Addicted To Love

I watched last Friday's edition of Alicia Silverstone's TV series, "Miss Match" where she plays a lawyer who moonlights as a matchmaker. Too often, she gets involved in the lives of the people she brings together. She goes to a shrink who tells her matchmaking may be a manifestation of her obsessing with other peoples' love lives to avoid her own. She could be a love addict herself. Then it struck me. I've been playing the role of a matchmaker to my friends too. When they hit it off, I couldn't be more ecstatic for them. And when they break apart, I suffer from depression just as much.

Apparently, I've been living vicariously through my friends, to avoid confronting the reality of my own non-existent love life. Though I am a self confessed ultra-feminist, cold, narcissistic being, with an idiosyncratic allergy to men, it occurred to me that all these could just be a brave front i'm trying to put on, to mask my unfounded fear of rejection . That all along, I'm in denial that I actually am a hopeless romantic, a love addict even.

I've grown in love with the idea of love itself that i end up seeking it in the wrong guys. Deep inside, I could still be hoping for somebody who would turn my negative views on love around, restore my faith in love and somebody worth taking the risks. Heck, it takes guts to admit that. Then again, maybe i wouldn't have to do that. I could just be a plain cold cynic. Someone who believes that romantic love is for everybody else except herself. No rationalization required. A cynic. Nothing more, nothing less.I may even die being one.

My Life as a Vampire

I sleep during the day and stay awake all night. I risk the surge of skin breakouts and my immune system crashing. Such an unhealthy habit, I know. Being a doctor, my body has been accustomed to the toxic lifestyle for quite a while, though I hated being kept awake throughout my 24 hr. duties and having to come home totally exhausted. I was dog-tired. Now that I got my wish of getting back to my sedentary ways after quitting residency training, I have all the time in the world to take a beauty rest. Thanks to my insomnia, I couldn’t do just that.

After passing my licensure boards, I slept as much as I wanted. I made up for the lost slumbers during med school and internship. Until I slept too much that I ended up messing my body clock. I hardly saw the daylight. I woke up not knowing what just happened to the world while I was off to dreamland. My day turned into night and my night turned into day. Problem came everytime I was asked to report for 24 hrs duty. (I worked as a reliever physician, like an on-call where I only got to work whenever somebody seeks replacement and my sched allows me to). I would be tossing on my bed til its 5AM and I needed to be at the hospital by 8AM. I swear it was the worst feeling of all. I would be sobbing out of frustration. By 11AM I just wanted to dive into a bed but couldn’t. My duty doesn’t end until 8AM the next day. How tormenting. The convenience of sleeping pills were out of the question. They made me droopy til the next day so it only made matters worse.

After 2 years of living like a vampire, I finally started my residency training. Everything went back to normal. Except that the word normal among the medical professionals may seem different from the normal among other professions. Nonetheless, the load of my work took its toll on me. I realized I couldn’t live the life of an internist. Hence after barely 2 months and a week of training, I quit. Now I’m back to the zombie world. Just when the rest of the world is asleep, here I am tinkering with my PC. Ugh. The dark circles around my eyes are making me uglier than usual. I’ve been worrying too much on how to get myself to sleep that I think I’m starting to grow wrinkles. Oh gosh, no!

Soulmates

Soulmates. Twinflames. Whatever you call it, I used to believe they did exist. At least the idea once appealed to me, it would've been more comforting to know that somebody was meant to be with me. I ceased believing in Santa Claus and Fairy Tales, why would this thing about soulmates be any different?

Isn't it amazing to find yourself sharing an instant connection with someone you feel you've known all your life when fact is, you're only starting to be friends. How does one explain this phenomenon? All of a sudden you switch into romantic mode and start believing he ought to be the one, the soulmate you've been looking for. Oh behave. I've met people I instantly clicked with but in the end, they just happened to be good conversationalists. That's just it. Being young and gullible, I almost fooled myself into believing they were my so called soulmates. If I count all of them, my soul would have to recycle several times in this lifetime to match each of them.

Perhaps I do have one. He probably went into a coma or diminished into a mere soul by now. Perhaps my bitter stories have turned me into a cynic. Or I could be too old to believe it, I've outgrown it. Sometimes it gets overrated enough to be a lame excuse to infidelity. You've heard stories about happily married couples leaving their families because they had to be with their "soulmates". Soulmates aren't supposed to make you sin. Oh well. Whatever lead me into debunking it, I'd rather go search my own soul for now. I'll find it before someone else does and sells it.

