When there are Plenty of Fishies in the Sea!

My more than amazing girl friend (talented, smart, gorgeous) was crying on Skype over a glass of red wine and some crazy cake dessert after her very recent breakup. Like any good friend would, I assured her that there are plenty of fishies out there. Then about 20 seconds after I said that, I cracked up. Here’s what unfolded for me over the past 365 days with the “plenty of fish” scenario.

Look at the craptacular amount of options!

July 2012 (Just Don’t Go There…)

I walked into my bank 30min after my hot yoga (it’s where you do yoga in a 100deg sauna) beaming and glowing and feeling self-adored. It turns out the self confidence thing really does work (?). What was suppose to be a 10min talk to open a new ATM card ended up being a 1.5hr convo with the bank manager over everything from medicine, charity, to life. The guy was amazingly smart & gorgeous (very Ryan Reynolds, actually not kidding). But as we all know, thou shall not date anyone with all your personal security info (i.e. social security, account balance, address…). I turned down the first date a week later.

August 2012 (How NOT to Court a Chickadee)

I go out dancing at a nightclub with my amazing girl friends and ended up meeting a handsome guy who was celebrating his birthday. Turns out…he’s a murse! (male nurse) That would be the last time I ever give out my personal cell instead of the local Domino’s Pizza number. In the 2 months that followed (since I was studying for boards and “can’t go out” but honestly I was no longer interested), he sent me about 20 poems over my phone and recorded a song that he wrote, sang, rapped, and played on a guitar for me (called “Wonder eyes” and it was good!). I love being pursued, but this was borderline smothering with continual daily texts/calls…songs. If it takes 2 months to turn down a date, the eventual breakup will take a decade…

Dec 2012 (the Long Distance Non-Potential)

My friend from college who now goes to medical school out of state drops by for a visit to catch up and “treat me”. We had a super romantic dinner with champagnes, overlooking the most gorgeous sunset, and we are embraced by that warm fuzzy feeling of talking to an awesome, understanding old friend. Above all, he was a man who knows how to treat a girl with dignity and respect. We talk about how we liked each other back in college, and how life took us on different journeys. And…as it turns out, life still takes us to separate, faraway shores.

Jan 2013 (No WORDS…)

I met a confident, young doctor (back in Nov) and who I’ve been texting for about 2 months. With all the interviewing I’ve been doing this year for residency, I never really got a chance to hang out with him. Turns out, no worries, that day came soon enough! He called me at 10pm asking to hang out. Against all my “mature lady” judgments, I let him. He came over, and the next 30min consisted of me deciding if I can call the police to get him out the door. Finally, I won and drove him to his car. “no means no.”

March 2013 (No Chemistry)

I start to explore any romantic possibilities with a guy who is on paper a potentially perfect person for me – highly educated, good person, athletic, and has a passion for life. The added super bonus is that we’re really, really good friends, and I am always 200% myself around him. You know what they say, solid friendships are the foundation of successful relationships! But it turns out, after several outings and amazing conversations, some guys are meant to stay…our very awesome and trusty friends.

So…telling my crying friend that there are plenty of options was the worst thing I could’ve said. Because you see, there ARE indeed PLENTY of fishies. But that’s what makes this journey in finding love so, so much harder. Because for that one awesome fishie who is simply meant to be, you will inevitably go through 100 not so right fishies…and life is so painfully unpredictable, fleeting, and short. We are not afforded an eternity for searching. My final word to my friend was…knowing the odds against you, do you still believe in love enough to have the patience, courage, and resilience to keep searching? I know I do…and you will too, if you have truly loved and been loved before <3

What Medical School Forgot to Teach Me

My adorable grandparents, who raised me for almost a decade of my life <3

My 89 yr old grandpa, with a history of type 2 diabetes, very well controlled, spiked a blood sugar in the 500s (normal is in the 100s) on a Monday in February. He was a little more fatigued than usual, and my mom called me for advice. I was concerned about any infections. His primary care doctor ordered 2 doses of insulin that day.

Day 2, he appeared sicker and sugars remained high. I talked to his doctor’s office asking  very nicely for an infectious workup which includes blood work and cultures, chest xray, and urine studies. The nurse on the phone sounded younger than my sister, and did not know what hyperglycemia meant. The doctor ordered only one part of the labs that evening – a blood culture, and told his nursing home there was no need for a chest xray to assess for pneumonia.

Day 3, the results have returned and the nursing home said they were unable to reach the doctor.

Day 4 AM, my grandpa was in septic shock from aspiration pneumonia, and was admitted to the ICU. He never fully regained consciousness.

“Flowers…are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

My mom called me, and I drove home to LA. The doctor’s excuse for 4 days of delay in care was “he’s old…I don’t want to be aggressive.” He offered no apologies. For the first time in my life, I cried because I was furious. I kept thinking of what my neurosurgery chief once told me “one day, you will know that your job as a good doctor is to protect your patients against the morons in the hospital” and his other advice “the worst prognosis is a nice patient with a nice family.”

