A Bit About Love

"Love is patient, love is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails."
- 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

...

He walked up to the desk in the ward and spoke to the first person at the desk who would give him any attention. In his hands were a basket of chocolates and a piece of paper. He was redirected to the nurse in charge, who subsequently redirected him to me.

"I just wanted to thank you for taking care of my wife. You know, we've been married for sixty years now, and I've been caring for her blood sugars for the past seven years. But sometimes, I'm not able to and I need you guys to help me. I really can't be without my wife you know, so thank you. She was in so much pain, and you can't imagine what it was like watching that. She's doing so much better now!

Thank you for giving my love a second chance."

...

I've been learning a bit about love lately.

I see it in its purest forms every single day at work - the teary wife stroking her husband's hair after he's just passed away, the daughter who comes in with lemons and honey to make her bedbound mother a special drink every day, the son who requests updates several times a day because he's concerned, the parent holding their sick child's hand by the bedside, the echo of sobs when someone loved has passed away, or the husband with his arms wrapped around his frail wife as they walked.

Maybe it's something about sickness and suffering that causes us to realize what truly matters most in life.
Maybe it's through the storms that we learn to love even better, and through sacrifice that love is made perfect in us.

From my inconspicuous position in the corner with a red folder in one hand and pen in the other, or on a wheelie chair behind a computer facing the ward - I see this every day, and am constantly humbled by the human ability to love so well.

Love, as I've learnt.. is incredibly courageous and gutsy. It chooses to believe in the best but is also prepared for the worst case scenario. It opens its arms to the possibility of overwhelming heartbreak because the alternative is simply not worth it - to live completely guarded without risk or vulnerability, to refrain from any semblance of attachment in constant fear of getting hurt.

Love, is Aunty C holding her husband's hand and saying to us - "We're ready for whatever comes."
Love is knowing that when daybreak comes and he's lying in bed too weak to eat, that she would still be there by his side.

Love is selfless, placing the needs of another person before our own. I see it in the sister who would offer her bone marrow without any care or question of the consequences to herself as long as it meant saving her sister's life.

Love is forgiveness, a choice to prefer one another over past hurts and pride. I've seen the heartwarming stuff in hospitals, but I've also witnessed the ones who pass away with no next of kin, no tears by the bedside, and no one to collect the body. I've learnt that pride can keep you company for a day.. but when all is said and done, it's not pride you want with you at the end of your life, it's the people you love. From this, I am learning to be more generous with the "I forgive you's", to make things right when I am in the wrong, to not hold back the "I love you's", and to constantly choose to have a positive voice in a negative generation.

Love.. invites joy and goodness into the darkest of places and makes life so extremely precious, it is an astounding resilience that refuses to be defeated. I see it in the giggles of a bald child undergoing chemotherapy as a result of their parents tickles, I see it in the eyes of a loving wife as her husband became strong enough to squeeze her hand back after a massive stroke, I see it in the gratefulness that is birthed when we realize our time is finite.


Love is so many precious things, and I am ever so thankful to be taught this lesson over and over again, every day, .. to treasure it well while we still can.

Thoughts On: Dignity

"That is not just a patient with delirium and pneumonia. 
That is a person." 

Perhaps the most confronting and eye-opening advice I have received since I started my geriatrics placement came from the senior doctor of a different team about one of our patients.

Because as much as I hate to admit it.. we do forget that sometimes. 

In All Its Fullness

On my drive home yesterday from work, the sun was setting on my left, leaving a beautiful orange flame around it that faded into pink rays.
It was also pouring - my vision obscured by droplets, fog and the windscreen wiper doing its job. The clouds beyond the pink were a gloomy grey, taking up most of the sky.
And then I looked to my right, and saw a rainbow, just hiding in the other corner.

I kid you not.

I started to ponder on the day I had, the conversation outside the ward that I carried with Aunty C (note previous post) who was delighted to see me again. She told me about her life, about her husband's life, how they've moved across countries, how they've fought cancer, how he's losing so much strength now in the last few days of his life.

I suppose, I felt then ever so thankful that I have some semblance of conversational ability in Cantonese.
And yet, for me, someone who gives and receives love and expresses myself best through words, I was extremely frustrated with the restricted vocabulary that I had.

There was so much that I thought that I wanted to say to comfort this woman who is about to lose everything she holds dear.. but as I type this now, I realise, that maybe in situations like these, there are just no words.

She lovingly smiled at me, with a look of resilient grace - proof that she has experienced absolute hell and made a decision to still capture whatever little seeds of joy came her way. She held on to my arm and thanked me for everything, and walked on back to the battles she had to keep facing on her own.

...

How can one dusk contain so much existence? 
How can one soul contain so much emotion? 

...

I tried to examine what it was that I felt from the whole experience, and just in life now in general.

I feel.. frustrated, that I can only do so much for other people. I feel a desire to go beyond the responsibilities dictated by my job. I feel compassion, a burden in my heart when I have to watch others suffer. I feel fearful of the pain and the grief that will strike hot when the worst happens. I feel honoured that the little child in me has somehow grown to become a doctor who can stand with people in their most vulnerable moments. I feel grateful for the people I could speak to in the moments where my heart was so heavy, people who understood, or people who just reminded me of goodness once again. I feel sad that my job predisposes me to have to face so much death and dying. I feel strengthened, that I am learning so much in this season. I feel encouraged to keep striving to be the best doctor I can be. I am joyful, that love still wins every time, even when circumstances fail us.