My Prince

Orlando Bloom. The ultimate heartthrob. He made my heart skip a beat while watching him beat all those orcs as Legolas, the elven Prince of Mirkwood. No, I don't wish for him to come to my life. I wouldn't want to spend a lifetime sufferring from arrythmias. *sigh*

The Man of My Dreams

This is the picture of my ideal guy. Someone who looks exactly like him (talk about tall order, ok maybe drop the word "exactly") doesn't smoke, drinks only a little... loves God above all, intellectually stimulating, well-mannered, affectionately thoughtful, can make me laugh, can be the shoulder I could cry on, can sing with me at the videoke without discounting the act as jologs, he's non-chauvinistic and a real gentleman who'll sweep me off my feet.No wonder it's taking me ages to find him, if at all I find him. If my dreams bring me any closer to this guy, you wouldn't question my sleeping for extra long hours. If only he could come to life.

"Funny how we set qualifications in the process of finding the person who is the best for us when at the back of our minds we know that the one we love will always be an exception to the rule."

in our superhero costumes

Elaine, the friend whom I could cry to, even over the phone. Now that she's off to the states I better not have my heart broken again, lest I wanna go broke paying for long distance phone bills. When she learned I was quitting Internal Medicine, she called me up making sure I was okay.

Our Favorite Bonding Moment- Videoke!


Mama Fe, Snow, Me and Tinkerbell. My VRPMC buddies. I miss my lolas. We went out on gimiks where we danced like no one was watching and sang like no one was listening. Our interns' batch was made up of talented singers and almost everyone could carry a tune. Videoke was a favorite pastime, even if it wasn't your turn to sing, you could sit back and enjoy Valora, Tina or Larry singing like you were in some concert of sorts.

The Runaway Bride..smaid

... or was it the groom that ran away?

Ai and I at Sarah's wedding where I was a bridesmaid. Ai is a rebel without a cause. Romantically insane. With all the lectures I gave her in an attempt to exorcise the demons inside that were causing her to make all the wrong decisions in love, now it is but fair to say that all of us at one point or another, do the stupidest things in the name of love. The lecturer/exorcist is not even spared.

Baguio

Mermaid, Snow and Me in Baguio. After Sarah's wedding in Pangasinan, we headed straight up to Baguio were we got stranded due to bagyong harurot. These are the friends who saw me through the storms in my life, figuratively and literally speaking. Valora aka Mermaid is in the the states now, happily married. Edshil aka Snow is dead serious about her career as a resident obstetrician. I miss these lolas.

Shady Characters


This is Tess. Never review for an exam with her. You'll be spending the same hours studying (or cramming), yet in the end she would top the exam while you barely get through the passing mark. After all, she graduated at the top of her class in med, while I, graduated at the top of my..uhm.. lungs?

wedding belles


I, Jing2x and Elaine preparing for Mary Ann's Wedding. Weeks before the occasion, Ann instructed me to take charge of Elaine's wardrobe and makeup.Elaine,like me happens to suffer from a bad case of *manang-gitis, albeit in different ways.My manang-gitis manifests when cute guys are in sight, while her case attacks when she's made to wear girly-girly dresses and make-ups. She even "begged" to wear pants to the wedding, to which I had to firmly put my foot down. No way. I would've been a failure as the appointed image consultant if I allowed her to. In the end, Elaine realized how fabulous she could look in a dress. No trace of manang-gitis whatsoever.

*manang-gitis- from the word manang, meaning: uber-conservative or prude

Love Can Make You Stupid

I could dish out the best advices on love, bring back senses into anyone else's head, shield myself from getting hurt, but still end up vulnerable and find myself doing the most stupid things out of love. I am human after all. I feel. I bleed. I love...for the most part, unrequitedly.

I am drawn to the wrong guys. More often than not, to the commitment-phobic flirts who simply want to test their charms on me. For the virulent few who manage to break into my normally impermeable walls, they cause me deep trouble.They're the kind who comes on strong yet when reciprocated, suddenly slams off the brakes and changes his mind on an instant, wanting you to get off and go take a hike alone! They can be the most cruel species on the planet and leave you hurting like hell. I have been subjected to their cruelty more than once. I fell into their trap over and over again. If that's not stupid, I don't know what it is. If for any consolation, none of these boys know they got me hooked for a time. I succeeded in pretending to be cool about it when deep inside I was in agony.

My rational self tells me to stay away from these guys. They do not deserve me. They can only bring me pain. Someone better may be on his way. My lovestruck self tells me no, he's gotta be the one. No one else has made my heart pound this way. I cannot let him go. Dang it. That's my half-demonic- driven self speaking already.

I can tell what's right from wrong, alright. i just refuse to do something about it. Love can be far too intoxicating to get your senses working. There's always that hope that he'll wake up one day and realize he truly wants me, even when I know it's the remotest of all remote possibilities, that I'm only leading myself to more pain.

