
The worse is the constant pretending that I have to do. You would think that after so many years I would learn how to process all the emotions and thoughts I have but I feel it just get's worse since the doubts, fear, failures and regrets just keep building. The only thing I have learned to suppress everything I feel from everyone around me, so that they keep thinking I'm fine when in fact I'm not, and feel like my head is going to explode.
I realized that being in the hospital, triggered all the negative memories and that is what probably in a way triggered the fainting episode. I was used to being the professional, and coming back as a relative of a patient just caused my brain to shut off since I had no control anymore over anything.
So now, going to try to force my brain to stop spinning, for 4 more days so that I could pass the next test, and then attempt to deal with my issues, although I realized that there is no quick fix and I will probably have to keep dealing with them my whole life. I can't stop my parents and grandparents from aging, I can't control where I will work, I also can't change my personality and be more outgoing, and I can't stop myself from being sensory overloaded from most people take for granted. I also can't stop myself regretting decisions in my life. I have to try to live with all of my issues and either learn to suppress my feelings from others or develop a way to de-stress. I have to accept that my life has not the easiest (although it's tougher for a lot of people) and with the constant moving/immigrating, I missed opportunities to experience what a lot of people take for granted, such as stability, security (although in today's economy that's debatable), and learning normal ways to interact with others (although this could be because of my personality). I will probably struggle interacting with others in English for my whole life since due to my shy personality I was never forced to actually talk to others.
We learn that kids are resilient and even if they don't have the perfect environment they still develop relatively normal, but what we don't learn is that deficits still exist and what one person perceives as completely normal, with more analysis learns that there is a lot of effort and compensation required to appear normal.
I feel like a fraud most days, trying to pretend that I'm someone I'm not. I look with envy at people that don't have to pretend, where they don't care what people think and are themselves. The biggest problem I have is that I don't know who I actually am, since I feel like all I've ever tried to do is study and stay healthy. I am that boring person who doesn't have a life, and all I do is go to school and study, who doesn't go out, doesn't have hobbies or a bf. What most people don't get is how much energy that alone takes, that I have a lot of responsibilities at home, and that my brain does not enjoy going out to crowded places.
How do I develop my identity, if I go from one emergency to another? How can learn to deal with things when I have very few people that I can actually talk openly to and not feel judged? How do I stop the what if's?
In a way I have to come to terms with my limitations and responsibilities since that is what a mature person actually does. Will I ever be outgoing? no. Will I ever like bars/clubs? no. Will I ever stop regretting things? no. Will I ever stop being emotionally moved by events? probably not. Will I ever be truly happy go lucky? most likely not. The sooner I accept these things about myself and stop trying to change the better my coping skills will become. Some things are just impossible to change and one has to learn to live with them.
This test is hard for me to study since it is on emotionally difficult topics. Learning everyone about SCI, MS, Parkinson's, CP, Muscular Dystrophy, Polio, is hard because a lot of the time there is no cure and not a lot that can be done to improve people's life and functioning.
In a way I have lost all enthusiasm and motivation for studying the topics since they are so depressing. It's difficult because there is no one I can really talk since my family have their hands full with medical emergencies which are partly my fault, most of my classmates don't take things so personally as I do, but some things just trigger my emotions to bubble up to the surface and I have to constantly surpress them so that my family doesn't get worried. There is some help through the school but I'm too scared to access it since its not always as anonymous as we like to believe. So I end up supressing my feelings, studying from 8pm-3am since that is the time when I have some quiet, and forcing my brain shut itself off.
The worse is the constant pretending that I have to do. You would think that after so many years I would learn how to process all the emotions and thoughts I have but I feel it just get's worse since the doubts, fear, failures and regrets just keep building. The only thing I have learned to suppress everything I feel from everyone around me, so that they keep thinking I'm fine when in fact I'm not, and feel like my head is going to explode.
I realized that being in the hospital, triggered all the negative memories and that is what probably in a way triggered the fainting episode. I was used to being the professional, and coming back as a relative of a patient just caused my brain to shut off since I had no control anymore over anything.
