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i sat in clinic the other day. and this man was wheeled in by his wife. the doc asked how he was feeling. lo and behold, it promts a  littany of complaints. i tuned myself out of the conversation as quickly.

“i’m having soup for lunch. what, soup? no way, dont be too healthy. hmm maybe chips in gravy then..sounds good” my daydreaming halted abruptly when i caught him saying. “i felt trapped in my own bedroom. i’m a burden”. with that simple sentence, a feeling of deja vu swept over me. i was overcame with overwhelming thoughts of my late grandfather. then and there i could literally see him lying in bed, peeping at us through the slit in the door. his sad eyes pierced my heart.

the story with that man was, he has end stage renal failure on home peritoneal dialysis since a year ago. early this year he was above knee amputation due to gangrene. a fortnight ago tragedy strikes again. he had a heart attack. now he is depending on his wife for even the simplest thing. as i look at this yellowish-grey one legged man sitting in front of me, i realised that i miss my late grandfather. very much.

it was very depressing indeed. but somehow, in ways i cannot fathom, i feel good. because all week i encountered very sick and even dying patients and i didn’t feel a thing. like this morbidly obese 54 year old who has foul-smelling leg ulcers, blind in one eye, and all i could say when i left his room was,”gosh he looks 70!”. having been in the room when a woman was told that she has metastatic cancer and there is no cure, my friend and i made a joke about halloween moments later. and when this 30 year old chap who has sclerosing peritonitis and he wasn’t even certain whether he will be around for christmas, all i could think of is all those acne on his face. when encoutered with such human tragedy and all i can feel is..nothing, i started to question my own humanity.

this one-legged man not only reminded me of my late grandfather, but reasssured me that i’m still human. that am still able to feel the pain of others.

most patients will come and go, and be forgotten. it is my way of coping and i have to allow myself that. but a few will get under my skin. and i have to make allowance for that too. but as i look at the doctors, having to encouter such human pains day in and out, I wondered to myself, have they ever reached a point when they just had about enough, and think-why bother? everyone is going to get sicker and die no matter what so why bother.

on a completely different issue, news form mudcity. the big man is out. he’s deemed innocent. the police a.k.a body guards are going to be charged instead, and i’m betting that the charges wil stick this time around.

what do i, a normal citizen, think of all this? i think if i commit a crime, i will be charged and pay dearly for it. but if big mans (and womans) commit a crime against me, they will go free. every little details in the system will work miraculously for their favor. justice will NOT be done.

what.a.joke.