If only life was simpler. If only I could make that one person love me back the way I love him. If only I could tell my heart to stop beating for the one who cannot love me in return. If only I could wrap my heart with steel and tell it exactly what to feel.

Oh love, however lost, however unrequited can be so powerful to reduce the most sensible persons into idiots. I don't happen to be excluded from the list.

Plain Jane

I didn't grow up with a fabulous face. Nature missed the flawless skin encryption in my genes. I was an acne-beseiged teenager drawn to the sidelights when under attack. I wasn't a campus hearthrob nor did I date the hottest guys in town. I was a plain jane, the girl who hardly merited a second look. I may not have turned heads but I didn't turn stomachs either. I was average. Being tall and thin didn't work to my advantage. In fact, it was a source of insecurity.I was gawky instead of stunning, blame that on my bad posture. People would comment on my anorexic-like frame with disgust,like I consciously made an effort to remain stick-thin.There was a time I wore oversized shirts and loose jeans, enough to land me a spot on the fashion criminals list. I knew I could do better but I was too shy to look it. I was scared of coming out of my shell and people noticing my presence. Self-confidence was alien to my vocabulary.

A few glamorous magazines subscriptions after, makeovers fascinated me. It was awesome to see how ordinary looking women transformed into glamour incarnates. Excitedly, I resurrected the make-ups piling up on my drawers sent from the states by my aunt. The changes it did on my face were rather dramatic. Hmmm...interesting, I told myself. Wardrobe revamp was the next on my list.It felt good to be fashionable. I liked what I saw on the mirror.

It wasn't long before friends started seeking my help on aesthetic matters. I did makeovers on them too and made them feel good about themselves. Hence, the the birth of the makeover diva! With medical knowledge comes acne-busting powers. I still get flare-ups every now and then but I know better how to handle them. I inject intralesional steroids to myself and to my friends if I have to.It's something that takes skills and knowledge of the possible risks. If it's too tough to handle, I can always to turn to my Dermatology professor.

My transformation didn't take overnight though. Successfully attaining my medical degree and license did push my ego to obtaining that elusive self-confidence. Being in company of good friends supportive of my self-improvement surely helped in unraveling the beauty I never thought was in me. Cliche as it may sound, doing something good for others and being happy about it does a lot of wonders. Beauty not backed up by a good heart doesn't appear to be lasting.

I may not be as traffic-halting as the models on the billboards, I may not land on the next cover of Cosmo,I may not win every cute guy's attention, I may be needing make-ups for a beauty-boost but I like myself better now and I think that's a good way to start living the life I want. That's all that matters.

Ming-Na of ER

Glamorously Toxic 

it says it all 

Crossroads

A quitter, a risk-taker, a rule-breaker.. Those were words I never thought would describe me, until the day I left from residency training.

I quit Internal Medicine not because I was too weak to face the odds. Sure, I had my share of whippings from some consultants who belonged to the old school of thought where insults were the best way to teach, but those were nothing compared to the flaks we got as senior clerks (4th year medical students). Back then we were the lowest form of animals at the hospital. We had to swallow our pride and take all the insults coming from our seniors just because we were that-- lowest form of animals.But then I survived. Maybe it's because we didn't have a choice back then. If I gave up that early, my 3 years of med school wouldn't have meant anything. The most coveted title of MD wouldn't have been etched to my name if I didn't finish my clerkship. This time it's different. I enjoy a well-earned respect as a doctor whose decisions spell the difference between life and death.A resident whose positive feedbacks should have inspired her to keep going despite the back-breaking load of work. Why give up now? Was I emotionally unfit to play the game? Hmm...I'm perfectly sane, for how long, that I don't know. Were the obstacles too tough for me to hurldle? Not really. I was thinking, If this was something I truly loved, I would have fought for it and faced the challenges head-on just to prove how much I wanted it. The difference between clerkship and now is that presently, I have other options, specialties I could choose from.

Dermatology was my first love. However, I've realized, sometimes the things we love don't love us back. There were circumstances beyond my control that prevented me from being a Dermatologist, no matter how badly I wanted it. The training programs in Dermatology available in this country are either too competitive to get into or can bring you below poverty line. Yes, some residency programs do not come with a salary. At some institutions, you even have to pay around P80,000 per year of training. If I were a Cojuangco or an Ayala, I would've probably went on with it.


I loved dermatology but it didn't love me back, so it must not have been for me. Internal Medicine loved me but I didn't love it enough to live with it's miseries.What am I talking about? Does this all boil down to love? Funny, cause my friends have been asking me if my quitting had something to do with that schmuck who broke my heart. Honestly, the most part he played in my decision was putting me into an emotional turbulence that pushed me into greater stress that finally made me give in. Otherwise, I would've been my usual self, struggling, persisiting, wondering what life might have been if I pursued something else.In other words, anything but a risk-taker. Taking risks in love is a whole-different story, that I didn't take. They say look before you leap. From what I saw, I decided not to take a leap. Oh well. Again, on risk-taking as to my career-change, I wasn't afraid of the responsibilities that came with being an internist, I was more afraid of living the life I didn't want. So I took the risk.

