Sutured Dreams

It's not an easy job being my friend. People like to be around happy, cheerful people. Now I can be that, for a while. But eventually, my pain and scars will become apparent and I'll start making them uncomfortable with my sorrow. This problem gets worse each year.  Every time I go through a life tragedy, something inside me changes. And more often than not, it's not really for the better. I feel myself becoming less resilient as time goes by and more & more dependent on those around me.  The fact is, I don't have any sort of support system at home. That means I get incredibly attached to people very quickly and as one can guess, this sometimes does not result in a happy ending for me.  This is what I feel when I look back at the remains of my friendship with Cathy. A friendship that was ultimately only meaningful in my own head for several years.  Our friendship felt really special for a while. And I must stress on the word friendship here. It was the most pla...

ERs in peripheral hospitals are a completely different experience from those in tertiary care hospitals, as one would expect. Peripheral ERs involve a lot of primary care and preventive medicine. Only a fraction of the total number of patients coming per shift will actually need referral to a higher centre. Although technically meant for "emergency" cases, you'll always have someone come in just to check their BP (even at fucking 4 in the morning).  Some patients used to come daily. I had one patient who used to come almost daily for vague problems. She was an old lady and I learnt that she lives attached home alone nearby and just feels lonely. After that, every time she'd come during my shift I'd crack some stupid joke just to cheer her up a little bit. This wasn't exactly the kind of medicine we thought we'd be practicing during MBBS but you learn these things after a few years of practice. Working as a doctor in a village is like being a celebrity in t...