I spent my time in the ICU since Valentine’s day. He became vent dependent meaning he needed a machine to breathe, he got tuberculosis (when he tested negative all his life), he got a feeding tube and then had a massive stomach bleed, and finally DIC, a condition indicating severe illness. He also assumed decerebrate posturing, indicating possible stroke, a likely complication of his severe shock. In between all these episodes were his doctors telling us to take him off of life support, a conversation they never fail to deliver when they somehow forget to discuss any other test results or procedures conducted.

My grandpa is on comfort care now, meaning there is no more treatments or blood draws. He gets a morphine drip and some IV. He is dying, paralyzed, and semi-conscious due to gross medical negligence. 

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.” Romeo and Juliet

I thought of how much medical school failed to prepare and discuss with me: 

-How our treatment can hurt as much as it can save a life.

-How machines and medications and procedures can prolong not the living, but the dying process. 

-How the consequences of our inaction and negligence, ignorance and fatigue is real. 

-How not to sue another physician, a doctor who’s negligent at the end of his career at 65yrs old, who makes a very humble living as a primary care doctor in a country in gross shortage of primary care physicians. 

-How to act as a family consult with medical knowledge, and objectively decide to terminate treatment for someone I love deeply. 

-How to deal with my mistrust and anger toward members of healthcare when I myself am a physician. 

-How to advocate firmly for the correct course of care when it’s in disagreement with another physician. 

-How important it is to encourage patients and their families to be vocal, and strong advocates irregardless of how stupid it sounds. 

-How important it is for physicians to apologize in times of error, not because of policy or fear of lawsuits, but because the patient and their family deserves it. 

In 2 months, I will become a full time internal medicine doctor. I thought of all the families who have yet to come under my care, and all the things that can go wrong. I didn’t know…4 years ago…when I first began medical school, what tremendous responsibilities this lifetime was going to entail.

Amazing Spring Colors! A Little Adventure in Photography

Now the most stressful time of this year is over, I’m back to marveling at all the beautiful things San Diego has to offer in the Spring. I’ve been here for 3.5yrs and never had the time to really take advantage of all the colors (…and now I will…2 weeks before I move away…) 

Orange!

Yellow!

Pinkness!

Color overload!

Violet!

No one gets sick of purple!

Even more purple!

Yet more and more violet!

White with a green background = I SOOOO LOVE!

Being the animal fanatic that I am, you know that no post about Spring is complete without some pictures of adorable animals I’ve found lately enjoying this beautiful season! 

So cute!

Kitty loving the season!

Match Day 2013: Dreams Do Come True

Newly minted pediatrician, opthalmologist, and internists! (me! second from the left)

(Match Day: every year, medical students across the country will open an envelope on 3/15 to find out where they will go for the next 4-10 years of their training in their chosen specialties. The hospital and student preferences/selections are determined by a computer algorithm after 3-4 months of grueling cross the country interviews for desired candidacy.)

***

26 years ago, my mom loved me enough to leave me in China with my amazing and loving grandparents. She came to America alone to pursue an education and a future for me. She wanted to bring me to a place where any of my dreams can have a chance. I came to America 9 years later.

In 7th grade, Mr.Honda had a farm of chickens, rabbits (with countless bunnies), and a classroom iguana. I fell in love with biology the day he made us plant vegetable gardens on the back alley of Paul Revere Middle School. I touched a giant potato bug, screamed and almost threw up (please google potato bug).

At 13, I remember calling 911 and a random lady drove by and stopped to hug me while I panicked in front of my house. Later that night, I stood in the corner and watched some Kaiser critical care doctors save and stabilize my grandma. My prayers for more time with her were answered. I thought it would be “cool” if I became a Kaiser doctor one day.

Trying to stay calm enough to pose for a pic before opening the envelopes!

At 17, I was jumping with my little sister on my bed after opening my UCLA acceptance e-mail, I was going to my dream college.

On my 19th birthday, I listened when Annie told me that my best friend and roomie, Karen, passed away from cardiac arrest, 4 hrs after I told her no one dies from coughing, 8 hrs after watching her laugh over my bday dinner. Her mom came to clean up her room, and I will never forget the face of a mom who had just lost their child. In that place of guilt, and pain, I chose to become a doctor…selfishly hoping I will never be that helpless again.

Gift basket making before the BIG day! So many little champagnes, and candy to wrap!

4yrs ago, I was in Washington DC on my Georgetown interview when I received the call that I was accepted to my dream medical school UCSD.

On 3/15/2013, I opened an envelope on match day that realized a lifetime of little hopes and once impossibly long term dreams. I will be starting my life as an internal medicine resident physician at Kaiser Permanente.

