gReY's HoPe

Don’t wonder why people go crazy,
wonder why they don’t
In a course of a day,
wonder how we all keep it together

I got this from one of my favorite shows Grey’s Anatomy. Maybe I am bias to it because it is centered on the lives of residents but in all fairness it is about life. In this particular episode, there is a middle aged woman with a brain tumor who goes on vacation before her scheduled elective surgical procedure which she may or may not survive. Well when she goes on this trip she meets the man of her dreams in the Cinderella story type of way, glass slipper and all. She returns to the hospital on the day of the surgery and requests to have her surgery delayed because the love of her life is supposed to be arriving around 4 pm. Her daughter confides in the surgeons that her mother has been known to make up stories ever since she was diagnosed with the brain tumor and that nobody believes that this man really exists. Despite this, they wait until 5:15 pm with no sign of him. The patient starts crying, “Did I make him up? I couldn’t have, it was so real.”

She is taken into the operating room. During the surgery, they are informed that there is a man asking for their patient. She did not wake up again. She never was able to see that he was real.

I woke up today wondering how we all live our lives and somehow manage not to lose it. We are all faced with so many challenges yet for the most part we come out of it stronger, wiser and ready to take on the next one. It’s the power of the human mind. As a medical student, I meet so many different types of people on a daily basis. Some that are strong enough to deal with it on their own, some that are able to hide their fear, some that do not have any emotions at all, some that go into a state of denial, some that break down. Despite all measurements taken, all we can really offer anyone is hope. Hope that at the end of the day, you will have the ability to accept and work thru what life has presented.

signed: Macky