So now, going to try to force my brain to stop spinning, for 4 more days so that I could pass the next test, and then attempt to deal with my issues, although I realized that there is no quick fix and I will probably have to keep dealing with them my whole life. I can't stop my parents and grandparents from aging, I can't control where I will work, I also can't change my personality and be more outgoing, and I can't stop myself from being sensory overloaded from most people take for granted. I also can't stop myself regretting decisions in my life. I have to try to live with all of my issues and either learn to suppress my feelings from others or develop a way to de-stress. I have to accept that my life has not the easiest (although it's tougher for a lot of people) and with the constant moving/immigrating, I missed opportunities to experience what a lot of people take for granted, such as stability, security (although in today's economy that's debatable), and learning normal ways to interact with others (although this could be because of my personality). I will probably struggle interacting with others in English for my whole life since due to my shy personality I was never forced to actually talk to others.
We learn that kids are resilient and even if they don't have the perfect environment they still develop relatively normal, but what we don't learn is that deficits still exist and what one person perceives as completely normal, with more analysis learns that there is a lot of effort and compensation required to appear normal.
I feel like a fraud most days, trying to pretend that I'm someone I'm not. I look with envy at people that don't have to pretend, where they don't care what people think and are themselves. The biggest problem I have is that I don't know who I actually am, since I feel like all I've ever tried to do is study and stay healthy. I am that boring person who doesn't have a life, and all I do is go to school and study, who doesn't go out, doesn't have hobbies or a bf. What most people don't get is how much energy that alone takes, that I have a lot of responsibilities at home, and that my brain does not enjoy going out to crowded places.
How do I develop my identity, if I go from one emergency to another? How can learn to deal with things when I have very few people that I can actually talk openly to and not feel judged? How do I stop the what if's?
In a way I have to come to terms with my limitations and responsibilities since that is what a mature person actually does. Will I ever be outgoing? no. Will I ever like bars/clubs? no. Will I ever stop regretting things? no. Will I ever stop being emotionally moved by events? probably not. Will I ever be truly happy go lucky? most likely not. The sooner I accept these things about myself and stop trying to change the better my coping skills will become. Some things are just impossible to change and one has to learn to live with them.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Ignoring a problem will not make it go away
I've often found myself ignoring minor medical issues and thinking that eventually they will somehow resolve on their own and today I've learned the hard way that ignoring issues only makes things worse in the long-term.
My close relative has always had issues with his vision and we tried to get it checked out but unfortunately didn't get a very good optho and the issue was missed and subsequently we continued to ignore it. This past week the issue became serious fairly quickly with a bad eye infection, scratched cornea, and very high IOP. I felt very responsible since ultimately we should have pushed for more investigations with a different doctor and these issues could have been at least partially prevented. The consequence is that he could now have permanent vision loss in his eye whereas before it could have been temporary.
Some people would think that having some medical knowledge I would at least attempt to be healthier myself and keep my own problems under control yet it is often the opposite. A month ago, I specifically went to do a general annual blood test to see if there are any issues that I need to manage. Well....I learned that I have low iron and B12 levels....now to my defense they were low and not critically low and so I decided to put them at the back of my mind and forget about it, I mean I'm not symptomatic right? Well...if I wasn't then...I am now.
Today during my relative's eye appointment I fainted and apparently turned green and started having muscle twitches....now for some it is not a big deal but this has never happened to me even when I was watching a fairly bloody surgery during my placement so it wasn't the procedure that bothered me. Now I could attribute it to many factors: not enough sleep, not enough fluids, standing for a long time, being in a small non-ventilated office... but most likely the main thing that contributed to it was my anemia which I continually ignore.
This will probably sound very illogical, but my attempt to 'treat' this anemia before, was by dieting to lose weight so that I would go back to having irregular cycles and thereby reduce blood loss and therefore improve the anemia...ridiculous right? The plan of course failed, I was not losing weight since I am already underweight anyway, and my cycles stayed regular, the only result was that my iron levels got so low that I ended up fainting...
I have learned my lesson about letting things go too far, I have realized that since I am a female, I should have regular cycles, and trying to make them irregular doesn't make sense. I have started taking vitamin B12 to improve the absorption of iron from my diet, and have increased the amount I eat. I am going to try to get more sleep although am not sure how successful that will be, but I should try, and I am trying to drink more fluids. I will then force myself to go back to the doc to recheck my levels to see if there is any improvement in a few months. We are controlling my relative's eye pressure with meds and are going back to the optho regularly to make sure it comes down and doesn't start affecting the other eye and cause permanent blindness.
I guess the lesson is don't let medical issues deteriorate to the point where it becomes too late to manage it, everyone needs to take advocate for themselves, and if they think they're not being treated appropriately get another doc or seek a second opinion, and if you're going to treat the problem yourself at least bounce the idea off an actual professional.
