Basildon, Day 1

London Underground running at usual peak efficiency. I arrive exactly 1.5 hours late, despite giving myself a half-hour allowance for rail delays. Train ride up to Basildon is depressing. I discover I have inadvertently bought a day-return instead of a single-trip ticket, and naively consider returning home for the things I have no doubt forgotten to pack, in the evening.

The ride is grey and dark. On the way out of London, I am struck by the fact that if you were to take all the people out of London, it would look the perfect post-holocaust city. Someone once described England as the land of green rolling hills and eternal fields. I see only a land of eternal twilight. Of course I can understand where she was coming from - the ride up to Cheltenham, where she was at, is almost magical. The rest of the country, however, is pretty dreary. I think depressing thoughts like : There is nothing more depressing, than the English countryside on a cold, grey winter's day. The cows huddle around haystacks looking cold and miserable, before flying tranquilly by.

I arrive late and fling on my shirt, tie and white coat, before running to meet my consultant, who is with 2 female medics from St Marys, who, unlike myself, have made it on time. I take an instant dislike to them. The consultant points out that my tie is on crooked, and my collar is askew. I take an instant dislike to him too. I return to my room at 11 am after our introduction to hospital, and fall into a deep, gloomy sleep.

Most of my sleep is dreamless. I know that we all dream, every night, but I rarely remember my dreams, if at all. I suspect that I must dream very traumatic dreams, and hence have to suppress them upon waking. Sometimes, on rare occasions, I remember them. I had one 3 weeks ago completely in mandarin. It was weird, sort of like watching a chinese movie. The last time I spoke Chinese was... err about 6 years ago. I couldn't do it now if I tried. Stranger yet, I'm not even in this dream, or rather, I'm only in it occasionally. There's 3 characters : Jackie Chan, another guy who's rather unremarkable (and whom I occasionally become at odd moments, like slipping on a pair of gloves - otherwise I'm watching from the "outside" as an observer), and a heartbreakingly beautiful Chinese girl, who naturally is breaking both guys' hearts at once. Eventually, of course, Jackie gets the girl.

Sometime later, I'm outside the clinic with the 2 Marys. We circle each other warily, trying to catch each others' scents, tails waving undecidedly. One of the girls has obviously decided that I am The Enemy. The other is a little less certain, a little friendlier, a little more willing to reach out. A nurse appears and declares that one of us will have to miss the clinic, because there's only space for 2. Nasty Mary bares her teeth and declares that I should miss, since they're both final years and need to go to clinics. I decide she is definitely the Enemy. Nice Mary wags her tail and asks repeatedly if it's ok with me, so I say it is and pad over to the labour ward.

Big mistake. 10pm and I'm still in theatre - it's all gone to pot. The routine delivery of a primip that I'd been meant to do back in London goes very quickly, but stops short requiring a Ventouse right at the end (baby is pulled out by a plunger stuck to his head). Pissed off, I go for a multip on her 2nd child and well on the way, figuring that it's only 3 pm and it should be all over by 7.

Naturally, she can't get baby out and is in intracteable pain. She demands / begs / pleads for a caesarian, and the midwife finally relents. I relented on her an hour and a half ago...

The C-section goes beautifully until the surgeons discover they've accidentally opened her bladder. The words "surgical incompetence... baby born through bladder!" and "I got chopped giving birth!" flash inappropriately through my mind. No worries, as long as they stay in my mind, and never migrate to the headlines of a newspaper.

So I'm back in my room at 11.15pm, showered, shaved and sleepy. I've chatted with my fellow inmates long enough to discover they don't mind me using the cutlery, and that they're all nurses. Seems nurses are regular un-sweet people out of uniform. they all seem to be blonde and friendly (well this IS Essex I guess) but I'm just... too tired... to.... talk.

Basildon, Day 2

My room has pink walls. It's driving me nuts. I feel a strong urge to hurl myself at the walls, only they're not padded.

