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| praying so hard!! |
Monday, April 28, 2014
Just talking about the rest of my life
Gioconda…do you REALLY want to be a doctor, with all your heart and soul, AND EVERYTHING ELSE YOUR BODY CONSISTS OF, DOWN TO YOUR FINGERS AND TOES?!?!?!?!
It takes a very special breed to become a doctor. After
Peace Corps, I know EXACTLY who I am and I'd like to think I know what I want
for the rest of my life, because I know what makes me happy and what doesn't.
Peace Corps tears you apart to your bare minimum and this is
what I've concluded: I am SIMPLE and CONFIDENT. Very positive, motivational. I
believe in service and philantrophy. I grew up fast. I'm outgoing, SPONTANEOUS, good at thinking on my feet, resourceful, honest,
light-hearted, extremely compassionate, loyal as a golden retriever, STUBBORN
AS EVER...my way or the highway, right friends? HA! I've got an audacity that
could knock your socks off. I'm closed off until I trust you and it takes a
long time to really get to know me because I don't trust easily. I'll
detach from people a little too easily too. Thank you, difficult childhood! I can
be overly analytical and PENSIVE, opinionated but I'll never push my beliefs on
anyone. I'm PATIENT (thank you Peace Corps!), low maintenence, persistent to
the point of driving people crazy, OBSERVING, STRAIGHT FORWARD, harsh at times,
have determination and dedication for days, and contrary to popular belief, I
appreciate my alone time and being around people takes energy away from me.
After my father passed away in 6th grade, I didn't give a shit about anything
for a while there and I didn't care what people thought of me so I spoke up
more often, challenged myself. In high school I mastered how to be an extrovert
but don't get it twisted, I'm quite the solitary loser! I hope this formula
adds up to a smart doctor with the human touch, because that's the kind of doc
I want to be.
I want to believe every aspiring doc has the following
neurotic feelings.
"The want doesn’t even matter, Gioconda. Throw that out
the window. This is no joke. You’ve seen what it takes. Are you smart enough?
Are you mature yet? Did Peace Corps do what you wanted it to do?! How does a
20-something know if they're mature enough to handle a code blue?!?!?!?!"
"What makes you think you can be a doctor, Gioconda…and
not just any ol’ doctor, but a GOOD DOCTOR? Because if you’re going to do this,
you’re going to do this RIGHT. You struggled in college because you chose to
have a social life, were adamant about how you thought you had to take
advantage of being young with no responsibilities. So, once you get back into
school, will there really be a significant change academically? And if you do
end up redeeming yourself, are you prepared to make the sacrifices?"
"And your family life????? What kind of mom will you be
if you have this kind of career? When will you get pregnant? Yes, a med student
has to think like this, because at least 8 years of your future will be mapped
out, for the most part. You know your priorities are straight. Family is always
number one, so how will your husband handle your passion for medicine? Maybe
you won't even get a husband and will just have to adopt. You're okay with that
though...you think. Sacrifices, right?"
"How can you learn to balance a demanding career and
have a family? How the hell have people been doing it? Is it like, if they can
do it, you can too? You’ve tried to think of becoming a nurse or nurse
practitioner – maybe this will fulfill your want to save lives, to marvel at
the human body. You know you don’t do well taking orders from people. You’re a
born leader and you don’t do well with routine so trash the nursing idea.
You’ve even thought about physical therapy. It’s VERY different, one-on-one
time with a patient, which you’ve been told you’d excel at. You’ve weighed
pro’s and cons, done your fair share of shadowing, volunteering, interning,
listening to friends."
Why can’t I get this doctor idea out of my head?
Friends and family, I’ve tried so hard to make sure this is
what I want to do. This career keeps pulling me back. I kept running because I
take it SO SERIOUSLY. I ran all the way to Peru, damn it, to make ABSOLUTELY
SURE I wanted to be in the medical field…and not just ANYONE in the medical
field, but a DOCTOR. This is the rest of my life. Again, I take it so
seriously, I can’t even describe. I understand the weight I’d carry. Or maybe I
take it so seriously because I don’t yet understand and I want to respect it
like it’s the ocean with force greater than I am.
