Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Plodding along...

I am still recovering from the distress of finding my Elton CDs are missing...*sniff sniff* but life goes on, I guess.

I've not been around much lately. At work, I have been mad busy between panicking about being nowhere near my target N, with only 4 months left of PhD funding and sitting in on clinics with my supervisor.

Sometimes I love sitting in on clinics - it reminds me of why I do what I do and why I want to go into this career. I get to joke around with the kids and see how much they have changed and how they are developing into wonderful, bright, friendly young people. Other times, I sit and feel useless, realising that sometimes there is not a lot you can do for someone, and when that someone is a child, that is a really horrible realisation.

Sometimes hope is hard to come by. I realised today that when I was much more of a believer than I am now, that it was nice to pray for the "hopeless clients", because somehow I could entertain the fantasy that one day, some supernatural power would come and magically bestow happiness, joy and peace upon them.

Now that I don't believe in that sort of thing, I realise that part of what I have to deal with, is the realisation, not only of my own limits, but the limits of my profession and the limits of medicine.

I want to sum up this post with a helpful and inspiring little quotation to round it off and provide some kind of conclusion to my own frustration and sense of human inadquacy to fix the world. But there isn't one.

3 comments:

Lorcan said...

The Gray Avenger would say, if a spraypaint can, a whooppee cushion, or running head long into it, wont fix it... settle into the peace of knowing this is all we have, and there is joy as well, Justplain would remind you that a good hat and a tune on the Alpine Horn is always a good start towards joy... and Lorcan reminds you that wallowing in self doubt and pain and sorrow is fine for a few months, but eventualy you have to sink REALLY REALLY low... and then when your pals all want to heave bricks at you, go deeper, settle into....

...

...

...

...

real morbidity... and then...

...

...
...

you realize, hell, I can keep wishing I could make it all better, but frankly... well... gee... I don't know... I guess we have some hope there will be answers, but in the end, we can only accept and find joy in life the way it is with all the crunchy bits...

:)
lor

PS and when all else fails... write to Santa Claus... ya never know...

PPS... I used to work on cases like a nine year old being tried as an adult for murder... I know... you bang your head in fustration, at the system, at the broken bits of us... but... go home to a nice warm dinner and a hug and put all that in a box for awhile...

Malcolm said...

Sometimes it helps just to "pray" regardless of the lack of metaphysical underpinning. Prayer is a way of admitting that "the situation is hopeless but, I stll care ... godammit!"

I'm pleased that you're not selling out to the camp of total detachment!

Lorcan said...

Hi CA:
Things in Georgia and Loisiana are a lot worse than are being reported... the death toll is huge, the National Guard is all over in Iraq so folks have been left to die in the floods here... do pray for folks down there...
all the best
lor