Today was a non-event. I sat in 2 clinics and 1 audit, and learnt nothing. I didn't get to do anything - I only worked up the courage to ask my consultant to let me do something - a V.E, a Cuskoes - anything! at the end of the day. Consultant says oh sure! Staff nurse says NO. The patients are elderly. I look youngerly. You - NO. Sure, Nice Mary gets to do it all, apparently she doesn't look young to the Staff nurse, despite being 2 years younger than myself. What gives. Nice Mary is a 5th year. She doesn't need to chalk up kills in her logbook. I do. I fume through my dinner in the canteen. Nasty Mary comes in, glances my way, and sits down as far away as she possibly can. Nice Mary comes in after a while, and joins her. I pretend not to notice them until Nice Mary shouts a greeting across the room at me.

So I'm in my room trying to will myself to read up endometrial carcinoma. I've never felt more alone - and lonley - in my life. On my floor there's a gaggle of nurses laughing, shagging and being nurses. Downstairs, I can hear some medics talking to a House Officer about the MBBS OSCE. Apparently there's medics around after all. But I'm here, all alone in my room, disinclined to get out there and make friends.

They're talking about long and short cases now. The girl has a nice voice, and apparently hails from Malaysia, but she's got a pure, thoroughbred Brit accent. She's probably studied here since forever. I worry about my own impending finals, and get back to studying.

Basildon, Day 4

Day 3 passed in a blur of delivering 2 babies, a lot of yelling, and confusion.

I'm in labour ward now waiting for something - anything - to happen (even an earthquake would be a welcome relief) and trying hard to Fight the Moonlight. That song's fast reaching #1 on the UK charts. I'm obsessed with it. It keeps playing in my head.

I was tired this morning -- so tired I didn't buy a copy of the Sun (Which I normally don't buy anyway) which had a 1-day-only spread of Rachel Stevens, with whom I am of course completely enamoured in an indifferent sort of way. Doh! I'm regretting it now. Can't fight the moonlight.

Midwives. They're really nice up here in Basildon. Friendly and motherly, cept the one I was with last night, who was friendly, very, very blonde (when she walks into the ward, the whole place lights up) very young and very petite. Need I add pretty? I'm talking to an expectant father, and he mentions they were here for their last child too. The attending midwife asks who attended that one? The bloke says well she was a very petite, very blonde pretty little lady. The midwife says I don't know anyone like that? The dad and I exchange looks that say blatently Where have ye Been, Woman. Art thou Blind? :)

So I am bored, now, at this instant. Predictably, the Powers that Be have put up a firewall on the computers, the day after I arrived, that blocks email websites. I can't check my mail. I know I haven't got any, but... I want to mail St. and complain, about my life to her, but I can't. Brain not working well enough to get around the firewall either, and I'm afraid the admin will come down on me if I do. So.

Not sleeping very well. Was unconscious this afternoon after my 4 hour nap last night post-delivery pre-wardround, and had all sorts of confused, jumbled dreams, and an in-dream resolution to try to mend a broken/burnt bridge this Friday night. That's tomorrow night. In the light of day now, it doesn't seem such a good idea.

Basildon, Day 8

12.45 pm. I've just woken up. Rather, I've just had a nap after the 8.30 morning ward round, AFTER waking up insanely early to get here from London for the ward round. Time for lunch, then clinic.

It's a sunny windy day outside. The wind's busy ruffling the grass like it's the coat of some giant sleeping dog. I think this place is getting to me, I'm beginning to feel rather calm and relaxed, and at peace. That's possibly because I resolved an old guilty issue over the weekend that had, in large part, been in my own head. So now I'm a new, free man. I ate breakfast in the canteen toay twiddling my thumbs and staring out the window, in a nice, serene way. It's an odd feeling - these past few years I've gotten so used to brooding inside my head that now I feel I don't really know what to do with myself when I'm not. I reach for my pocket textbook, and get hit by a wave of NOOOOOOoooo let's NOT. There's no need to drown myself in medical terminology. I go on eating.

A friend I once knew said, once upon a time, that I was so in touch with my feelings. I think she was wrong then. I'm only now beginning to finally get in touch with my feelings, to be able to actually FEEL emotions, and rationalise them to myself. To get the big picture on myself, and just... chill.

The same friend, whom I now know again (I think)), just said that she's becoming rather cynical about the job, that you don't often feel like you're making a difference.

A difference. I think that's IT. That's why I chose this line of work, that's why I believe the things I do, that's why I cling to my ideals - I want to make a difference, in a meaningful and significant way. Earning oodles of money doesn't make that Difference to me, settling down semi-tolerantly with some random girl and being disagreeably agreeable to each other doesn't make a Difference. People even manage to shag other people indifferently. Fleeting acts of "passion" - skydiving, bungee jumping, going on the pull - these don't make a Difference either. Not to me.