The little envelopes hold our futures…how we managed to wait and look at them for 30min is beyond me

Every doctor tells me I will never forget my match day. I thought of my amazing family who gave me the love, and support to pursue dreams that are often so out of anyone’s control, and so distant. My friends whose crazy shenanigans, and advice allowed me to survive the last 4 grueling years with sanity and fun. My incredible teachers who taught me to be passionate and perfectionist with my education.

And lastly, God, for giving me the beautiful and truly wonderfully blessed life that I do not deserve.

A little map of the bay area classmates! Apparently Sun lands in Sunnyvale (totally accidental)

Drop Electric Run into Ur Bucket List

This is important! Black light don’t make any neon colors glow. In order for ur garment to glow, you need to make sure it has fluorescein materials inside! Otherwise u risk being a lump in the dark.

Since I’ve had some serious posts lately, it’s time to lighten the mood!!

Some of the amazing decorations on the track!

I had the amazing opportunity to do the Electric Run a week ago. It’s basically a 5k run that raises money for your local charities. However, different from most 5k or runs, this event was particularly fun for the runner. The entire track was decorated with black lights and sound systems, underground tunnels, and EDM (techno) music.

Our team was called tutuhot and we all wore tutus

I was amazed by how many children and families were in attendance. Overall, it was amazing sharing such a fun night with my awesome friends…and of course 10,000 other runners.

Cutest person in attendance! Very family friendly event!

To register, please go to the electric run website for a city near you

Hope you all had an awesome week!

Posing next to a light studded tree

On Finding That Little Voice (for Ms.Lynne Aidikoff)

I came to America at age 9 not speaking a word of English. Liberal art classes were obviously my least favorite. All that the school system cared about was reading a passage and answering some stupid questions about main characters and plot. Needless to say, I didn’t thrive in school.

Then came the 6th grade, junior high. Ms.Lynne Aidikoff was my writing/history teacher. Somehow in all my grammatically incorrect assignments, she saw something worth reading. My dad had a meeting with her during the school year, she told him I can write (who knew?!). I received my first A in English since coming to America that year.

So I kept on writing, and reading so I can keep on writing. I wrote words that she loved which delivered my heart and my opinions. The type that was shamelessly honest and vulnerable. I wrote my way into UCLA, through upper division romantic lit classes in college, and then to medical school.

This year, during my residency interview, the program director remarked “I read 1000 essays this year, yours is the only one I remember.” I can’t help but think of Ms.Aidikoff and how her encouragements brought me here.

We’ve been in contact via facebook over the past few years. She left little comments and messages filled with proudness, joy, and always encouragement. I found out today that Ms. Aidikoff passed away recently. I wish I told her what an amazing adventure in literature, writing, and life she had sent me on. What unbelievable empowerment, release, and comfort writing has brought me in the darkest times of my life.

Looking back, I only realize now that she had given me the single greatest gift that a student can acquire in education, a voice.

Why Rihanna Should Care (for every woman)

In 2009, TMZ released this photo of Rihanna. I remembered it was the single longest time I’ve ever spent staring at a picture. The artist of all those bruises was her boyfriend, Chris Brown. I remembered thinking how could anyone do this to another human being.

In 2010, the Grammy producers allowed Chris Brown to perform again stating that it’s time to put this episode behind them and that “all are victims of Chris Brown.” How dare they, a bunch of male producers called themselves “victims” of Chris Brown.

In 2011, I had the privilege of attending a workshop and memorial of a talented OB/GYN physician who was murdered after enduring years of abuse by her physician husband.

In 2012, Rihanna states to Rolling Stone after revealing that she and Brown are back together (despite continual reports that he had multiple club/bar fights) “I decided it was more important for me to be happy…I wasn’t going to let anyone’s opinion get in the way of that.”

I’m not a celebrity news follower. But somehow, over the last few years, Rihanna’s story has stayed with me. It has stayed because violence against women is still everywhere, everyday despite how much we have gained in careers, earnings, family, and education. After reading her statement, I felt deep disappointment.

So here is my letter, for the incredible ladies following this blog:

You are an amazing human being. PERIOD.

You possess the power to love, to care, to communicate with words and without them. You have a heart that endures and forgives. You are blessed with qualities that speak volumes of the love of God.

The first human story of the Bible was about YOU. Adam asked for a companion, so God created YOU. You are made to be loved and to love. You are made as an equal and a companion, never a punching bag.

No degree of attraction, money, power, or prestige will render any man in this world the right to verbally or physically abuse you.

No amount of past mistakes, failures, loneliness, guilt, or pain should make you feel that you deserve to be hurt.

I don’t know Rihanna, but I think Rihanna should care.

