Death of a Blogsman

I won't deny it folks. It's staring us in the face. This blog... this motley assembly of letters, thoughts and run on sentences...

It's on life support.

Some guy died the other day. I spent so much time working on him. He pretty much died twice before he even came into my care. I could pull up a chair to his room (just outside, not inside, cause it smelled really bad... he knew so he didn't take offense), sit down and wait for him to decompensate. I'd see how long I could stay seated before I'd have to do something. There were times when I got close to five minutes before taking action but I'd never make it all the way. There was always something going on, but I always managed to keep him going for about another five minutes.

I spent a good seven weeks trying to keep him alive and in the end it didn't really matter. My plans for a prolonged but definitive recovery were ruined by the plans the multidrug resistant bacteria in his lungs had made to camp out, roast some marshmallows, tell some scary stories, then start making pus. He died a few hours after getting to the ICU.

Ugh. Frustrating. You can see where this is going.

It's hard to keep at something when you're not sure what the end result is going to be. Looking back on it, if I knew it was going to cost 4 million dollars to keep him alive and bedbound for six weeks so he could die a terrible death, I might not have wanted to get off that chair. Really, what difference would it have made? Would you pay four million to live another one and a half shitty, shitty months?

But the reality of the situation is I didn't know he was going to die before leaving hospital. I don't know if this blog is going to die tonight, tomorrow, before this post is done. Guess that's why I'm still going at it. Pretty lame, though. July was the last post. Gah.

Full code please.

Eat right

How to keep yourself healthy in the popular media seems to focus almost entirely on what you eat. It seems like all newspapers, cable news stations and supermarkets now have some quasi-health nutritionista extolling the virtues of one particular fruit or vegetable extract for all that ails humankind. If it's not cancer fighting blueberries, it's vitamins or electrolytes or some weirdo way of fighting bacteria (garlic extract) while keeping bacteria (sentient yogurt).

Strangely enough, perhaps, in medical school there was 1 hour devoted to nutrition, and it didn't really extend much past the advice you can get from the Canada Food Guide.

Is this contrast in focus because medical schools inadequately prepare physicians to talk about what patients should eat? Or is it because maybe, when it all comes down to it, it doesn't friggin' MATTER if you're drinking pre/probiotic antioxidative quick electrolyte replenishing vita-elixir?

Years and years and years of research compounded with common sense and advice handed down from many a wise mother are combined into the more fiber, less fat, lots of varied vegetables and fruits, and sometimes meat/substitutes mantra. Unfortunately, this invaluable wisdom is often ignored in face of the "NOW we've REALLY figured it out" movement. It's amazing how quickly people will jump on to a new product without evidence that it fights cancer just because it says "antioxidants!" on the label.

POM Juice I'm on to you.

Here's what it claims on their website:

"Emerging science suggests that unstable little molecules called free radicals may be linked to disease. Where do they come from? Everywhere. Not only does your body produce them as part of normal metabolism but there are also many external sources such as air pollution, alcohol, pesticides, sunlight, tobacco smoke, drugs, and even fried foods. Antioxidants like those found in POM Wonderful Pomegranate Juice fight hard to help prevent free radicals from doing their damage."

When something says "emerging science", basically it sounds a whole lot like "I'm jumping on this bandwagon to make money before the real scientific consensus can prove me wrong."

What the "emerging science" actually shows is that antioxidants don't do dick all for anybody. When people got antioxidants, there was no difference between their rates of cancer or heart disease over people who didn't get antioxidants. So what difference is there if you drink antioxidants versus eating some normal fruit or vegetable?

According to mature, past the emergent adolescent and attention seeking stage science, eating vegetables and fruit will fight cancer AND heart disease. And it's probably even cheaper than drinking POM juice. So save yourself some money and do somethin g good for yourself. Trash the POM, eat the veg.

For misleading the public at large regarding your health benefits, POM gets 0 trustworthy retro doctor heads out of 4.

Fight! Fight! Fight!

The months leading up to graduation and after graduation haven't been very good blogging material. For one thing, the only thing I want to do is stop thinking about medicine. Also, blogging is pretty friggin' hard to keep going. Lastly, I've been going through a bit of a drought lately. Haven't had any relevant experiences or thoughts to write about.

Mostly though, I read an article on how bloggers all seem to be navel-gazing hacks who are too unaware to realize nobody reads their stuff. It felt like the author was writing about me specifically.

Well SCREW THAT.

I am SO aware that nobody reads my stuff. And so we continue...

I was walking home from a dinner of dumplings tonight when I saw a fight. At least, it was the beginning of a fight. It was three or four people and a dog versus two people and another dog. I see these people everywhere I go but I never really thought about where they come from or where they're going... You know those adolescent/twenty somethings who wear army boots and shorts and have towering backpacks and all kinds of piercings? The ones that look like they're from well off families but they're trying to be homeless? Or maybe they really are homeless. Maybe they're travelers. With dogs. I dunno.