My close relative has always had issues with his vision and we tried to get it checked out but unfortunately didn't get a very good optho and the issue was missed and subsequently we continued to ignore it. This past week the issue became serious fairly quickly with a bad eye infection, scratched cornea, and very high IOP. I felt very responsible since ultimately we should have pushed for more investigations with a different doctor and these issues could have been at least partially prevented. The consequence is that he could now have permanent vision loss in his eye whereas before it could have been temporary.
Some people would think that having some medical knowledge I would at least attempt to be healthier myself and keep my own problems under control yet it is often the opposite. A month ago, I specifically went to do a general annual blood test to see if there are any issues that I need to manage. Well....I learned that I have low iron and B12 levels....now to my defense they were low and not critically low and so I decided to put them at the back of my mind and forget about it, I mean I'm not symptomatic right? Well...if I wasn't then...I am now.
Today during my relative's eye appointment I fainted and apparently turned green and started having muscle twitches....now for some it is not a big deal but this has never happened to me even when I was watching a fairly bloody surgery during my placement so it wasn't the procedure that bothered me. Now I could attribute it to many factors: not enough sleep, not enough fluids, standing for a long time, being in a small non-ventilated office... but most likely the main thing that contributed to it was my anemia which I continually ignore.
This will probably sound very illogical, but my attempt to 'treat' this anemia before, was by dieting to lose weight so that I would go back to having irregular cycles and thereby reduce blood loss and therefore improve the anemia...ridiculous right? The plan of course failed, I was not losing weight since I am already underweight anyway, and my cycles stayed regular, the only result was that my iron levels got so low that I ended up fainting...
I have learned my lesson about letting things go too far, I have realized that since I am a female, I should have regular cycles, and trying to make them irregular doesn't make sense. I have started taking vitamin B12 to improve the absorption of iron from my diet, and have increased the amount I eat. I am going to try to get more sleep although am not sure how successful that will be, but I should try, and I am trying to drink more fluids. I will then force myself to go back to the doc to recheck my levels to see if there is any improvement in a few months. We are controlling my relative's eye pressure with meds and are going back to the optho regularly to make sure it comes down and doesn't start affecting the other eye and cause permanent blindness.
I guess the lesson is don't let medical issues deteriorate to the point where it becomes too late to manage it, everyone needs to take advocate for themselves, and if they think they're not being treated appropriately get another doc or seek a second opinion, and if you're going to treat the problem yourself at least bounce the idea off an actual professional.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Getting out and Seeing things from another perspective
I don't usually go out to restaurants or anywhere because of time pressures and of course because I'm paranoid of germs, but sometimes it does help to get out and get out of the rut.
Today, I got the chance to unwind a bit, eat, and even dance a bit. I got a chance to talk to some friends who I haven't seen in a while, and I realized they're all struggling, struggling with what career path to take, regretting their past choices in their previous university degree, and also struggling to find some sort of trail that will carve out their future.
None of them have the answers and often think about the same things I do. Will I find the right partner to spend my life with? Did I choose the right program to continue my studies? Will I ever be able to move out and start my own life? Where will that new life be?
In a lot of ways, it is harder for our generation, there is no real light shining in front of us, there is a lot of fog, and its up to us to compete in this fog with many others to hopefully gain a path to the future...but in a way it is somewhat comforting that we are all in the same boat, and we all have regrets, and hope and wishes, and not all these wishes come true and sometimes if they do, it is not what we originally envisioned it would look like.
What's interesting, is they look at me with envy, thinking that I have it all figured out, and will finish in a year, and will have a great career supposedly, while they're still struggling getting into a post-grad program, but to me it's funny, since I'm the last person that has anything figured out. I continue to daily question my decisions, and continue to wonder if I will even get a job once I graduate anywhere close or will I have to choose to move far away to find some type of work or bite the bullet and stay here and attempt to start my own practice which is definitely not ideal, since I feel I am not prepared at all and do not have neither the skills, confidence or business knowledge to even attempt it, yet it is possible I might not have a choice.
Today though did mark an achievement for me, I was finally able to let go of my anger and bitterness and become friends with a guy that I went on a few dates with. I was finally able to see why it didn't work, what went wrong, and that ultimately we aren't really a match....now I can't say the attraction is completely gone, but at this new level of understanding I am able to not let the attraction and bitterness take over, and think more rationally about the whole situation and realize that there needs to be a lot more than attraction for a relationship to work and if there isn't than there is no point in forcing it, since it won't work.
