Whole of last year I have been very committed to this blog and everything that comes with it. Yet I haven’t understood the concept of blog friends. Bloggers I understand and friends I definitely do. But the concoction still doesn’t make sense to me. I have come to know some really amazing people through my blog. I couldn’t have asked for more out of this commitment.

I want to be in the business of feeding people.I don’t know what gives more pleasure than sharing a lovely meal with your family and loved ones.I love seeing people eat their food enjoy it and have a good time.I love to see people laugh and be merry over the next morsel they get to eat.I believe this world will be a better place when people realise even that is a luxury for many.

I have had my share of growing up all of this year. I hope I will come out a better person after all that has happened. I know there are people who have stuck it out for me no matter what, while others never realised how much of myself I gave to them. I do believe life balances out itself. I can already feel the calm after the rough.

I miss working in a hospital.Since I’ve come back to India I haven’t done any work.I really miss being a doctor. I can’t wait for things to change on that front. Come February it should. I can’t wait.

It is raining weddings and enagagements and alliances.My buddy from when I was 2 has just announced his wedding.I am so happy for him.It is nice to see your friends take that plunge.Become men from boys.Deny all you like, things will change between us.Having seen most of my friends make that move I know the difference.It used to bother me initially but I think it is like moving from college to the working stiff. Things are bound to change.

I like moving on to the next year hoping I can let go of my past. Make a new begining. But come another new year there is a new set of challenges, disappointments, happiness and life will come a full circle. I don’t mind the full circle now. Atleast I know I will get to start over some place.

I want to take a break from blogging. I am quite certain the day I make such an announcement I will have this unsupressable urge to write some thing, or share an experience, or a poem will brew up in my head and I would just have to write it out here. So I refrain.I just really want to though.For a few days, may be a couple of weeks, may be more than a couple of weeks.

I want to send this wish out especially for all those people who aren’t with their families or loved ones to welcome the new year. I have spent such moments. It wasn’t fun. Today I sit in my chair knowing I have people who will hug me and wish me the very best as the clock chimes 12 on the 31st. For those of you out there studying working or just trying really hard remember you are there for a reason. Some thing good awaits you as God has a plan.

God bless and wish you all a very Happy New Year.

ps: Does Happy New Year need to be in capitals.I always thought it didn’t.Let me know will ya..

It can be difficult at a time like this.A few more days and we would be welcoming a new year.Another year.Another milestone.

I haven’t been taking too well to these milestones.They seem to be coming on too soon in my life.Not so long ago, I found myself really upset about turning 28 and being me.I would love to change a gazillion things about my life but given the choices I had I think I have done well. I know things could have been a lot worse and they aren’t. So may be I actually have things to thank God for.

What bothers me, isn’t how well I have done given the circumstances, but how much I wanted to do inspite of them.Some things I could have done differently but I didn’t know better.Now I do.Do I consider that time lost or experience gained. I don’t know.

I do know that humans have the best defence mechanisms in place.We know very well how to justify our lives.We do it so beautifully that we begin to believe there was no other way or choice.

….might be continued…

For the weak hearted who donot like any talk about hospitals and ill patients, this might not be a post you want to read.

I was doing my first set of nights at a hospital that was very sparsely staffed.Like most hospitals. What was terrifying was that I didn’t have a senior I could turn to for help, incase the need arrived.I would have had to call a consultant in the middle of the night if anything went wrong.Not some thing anyone wants to do.

This would have been my second or third night.I knew I had done well so far.That night had been busy. I had already seen 13 patients or so.I remember.Some days/nights you just do.

An old man was brought in by his son.Must have been around 6 in the morning.I was already counting minutes to 8 am, when I would be relieved.I was really tired.This man looked sick and his son very worried.He needed attention right away.

When I was done with the patient, high on my differential diagnosis was neutropenic sepsis*. I had taken the bloods myself.I always use a glove as a tourniquet. Not the ideal. But when patients are difficult to bleed the glove works wonders. He wasn’t easy at all. He was so dehydrated, I just couldn’t find a vein.

I wrote all my notes. Wrote the drug chart. Made sure plenty of fluids were prescribed. The blood results were back in less than an hour’s time. The patient was neutropenic alright.I was very pleased with myself.Who doesn’t like being right. Especially at that hour.

