You next to me
Who is this boy
Sitting by my side, reading a book
On top of the car
I try and recognize you
The drops start falling
“It’s starting to rain”, I say
Heavier droplets fall
We get off the car fast
“Quickly!”, I shout
You, always making sure our belongings are protected.
“I can’t close the door of the car”, you say
I turn back, not knowing your name
I close the door for you, and I walk back with you hand in hand.
Until it happened to me
I never knew what your loneliness felt like
Without your mother, your father, brothers and sisters
In a land foreign to yours with vast spans of oceans and land to separate you
From what you knew
Yet as I experience what you did
I am in awe of your strength, of how you persevered, of how you continued to love
Fearless
May I always be known as “father’s daughter”
Whose blood courses through my veins and comforts my aching heart
Death is nothing at all,
I have only slipped into the next room
I am I and you are you
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by my old familiar name,
Speak to me in the easy way which you always used
Put no difference in your tone,
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household world that it always was,
Let it be spoken without effect, without the trace of shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was, there is unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near,
Just around the corner.
All is well.
~~ Henry Scott Holland
আমাকে দুঃখ দিয়েছ
তোমার খারাপ কথা
আমার চকের জল নয়
কিন্তু আমার বাখ কাদ্জে
জীবন হচ্ছে প্রাণ
আমার দুখ্হ তুমি চিনতে পারছ না
আমার চকের জল অনেক পরেছে
যায় দিন আমার বর এসেছে সে দিন আমার জীবন আরামব হইছে
We come unbidden into this life, and if we are lucky we find a purpose beyond starvation, misery, and early death which, lest we forget, is the common lot. I grew up and I found my purpose and it was to become a physician. My intent wasn’t to save the world as much as to heal myself. Few doctors will admit this, certainly not young ones, but subconsciously, in entering the profession, we must believe that ministering to others will heal our woundedness. And it can. But it can also deepen the wound. - Abraham Verghese in Cutting for Stone.
We all know it’s been ten years, but the decade mark is poignant and for me reminds me of where I was on that day and where I am now.
I remember 9/11/01 vividly. I was single and unhappy. I had my heart broken recently and I lived by myself in a small apartment in Washington Heights. I just started working for Gouverneur Hospital and had a new-employee orientation since I was (still) a city employee. I woke up that day, watched the news about the primary elections, showered, dressed and walked outside to the subway station. I had a long ride but had to get the “F” train to get to Roosevelt Island where Coler-Goldwater Hospital and Nursing Facility is located. Since there was no easy way to get the “F” train from the “A” train, I got out at 34th St. and walked over to get the train at the Manhattan Mall. As I walked the block, I looked up at the sky and remember thinking, “It is such a beautiful day”. My train ride was uneventful, but outside there was plenty happening since the first plane had already struck the first Tower, unbeknownst to me. When I reached my stop, I got out and walked over to the hospital. One of the hospital employees was standing outside the hospital with a blank stare across his face, searching the sky for meaning. I had my back to the soaring smoke that was billowing out of the southern part of Manhattan. When I neared him, he asked, “Is Roosevelt Island part of Manhattan or Queens?”. Strange question I thought. “Manhattan”, I answered. “Well, we’re stuck here”, he replied. “Why?”, I asked. He just pointed to what was happening behind my back and I looked and gasped. I didn’t know anything at that moment, but I knew something horrible had happened.
I walked into the hospital to search for more answers, and as my calculations have it, during that walk, the second plane had already hit. I walked into a hallway where patients, on oxygen, in wheelchairs, barely able to stand on their crutches were huddled around the television mounted on the corner wall. And in that second when I saw what was on the screen, I knew that terrorists had hit my beautiful city. Frantic, I walked out of the hospital, and walked back into Manhattan, across the Queensboro Bridge. Hordes of people were walking east, leaving Manhattan, whereas there were only one or two people walking west, into Manhattan. I didn’t know if if I was doing the right thing, but I knew Manhattan was my home and I had to get there.
One thing I’ve never said or written about is that I was deathly afraid to go into the World Trade Center. I have been to all of the tourist hotspots, but no one could ever get me to go inside the WTC. I would go to the summer concert series when I was an undergraduate in college, and dare myself to go in (this was even before the first WTC attack). I would literally be feet away from the doors, but would never make it inside. Although I regret not ever going inside the Twin Towers, I do wonder what made me so scared to go inside. Exactly one year before the disaster, I met someone for dinner in Tribeca, and then waited for him outside while he went inside the Towers. Our original plan was to eat at Windows on the World, but at the last minute, I refused to go.
