Franz Marie Cruz’s Diary

The cool December wind makes me nostalgic.  It brings back memories of  Christmases past.  I drove by UP Diliman 2 nights ago, I had my windows rolled down, and uninvitingly, memories of ABM Christmas parties haunted to me.  I suddenly missed the company I had back then and the games we used to play come Christmas time.  Dividing into teams of 5 and driving around the campus in search for the next clue, screaming inside the car and running up and down the stairs of the barely-lighted Main Library, and alas finishing only 2nd place in the Scavengers’ Hunt game.   Our big tambio would be teemed full of its members when it’s time for gifts to be swapped hands.  How time flies indeed, these are but memories five years old already.

Fast forward to med school, Christmas season will always be associated with TRP and Phi dance practices for TRP.  The cool night air is like a drink of ice-cold water after hours of practice in a closed room that could barely accommodate the dancing sisses.   I am not a dancer and those steps, however simple they are made to be, are just too complicated for all my 4 extremities.  But I eventually missed those dancing days too, and especially the sisses.

Yet, it was only barely a year ago, when my block and I went to Tagaytay.  We shared a tall pitcher of Margarita to bring our body temp up a notch, as our sweaters could only provide some protection from the biting cold of early January air.  It was one of the very few gimiks we were complete.  We were crazy and we had fun. 

I miss long sleeps, staying in bed til near

noon

, and afternoon naps. For the past 4 weeks, I have been doing my pre-res training at Sentro. Depending on the number of in-patients I have to see in the morning, I usually go to “work” as early as 5 in the morning on weekdays.  During the most toxic days when we had 8 admitted patients in the Plastic-Lacrimal-Orbit Services, I started my follow-up at 430 am!  Imagine too, waking 8 patients up at that yet ungodly hour just so you can examine them.  I am so used to waking up before the sun rises that I immediately know something is wrong if I am still in bed by daylight.  Isang beses kasi, I overslept, did not hear my alarm clock go off and woke up at 830 am! The first thought that raced in my mind was, “Shit! I hope it’s a Saturday.  It has to be a weekend for me to still be in bed at this hour.”  I picked up my phone and saw a message from my first year “Hi! May PL clinic na tayo.”  Boohoo! Took a bath and was in my post 20 minutes later.  Nakakaiyak.  That can NEVER happen again.   Even on Sundays, I have to be out of bed not later than 630 so I could be at Sentro at 7am and I will find most of my batchmates there already seeing their own patients.

There are bad week and good week at Sentro.  There are subspec days when I wish to be literally swallowed up by the ground and just disappear from the kahihiyan and kapalpakan.  Comments as babaw as “very good” or “nahihiyang ka dito…dahil nakakasagot ka” from the consultants do so much to my self-esteem.  There are days when I doubt if I’ll do well in this field.  I have accepted early on that I really can never answer any of the questions posed to me by a one certain consultant (she asks more difficult questions than others) and my ocular exams will always be questionable to her.  Siguro now I am hoping that she will eventually find me improving.  I mean there’s no way to go but up from where I am na diba? Basta, I always feel “tanga” and “palpak” during CO with her.  Nakakahiya.  There is an intense feeling of inadequacy in skills and knowledge lang talaga.

I get so stressed and overworked from work that every time I eat my first meal of the day (usually late lunch) I splurge.  I always find myself with such big appetite, kebs na ang pag-iipon for Christmas gifts.  I need to eat, to reward myself at least. I am also scared of becoming too thin. I still want to look good in my clothes and so I eat.

I don’t know how I will survive PL-Orbit rotation next year when I do officially become the sole first year.