"A doctor is responsible for people’s LIVES. This is
not a light burden to carry. Once you’re in, you’re in for the long haul too.
No turning back, no do-overs, get ready to sacrifice your beloved family and
friends. This is what it takes, it’s a harsh reality and it won’t be easy.
Until the day you die, you will be in school, learning to be a better doc. You
will have the chance to save many but you will LOSE SOME along the way too. You
will tell families their mom’s did NOT survive the surgery. You will not sleep.
You will become machine-like, forever trying to achieve the equilibrium of
human compassion and callous diligence. You will crash under pressure when you
begin. You will be wrong so many times and want to be perfect but it will take
years to achieve this level of experience. IT WILL BE SO, SO HARD. THE HARDEST
DAMN THING YOU’VE EVER GONE THROUGH. Marathon running and Peace Corps COMBINED
won’t give you half as much hell as medical school will. Will you be able to
handle it when someone’s heart stops? What will you do, Gioconda? Will you rise
to the occasion, or will you freeze?"
I’m scared of this career. Better said, I’m afraid of my
passion, because if it’s taking me where I think it’s taking me, I’m in for it.
It’s funny, once you find your “passion,” there’s no stopping it. It will find
you and awaken your senses like nothing else can. Once you know, you KNOW.
I know because I ONLY listened in my science classes. They
were the only classes that mattered to me, that challenged me like I like to be
challenged. I see someone sick and am drawn like a magnet. I listen to the sick
differently, intently in a sick way. I see a patient and I feel like I belong
in the room. I am instantly quizzical and stimulated. When I shadowed the
doctors in college, I would come home like I had just done drugs. When I was in
the hospital, I lost myself in observation and my mind calculated every
doctor’s move. A passion makes you feel like you’re on drugs. That’s the only
way I can describe it. It’s a high and you go through life searching for this
high over and over again. We all want to feel alive, and that’s how passion
feels. It’s addicting…because we need it. Like the recycled meth pulsating in
an addict’s veins bonds to the blood cells indubitably and permanently, the
passion has become a part of us, and sure enough, we go through withdrawals
without it…like I am here in the Peace Corps. I’m DYING to be in a hospital.
D-Y-I-N-G. I have asked professors to send me studies, family members send me
anatomy and neuroscience books, download videos of surgeries to put on a USB to
watch in my site when it's pouring rain and there's nothing else to do. I go
out with my friends, meet someone new, and never shut up about the brain,
medicine, case studies, etc. (Maybe that’s why I don’t have a boyfriend! Ha!)
It’s amazing how bored some people can get about something you personally feel
like flying while doing.
As I get closer to my COS date (close of service) for Peace
Corps, I am pressured to have my life “figured out.” Many finish these two
years without a plan, but I can’t seem to let myself relax like that, and I
don’t think it’s a bad thing. I am determined and focused. I’ve been searching for
my purpose since high school graduation, although even then I was thinking of
becoming a doctor.
I’m realizing it’s about to be one hell of a ride. After
many years of mental growth and deliberation, I am confident to tell you that I
will, without a shadow of a doubt, become a doctor one day. I hope I can do
Doctors Without Borders or some sort of disaster relief. I don’t care how hard
it will be. “Ambition is putting a ladder against the sky.” I’m ready. I wasn’t
the day I graduated college, but now, I’m ready to take action.
Thank you for all your support in my search. I wish I could
give you all a friggin' planet for your positivity and encouragement! A “thank
you” isn’t enough but I know my family and friends aren't the type to expect
the mansion on the beach. You guys should know your belief in me is everything.
Thank you. I'm going to stop writing now before I type "thank you"
over and over again. :-) Here's a photo of Dairon!! Isn't he cute?
