I’m off.

I’m leaving for Haiti at 4 AM, so say a little prayer if you read this.  The team will need all the help we can get.

Haiti

So the past few days at work have been pretty much the hardest time I’ve ever had since I started in this specialty.  We have begun receiving patients from Haiti and I’ve been working everyday until 3 in the morning for the past 4 days.  Last night was the worst:  at around midnight, we got word that they were flying in two unstable patients from Haiti. As I was setting up the Trauma room, I could feel my stomach churn — a strange thing because I am often (and this is not necessarily a good thing) incredibly calm in Trauma situations.  I guess a part of me knew that this really wouldn’t be a “usual” Trauma (if there is such a thing).  The two Trauma teams were side by side in the room.  I was assigned to the 9 year-old and the other team was going to handle the 15 year-old.  Both girls arrived and the younger one was wheeled over to my side of the room.  In the interest of patient privacy and people’s sensitivities, I won’t go into the gory details, but I’ll just say that her injuries included horrific burns and an extremity amputation.  We worked on her for over two hours.  Afterwards, I walked out into a back room and cried.  I bawled.  I sobbed.  And yes, I called my Mom.   When I finally crawled into bed at  5 AM this morning, I thought to myself that no child should have to go through what that little 9 year-old is enduring at this moment.  There is no explaining this.  None.

I don’t know what else to say.    I hope we all try to help.  Give, then give some more, and then keep on giving.  We must never forget that we are still giving out of our own excess — we live in absolute luxury in comparison to the people in Haiti.  And now they have even less than what they started out with.

Goddess

I wish I were more like Christina Hendricks.

Now let me qualify this:  I’m not a big fan of the dress (the ruffles remind me of curtains at a nouveau riche condominium in downtown Manila). Seriously though, this woman is a goddess.  That skin! The hair! Her breasts! Sigh.  By Hollywood standards (certainly not mine), she’s carrying around a few extra pounds, but the amazing thing is that it’s probably the secret to her success.  She revels in her…what’s the right word?…voluptuousness.

She was gorgeous at her wedding, all flushed and happy.  I thought her dress was beautiful.  Well, except for the part at the back where she looked like she attached her comforter to her ass.  But she was gorgeous nonetheless.

So I’ve resolved to lose the extra weight I’ve gained in the last few months.  I know I’ll never be one of those skinny girls who look like they just walked off a runway and into the bathroom to throw up one more time, but I’m hoping that I will be able to get to a point where I can celebrate my own curves just as much as Ms. Henricks does.

Oh Adobo, how do I love thee?

1.) You warm my heart. I count eating my Mom’s adobo as one of the best memories of my childhood in the Philippines. Coming home from school to the smell of adobo wafting through the house always made me feel good.

2.) You aren’t demanding.  Chicken, pork, vinegar, soy sauce, coconut milk, garlic, bay leaves and black pepper. Simmer and enjoy over steamed white rice. So easy.

3.) You bring happiness.  A bowl of you elicits the biggest smile from Jeff, aka the pickiest white boy eater on the face of the planet. And when he’s done, he goes to the kitchen and gives himself a second serving. Now if I can only get him to try some veggies.

4.) You are always a surprise. There are about half a dozen ways I can actually make you: chicken only, pork only, with or without coconut milk, etc. My favorite is all of the above (surprise, surprise!), but any of the others are still sure to be yummy.

5.) You are satisfying. Jeff can eat you without the meat: just the sauce and rice. Seriously.

6.) You make me look better. Because I know how to cook you, I can always say, “Yes!” when ever anybody asks me if I can cook Filipino food.

7.) You help me save money.  A little goes a long way: I just mix up a spoonful of the meat and a couple spoonfuls of your tasty sauce with a bowl of rice and, voila! a whole meal.

8.) Your true beauty isn’t in your appearance. You may not be much to look at on the plate, but when you get in my mouth, you are a complete joy.