Assured I had everything under control, I told the son he could go to sleep and that he should come around later. By then we would know all our plans for his father.The son refused to budge as according to him his father looked really ill.I agreed.The father was very ill.

When the consultant came around 7:30 am, I asked him to see this really ill patient first.When we got to the bed side, my patient looked a lot whiter and more sick than what I had left him 15 minutes ago.Some thing was drastically wrong.

I looked around.Horror of horrors.The place I had tied the glove as a tourniquet was red.I must have left it on.Someone has just taken it off.He wasn’t getting any fluids.No drips in the arm.Why wasn’t his medication being given to him?I didn’t know what was going on.I was ready to scream.I was losing my patient right before me.This couldn’t be happening. I had him.And I had him right.He could not die on me. Not after all that. I was panic stricken. I had done everything by the book.So I left that glove.Couldn’t be more than an hour.That cannot kill him. But what was killing him then?

I had forgotten to sign the drug card.

None I mean NONE of his medications were given to him.He was slipping away, right before my eyes. C’mmon nurses.So you have your instructions.But you have some common sense too don’t you.This wasn’t the time to pass a buck and principally I was to blame.

Drug card signed, orders checked I proceeded onto to present my other patients to the consultant.After the rounds I checked on my old man again.He was sleeping. The son was just leaving.He began to thank me.I just had to cut him short, the guilt was too much to bear.

Of course sleep did not come easy that day. Knowing the nature of this man’s emergency how could I forget to sign his drug chart.At lunch time I checked on my old man again.He looked less dehydrated.So the drips were running fine.I went back to my room and slept for the coming night. At night my man looked a lot better. The colour in his cheeks was returning and I knew he would live.

When he felt much better I walked upto him to let him know that the worst was over and that he had to work on getting his strength back.

He turned out to be a very jovial old man. Just before I could take his leave, he thanked me for giving him a new life.I looked at him wondering if he knew how very close I was to taking it away.

I often think of some of the patients I have met.They help me find strenght and motivation to do better in my life. They also humble me into remembering that we are all walking a very fine line….

* That is best explanation of the condition that I could find on the net.In short it is a medical emergency where in if the patient does not recieve immediate antibiotic therapy and plenty of fluids, there is rapid deterioration which can lead to shock and even death.

Beta Blogger wont let me leave comments.Is anyone else facing the same problem and how does one get out of it.

There is so much going on in my pea sized brain that it is quite ready to burst.I’d like to make some sense of the gazzillion things I feel currently but I know it is going to be a useless excercise.Even more useless has been the rude behaviour I have displayed all day today.I am left feeling guilty, as I was horrid to the few people who decided to be nice to me.What is really bothering me is that I am feeling guilty about being rude.Not so much about the actual act of being rude.That I was pretty darn good at.It is keeping up the act that I am not very good at.I want to send a few apology sms’s but that might get those people really irritated even if my original act didn’t.This isn’t the first time I would be getting myself into such embarassing situations.I do that to myself very often.I am actually impressed with the consistency of my actions.The other thing I am consistent is with making angry people even more angry.It is a curse.What was a real curse this weekend was trying to have crabs with a 2 year old boy.I will try and keep my promise of never spending time with his mother again.She rubs me in the worst possible way.How can people be so stupid and irritating beats me.But then there are all kinds I know.I just have to accept.I also have to accept I might be heading for a drinking problem.I have hidden wine bottles from guests.Stolen whisky and started drinking vodka as the first drink since morning.I mean don’t people drink coffee or some thing.I do recommend masala squid curry with rice.It was the yummiest thing I had this weekend.So much for a person who doesn’t enjoy sea food.But then again for a person who doesn’t listen to rock I can sing most of DL, JBJ, U2 songs.What did I know they sang rock.I just thought they were really cool love songs.I also didn’t know that the answer to when would you like to get married should have actually been a date or a month or even a year and not ” when I can fit into a really tiny sexy black number”, especially when asked by a prospective mother-in-law.But that expression on her face is the least of my problems.I do have a lot of things going on in my pea sized brain right now.

