This is my official entrance into this universe. I have, for the past five years, spent my life in an alternate universe. A very hateful place. It is made up of many other people. We fight against them, they fight against us. It is a fight for survival. Everyday you go to work and they try to suck every meager essence of your soul leaving you a dry shell of what you thought you might be. You go in with wide eyed expectations, thinking grand things, expecting grand things. Ultimately it is a tale of survival. They constantly try to hurt you. You hurt them back. But you are supposedly the savior. But what are you truly saving. I prolong death.
So you've reached a moral paradox. You train to take care of people but the training itself teaches you to stop caring. You must in order to care for yourself. Is there any beauty in it? There certainly is a beauty in the end process. The moment you walk into a room, and say, ma'am, your husband has died. Can that be considered beautiful. If it was right. The moment was perfect. It was peaceful. You stand on the edge of this great precipice and you jump. Expect, you don't. Two minutes later you're pulling a condom out of some woman's vagina. She's very annoyed and says that the speculum is too big. You look over at her extremely tall and well built companion and state you've been using the same size speculum for years. Go figure. I do provide actually decent care. I'm just too jaded to hold your hand in the process. Ironically, hand holders that provide crappy care do better in the judicial sector than non-hand holders who provide excellent care. I think I fall somewhere in the middle. So let's lighten this up just a bit. For my climbing buddy's (we stopped climbing a while ago but these are insignificant details) fiance. Anecdotes from the ER....(with a bit of Cat Power influence)
My first day in the ED. Amazing. I saw a person come in complete arrest. Totally gorked. DOA. Tube in his mouth. Very profound experience. Makes you step back. Now I realize it bills a level five, about ninety dolllars. Decent cheese. Same month. Older man walks in the door. Has had a seizure. tongue is cut, deeply. Very time consuming, no one wants to deal. So send the med student in with no knowledge of anything. Oral surgeon walks by an hour later, "Are you done suturing this guy's tongue." No, I respond, can't really seem to stop the bleeding in order to get started. "How much blood has he lost?" Not much, maybe that big jar full...this is apparently a jar that apparently holds enought to fall into the category of not small, not medium, but big enought to go, "Oh shit" roll this homeboy to the trauma bay....Sir, can you stick your tongue out for me? Just a little bit more. You take a big ass needle and you stick it in their pumping away. How much lidocaine can you get in beofore he figures out he just got fucked. Then you cauterize. Nothing special. The smell of burning flesh is actually not bad. It's actually attractive, in a very non pervasive sort of way. Everyone enjoys waking up to the smell of napalm in the morning. I sew up his tongue. It's kind of shaped like a snake, forked. I fuck it up. The two ends do not meet. He's got a little flap on one side. My first time suturing, in my defense. We ask him to stick his tongue out again. He does. We promptly take some shears and slice his tongue in half again. This time it takes much longer but I do an excellent job. He is so happy, but slightly worried. Why we ask? Doctor, doctor? Yes sir? Doctor, doctor? Yes, what it is sir? Doctor, DOCTOR? YES, SIR, WHAT IS IT? Doctor, can I still eat pussy. Yes sir, you can. Everything works just fine. He is sixty five years old. God bless your desire to give unto others....
Could this have possibly led me down the road to depression, narcotic addiction, and completely lacking in empathy. No, I argue. You must absolutely possess these traits in order to get accepted into the medical profession. If you don't, they will either weed you out or instill in you a strong sense of cynicism. When do I truly feel satisfied? What particular moments redeem everything else? you ask? PARONYCHIA...small localized pocket of pus on the side of the proximal finger nail. Numb up the finger. Slide a very sharp scalpel blade underneath the cuticle. Very smooth. Pus just falls right out. Immeadiate results. Immediate satisfaction.
"NO NARCOTICS FOR YOU" I feel like the ER soup nazi. Just done with it. By the way if you happen to be some amazing cool person, and attractive, or simply one of my friends, the aforementioned phrase does not apply to you. I would never allow you to suffer in pain. It is simply abhorrent. By the way, I would like some samples of at least everything that I write for you. I think that's fair...
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