When I was a medical student I did an elective in South Africa - in a small mission hospital on the Mozambique border. I met many inspirational people there, including a nurse who lived in a converted ablution block in the grounds of the hospital, walked the 6 km to her township clinic after a early morning swim in the hospital reservoir & was kind to a bewildered english medical student. She introduced me to Cat Stevens, Johnny Clegg & long distance study. She was re-reading Illusions by Richard Bach and pencilled in the margins of her well thumbed copy were notes from many previous readings of the same book at different stages of her life & nursing career. Each time she would find new paragraphs that related to her current situation. I loved the idea of recording how you felt by highlighting what resonated at any particular time & place in your life.
When the previous VSO health programme manager left Cambodia in May she gave me a book of hers, with a hand written inscription on the inside cover - ensuring me that I would find some way to use my medical skills again (maybe just not in Cambodia!). The book was Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese and it was a perfect parting gift from her. It resonated with me like a bell and from chapter one I began to make a note of certain sentences that I related to or touched me, sometimes inexplicably. Certain chapters had be sobbing - I really loved reading this book, it has distracted & comforted me this month.
Below is a selection of some of these quotes, piece them together & you may get a better picture of my current mental state - in this particular time and place...
"Life is like that, you live it forward & understand it backward."
"In the hierarchy of her emotions, anger was always trumps."
"Ignorance was just as dynamic as knowledge, and it grew in the same proportion."
"When we cannot cure or save a life, our patients at least feel cared for. It should be a basic human right."
"She had nothing to put on the table but the truth."
"Departure or imminent death will force you to define your true tastes."
"Tizitash zeweter wide ene eye metah - I can't help thinking about you."
"The past recedes from the traveller."
"You had to exert yourself to see this world. But if you did, if you had that kind of curiosity, if you had an innate interest in the welfare of your fellow human beings, and if you went through that door, a strange thing happened; you left your petty troubles on the threshold. It could be addictive."
"A childhood at missing imparted lessons on resilience, about fortitude, and about the fragility of life."
"He had so many ways of climbing into the tree house in his head, escaping the madness below. And pulling the ladder up behind him; I was envious."
"Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny."
"Without Genet as a witness, nothing I did was meaningful."
"Life is full of signs, the trick is to know how to read them."
"Travel expands the mind and loosens the bowels."
"But you reach a point where after trying and trying you say, patience be damned. Let then suffer their distorted worldview. Your job is to preserve yourself, not to descend into their hole. It's a relief when you arrive at this place, the point of absurdity, because then you are free, you know you owe them nothing."
"I don't think you can be a physician and not see yourself in your patients illness."
"The mind was fragile, fickle but the human body resilient."
"The immersion of blood, pus, and tears - the fluids in which one dissolved all traces of self."
"The mood in the room went from the joy of reunion to profound sadness, as if those two emotions were invariably linked."
"I had nothing more to give, and nothing to fear."
When the previous VSO health programme manager left Cambodia in May she gave me a book of hers, with a hand written inscription on the inside cover - ensuring me that I would find some way to use my medical skills again (maybe just not in Cambodia!). The book was Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese and it was a perfect parting gift from her. It resonated with me like a bell and from chapter one I began to make a note of certain sentences that I related to or touched me, sometimes inexplicably. Certain chapters had be sobbing - I really loved reading this book, it has distracted & comforted me this month.
Below is a selection of some of these quotes, piece them together & you may get a better picture of my current mental state - in this particular time and place...
"Life is like that, you live it forward & understand it backward."
"In the hierarchy of her emotions, anger was always trumps."
"Ignorance was just as dynamic as knowledge, and it grew in the same proportion."
"When we cannot cure or save a life, our patients at least feel cared for. It should be a basic human right."
"She had nothing to put on the table but the truth."
"Departure or imminent death will force you to define your true tastes."
"Tizitash zeweter wide ene eye metah - I can't help thinking about you."
"The past recedes from the traveller."
"You had to exert yourself to see this world. But if you did, if you had that kind of curiosity, if you had an innate interest in the welfare of your fellow human beings, and if you went through that door, a strange thing happened; you left your petty troubles on the threshold. It could be addictive."
"A childhood at missing imparted lessons on resilience, about fortitude, and about the fragility of life."
"He had so many ways of climbing into the tree house in his head, escaping the madness below. And pulling the ladder up behind him; I was envious."
"Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny."
"Without Genet as a witness, nothing I did was meaningful."
"Life is full of signs, the trick is to know how to read them."
"Travel expands the mind and loosens the bowels."
"But you reach a point where after trying and trying you say, patience be damned. Let then suffer their distorted worldview. Your job is to preserve yourself, not to descend into their hole. It's a relief when you arrive at this place, the point of absurdity, because then you are free, you know you owe them nothing."
"I don't think you can be a physician and not see yourself in your patients illness."
"The mind was fragile, fickle but the human body resilient."
"The immersion of blood, pus, and tears - the fluids in which one dissolved all traces of self."
"The mood in the room went from the joy of reunion to profound sadness, as if those two emotions were invariably linked."
"I had nothing more to give, and nothing to fear."
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