Don’t ever sell your self short,he had said.That is probably the best advice he had given me.Sadly that is one of the last too.

Funny to think he was only 19 when I met him.I was much younger.He hated me calling him old.But what else do you call old people?

It has been so long.Too long I think.I digress.

Just when I needed validation to my being, he wanted to tell me to be strong and fend for myself. He wanted me to know that I had to learn to validate my own self.If I kept looking out for others to do it, I will only end up being insecure.I had to find me and learn how to love what I did end up finding.

We both agreed that we are responsible for all our actions.It is always easy to pass the buck and blame another.But whatever happens to us, has us responsible for it the most. He wanted me to pick up my pieces and start over, when he had said that to me.

Such a time isn’t the time to give your friends advice I would argue.He should have supported me and be there and give me his strong shoulders to cry on.Tell me he still loved me.

But friends have their own designs I think. So many times when you think they are being cruel and selfish and and do not care, they decide you are ready to learn one of life’s harsh lessons.

I walked out of his life, for that one thing he had said to me.Times were just so bad.I might have been wrong in the decision I made.But I stand up for myself. After all he taught me how to.In all these years there isn’t a single day I haven’t thought of him. For good or bad.

He turns 30 today.How I wish I could be there to see his face cringe everytime I would remind him how old he has got.Rub it in real hard that now he is over the cliff.Another year and his age wont even feature in the calender. I mean really 30 is OLD.

Ok fine, I lie..he turns 29.But still that is old.

I am a very fidgety kind of person.One thing I do all the time is play around with my blog roll.Nothing personal if you don’t find yourself one day and then find yourself back after 3 weeks.I do have a valid explanantion to my tidying frenzy, but I will spare you of that for now. As proof of good things coming out of my silly habit, Apy has come out of hiding.

Though this blogger has done a convincing job of glamourising numbers that aren’t rounded off, I was very thrilled when I was the one to hit the 15000 count on my own blog. Doesn’t take much to please me, now does it? Right from the start I have wanted to hit one round number on my blog. I finally had my chance this week.

I think I’d like to add a photo onto this blog.Give it more personality.Time I worked on that idea.I have a gazillion ideas for this blog. But that whole template changes and html codes freaks me out.Not to mention the lazy factor. I mean c’mmon how much does it take to move on to beta blogger.

I have had a lot of fun getting to know some bloggers out of the blog world. I have met a few of them, spoken to a few more and chat with still others.I do miss the time when I didnt know any of them. Their writing was left for me to interpret.They were mysterious beings. I didn’t have to explain to them why I visit their blog 42 times a day or read through the archives at times.

It isn’t that I feel restricted in anyway.Or that my freedom of speech is suddenly robbed.It is just that I can’t pretend I am Queen of Sheba any more…

I’ve got another very very very very very crucial exam coming up next month.Of course I need your good wishes and prayers and may be some volunteers to actually read for me.I just hope that I can still be around my blog and your’s like I like to be.

It always amazes me when I meet people by chance after several months or years, only end up telling me that they have had issues with me. A grudge carried for all that while. A bone to pick with me. Or some one else for that matter.

My first thought is why didn’t they bring it up when things had actually gone bad. Why wait for all that time to pass by. Did they not want to sort things out at that time. What stopped them from coming out in the open. If they still think of it, after all this time it must be important enough to them. If it was that important how come they didn’t do anything about it.

It is never easy having a difficult conversation. But don’t you think sometimes it is essential. If you want to keep that relationship, wouldn’t you want to come clean?

I can understand wanting time off. I think that is a huge relationship saving concept. But don’t people realise that may be this person that you are upset with is actually giving you time off because they have no clue what is wrong and are only giving you space and time because they think that is what you need. They would love to help, but you really have to let them.

Then time passes by, and so does life. People move on. You would hope that they would too. Only to be confronted after eons have passed by. But really who is accountable for the void? The gaps? The lack of communication? The loss of a friendship? The uncomfortable silences? The confusion? The pain?

Honestly, if you didn’t do anything about it then, then leave it now.Do everyone a favour and let go of the grudges. Life is too short, to burn so much oxygen over bygones.