Category: Excuse my zombie ness

What did someone do that made you lose your respect to them?

We have a slang for it in Indonesian. Ilfil. From the word Ilang (lost) and feeling. Commonly referred when you liked someone and one day they did something that made you lost interest in them. But the slang can be used in multiple different scenarios too.

In this weekend post I’ll write about my one experience losing respect for one of my… (I want to say friend but we were not that close to begin with) so I’ll say acquaintance.

Let me explain quickly about the healthcare system in Indonesia. We have a national healthcare system and a dozen of privately owned insurances. The national healthcare system were only implemented less than a decade ago and it has its downfalls and weird settings. It has its pros and cons, just like any other system.

A lot of privately owned healthcare insurances came into the market, some are older than the implementation of the national healthcare system. As a doctor in Indonesia we didn’t really get to learn about healthcare insurance when we were in college and we learnt as we worked in the government owned hospital and clinics, our mandatory government duties, etc.

But I am not here to give critique to the national healthcare system nor to bash on the privately owned healthcare insurances. I am not knowledgeable enough nor I worked long enough in a place that required me to understand about the system (I worked in a tertiary clinic that the national healthcare system covered twice a week for 4 months and in a private hospital’s ER for 4 months. Both definitely not long enough for me to gain enough knowledge)

One of my acquaintance is (or was? I don’t really know) an agent from a really big privately owned healthcare insurance. I’m sure most of Indonesians have heard of it. My acquaintance was not happy with his previous job and he decided to become an agent. He was very good looking and friendly, its quite impossible not to grow fond of him.

I remembered he asked for my assistance on explaining some of the medical terms he would have to understand to explain to his future clients. Which is understandable because he didn’t come from a medical background, I happily obliged and told him the things he needed to know.

As natural a agent would do, he asked if I wanted to “invest” in his company’s healthcare insurance.

(I really don’t think a healthcare insurance is an “investment” since I think that investing in health is definitely a must for everyone to realize, but I don’t know why do insurance agents always emphasizes on when you are sick you’ll lose a lot of money so you should have health insurance? I get it, fear is a good marketing strategy, but with the things happening in someone’s private life, do you need to interfere? Everyone has the rights of spending their hard owned money. Maybe I am biased since I had an experience when withdrawing my deposit in the bank an an insurance agent blatantly look at my transactions and interests and said I should invest in retirement plans and the interests from my deposit should cover the monthly fees. Talk about privacy violation)

I declined since I am already covered in the national healthcare system and my mom included us in an another (not my acquaintance’s) privately owned healthcare insurance. But he insisted he wanted to review our family’s health care policies by coming into our house and reviewed it together with my parents. My parents really hate strangers coming over since they are very private (my best friends are allowed to come over with no problems since they are my best friends. but acquaintance that barely talked before this? No way).

So that’s that and we didn’t talk afterwards.

Friends. Let me tell you something, people who suddenly contacted you after a long time of no contact either: somehow suddenly liked you and want to get to know you better (crushes and such), or want to offer something related to money.

I am not a confrontational person so when he posted something like when you are sick and have no money no doctor will help you (not true, I met amazing doctors that helped the poorest and the people in need) and only insurance is your way out. (not true either, I met people who are really sick and the insurance won’t cover their sickness, as much as people could point fingers at me, let me tell you the bitter truth. sometimes there are sickness that even unlimited money couldn’t help you. Doctors are humans after all, we can only do what our limited capabilities can do).

But what made me lose respect for him is when he posted about his insurance when the pandemic hits Indonesia.

In his post was he said. “are you sure you are covered? Are you sure that the hospital will give you rooms when you got the virus? join us now”

And I was angry.

The virus is a national, no, international disaster, are you saying that somehow the government will close their eyes and somehow said the national healthcare system won’t cover the patients with the virus? Gee, I know that the national healthcare system is not perfect but not like that too.

