The following is a real conversation between a doctor (Dr A) and a patient (Mr X). The lines in italics are thought bubbles above Dr A’s head

Dr A: Hello Mr X, I hear you are having nose bleeds again. Its almost certainly due to the leukaemia, preventing your body from making any platelets

Mr X: Yes doctor, you are right. It always happens when I have no platelets and then I blow my nose.

Dr A: Do you have a cold? Why are you blowing your nose?

Mr X: No, I dont have a cold. I blow my nose so I get rid of the bacteria, so I dont get a cold.

Dr A: What the hell??!! Ummm….Mr X, please dont blow your nose. Because you cant get rid of bacteria like that, and all you are doing is giving yourself nose-bleeds! You almost died with your last bleed, as it wouldn’t stop bleeding!

Mr X: But you always fix my nose bleeds. So, no problems!

Dr A: Walk away, because I am not going to win this argument!

Dr A returns half an hour later to see if the nose bleeds have settled down.

Mr X: Yes, they have settled doctor, but the bleeding starts if I get up and walk around. Here, I show you…

(Mr X proceeds to get out of bed and walk around before Dr A can tell him not to. The nose starts to spurt again.)

Dr A: Great!

Dr A spends the next hour trying to stop his bleeding

Moral of the story: some people are hell-bent on proving Darwin right. You can only stop them from doing it so many times

Kyle and Jackie O. ‘Nuff said! All of Australia knows about this. For those of you who dont, the story is that these two run a radio show in Sydney. They have a regular segment on their show where some poor soul gets strapped to a lie detector and gets asked all sorts of uncomfortable questions. Good entertainment. Usually. Except when it blew up in their faces, resulting in their show being pulled off air, and Kyle being sacked as a judge on Australian Idol. Because the person strapped to the lie detector was a 14 year old girl. And the person quizzing her was her mother. About the kid’s sexual experiences. And the kid admits she was raped as a 12-year old. Below is the transcript of this whole sordid saga, courtesy of blogotariat

Transcript

[outro music]

Now comes the part where I add my two cents worth. I think the radio jocks got completely what they deserved. Somewhere along the quest for better ratings, and more listeners, these people forgot that there is something called boundaries. And so, they totally got what they deserved. I wont go on anymore about it. But amidst all this, one thing really bothers me. Kyle Sandilands’ actions have caused a huge media uproar, and all the attention has been focussed on what he did and what he said. But that has somehow taken the focus away from what the mother did and what the mother said. How do you take your daughter on national radio, and ask her about her sex life? Is it just me, or does someone else think it is completely nuts??? Does this woman not need her head examined? To make matters worse, if you read through the transcript, the mother already knew that she had been raped! How on earth do you take your own daughter, who is a victim of rape, on to national radio, and then ask her if she has ever had sex??? Isnt that just traumatising this poor girl even more? Thats the last time she will ever trust her mother, thats for sure!

And what is even more bewildering is that not a single journalist, not a single person has pointed the finger at the mother and said, lady, you are wrong. You shouldn’t have done this. You are not fit to be a parent to a teenager. She needed sympathy, and understanding, not lie detectors and public humiliation. I am just completely shocked by the mother more than anyone else

A member of my immediate family sits in a hospital bed tonight. They have just had emergency surgery, and I am thankful to say that they have come out the other end without too many problems (touch wood). I think. But the last 24 hours have been stressful, to say the least. Frustrating. I am a doctor. This was a speciality I am more familiar with than lots of others. Yet, I was hundreds of miles away at the end of the phone. Being given bits and pieces of information over international phone lines. Couldn’t move…… CT scan……. 2.5 cm…….

I dont do well in situations where I am not in control. And this was one of those situations. I wanted to be there. I NEEDED to be there. To look at the CT scan myself. And draw my own conclusions from facts I know. Come up with my own plan of action. Yet, I couldnt do any of that. All I could do was sit by the phone, and keep my fingers crossed. Do what family members of patients all over the world do. Hope and pray.

Being a doctor, and treating a patient with a particular disease is so different from being a family member of that same patient with the same disease. And I am just learning how much more difficult it is to be the latter. I just cant imagine how difficult and how scary it must be right now, for those that are actually there at the bedside. I am really hoping and praying that this whole ordeal gets over soon, and they can come back home safely.

Someone has left a large bunch of flowers in the doctor’s room. Expensive flowers. The kind that you can smell from the end of the corridor. Huge pink lillies, some yet to bloom, pink roses, purple sweet pea. All in an expensive pink ceramic vase. There is no name attached to these flowers.

Working on an oncology ward, you can never be sure what these gifts signify. Did someone bring the flowers in because a loved one was cured? Or because we had no cure for that loved one, but thank you for trying anyways?

So its all done and dusted. The MOTH, Jack and I have shifted to Melbourne. Its been almost two months infact. Thats how long it has taken to settle in. And apart from all the usual chaos that accompanies moving countries, it has been all the more chaotic than would be expected. First Jack got left behind in Auckland. Then, Jack arrived in Melbourne. Then, Jack was really pissed off at being left behind in Auckland, and not allowed to go out in Melbourne. Then Jack went out of the house, and decided not to return. Until hunger got the better of him, and he returned home after 10 days of being AWOL. All of this amidst days full of running around, buying things for the house, being at home when things were delivered to the house, trying to buy a car, not having the car delivered on time, being stuck in Melbourne with no mode of transport (almost!), extending the rental period on the rental car, then having the rental people call me up threatening to report me to the police for not returning the car on time…..WHEW! As I said, chaotic…

Anyhow, everything got done. And hopefully all the chaos is now behind us. But in amongst all this chaos and frantic running around, there was a moment about a week ago, when I paused to think. And I am a bit ashamed to admit this, but for the first time in my life, it struck me how lucky I was. It all started when I went to get my eyebrows threaded. The lady I went to was probably the same age as me, and from India, and as such, was someone that I could identify with. But the similiarities ended there. She was mother to a 3 year old gorgeous girl. However, she was here with her husband, while the kid was still back home, being cared for by the in-laws. Her husband was here in Melbourne, studying part-time, and working part-time. And she was here with him. And it was so obvious how much she missed her daughter. It made me wonder how someone could leave their child behind like that to come overseas. I would never do that, I thought, sitting on my high horse.

But then, as I sat there while she worked on my eyebrows, I realised I had no right to think that. In fact, I had no idea what it was like to be her. She and her husband were living in a room the size of my bedroom. It was their living room, their bedroom, his study, her work area. On one wall, right at my eye level, was posted his roster for the upcoming month. Majority of the days said “rostered day off”. And while she was working on my eyebrows, in the tradition of beauticians all over the world, she was chatting away, talking about how hard life is as an Indian in melbourne, how difficult it is to try and save money for her husband’s fees for the next semester, etc, etc. I couldnt get out of there fast enough.

Then I left. And came home to my 46 inch Sony Bravia and my leather recliner couch. And I realised why I was in such a hurry to leave. Because for the first time in my life, I realised how lucky I am. That I was born to parents who did all this hard work so their kids could have a better life. That I worked hard when I needed to, and I am reaping the benefits of it today. That I married a guy who did his share of hard work too. My life has been too smooth until now. It has gone according to plan. I havent hit any major glitches yet. I never appreciated how good I had it until now. And I am not sure I liked the feeling that I got when I realised it. I felt…..something similiar to…..shame, perhaps.