9.) You are oh-so-accessible. All the ingredients it takes to make you are available at any grocery store — I don’t need to make any long trips to the sole Asian store in Miami to make you. Sigh. Now if Publix only stocked egg roll wrappers, I’d be in heaven.

10.) Lastly: You taste even better the next day.

I’d entitle my next post, Oh Nutella, how do I love thee?, but that would be a bit much, wouldn’t it?

Bridesmaid Dress!!!

I’ve been fretting about the cost of buying the dresses for my bridesmaids.  I know it isn’t customary for American brides to buy the dresses for their bridesmaids, but in the Philippines, you are pretty much expected to pay for them.

I was thinking that dove gray dresses with magenta/raspberry accents would look really pretty, so I had pretty much decided I’d just cough up the cash and pay for those J. Crew chiffon dresses in graphite.  The trouble was, I have 4 (maybe 5) bridesmaids, and these dresses cost $180.  If I got dresses for all the girls, that adds up pretty quickly.

Cue my genius sister to the rescue.  She called me out of the blue yesterday and told me she had found my bridesmaid dresses.  Being the skeptic that I am, I rather reluctantly clicked on the link that she emailed to me.  To my surprise, this is what it pulled up:

Isn’t it cute?  Romantic yet modern.  And it’s not in that horrid shiny silk-like fabric that just screams cheap bridesmaid dress.

But the best thing about it was the price:  It’s a $100 dress that’s on clearance for $39.99.  What a steal.  :-)

Thanks, sis.  You are THE BEST.

Panacea

Oh man, I feel feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. I didn’t get home from work until 2 AM last night and I tossed and turned in bed (despite the Nyquil!), so I probably didn’t get to sleep until 3.  The thought of having to leave for work again in a few hours is really getting me a bit discouraged.  I’m used to getting tired out during my on-service months, but this block only just started!  I have 3 1/2 weeks of this to go!

I just realized that I haven’t had coffee yet.  Maybe a pot of joe will help me feel halfway human again.  Sigh.  That’s probably one of my favorite things about moving to Miami — the coffee really is good.  There are few things that a beautifully hot, creamy, slightly sweet cup of coffee can’t cure.

I’m feeling better just thinking about it, so I’m signing off — gotta go get my cure.  Hopefully I’ll be a little less whiny when I show up later.

The Shock and Awe of Viral Replication

I’m sick.  Sick as a dog.  I shuffle around the apartment in my bathrobe with a sodden tissue in hand, alternately hacking part of a lung out and sucking on my asthma inhaler.   Nyquil is my best friend at the moment, with Dayquil not far behind.

Such is the perilous life of a Pediatric Emergency Room physician: no matter how often I wash my hands, no matter how regular I am with the vitamins, some kid will inevitably sneeze/cough/drip on you at some point in the day.  The airborne particulates containing the toxic stew of virions and snot that these kids spew out will find their way to you and detonate in your respiratory system.  Once they are in your body, there is no turning back: these stealth bombs get their hooks onto our own immunity cells and find a way to punch their way inside.  From thence, these viral particles turn our own cells against us: using our own cellular processes to replicate and multiply until they burst out of the cell and travel on in search of another cell to invade and destroy.  Pretty soon, our body’s defenses are overwhelmed.  Shock and Awe.

Did I overdo it a bit on the military comparisons?  Probably.  It’s probably my mind’s twisted way of associating tow things that I highly resent at the moment: America’s my country’s propensity to invade places we shouldn’t be in, and this damn URI (that’s upper respiratory tract infection for all you non-medical folks out there).  I’ll stop there:  I don’t have the energy, whether physical or mental, to get into a political discourse.

Oh well, I’ll comfort myself with the thought that if I saw myself in the ER today, I’d say, “Rest, get lots of fluids, Tylenol for the fever, and you’ll be as good as new in a few days.”

Physician, heal thyself.