I'm not sure what they were fighting about. It sounded like they were fighting about how cowardly the other side was when they suckerpunched each other somehow simultaneously. I started crossing the street away from them when they started punching each other again, and their dogs were barking and jumping and bandanas and earrings were flying everywhere...

I wasn't sure whether I should do something or not. The following thoughts went through my head:

Man, it's good he's punching with the soft ulnar side of his fist otherwise he might actually hurt someone.
Maybe I'd better say something.
What if they have some sort of communicable disease and they bleed in my eye or bite me or something?
Ah I should do something anyway.
Wait. Are these people worth it? Don't hobos get in fights all the time without me caring?
Are they hobos?
Aren't they?
Is it my business?

And therein lies the crux. Is it my business? How far should I go in intervening in other people's bisnatch?

I've met people who smoke around their asthmatic kids and refuse to quit. I've met someone who has vehemently refused to get a colonoscopy even though her entire family has died before 45 because of bowel cancer. Parents who purposely skip their kids' vaccinations. In my mind, all these people are dumbasses. Informed consent be damned. They need intervening.
However... It's their business.

So I walked away. I was probably making it worse. Adolescents have a primitive brainstem reflex that causes them to try to look tough when people are watching.

Am I Strong Enough To Be Your Man

It's January and I'm in Nathan Phillips Square waiting for the Weakerthans to come on stage. The city put on a party and there are black iron torches twisting every which way in the square surrounded by huddled people in MEC coats and pom pom toques. I'm surreptitiously inching my way past my fellow concert goers, trying to find a line of sight with the stage. It smells like wood smoke and it's warm from all the bodies.

I somehow feel inadequate these days. Outside of school, I'm always measuring myself up against everyone around me to see if I'm good enough. It's not healthy. In school, it's sometimes the only way to know if you're keeping up with your peers. Here though, when I'm supposed to enjoy myself, I can't turn it off. Would my friends be having more fun with someone else? Do I look cool enough to stand here without doing something with my hands? Am I going to be able to stand firm when people start pushing to get to the front?

Chinese people have this concept of "losing face". Going through school is one of the easiest ways to lose face. Underperform, and your face is GONE. Poof. No more face. Medical school is an even easier path to face loss. Before you even start you're down a nose and an eyebrow. If you're lucky you'll finish with your chin in one piece.

I'm worried about underperforming, disappointing people, myself. Even when I'm supposed to be having a good time I can't stop obsessing about doing better at ridiculous things like being taller to see over the jerk with the furry hat, or being more of a talker so I could entertain people while we're waiting for the show. Medicine made a self critical person critically self critical.

But then the music starts and as soon as the first chord rings in my chest, I remembered why I came. Nobody's secretly evaluating me. Nobody cares. All that matters is that they better play my favourite song. Out here, where the hospital can't touch me, I'm fine with the way things are and things are fine with the way I am.

Don't want to be a hollow man unless it's Kevin Bacon

When med school began, I was seriously determined to refrain from becoming jaded and cynical during medical school. I'd always heard about everyone starting out on the first day full of vim, vigor, piss and vinegar. I'd heard about everyone leaving on the last day full of piss, amphetamines and Antabuse. I was not going to be one of those people.

However, as sure as Britney will one day end up on Celebrity Mole's list of call-ups in case the show violates the terms of Gary Busey's parole, clerk attitudes will change. Throughout my rotations I watched myself become less and less sympathetic to each patient and more and more irritable. I changed into exactly what I thought I wasn't going to be.

I've walked right by a patient yelling "Someone please help me!" without batting an eyelash. When my favourite cancer patient on gyne oncology found out she had terminal cancer, I didn't feel anything. I didn't feel anything when she died a few days later either. I've yelled at grandmas, made fun of grandmas, and made grandmas cry, all before lunchtime, which is when I get started on the grandpas. Then, depending on how I feel, I might go yell at babies.

I wonder if I'll ever get my soul back. Is it gone for good? Will I ever have empathy for a fellow human again? Am I dead on the inside?

Then my sister get seriously ill. She went to the ER and got admitted to medicine and lots of big gun drugs. It was pretty scary but I didn't feel anything. That's when I knew I was definitely one soulless bastard.

Later that night I called my girlfriend to tell her what was happening and I started crying. I hadn't cried in forever. I didn't even feel like crying but something broke inside when I had to talk about what was going on. I couldn't control it.

My sister got better, and I knew she would. I don't even know what I was emotional about. Maybe I'm just not aware of what I'm feeling, or maybe I just suppress it to a point where I can't recognize what I'm feeling. Maybe I'm not a soulless bastard. Maybe I'm not dead inside. Maybe I'm just dead outside.

And that's fine with me.