How?

I wake up at seven in the morning and get to the hospital at eight to start morning rounds. Most days I don't get home until five or six in the evening. I'm lucky to get a lunch break.

When I get home, I have to cook dinner, eat and wash up. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to have energy to go to the gym. Then I have the e-mails to read and reply to, which would easily take most medical students an hour to do. After all that it's about nine in the evening and I barely have enough energy to study anything.

Life is full of interruptions and one thing that easily drives me up a wall are the phone calls I get per evening. I speak to my girlfriend a couple of times in the evening and my parents usually once. That's really enough to drive me up the wall... and to throw my phone out the window while screaming the most obnoxious language, even for Penrith.

What I really want to know is how the fuck I'm supposed to get everything done. How do we keep up with the lectures, learning objectives, themes and interactive sessions? How do we prepare long cases and sort out case histories? When do we decide to perform physical examinations, take blood and council patients? At what point do we get feedback from the consultants about our progress in the rotation?

I got home tonight and had some dinner after deciding not to go to the gym after developing some right hip pain and left wrist pain. The right hip pain is probably due to yesterday's gym session and the left wrist is due to my bone disease - a random reminder that I might need to see my orthopaedic surgeon again some time soon.

I feel guilty for feeling like the phone calls are a hindrance. I know my girlfriend and parents care about me, are wanting to know how I am doing. But at the same time, they don't understand how much of an interruption it can be. Like I said, I do feel guilty but there is an overlying feeling of anger.

Tonight, I was going to study the next topic, which was multiple myeloma and well, I got distracted as I always do. I realised that I didn't respond to the online population medicine module and well, I was late in my response. My room mate told me about some bursaries and scholarships available and well, any money would be useful right now as it is difficult to afford living expenses. It's even more difficult to save any money at all. It's impossible to even consider investments, property or mortgage. Those are forbidden words at the moment.

What the fuck?! So when am I supposed to start attaining any form of financial security without begging the cock-teasing institutions for a few thousand dollars to sustain life for a year or so?

Hey students! We've got money but, you don't. So would you like some? Here... fill out thousands of forms and we'll think about whether you're worthy. 


Fucking awesome.

The truth is I'm not sure how long I can maintain this. How long can I work? Can I do a Masters in Philosophy at the same time? What about work? Family and social commitments? When will it be possible to stop thinking about money and the future?

Throughout my entire university life - I have promised my parents that I will do the best I can to look after them when I finally graduate. It feels like I might not even get there. When will I ever be able to have enough money to pay off my HECS debt and other potential landmines for income? How can I ever help my parents?

Will I be able to support a family? Will I be as important to my family members as I will be to my patients?

I look around me and I see people that don't appreciate life. 


So many heedless souls out there, so lost, so adrift... So unappreciative. So undeserving of the precious gift of life that was being denied me. 


And it's all come down to this. Somewhere, somehow... something went wrong. My life wasn't supposed to turn out this way. I was supposed to be someone; I was supposed to make a difference. 


Now, I will... One person at a time.