Appreciating life

I love this series called Grey’s Anatomy and I am sure there are plenty out there who’s with me. It is one which depicts the lives of surgeons and their daily antics in the hospital. With a right dosage of what I call ‘subtle humour’ and a heavy presence of the sex element, it has successfully romanticised the whole hospital scene. Despite the occasional death, it gives you a very good feel about disease and hospital. But is it really the case?

I spent half a day at the hospital yesterday and though it was not my first, it was the most torturing experience, mentally speaking. The CT scan that I went to was not for my arm, it was for my abdomen, where all my vital organs are. While waiting, I could see that the whole scene was just so different from the series.

There were no smiling nurses, there were no cheerful patients, there were no doctors walking around talking to patients and certainly, there were no hospital staff flirting with each other or the patients. I could only see grumpy looking hospital staff and most of the other people are worried looking patients. I saw a mother closed her eyes and prayed when her child was wheeled in for CT scan before me. I looked at her and smiled, but she looked away as though she didn’t see me.

I know tv series are often not reflective of reality but when I actually feel it first hand, it can be quite a gloomy experience. I am again reminded of how fragile and yet precious life is.

I would like to share with you a story in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy which I watched last week. Don’t worry, it’s not a spoiler…

A surgical intern accidentally delivered ‘the bad news’ to a wrong patient. This patient, who thought she was going to die, decided to check out from the hospital immediately. She came back 2 days later to see the surgical intern who gave her the wrong news and happily thank him because she said she can finally quit her job which she hates and dumped her boyfriend whom she never love. She has wanted to do that for so long and finally, she found a reason to do it… death or in her case, the thought of death.

The whole thing was acted with great humour and while we can laugh at it… isn’t it funny that we will only do the things that we wanted most when we know that we are going to die and while we are alive, we bite the bullet and take all the shit? No, the answer is that it’s not funny, but sad.

I know… I know… I can hear it over the screen…the silent thought in your mind or a silent whisper that goes “she has nothing to lose anymore”. That is true. But do you know what is the opposite of having nothing to lose? It’s when you have plenty to lose. And that is you and me, people who think we can live forever.

We do not have the luxury of ‘having nothing to lose’ but… we forget that the irony of it is that we have plenty to lose. The only difference is that we have not lost it… … … yet. Yes, life is short, but don’t make it shorter.