A Difference to her is becoming very rare, but still rewarding when it does happen - a crash and a successful resuscitation. She worries that it's becoming so rare, and what happens when you're 30 and all out of Differences, and considering doing an MBA?

Well, I'm still a student, but to me that would be a Difference, definately. (the crash) But there's more to Differences - there was that demented old woman with her custard and mash I wrote about before. I made a difference the moment I spooned her custard into her mash, and she smiled up at me. There's been the odd moments post-labour, in the Aftermath of the storm, that the odd mother smiles gratefully at me, and thanks me for the help I gave her. Then you just grin callously and say, hey, it's my job. You were the one doing the work.

I grew up in a country that has particularly little Difference. Indeed, indifference and apathy are the "in" things there, since those are the oriental way. Everyone's trying to hide how they feel, to be cruelly cool and mysterious, and even if they do give a damn - you can't tell. To the casual observer, I think a lot of the time I am indifferent, I look it. I still bear the marks of my upbringing - I was very indifferent as a child. Very out-of-touch, probably more so than most. Sometimes I stills second-guess myself and wonder, am I feeling anything? Am I supposed to be? The first baby I delivered, I asked myself that, and looking down a the grotty, upset little thing trying to push my fingers out of the way, I realised I did. And it was a good feeling. The 2nd baby I delivered I didn't even have to ask myself - there was no worry about not knowing what to do and doing something wrong, I just did it, and felt.

I think maybe that's why I write these pages. To continuously remind myself - and marvel - at the sheer quantty of Feelings I have now, and possibly to try to make a Difference - to you. I write about the mistakes I've made, or the good things that happen so that if you wind up in similar situations, you'll have been forwarned, or encouraged not to make the same mistakes, or to carpe jugulum! A lot of the time I counsel my friends in pretty much the same way. I tell them of other people whose problems are far worse than theirs in this-or-that way. Of course you run the risk of them turning on you and saying but this is My problem! I don't care about other people! How can you bring them up now! or "that's so insensitive of you! You're supposed to offer me sympathy and condolences!" But what does that say about them? And how can I make a Difference to them, if they don't want it? If all they want are insincere, false assurances and hollow promises that I'll make everything go away, that everything will be ok. (any doctor who says that is a fraud) They can go find some other guy for that - that's not me.

And so I bid you adieu for today with the words : Always Subtract :)

Basildon, Day 10

Well, I have to thank the Marys for something - or somethings now. Because they were in clinic, the consultant asked us all out for a drink (I doubt a solitary oriental male student would have got the invite) and then to the departmental dinner after. Which was a bittersweet experience - the food was great, but I missed a night on the ward with the pretty glowing little blonde midwife :p

As I get to know the Marys better, I'm beginning to rethink my takes on them. Maybe Nice Mary isn't so nice after all, and maybe Nasty Mary's just very shy and awkward. Maybe Nice Mary just seems nice because she's the prettier and more outgoing of the two - maybe that's how the world works.

The Departmental dinner happened at Aroma, a Chinese restaurant. Much to my bemusement, midway through just as I was dreaming of a coke to supplement my meal (but you just don't order £4 cokes at these swanky posh places) the waitress comes up and puts a coke on the table in front of me, "on the house". So I'm sitting there holding my coke in some bemusement feeling vaguely surprised, and the malaysian SHO is teasing me about the favours I must have done the staff, Nice Mary is teasing me about the girl at the bar who fancies me, and pretty much everyone including the consultants is teasing me, and I'm giving them weak un-funny replies while trying to figure it out. A chinese couple in the corner keep flashing glances at me. In my paranoia, I wonder if this is the old poisoned-coke Triad trick. I don't know the couple. Maybe I look like one of the prominent triad leaders in the area... I panic and drink my coke.

I was pretty much otherwise the silent wallflower for the rest of the night - I usually am in groups. The Quiet Observer on the outside, laughing on cue, one of the audience. I don't know why, but that's just the way I am in groups. Why say anything? Someone else'll pretty much say it for you anyway. Us people, we all think the same, we all have our own selfish reasons. We all produce the same dinner conversation gems.