My fears, doubts and regrets are not unique, and everybody struggles with a lot of these things in their life. Making my issues to be a big deal is not helping me solve anything, it just makes me more anxious and down. So...I am going to try to keep this in mind, and try to not make every small issue into a big catastrophe since its not. I will definitely try to get out more, since a change in scenery always helps put things into perspective and lets you change up the mundane life we tend to lead.
Today, I got the chance to unwind a bit, eat, and even dance a bit. I got a chance to talk to some friends who I haven't seen in a while, and I realized they're all struggling, struggling with what career path to take, regretting their past choices in their previous university degree, and also struggling to find some sort of trail that will carve out their future.
None of them have the answers and often think about the same things I do. Will I find the right partner to spend my life with? Did I choose the right program to continue my studies? Will I ever be able to move out and start my own life? Where will that new life be?
In a lot of ways, it is harder for our generation, there is no real light shining in front of us, there is a lot of fog, and its up to us to compete in this fog with many others to hopefully gain a path to the future...but in a way it is somewhat comforting that we are all in the same boat, and we all have regrets, and hope and wishes, and not all these wishes come true and sometimes if they do, it is not what we originally envisioned it would look like.
What's interesting, is they look at me with envy, thinking that I have it all figured out, and will finish in a year, and will have a great career supposedly, while they're still struggling getting into a post-grad program, but to me it's funny, since I'm the last person that has anything figured out. I continue to daily question my decisions, and continue to wonder if I will even get a job once I graduate anywhere close or will I have to choose to move far away to find some type of work or bite the bullet and stay here and attempt to start my own practice which is definitely not ideal, since I feel I am not prepared at all and do not have neither the skills, confidence or business knowledge to even attempt it, yet it is possible I might not have a choice.
Today though did mark an achievement for me, I was finally able to let go of my anger and bitterness and become friends with a guy that I went on a few dates with. I was finally able to see why it didn't work, what went wrong, and that ultimately we aren't really a match....now I can't say the attraction is completely gone, but at this new level of understanding I am able to not let the attraction and bitterness take over, and think more rationally about the whole situation and realize that there needs to be a lot more than attraction for a relationship to work and if there isn't than there is no point in forcing it, since it won't work.
My fears, doubts and regrets are not unique, and everybody struggles with a lot of these things in their life. Making my issues to be a big deal is not helping me solve anything, it just makes me more anxious and down. So...I am going to try to keep this in mind, and try to not make every small issue into a big catastrophe since its not. I will definitely try to get out more, since a change in scenery always helps put things into perspective and lets you change up the mundane life we tend to lead.
Friday, September 2, 2011
Placements and feeling stuck
So it is again the time to choose placements, and I'm definitely stressed. Due to my previous negative experiences I see every choice as a bad one. The problem is multiplied since I feel we're not given all the information we need to make informed choices and have to piece things together ourselves. We are given a list of places and a brief description but we're not given the instructor's name or even initials. We also have no way of knowing the different expectations and procedures that each place has and surprisingly the same type of unit in different hospitals can be set up very differently with very different expectations and roles.
It is also very frustrating since I feel we're not given the learning opportunities that we need to have when we graduate since we're at the mercy of what type of institutions are willing to give us a chance. In my current placement, I feel that I am shooting myself in the foot no matter what I choose. I cannot pick any interesting placements like peds ones since I am terrified of not picking things up fast enough and not having a patient instructor. I do not feel ready for any outpatient placements since we did not learn enough in class and would feel overwhelmed...and even if I do pick an outpatient place now it means I wouldn't be able to do it in my last placement and that is a major disadvantage since I hope to work in an outpatient setting.
So the only choices that remain are hospital wards where I end up only ambulating (walking, transferring) patients and doing a lot of paperwork instead of learning something useful for the future. I also end up terrified of picking up MRSA, VRE, or the common cold.
It's tough now, because I feel stuck...I have to keep telling myself that this is temporary, that I will eventually find an environment to work where I will at least not dislike it so strongly, but the regrets never go away. Sometimes I wonder if it ever get's easier or does it just get harder with years when problems just keep building.