And what it is about hospital not wanting to give rooms to people without a specific insurance? Right now a lot of hospital rooms are full and you think that only VIP rooms are needed for the virus? No, you need proper isolation room and proper PPEs for the staff, not just the luxury of the air conditioner or the TVs that you promote so much.

What puts the nail in the coffin for me is how dare he uses the virus to spread fear so that people will join his insurance company? People are scared and he somehow uses this momentum to promote his insurance company???

Yep, and after that I lost all respect I have.

I know I should talk to him about it, but I realized that sometimes, some people are not capable of hearing criticism or listening that they were wrong.

I don’t make this post to “cancel” him or any other agents from insurance companies. One of my cousin is in the healthcare insurance and she is an amazing person, she showed me that not all insurance company agents used fear as a marketing strategy and it’s nice. And she really respected doctors, which made me know that insurance companies can grow without commenting on doctors, the healthcare system and the hospital.

Friends, listen (or read), we live in a horrible time today, with the pandemic and economic crash and all the things we can’t predict in the future. Please, please take care of each other, please be mindful of each other, don’t spread fear and don’t spread misinformation, as if what other people have in their plate is not already too much for them.

Stay indoors if you don’t absolutely need to go out from the house, wear your masks, wash your hands, stop touching your face, stop touching other people, love yourself and love your families and friends, watch over their backs, and watch your own back too. Physically and mentally.

See you guys soon.

First Weekend of October

My ideal weekend would be me just lazing around and watching netflix, with takeout Japanese food. Before the virus the ideal weekend would be going out with best friends and spent the whole day with them. To think this used to be the norm earlier this year.

Sometimes I want to ask, why are we losing in this fight? Why do we get 4000+ cases each day? Why does our graph shows ascending numbers? Surely there must be answers.

But I could only hold my tongue since being in the medical field doesn’t do us any favors. Our questions are met with pointed fingers and accusations with no concrete proof. In the end we fend for ourselves and we kept ourselves safe. Nobody else will.

I stopped watching or reading the news since the start of the pandemic, I don’t entertain my curiosity in the explore page on instagram.

It has been 6 months since the virus entered Indonesia and I am wondering when things would turn for the better? I want to be optimistic but we are pretending that everything is back to normal when the truth is, it’s not. And pretending that it’s normal is definitely not helping.

Everything is changing, but we won’t admit it.

We stopped being careful, we stopped being scared, we stopped being diligent with health precautions. In hopes that somehow everything would feel back to normal again. Probably knowing that this act will worsen the pandemic, but so many excuses

Talk about being in denial.

Planning

How many of you are like me?

I like making plans and to do lists. Since I am the kind of person who is very forgetful and the kind of person who couldn’t even remember what she had for lunch yesterday–okay maybe not yesterday, but maybe two days ago (yep).

It’s a good mental exercise, to check off the to do lists. Feeling productive.

I’m quite old school so I wrote down my plans for that day and the following days. Since I think writing down on the phone’s calendar too messy (anyone feel me here? Google calendar, outlook calendar, phone calendar… To do lists… Why can’t everything be in one app anyway?)

I am guilty of not writing in this blog for a long time (and making it private didn’t help of course), and to tell you a little secret too, I didn’t have much inspiration to write fictional stories. Wha–? It’s coming from someone that her most used app in her phone was notes. From someone who wrote fiction almost every single night on her phone before bed. I felt kind of down actually. And trying to find if anything is wrong with me? Am I too tired? Am I just hitting a writer’s block? Or maybe it’s deeper than that?

Because I’m the kind of person who puts her writing into boxes, I definitely won’t post any fiction here. This blog is definitely more about what’s happening inside this zombie’s mind (which is most likely random and not that far from food), and the things I want to pen down and share (one day) to the world.

Maybe I should pen down some more mundane things rather than the deep thoughts that my posts are usually about (or probably just someone trying to be deep).