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Giving
If you gave everything, even the clothes off your back, your last drop of water, would you be alright? Is it possible to give at an irresponsible level if it means that you will not be taken care of? Is ultimate selflessness possible under our human condition? I think it’s a question of karma.
My observation about the states is that, generally, people do not give without expecting something in return. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t people out there that don’t volunteer all they’ve got for someone else’s benefit, but it’s not as common as here in Peru. In the Peruvian culture, especially in the campo, everyone is constantly sharing. Someone is always knocking on the door asking for water, an onion, garlic, an egg, lemon, etc. No one counts favors. They just grew up this way. Life is obviously more complicated here for people because of socioeconomic, access, health, and weather problems, but it’s beautiful how the culture of a poor people involves so much generosity. Maybe this is because people do not gain enough money to learn what greed is. The root of greed is from getting used to having too much.
Lately I’ve been experimenting how to give more than expected. I also feel I’m experimenting how to take away people’s pain or discomfort in a sense. That probably comes from how I come from another culture and am not used to seeing so much need…or maybe I’m overly sensitive to people’s needs. For example, the kid next to me in the internet cabina sees my water and looks thirsty, so I put it in front of him and say he can have it. He takes it, ever so timidly, then says, “Gracias, gringa.” In the colectivo to Tumbes city, a mother sweats profusely as she holds her sleeping baby. I offer to hold the baby and sweat instead, directly putting myself in her shoes to understand her a little bit more and how exactly to help. Some problems have harder solutions than others. When I buy bread, the neighborhood kids surround me and I end up giving away all the bread. Notice how I don’t even say, “my bread,” because I’m trying to think of these material objects as part of the world, not me. There goes my dinner, but my hunger dissipates anyways. There’s a woman walking back from the chacra (farm) with a sack of heavy platanos on her back so I run over to help her with the load and walk home with her. My host mom, who I do not exactly get along with, is tired from her long day so I wash the dishes after dinner, even though I wasn’t necessarily wanting to do it, because I’m tired too…and I think she’s mean, ha! Anyways, I noticed that the feeling of not wanting to do these things goes away the more I give. It’s addicting to give because I chase that feeling of making someone else happy or making their day a little bit easier for a moment. Intriguingly, I’m still receiving something in return though, because I’m receiving a feeling. I wonder what it’s like to not even get that feeling, have it be like second nature.
My observation about the states is that, generally, people do not give without expecting something in return. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t people out there that don’t volunteer all they’ve got for someone else’s benefit, but it’s not as common as here in Peru. In the Peruvian culture, especially in the campo, everyone is constantly sharing. Someone is always knocking on the door asking for water, an onion, garlic, an egg, lemon, etc. No one counts favors. They just grew up this way. Life is obviously more complicated here for people because of socioeconomic, access, health, and weather problems, but it’s beautiful how the culture of a poor people involves so much generosity. Maybe this is because people do not gain enough money to learn what greed is. The root of greed is from getting used to having too much.
Lately I’ve been experimenting how to give more than expected. I also feel I’m experimenting how to take away people’s pain or discomfort in a sense. That probably comes from how I come from another culture and am not used to seeing so much need…or maybe I’m overly sensitive to people’s needs. For example, the kid next to me in the internet cabina sees my water and looks thirsty, so I put it in front of him and say he can have it. He takes it, ever so timidly, then says, “Gracias, gringa.” In the colectivo to Tumbes city, a mother sweats profusely as she holds her sleeping baby. I offer to hold the baby and sweat instead, directly putting myself in her shoes to understand her a little bit more and how exactly to help. Some problems have harder solutions than others. When I buy bread, the neighborhood kids surround me and I end up giving away all the bread. Notice how I don’t even say, “my bread,” because I’m trying to think of these material objects as part of the world, not me. There goes my dinner, but my hunger dissipates anyways. There’s a woman walking back from the chacra (farm) with a sack of heavy platanos on her back so I run over to help her with the load and walk home with her. My host mom, who I do not exactly get along with, is tired from her long day so I wash the dishes after dinner, even though I wasn’t necessarily wanting to do it, because I’m tired too…and I think she’s mean, ha! Anyways, I noticed that the feeling of not wanting to do these things goes away the more I give. It’s addicting to give because I chase that feeling of making someone else happy or making their day a little bit easier for a moment. Intriguingly, I’m still receiving something in return though, because I’m receiving a feeling. I wonder what it’s like to not even get that feeling, have it be like second nature.
