I keep thinking tomorrow is Friday because it is my Friday this week! Whoo!! Hopefully it goes without a hitch.
Remember when I said I would change all of my profile pics on the Catholic Match site to the real, short-haired version of myself and see if that stops all of the views and messages? WELL IT WORKED. HAHAHAHAHA. Kind of sad, really. Sometimes I look at my patients and think to myself (as well as those on that 600lb life show) if this person can find a soulmate, why in the world can I not? And is online dating the best way to find them? No, not really. Oh well. I’ve already resigned myself to growing old all by myself. I don’t know why people are always so attached to hair and how it really changes the way people treat you. Just like skin color. Or accent. A very common fear about cancer for women, is that they’ll lose their hair. I struggle to wonder why people, men and women, are so afraid of it. Heck, I’ve been trying to shave my head forever, but no one will let me. For some reason across history, it’s shameful to lose your hair. Like it’s a commodity. I guess my hair is so thick and full and grows quickly so I really don’t care. It’s just so hot and it gets into my eyes and face. Currently it’s long enough to stab me in my eyes. I’m trying to keep it longer to make it to my nephew’s baptism. I dunno if I’m going to make it. Sometimes I sit there and wonder if I can grow it out to a girly length to make it through a potential wedding, and then I decide to try and 2 weeks in I’m like, TAKE IT OFF NOW.
With social media posts a normal part of life and the subsequent desensitization to basically everything that used to be considered rude, it bothers me how casual people have gotten, especially the kids. What’s more annoying to me is how mundane cuss words are and how they show up so readily everywhere on posts, out of people’s mouths, in kids, etc. Cuss words have always annoyed me in general, but I understand the use of emphasis in particular instances. Sometimes there’s just no better way to express or deaden some pain. However, the banality born from continual overuse, cheapens and dampens the effect and therefore it’s just a word now that we know isn’t supposed to be used and yet is used commonly. These days it’s more for comedic emphasis than anything else. Just like how the hollow words “I love you” uttered routinely by one person generally doesn’t have the same effect as if it came from someone who hardly ever uses it. Not to say that love shouldn’t be expressed, it just means more when used sparingly. Works on gestures too, like hugs or kisses. Pretty much every post these days will use f*ck or f*** or sh*t. Noooo no one knows what those words are and by putting asterisks on them it makes it OK somehow to use 8 of them in the same f***ing sentence in f***ing front of every f***ing word.
In a related sense, and yet not, I was reading one of those Reddit article things on effectively dumb things doctors have seen or heard from a patient. Some of the accounts were legitimately jaw-dropping given the lack of sense from these patients, but others really gave insight to the mentality and jadedness of some of these practitioners. One guy was treating a patient who had made a poor decision in regard to caring for a wound, and said he really wanted to laugh hard at this guy who is in serious pain because he was so stupid. At what point do you lose the concept of humanity in dealing with people? I understand that some people are real pieces of work. I work in healthcare. I get it. Our patients say and do dumb things at times but they still are people. I am in awe at times, but once again, they are people and to them that made sense. Now that they are in pain, will I continue to let them suffer? Will I sit there and ridicule them for their lack of knowledge? NO. My job and duty is to make them better, attempt to educate them and treat them as a person…maybe a bitter, festering sack of negativity and evil, but I won’t ridicule their pain. Laugh in their face.
Just like that one patient of mine who used to work in the ER. I was telling him about my dogs and how Gable had almost died in that surgery because he was bleeding out and had that indiscriminate mass in his foot and then needed a transfusion. He effectively told me that I wasted my money, why not just amputate the leg. When I explained, incredulous, that not only does he need that leg, my house is pretty much all stairs. Then he just shrugged and said, then put him down and get another dog. Just like that. This, folks, is why I try not to get to know other people too well. I tend to greatly dislike people the more I get to know them. He’s a physician. Isn’t it his job to protect life and work to save it? Nevermind that he’s a dog. He means a LOT to me, as if he were my son. If my son, or even if it was me, I’d want to try everything in my power to save that leg. Not just amputate it, not just give up and produce a new son. I kind of get where he’s coming from if he doesn’t understand or value animals as much as I do, but in the end, that’s a life. A life, and every life on this earth wants one thing: to live and survive. I think it deserves a chance. There’s a point at which you need to balance that with reality and the long run, but if there’s a good chance and a good prognosis, I’ll take it to preserve life. I’ll never see eye to eye with those who can’t see that.
I also understand coming from healthcare setting that being jaded is a true issue given what you see, but as I asked before, at what point does that overcome our grasp on humanity and life? Is every patient that comes to you just a peasant, a peon, who can’t possibly know nearly as much as you? Do you have to look down on people because you have a title, a status? Or are people just a body, textbook science, unfeeling, an experiment, and experience for you? They have brothers, sisters, pets, kids, grandparents, friends, co-workers. Someone loves them. They love someone.
I dunno, man. It’s particularly awful in men, I’ve noticed, though they’d accuse women of being “too emotional.” The military ones are the worst. Many men have this obnoxious sense of group mentality and having to be too-cool-for-school. It’s probably their way of coping with stress and horrors, without showing too much emotion and paving the way to perceived “weakness”. Everything is a joke, everyone is an idiot, make fun of those people. Ridicule your buddies. Be “one of the guys.” Distance yourself, nah it doesn’t effect me at all, and if it does, respond in anger, crudeness. It certainly works, but it sets up an environment of bullying, effectively. Let’s emotionally and psychologically flay this guy, I’m sure he’ll learn from that how to fit in with us. Common, as I was told, in firefighter groups and I assume in military situations. When it was explained to me, I completely balked as it was clearly emotional abuse. Debase these poor young men and boys until they’re desperate for affirmation of any sort. Like brainwashing. Except it doesn’t instill confidence, just bravado if the male makes it higher up in the hierarchy to hide the lack of self-confidence and then watch it happen all over again as they perpetuate the cycle. Predispose them to enjoy bullying the younger ones. Can’t wait for my turn to be at the top. Just like my dad.
Buh. How’d I get on this topic.
These night time surveillance recordings of mine are creepy to watch! Also very fascinating what we do in our sleep…or more accurately what I do in my sleep. No sleep walking as of yet!
The Unfinished Symphony. What a neato piece.
Life... 