Ahem. Kindly note the added 'u' after the 'o' in the heading above- an added sign that I'm becoming truly re-Indianized. This, of course, means that I can no longer take comfort in 'diarrhea', but will have to switch the unwieldy 'diarrhoea'... Not that I suffer from either, at least not currently anyway. But in case I did and for some reason, needed to write about it to someone, I can no longer zip off the shorter version (of the word, not the deed) without feeling like I was somehow cheating.
Anyway, I was impelled to write this blog (that too on my phone) after visiting a patient. Have I mentioned how much I love meeting patients? There's of course the obvious attraction of sounding oh so important when you can throw around the phrase 'need to see my patient'- do doctors still retain that kick out of saying it after years and years of doing so?- but to me, a basic bench scientist for donkey's years, there's the sense of astonishment and boot licking gratitude that I actually am seeing and talking to so many different people every SINGLE day!! To think that I spent more than a decade huddled under sterile hoods and hunching over lab counters, desperate to escape and resigned to never actually escaping, this freedom to wear something other than jeans and shirts and shoes that cover every inch of foot skin, to touch something without wearing gloves at work(!!), it's indescribable. If I had to try to describe it, I'd say it's like that feeling of well-being, you know, long-lasting relief that you get when you empty out your bowels after waiting a long time to do so.
Anyway, the main point of this entry was to reflect on the various personalities one comes across. Postpartum periods are funny- women are simultaneously stressed out and happy; they have a sense of completion (or sometimes, accomplishment) that the labour part of it is over and they are now anxious about how to get this kid to feed. So it's always interesting to see how women handle this period in so many different ways.m
More about this in the next post... My phone is dying.
4 comments:
Why why did you have to write that second paragraph :(
Everyone on the metro is in shorts and skirts, while poor me is covered head to toe.. psst
haha i think i ll have that relief if and when i return to the bench! Not that I interact with a whole bunch of ppl in my current profession. But there is a certain satisfaction in multi-tasking and setting up and juggling several experiments at once...that's where my sense of importance comes from! :)
Haha!
A girl in my PhD lab used to bring along a whole change of clothes everyday: skirt/flipflops for outside the lab; scrubs and sneakers for inside. Do you guys get lockers?
Seriously? Are you sure it's not just nostalgia talking? :p
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