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| Lobitos, sunset watching, with a wonderful friend |
Inner Crazy
The life of Peace Corps volunteer has no flow, so neither will this next paragraph. I present to you my life this past week. In Spanish, it’s called a “locura”. Translation: CRAZINESS.
I’m really dirty. I’m sweaty and OH SO SEXY. It’s a Latin staged Carls Jr. commercial every single day of my friggin’ life! SPF 70 isn’t even a match for the equatorial sun so my face is sharp shade of lobster red. “Gonna have SO many wrinkles when I’m older. Maybe plastic surgery isn’t such a bad thing...” The sun is always particularly unbearable here but these past 5 days, it has hit a level of unberableness that I didn’t even know existed. My scrubs smell like pig feces but no one notices or cares for that matter. Hand sanitizer and Jesus are synonymous terms to me right now. We haven’t had electricity for a couple of days, cell service keeps going on and off, no water for a couple weeks, and when it does come, it’s brown…AKA it’s full of shit. AKA I bathe in shit! AKA I’m ALWAYS covered in shit! “The second you get into a hostel with running treated water, bathe for at LEAST an hour Gioconda, you nasty woman, you.” Hey but I haven’t had gastrointestinal problems in a few weeks so that’s a small win! The other day we took a trip to the river’s canal. The canal runs through the farmlands and feeds water to the hundreds of platano, mango, avocado, blackberry and orange trees plus some 100 cows, 60 donkey’s, give or take, around my Peace Corps site. When I bathed in the canal, I hate to admit it, health volunteer, disease prevention and all, but it was actually fun because I was playing shark with my kid friends and teaching them how to swim…but swimming technique instead turned into, tactics to NOT DROWN. “COJA EL PASAMANO!!” (GRAB THE RAILING!!) The mosquitoes are sucking my blood as if they’re another organ of mine. “Bastards.” I read about anatomy and the brain in the hammock outside of my house and all the kids pass by waving and greeting me, sometimes stopping by to talk. I get through about 5 pages in an hour. Today in the small school I work in, a 14 year old kid asked me what the word “leader” meant, and I flinched, trying to remember, “This is why you’re here Gioconda. Have faith, have faith, have faith.” My 24 year old friend in site asked me, point blank, what a condom was. HERE WE GO AGAIN…big flinch, a little sadness, a look down at the ground for a moment to think, “Where do I start with this one?” My new mantra - “I love questions! I love patience! I love questions! I love patience!” As I did a house visit for my Health Homes project, a goat was slaughtered right in front of me, the mom, and the baby I was working with (“Keep your eyes on the baby, G…EW, GOD DAMN, THAT’S GROSS! EYES ON THE BABY!!!!”). Subsequently, I was gifted the stomach, a very popular dish here in Peru. “DEF RE-GIFTING THIS! Where them hungry kids at?!?!” Let’s also talk about my fabulous Saturday night, which are so normal for a 23 year old girl! I got to stay up with the nurse in the health post because a 76 year old woman had a subdural hematoma so badly treated a couple days before, you could see blood through the skin on her head. The hospital’s an hour away. “Act fast!” The nurse opened her skull up right then and there, “sterile as we can be” and oh shit was it bloody. She made it to the hospital, obviously in an altered mental state, and obviously too late. That night, I fell asleep with the nurse at the health post on a patient’s bed cushion we dragged outside. The sky crystal clear, the stars so bright, the conversation so humbling, so sedative, then BOOM! Rain hits my face and I think it’s a bug. It’s actually a torrential downpour. “Must have been really tired, huh Gioconda? Move move MOVE…ugh don’t forget THE PATIENT BED!!!!!” I’m drenched within a matter of seconds. The pace of life here is surprisingly stupefying. Although I’m filthy, tired, thirsty, smelly, and itchy, I’m fulfilled.