I feel blessed that I get to do life with a God that walks me through every hurt, every disappointment, every tear.. and reminds me that there is so much more in life than this, and to make it count.

Like that dusk, now permanently ingrained in my mind - elements of joy, goodness, gentlesness, sadness, fear, hopelessness, desperation all in one sunset, and in that far corner - a hope, that tomorrow will be better. In its wholeness, it was absolutely beautiful.

To feel, is a uniquely human experience to me.
Not that I particularly have much experience being anything but human.

And in the midst of all those emotions, I was thankful to feel so alive, to know that with each breath I am really living, that every experience and every heartbreak will make my heart stronger, yet softer altogether. 

A Call To Love

This week, I was asked to translate for an elderly patient under the Haematology team. Their registrar on my ward had approached me (because of my Asian-ness) and asked if I spoke any Cantonese at all.

Now, when I get asked these things, I usually try not to offer and find someone else instead because my Cantonese/Mandarin is so poor, not to mention the numerous interesting accounts of my translation failures that mockingly invite me to try again.

My favourite epic fail story has got to be the time I attempted to translate:
"So tomorrow, you'll have a CT cholangiogram to check if there are any obstructing stones in your common bile duct post cholecystectomy because they couldn't do an intra-operative one."

It ended up being translated to something along the lines of:
"So.. tomorrow.. CT, you know what CT is? YA so CT, to see.. if anything inside. Ok bye."

This time though, the team was pretty desperate, so I agreed to help. I felt bad that I didn't remember much of the appropriate Cantonese greetings and honorifics and was worried that I was coming across as rude in how I addressed the patient. Still, I could understand most of what he was trying to relay, and could be a bridge of some sort in the midst of what this man was going through.

I did get stuck at "fat yim" though, which mum later told me meant infection.

And then today, I met his wife as well, who I could converse with a bit better, because she understood my shortcomings and spoke slowly with much expressive hand gestures and kept encouraging me to just try my best. She was grateful to have some form of communication with the staff at least, and would bow repeatedly to say thank you. This felt really wrong for me because she was an elder to me, and this really was just a small favour.

Sadly though, I later found out that this man was gravely ill, and not likely to survive much longer.

...

"To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I couldn't help but think that all the steps I had ever taken in my life led up to those ones where I stood before a desperate couple, and that perhaps it was part of my calling in life to help them in that moment where our paths collided.

I think that too often we look at the idea of "calling", especially in our theology and Christianese, as a big thing. It's become the norm to believe that an appropriate life calling would be to play on big stages for millions, or makes billions and give it all away, or plant a new church.

But what if, the call above all other calls in our life, is simply to love as we have been loved by the King?

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and every one who loves is born of God and knows God."
- 1 John 4:7

"A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must also love one another."
- John 13:34

"This is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another."
- 1 John 13:11

"Freely you have received, now freely give."
- Matthew 10:8

My housemate Megan recently returned from a mission trip in Papua New Guinea, where she got to go into hospitals, prisons, halfway houses and schools to just love on those that the world has rejected. She shared of how God broke her heart for the felons, drug abusers, murderers, sick, and the orphans.

It was as she shared that that a new revelation dawned on me - one that I am almost ashamed to admit to, but feel is necessary to expose in my quest for personal growth to love more like Christ.

For most of my life, my heart has been (and still is) for missions - to live amongst villagers, walk barefeet in the mud and reach out to communities afflicted by poverty. I've dreamt of reaching out to these forgotten people, of one day being released to the world to walk alongside them and show them the unfailing love of our God that flows through my actions because I freely receive it daily.

That little conviction in my heart, the whisper from Papa God came and asked me this:
"What about that patient that's come in for the chronic back pain who wanted more ketamine?
What about the patient who's still homeless and spends what little they have on drugs?
What about the schizophrenic you really did not want to deal with that day?
What about the family member that wanted to talk when you were so stressed, busy, hungry and tired?
What about those who've been diagnosed with cancer and months to live?

What about the difficult patients who are demented, loud, demanding, aggressive and anxious, or the ones with head lice, food in their beards, or reek of urine infections/faecal incontinece?

You've been walking alongside these rejected ones every single day, and yet you have forgotten to love them too."

The truth is, while we're not supposed to have favourites in hospital, we do. There are some patients who are so easy to love because they are extremely beautiful, kind souls who want to get better and, who trust us to do our jobs too; then there are those who we count down the days till discharge, even the ones we kick out of hospital for unacceptable behaviour.

And then there are also those we are indifferent to, who become nothing more than patient 372, nothing more than today's problem to fix and tomorrow's job to send home afebrile.

...

"If you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to others, to get back the same amount. 

But love your enemies, do good and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful."
- Luke 6:32-26

So, I take this as my lesson today, to always remember to stop for that one patient who can offer me nothing good in return, and to generously love simply because we all need to be loved. Freely I have received, now freely I must give. :) And what a joy it is to be able to do that with my life.

"The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord."
- Psalms 37:23

Because after all, maybe nothing is coincidence, and the very fact that two paths would collide for but a season is nothing short of miraculous, and carries every possibility to change the world as we know it.