One thing that I realized is that since the beginning of this year I haven’t picked up my camera again. Which is such a bummer since the beginning of the year I upgraded my a6300 to the a6400 (I had the 6300 since 2017, it was a great camera but it overheats and shut down itself), but since the virus happened, I am not travelling as much as I would like, sooo… yeah, my camera is gathering dust (Like my life). Maybe I should pick it up and take some more pictures. Even though I don’t know what should I take pictures of.

So pardon the rambling post, I think I want to write more about more mundane stuff rather than trying too hard to write a post. So maybe I’ll share what package came into my house from my online shopping habits, or maybe what kind of film or series that I watched that week.

Yep. Fingers crossed I’ll be able to keep up.

Today

Was a very special day.

Was.

I am in awe how much a year could make a difference. I am in awe of how much our lives have changed, how our feelings were different now and then.

We learned from our mistakes and we prayed so hard that we won’t make the similar choices that resulted in similar unfortunate outcomes.

Walk slowly. Crawl if you must. It’s always hard to run at first try.

But always be proud of how far you’ve gone through. How far you are now compared to the past, how much you’ve changed for the better.

Everything that already happened is always the best way. Even though it might not felt like that at first. When your tears are dry you will see with clarity.

And you will be thankful for where you are today.

Because of PB&J

When I was little, I saw those cartoons on TV mentioning PB&J sandwich. Peanut butter and Jelly sandwich.

Growing up, my family stayed with my maternal grandparents. I remember that most mornings, my grandparents would made me a sweet sandwich made out of white bread, with (salted) butter and believe it or not, sprinkled with white sugar. The bread was not toasted, so it was super soft and it contrasted with the crunchiness of the sugar. Unconventional choice, but it was so good and probably you guys should taste them sometimes.

Afterwards, staying with my parents, they eat white bread with Nutella or Chocolate spread. And I remember their own unconventional choice, which is strawberry jam and cheese slice (!!!), my dad would toast the bread until it was dark and crispy. Until this day, this combination always baffles me, I don’t hate it, but never my first choice.

Well now that I wrote this, I am starting to understand the cause of my obsession with breads.

Peanut butter was one of those things that Indonesian people either really love or really hate. Same like peanut sauce on satays or pecels (I would describe it as Indonesian bean sprout and spinach salad). I fell in love with peanut butter ever since my grandma gave me one (she sprinkled hers with sugar though. I like mine the way it is).

So anyway, when I heard the term of PB&J. I understand the peanut butter part, not so much the jelly part. Because of my limited vocabularies at that time, I knew the word jelly but I associated it with… Jelly, which is those jiggly-almost-clear-stuff made with gelatin. In Indonesia we have jelly and pudding, to put it simply in Indonesian, jelly is the almost clear one, a pudding is jelly but with milk added so it is opaque. So in my mind at that time you actually add… jell-O to sandwich and I was confused.

Fast forward many years afterwards, I then facepalmed myself because jelly means fruit jam. Oh, that makes sense!

… wait.

Peanut butter and FRUIT JAMS?

That sounds so weird.

My sister tried the combination a few times and she said it’s nice. I never really tried them myself on a real bread, I had a few PB&J flavored doughnuts and I don’t hate it, but I don’t like it either.

Fast forward to when my sister said she loves the PB&J bagel from Two Men Bagel House when we were enjoying our short break in Singapore. I tried it and it was amazing. They used blueberry jam and some chunky peanut butter.

WhatsApp Image 2020-01-19 at 10.58.40 AM

On Friday, because my dad’s cheeky reminder that I am currently in Surabaya and not in Singapore with them right now (He sent me the menu from Two Men Bagel House via Whatsapp. I know. My family is obsessed with Two Men Bagel House), I suddenly thought to myself that a PB&J sandwich would be good.

Only problem is, I don’t think the breads sold at Surabaya Bakeries compliments PB&J that well.