As a New Yorker, I can’t tell you what it was like inside the original Twin Towers. What I can tell you that since 9/11, I have had a renewed sense of what it is to be a New Yorker, and how grateful and blessed I am that I have lived, work and create in the world’s most wonderful city. I can tell you that New York City has always embraced her arms around me and given me more opportunities than I could ever dream of when I was a teenager growing up in Long Island. I could tell you that I saw the tough exterior of the average NYC resident dissappear, and as I walked north to try and get back home, I witnessed fear, but also love, support and hope. Since then, the city has moved on, but it has never, ever forgotten.
My prayers and thoughts are with those who lost loved ones. May you find peace. God Bless New York City.
It took me 22 years
To end
What
Never
Began
In
The
First
Place
আমি আশা করছি যে পরের জীবন আর দেকবো না. ভাগাভান আমার সঙ্গে সব সময়ে আছে
I counted how many patients we have in the practice today, 2900. Not quite 3000, but close enough. This week and month were momentous, since July 2011 marked 5 years of solo practice and this week I closed my practice to new patients. Since getting married, I’ve been on an incredible journey of finding out what fits for me and what doesn’t, and I realized that I’ve been working too hard.
Most of my patients are great. No, they’re awesome. They are personable, interesting and hard working. With some, I don’t even need to look in their chart because I know them so well.
And then there are some that are not so great…This week, a patient contacted the office to have her medical records transferred because she has switched to a new physician. No big deal. It happens now and then, and I don’t take it personally. Just like in life, I am not always meant to be the doctor for everyone out there in the universe. She wrote me a very casual and friendly card stating that she wanted to have her records transferred and to where it should be sent. What is interesting about this patient is that when she first came to see me in July 2009, she left a very nasty online review about my practice. She was dissatisfied with our “disorganization”, she was appalled that I didn’t bother to check her medical records from her previous physican before “insisting/forcing” her to get a tetanus shot. She was unhappy that I choose to write on the back of a piece of “paper”. She was dismayed that I called her back with relatively normal labs a month after her visit. Even after she left this scathing review, she decided (for some unknowning reason) to come back for another physical in 2010.
Some of these things were/are seemingly true. But instead of choosing to communicate her concerns, she choose to leave a review. I do write on the back of a patient’s administrative paperwork (after it is already scanned into their electronic medical records) because I personally feel that it is not personable ot polite to type on a computer while communicating with someone. I am not judging those who do, but I personally don’t feel comfortable doing it. I immediately transfer this information over into their electronic chart. When this patient initially came to visit me, most of our mail was not being forwarded properly from our old office, so I didn’t have her previous medical records. I certainly did address the importance of having a tetanus vaccine, but I can attest that I never insisted giving her one without her consent. In fact, I have documented that I would decide whether she needs a tetanus vaccine after reviewing her medical records. I did call her with her lab results one month later, and to that I can certainly say that it was really tough in the beginning to get the office organized. I managed to address abnormal values right away, but took more time getting back to patients with normal results. Since then, we have narrowed down the average time it takes to get back to patients with their lab results on an average of 3-4 business days.
When I received her seemingly friendly card, I was angry. Not because she was leaving the practice (I was happy about that), but because it brought up all the aggravations I have experienced with this very difficult person. I did not want want to make it easy for her in an way. I contacted her and made her sign a medical release form from the new physician’s office. Even this caused this recalcitrant person to kick and scream and I directly wrote to her “We are happy to help in any way for you to move on.” a.k.a. Don’t let the exit sign hit your sorry ass on your way out. After some rude e-mail exchanges, I informed her that I would also be transferring all of her comments on to her medical records and would be sending those records to her new physician. And my thoughts were, “Good luck to who ever gets this jerk”.
As anger subsides, I am learning something from this lesson, as our lives are full of lessons everyday, if we decide to learn from them. I realized that I allowed her to get under my skin because to a certain extent, I can also behave the same way. I can sometimes rush to judgement without understanding fully what the circumstances really are or the other person’s intentions. I can be quick with words, pen and online reviews, and can make remarks that can make a pimp in Atlantic City wince. Next time, learning from this experience, I hopefully won’t be so quick to act, speak or write. I’ll allow myself to contemplate and put myself in the other person’s shoes. Realizing this today has made it that much easier to get to the half life of my anger.
So, when my anger does subside, I can also hopefully be able to forgive this person and understand that she may also have her own hurts. I can hopefully come to be thankful of the learning experience I have gained from my difficult interaction with her.