I remember a year ago, being so energetic, so awed by the 2nd years who felt so confident, so mature, whereas I felt so green and so lucky to be in the program. A year on, I do feel a lot more mature and more confident but I've lost the energy that I think those 2nd years also lost. I understand the problems of the profession a lot more now and realize that its not all 'helping people get better' and 'watching miracles' its a lot more complicated than that. Its a lot more beurecracy and business. I've also realized that its not accessible to a lot of people and has become a 2-tiered system where the people with insurance can get better but the ones that don't are stuck and are not eligible for rehab (only very basic). The other thing we don't hear about is that not everyone get's better and we can't fix everything, and sometimes watching a person struggle with basic functions in life that we all take for granted or be in pain, and know that we can't help them is the hardest part of the job. No matter how much they teach us that we have to do our best to improve their quality of life, we know that for some people we can't do this and explaining this to a patient or family can break your heart.
We work so closely with patients that sometimes we can't help taking things home with us and their stories never leave us, I wish there was a balance between shutting out all emotion or actually being empathetic, but there isn't. There is either one or the other and unfortunately the ones that are empathetic end up either burning out and leaving the profession or becoming cold and shutting out all feelings since.
I wish had more answers than questions, wish that I could be more optimistic about the future and have the guts to try to fix it instead of watching from afar the mess that everything is creating, wish that life was about more non-profit co-operation and making the world more livable for everyone rather than about profit, greed and fraud. Some days I wonder if I didn't have feelings or a moral compass would life be easier....
On that happy note, I will now force myself to try to forget about everything, shut our my feelings and try to read about 20 lectures. Hope everyone enjoys the weekend, it won't be long until summer is forgotten and the falling leaves remind us of the a new season that we're in.
It is also very frustrating since I feel we're not given the learning opportunities that we need to have when we graduate since we're at the mercy of what type of institutions are willing to give us a chance. In my current placement, I feel that I am shooting myself in the foot no matter what I choose. I cannot pick any interesting placements like peds ones since I am terrified of not picking things up fast enough and not having a patient instructor. I do not feel ready for any outpatient placements since we did not learn enough in class and would feel overwhelmed...and even if I do pick an outpatient place now it means I wouldn't be able to do it in my last placement and that is a major disadvantage since I hope to work in an outpatient setting.
So the only choices that remain are hospital wards where I end up only ambulating (walking, transferring) patients and doing a lot of paperwork instead of learning something useful for the future. I also end up terrified of picking up MRSA, VRE, or the common cold.
It's tough now, because I feel stuck...I have to keep telling myself that this is temporary, that I will eventually find an environment to work where I will at least not dislike it so strongly, but the regrets never go away. Sometimes I wonder if it ever get's easier or does it just get harder with years when problems just keep building.
I remember a year ago, being so energetic, so awed by the 2nd years who felt so confident, so mature, whereas I felt so green and so lucky to be in the program. A year on, I do feel a lot more mature and more confident but I've lost the energy that I think those 2nd years also lost. I understand the problems of the profession a lot more now and realize that its not all 'helping people get better' and 'watching miracles' its a lot more complicated than that. Its a lot more beurecracy and business. I've also realized that its not accessible to a lot of people and has become a 2-tiered system where the people with insurance can get better but the ones that don't are stuck and are not eligible for rehab (only very basic). The other thing we don't hear about is that not everyone get's better and we can't fix everything, and sometimes watching a person struggle with basic functions in life that we all take for granted or be in pain, and know that we can't help them is the hardest part of the job. No matter how much they teach us that we have to do our best to improve their quality of life, we know that for some people we can't do this and explaining this to a patient or family can break your heart.
We work so closely with patients that sometimes we can't help taking things home with us and their stories never leave us, I wish there was a balance between shutting out all emotion or actually being empathetic, but there isn't. There is either one or the other and unfortunately the ones that are empathetic end up either burning out and leaving the profession or becoming cold and shutting out all feelings since.
I wish had more answers than questions, wish that I could be more optimistic about the future and have the guts to try to fix it instead of watching from afar the mess that everything is creating, wish that life was about more non-profit co-operation and making the world more livable for everyone rather than about profit, greed and fraud. Some days I wonder if I didn't have feelings or a moral compass would life be easier....
On that happy note, I will now force myself to try to forget about everything, shut our my feelings and try to read about 20 lectures. Hope everyone enjoys the weekend, it won't be long until summer is forgotten and the falling leaves remind us of the a new season that we're in.
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