I love whole wheat breads sold here, but I think the grittiness and the texture doesn’t go well with PB&J. And considering the scandal that fell on one of the bakery chain that used to be my go to place to buy whole wheat bread, I was like, nah, don’t support nasty businesses.

Should I make Brioche bread? (there is this small lovely bakery located in a mall in East Surabaya that makes good Brioche, but too far from where I live) I know Brioche is a wonderful bread for PB&J. So I went to the grocery store and got the ingredients.

When I made the brioche, I was reminded why I love baking bread in the first place. I love the smell of yeast, butter and sugar. I love the way you can knead the messy dough into something so smooth and elastic, punching and slamming the dough down was an additional fun (and a way to release pent up anger). I love seeing the dough rise and letting the air out from the risen dough (so fun). And the smell of freshly baked bread is probably the best smell in the world.

I guess you’ve seen a pic of the brioche that I have made, I snapped a pic of the bottom part of the brioche, which I called, the brioche’s butt.

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Look how cute it is. So puffy and cute.

I should stop oggling at my bread’s bottom half and probably get a life.

30 minutes after the bread out of the oven, I sliced it thick, toast it lightly (because it will fall apart when you spread something on a freshly baked brioche) and ate it with chunky peanut butter and strawberry jam.

It was awesome.

I guess that’s how my weekend went.

Maybe I should go out more.

My 2019

I’m definitely not the kind of person who would jot down reflections every end of the week. Much less the end of the year.

One of my colleagues asked me whether I write diaries or journals. And the answer is that I don’t, I write planners and to do lists.

But. Staying true to my 2019 resolution:

Be healthier

Be happier

Be more grateful

It’s only appropriate I do some reflections by the end of the year.

My 2019 resolutions were a big contrast to my 2018 resolutions, or the lack of resolution to be precise.

I’m happy to say I achieved them all.

Especially the happier part.

Being a melancholic individual, reaching a state of happiness is somewhat a daunting and almost impossible task.

That’s why I’m grateful for everyone around me.

2019 has been a wonderful year. A year that showed me the love and care my friends gave for me, the year that made me realize that our friendship goes deeper and the bond wouldn’t easily be severed because of distances nor conflicts.

Let’s recap the whole year shall we?

January

Started new year in the hospital. I had my night shift on the 31st. Not too bad. 2 admissions and we got to see the fireworks despite not being on the higher grounds.

I don’t exactly remember where I made my resolution. But for the sake of this writing let’s just say it was made as I was driving home to Surabaya. Like in the movies.

February

February was a… weird month for me.

Celebrated Chinese New Year with the worst sore throat. Which probably was a bad omen. Anyway!

My best friend, H, got married! I didn’t become a bridesmaid but I was asked to give a speech for the night reception. Which somehow I complied to (because it’s her wedding day. I got the feeling I wouldn’t be this complying if it weren’t).

And I finished my goverment requirements! I bid the city of Gresik goodbye and went home for good.

March

Nothing remarkable happened this month. I wind down and enjoyed my time unemployed. I went to Singapore, Jakarta and Bali. Generally having fun and catching up with my friends.

But this is the month I bid my best friend, J, goodbye. She’ll be going back to her hometown and spend the whole year to get recommendations for her next step of becoming a specialist.

People went away to follow their paths. This month reminded me that in the end we are just individuals trying our best in life.

April

April is when I decided I want to try new hobbies. Which is… making bread!

It all started after eating a few really good french toasts, I asked myself why I couldn’t create similar ones at home. I watched youtube tutorials and decided to give baking bread a go.

My first attempt of making brioche. Which turned out great and let me say probably one of my proudest moment 🤣

I experimented making bagels, pretzels and sourdoughs afterwards. But I won’t bore you guys of bread pictures.

May

The month I decided to follow my dreams.

It was also the month I started filling clinics and working sporadically.

June

The month of trainings and preparations.

I had my Advanced Trauma Life Support training and it rekindled my love for the field of study close to my heart. Even though I won’t be a surgeon, but surgery surprisingly has been my favorite study throughout my time in medical school.

