I saw a 1-year-old kid with microcephaly with global developmental delay, hypertonic cerebral palsy and convulsion, today.. and again my heart just broke. He is small for his age, dozing off on his mother's lap. We measured his head circumference, tried to elicit reflexes but he continued to sleep without any care in the world. Yet the mother, the father and his big sister stood beside us, attentively listening and answering any questions being asked. We pondered on the future this kid will have and we are at loss.
I don't want to be a doctor and lose my sympathy towards others. I don't want to see a case just because it's interesting and not taking any lesson learnt from it. I am scared if one day, God forbid, I lose my ability to empathize and to sympathize just because I am used to it.
Like when you see a cadaver for the first time, it was such a huge deal. When I first entered the dissection hall, my heart was pounding, my eyes were on fire (because of the formalin, never get used to it. I even took my exam with eyes all watery due to the organs being dipped with excessive formalin) . My first year of medical school, I was seeing cadavers everyday. Even did dissection on them for countless of time. Then it became normal to me. A routine. Sometimes, I did wonder, this person I was dissecting on was once a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother to someone else. (My table's cadaver was a woman, for most of the time). It was tough seeing your table mate slapping your cadaver's behind and went off laughing.
Anyhooooo, good night!