My folks would've loved seeing me become an internist but when I told them I was quitting, surprisingly, they did not object. They must have seen the worn-out look in my eyes. I will surely miss making urgent decisions critical to the survival of my patients, I will miss hearing my name called at the paging system, and I will miss all the people who made a difference in my brief stint as an internal medicine resident. I'm not bothered about the department for I know they will soon find a better replacement for me, someone who's more willing to take on the challenges of being a resident doctor at such a toxic department.

Have I continued my training, I would surely be on my way to becoming a highly respected specialist. That's why some prefer to suffer and finish the residency and go through more years of subspecialty because it was a sure way to securing a comfortable future. I thought about that too but somehow it's just not for me. I'm setting my sights now on Radiology, a more laid back specialty. I've been reading the cosmo July 2004 with an article on "getting a professional face-lift", it says the most common reasons why women switch from one career to another are 1.) burn out 2.) boredom 3.)they want to develop other talents. For me it's number 1 and 3. By taking Radiology as a specialty, I still get to be a Doctor, saving lives albeit indirectly. At the same time I get to hone my other skills, photography for one.Who knows, I may one day fullfill my dreams of building my own studio, travelling to Europe just to take pictures. After all Radiology is like taking pictures except that the Rad tech is the photographer, and we look through a much deeper perspective, deep enough to penetrate into peoples' bones . I hope I'll be happy now.

I, Me, Myself 

My Life that Wasn't My Own

It has been almost a month since my sudden bid of farewell to my career in internal medicine. I couldn't help it. I've been contemplating on quitting my residency training since my first month. Internal Medicine just wasn't for me. It has been brave of me to actually try it. I did enjoy it for a while. My knowledge have vastly expanded in just 2 months of training, it was fascinating to learn things that could actually help save more lives. Indeed, I saved lives, and that gave me satisfaction. However, my body can only take so much.After my morning rounds, making sure my patients were still breathing, i had to log in my progress notes for the day while analyzing what was actually happening to my patients.When a consultant arrived, I had to be with them. Some were nice as they unselfishly shared the things i ought to know and some tormented me with questions that i had yet to find answers to. After then I went back finishing my progress notes while constantly being referred to for problems regarding my patients. Being assigned to the most toxic station for almost three months (i was assigned to the ward and ICU extension), it has been a routine to be doing CPR, emergency intubation and pronunciation of death from time to time. I was afraid my heart was getting calloused. But that's how life goes. Being in the medical field, we couldn't afford to be too emotional. Otherwise, we'd crack up.
During the night, if i were on 24 hrs duty, i admitted patients at the ER. I was notorious for being toxic. Patients would come all at the same time and I had to attend to them as fast as I could. There were ward calls on the side.If they needed urgent attention, I had to do something about it. During the dawn, admissions still kept coming. The phone in the doctors' quarters kept ringing that you'd want to bang it on the wall. I was tired but I couldn't complain. I chose that kind of job. I had to live with it.
The next day we would be endorsing our patients in the presence of our consultants. More questions thrown that needed answers I had yet to find.Sometimes despite our efforts, we still ended up being thought of as irresponsible. Now that sucks. After endorsements, I was on my way making my rounds again and the routine previously stated above, over again, until 5 in the afternoon, without being able to sleep the night before. There were times I almost broke down from sheer exhaustion. After coming home, I could barely open my eyes. Sleeping, my favorite hobby has become a luxury. This was supposed to go on for three years and another three more years of subspecialty... why did I choose to be a doctor in the first place?

Atypically Yours

I go on duty making sure my blush is just right, my lipstick just pink enough to match my bag, my eyeshadows light and my clothes look fine. No I don't work for a night bar. My duty meant 24 hrs work for doctors. I am a doctor. A real doctor. Doctor for people, grown-ups. I am an internal medicine resident. For how long, that remains to be seen. Life has been too hectic lately that I needed to add color into it, however literally. Make-ups and stethoscopes don't blend, you say. Well, my medical bag shows you they do.

I feel for my patients. When I see the weary look in their eyes, I wish I could tell them the right eye cream to put on. Don't get me wrong. I may not be your conventional doctor but I do take my responsibilities seriously and I derive happiness from getting my patients well again. It's just that I work better when I look good. That's my insecure self speaking again. Well, don't you think patients recover faster when they know the world is still a beautiful place to live in? Health and beauty do come together, in more ways than you can imagine.