I also got to know my lecturers personally. With them giving me full support and prayers for me so that I could move forward and reach my dreams.

July

My Australian trip.

The time when I asked for so many signs and answers to every uncertainties in my life. Is it quarter life crisis? Probably.

Being in another country made me take a step back and view my problems from different angles.

And in the end it’s my life. I have every rights to decide what makes me happy.

August

The most exhausting and excruciating month of the year.

I was drained physically and mentally. So much fights, anger, and tears during this month.

The month that I ended things with someone very toxic. Walking away was hard to do, but I did. It felt… liberating. For this I am really, really thankful for my friends, especially the guy friends who helped me get through.

Being with someone toxic made you believe that you were a horrible person. It made you doubt yourself. For someone who worked so hard to believe in herself, having someone like this reduced every effort into none.

I remember crying so hard and asking myself,

Am I a horrible person?

Do I always have a hidden agenda for everything I do?

When I walked away, I remember being so tired, I asked for God’s forgiveness for every single things I have done wrong.

Even though it was a month of bad things. It was also the month full of good things.

I started my job at my dream hospital.

I remember loving my friends even more because they were always there with me.

So even though it was a tiring month. It was also the month of change and gratefulness

September

Month of adjustments. New environment, new colleagues, new schedules.

A lot of adjustments happening in this month. Honing so many different skills, as a doctor, as a colleague, as a friend.

Knowing that I was one more step closer to my dream happened as well.

October

I remember waiting nervously for the results of the most important test of this year.

It was almost funny actually.

The exam results showed up and people were congratulating me left and right. People were celebrating with me and I remember feeling so blessed to share the happiness with everyone.

It was never because of my own work. It was always because of God and prayers and well wishes from everyone.

November

Another month of new beginnings.

A new start. A place if I were to tell past me I would be in, I would have not believe it.

December

The month where I bid my goodbyes to my colleagues from the dream hospital.

It was my birthday month as well. I was never really big on birthdays. But I’m happy to be celebrating it with my friends.

And also my friend D got married on my birthday too! It’s really nice to reconnect with university friends on this happy day!

Today

I wish that my 2020 would be better than my 2019. I wish I could be a better person than who I was before.

It’s a bit early for resolutions but I’ll keep it simple like in 2019.

See you guys soon!

Everything Just Fell Into Place

A few months ago…

I questioned every decision I made.

I would have asked myself if I had made the right choices.

Spent my days daydreaming of different scenarios.

Wondering how my life would have been if I hadn’t become a doctor.

I kept my mouth shut most of the time but lamented to a few of my (un)lucky friends. And I left wondering why I am so lucky to have them.

Slowly but surely, everything just… fell into place.

From questioning to finding the answers.

That every decision I made lead me to today.

Maybe all those wondering and questioning were a waste of time.

Because we are where we are supposed to be right now. The right place and right time.

On Burn Outs and Life Choices

Hey everyone.

It has been (more than) a year since my last post.

Last time I wrote here, I was talking about starting my internship year in a new city yadda, yadda. A year later, I’m a full fledged doctor and have the freedom to choose the career path I want to take.

(I feel sad writing this down now. Since my “K” and “V” and “9” eys (see?) suddenly became sticky and annoying. But I’ll try to do my best writing this post)

So, what happened?

Let’s just say I finished my internship with some good memories and some bad memories. People I’ll cherish forever (and became my best friends) and a few people I don’t want to see anymore. Maybe that’s a story for another day. But yeah. Moving on.

After 1.5 months of lazing around at home (and waiting for my medical practice registration number), traveling around, me and my best friend, M, decided to finally submit our job applications and get our lazy butts up.

M and I had different targets and different qualifications. M finished all her training and I was one training short. No surprise she got called in two weeks time.

While yours truly here? I didn’t hear anything in 3 months.