I’m really dirty. I’m sweaty and OH SO SEXY. It’s a Latin staged Carls Jr. commercial every single day of my friggin’ life! SPF 70 isn’t even a match for the equatorial sun so my face is sharp shade of lobster red. “Gonna have SO many wrinkles when I’m older. Maybe plastic surgery isn’t such a bad thing...” The sun is always particularly unbearable here but these past 5 days, it has hit a level of unberableness that I didn’t even know existed. My scrubs smell like pig feces but no one notices or cares for that matter. Hand sanitizer and Jesus are synonymous terms to me right now. We haven’t had electricity for a couple of days, cell service keeps going on and off, no water for a couple weeks, and when it does come, it’s brown…AKA it’s full of shit. AKA I bathe in shit! AKA I’m ALWAYS covered in shit! “The second you get into a hostel with running treated water, bathe for at LEAST an hour Gioconda, you nasty woman, you.” Hey but I haven’t had gastrointestinal problems in a few weeks so that’s a small win! The other day we took a trip to the river’s canal. The canal runs through the farmlands and feeds water to the hundreds of platano, mango, avocado, blackberry and orange trees plus some 100 cows, 60 donkey’s, give or take, around my Peace Corps site. When I bathed in the canal, I hate to admit it, health volunteer, disease prevention and all, but it was actually fun because I was playing shark with my kid friends and teaching them how to swim…but swimming technique instead turned into, tactics to NOT DROWN. “COJA EL PASAMANO!!” (GRAB THE RAILING!!) The mosquitoes are sucking my blood as if they’re another organ of mine. “Bastards.” I read about anatomy and the brain in the hammock outside of my house and all the kids pass by waving and greeting me, sometimes stopping by to talk. I get through about 5 pages in an hour. Today in the small school I work in, a 14 year old kid asked me what the word “leader” meant, and I flinched, trying to remember, “This is why you’re here Gioconda. Have faith, have faith, have faith.” My 24 year old friend in site asked me, point blank, what a condom was. HERE WE GO AGAIN…big flinch, a little sadness, a look down at the ground for a moment to think, “Where do I start with this one?” My new mantra - “I love questions! I love patience! I love questions! I love patience!” As I did a house visit for my Health Homes project, a goat was slaughtered right in front of me, the mom, and the baby I was working with (“Keep your eyes on the baby, G…EW, GOD DAMN, THAT’S GROSS! EYES ON THE BABY!!!!”). Subsequently, I was gifted the stomach, a very popular dish here in Peru. “DEF RE-GIFTING THIS! Where them hungry kids at?!?!” Let’s also talk about my fabulous Saturday night, which are so normal for a 23 year old girl! I got to stay up with the nurse in the health post because a 76 year old woman had a subdural hematoma so badly treated a couple days before, you could see blood through the skin on her head. The hospital’s an hour away. “Act fast!” The nurse opened her skull up right then and there, “sterile as we can be” and oh shit was it bloody. She made it to the hospital, obviously in an altered mental state, and obviously too late. That night, I fell asleep with the nurse at the health post on a patient’s bed cushion we dragged outside. The sky crystal clear, the stars so bright, the conversation so humbling, so sedative, then BOOM! Rain hits my face and I think it’s a bug. It’s actually a torrential downpour. “Must have been really tired, huh Gioconda? Move move MOVE…ugh don’t forget THE PATIENT BED!!!!!” I’m drenched within a matter of seconds. The pace of life here is surprisingly stupefying. Although I’m filthy, tired, thirsty, smelly, and itchy, I’m fulfilled.
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