No worries, I filled my time with filling in clinics and some random jobs. And I travelled to my favorite country (to travel. Don’t get me wrong), Australia. Before completing that one training I actually got called by one of the hospital I submitted my application to. Long story short, I got accepted but I declined the offer, since I have different life target in a time frame that the hospital couldn’t comply to. No regrets, because M took their offer, and I always think that M is a better fit with their vision and work ethics.

(M if you’re reading this, I’m so proud of you! :*)

But after my trip to Australia, I was contacted by a hospital regarding my job application. Long story short, the hospital could fulfill my request and now I’m here. And let me tell you a secret, since 5 years ago, I have always wanted to work here. 🙂 So moral of the story, never let anyone stop you from dreaming and hoping.

So that’s my update!

And today, I want to talk about a doctor’s silent (but deadly) friend. Burn outs. Or burning out.

Burning out is a condition that I’m sure someone had experienced once in a while in their lifetime. In the medical profession we kept it in the dark, because who wants to hear that their doctor is questioning their life choices? Or not feeling their best mentally to treat someone? Well, let me tell you, we are human too and we feel those things sometimes.

From the demanding patients, the overbearing work hours, the injustice we received from the health care systems, we question our life choices every once in a while.

I had it twice. One when I was still in HO (or in Indonesia we call it DM or KO-ASS) for maybe a… day? (it was quite bad though, I was ready to pack my bags and wrote to my university that I am done. Story for another day) and one lasting… 2 years. And believe it or not, only recently I managed to get through it.

For 2 years I was struggling with a burn out and I didn’t even realized that it was a burn out. People around me were quick to point it out, saying that I don’t have that fire in my eyes and the energy I have when going to the hospital, or learning something new. I brushed them off, saying that I’m just tired.

In my internship year, the hospital I was in, turned out to be the one I definitely not share values with. I won’t bad mouth them here, but I was unhappy, and it worsen my burn out even more.

Because it was subtle and I was on denial that I was having a burn out, I didn’t talk to anyone about it. Looking back, I should’ve talked to my friends about it.

Until a few months ago, someone (not that close to me) pointed out that I was having a burn out. And I’d confessed, “Maybe I am.”

And the response was, “Just quit. What’s the problem? I work a different job, not what I studied for. Why don’t you do that too?”

That hit me so hard.

No. I don’t want to quit.

No. I don’t want to let go of the thing I work so hard for.

No. I don’t want to waste all those blood, sweat and tears for nothing.

No. I don’t want to break my family hearts.

When I say those points the response I got was a shrug.

Oh boy, sometimes being with the wrong person made you know what you really, really want.

I remember when I said “I am doing my interview with a hospital.” and gushing about how happy I was being called for an interview since I really, really want to work here.

The response I got was somewhat of a killjoy. I brushed it off. And I know I don’t want to be with someone like this. What if one day I got accepted into a specialist and if the specialist is not something they expect it to be?

(Oh why won’t you become a pediatrician? oh why you won’t become a cardiologist? I’m shuddering just thinking about it. I admire every doctors and I believe that they have their reasons of choosing their specialty. But being with someone who questions my choices without even giving me valid points? No, thank you)

So yeah. Probably being with the wrong person sucks but I got to hand it to them that it made me conquer my burn out. Also the realization that I deserve better than this.

For my fellow doctors, please talk to someone about your struggles. I recently talked to a friend’s friend and we talk about burn outs and realizing we have a lot in common. I’m glad they decided to talk to me about their struggles and they heard my struggles too. We talked about what made us chose to be a doctor and we talked about the things we love and the things we struggle with.

I made amazing friends as I become a doctor.

I met amazing teachers and life mentors.

I met supportive patients and those who were always grateful and thankful.

And most importantly, I see God’s work inside my life.

Those reasons are enough. Enough to triumph the bad things, enough to silence every doubts, enough to give strength to push through.

For now, those thoughts are enough for me.