She should care about the little girls reading these celebrity magazines like novels. She should care about the girls standing in her concert stadiums singing to her every lyric and her every song. She should care about the women hiding in shelters, living in fear, hoping that someone in the lime light would have the courage to do what they couldn’t.

Rihanna should care. Women should care.

Because Brown, the Grammy producers, and all the perpetrators in this world today, have continued to show us that if we are to overcome violence against women, it is we, not them, who must deliver the message to men and to our sisters everywhere that this will never be acceptable.

A Week in Review

I completed my very last internal medicine interview today!! For my readers not in medicine, medical students spend their last year interviewing at various hospitals in their chosen specialty (mine being internal medicine). The students will then rank these programs by preferences, and hospitals likewise do the same. The lists get submitted into a mysterious computer program (NRMP) who will tell us where we match on 3/15 this year. Yay!

BUT, this entry is not about that. It’s about everything beautiful in life. Here’s the week in review:

More amazing leaves in San Diego, it’s almost spring and the trees are doing this!

La Jolla, California – the ocean is amazing!

While I was taking pictures of the ocean, a baby squirrel nearby finished an apple in the same time frame…so productive!

San Francisco has one of the most gorgeous city views, overlooking Marin county across the bay!

While in San Francisco, I got to stay at Hotel Tomo – an anime inspired hotel filled with random cartoon characters!

Japan town, San Francisco – not sure what the meaning of the structure is, but the tourists were taking pics, so might as well…

Honestly, above all, the highlight of my week – playing with friend’s 13 year old English bulldog. I’m a serious pup fanatic!

…the puppy love continues!!

A Lil’ Journey through a Lonely Place

Dear Readers,

I’m going to share with you an incredibly personal journey of mine…in overcoming loneliness. To lighten the mood, I have so many amazing pictures I’ve taken lately in San Diego So many people I’ve spoken to lately have expressed that they feel alone, mostly people you’d never expect. Yet in our world, there is still stigma to admitting this.

Winter leaves outside the hospital!

Somewhere starting at the beginning of my life as a medical student, I started to feel alone. My work was consuming, I didn’t emotionally sort through the illnesses and death I saw way too often. I held back tears when a father was given his grim prognosis of cholangiocarcinoma while his daughter screamed. I didn’t cry when an  8 month old baby was brought in with a massive head bleed and bilateral knee fractures because her father slammed her against a wall. I held in all my emotions as I removed sutures from a 21 year old college student who woke up not being able to move anything below her neck. Worst of all…I can’t lose my professionalism and talk about this with my friends and classmates. Anyone outside of medicine…just didn’t understand. 

A view of the Pacific Ocean from La Jolla Torrey Pines peak!

Loneliness is a place I’ve never visited before. In this place I found isolation and misunderstanding, anger and emptiness. I didn’t know how to deal with it..so I used lots…and lots of distractions. I started going out a lot with friends attending night clubs and bars, dinners and parties, champagnes and vodka…gorgeous boys. I love my friends and we had so much fun! But I didn’t deal with the feelings of isolation and emptiness that was growing inside of me.

Torrey Pines hike!

Over the latter part of last year, I hit rock-bottom. I finally understood that these are feelings that I can not bury.

So…I came up with a series of things that has since then…been healing me in incredibly surprising ways.

1.Prayer – It’s amazing that the thing I’m most hurt by is the one thing I don’t trust God with, so I started to pray again. I prayed for wisdom, for faith, for patience to deal with this. The emptiness started to melt away.

2.Diary – I started letting my feelings go one bit at a time, the pages are filled with amazing reflections about life that I didn’t even know existed inside of me. It was so liberating to express how angry I am that the nicest people get the worst diagnoses. It was…most of all…very empowering.

3.Facing loneliness – I narrowed down my social calendar to only a few events, so people won’t  become my distraction and escape. I have to find out who I am.

In the words of a famous writer “when you feel alone is when you most need to be alone.”

As a child we’re fed concepts like “2 halves make a whole.” In reality, no one can make you whole if you’re not, already.

My friend recently told me that her most lonely times happened after she was married. We can’t expect others to give us what we can’t render ourselves.

4.Acceptance – I accepted that these feelings may last weeks or months…maybe years. I stopped expecting a magical solution, but the fact that I had to work through it bit by bit. It’s pretty hard work.

Da thingy called journaling!

In the time since then, I’ve felt amazing healing and incredible resolution. I began to feel passion for medicine again, to enjoy time with my family and friends, and to deeply cherish the time I have to myself as a space to reflect and learn.

My journey is not close to over yet. Finding contentment and satisfaction in ourselves and our place and journey in this world is a lifetime commitment.

For everyone who feels alone…for whatever reasons, I want to encourage you to face it. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, but you have to walk through the tunnel first.

“Behind the sharpest thorns lies a most beautiful place.” -Anonymous
Torrey Pines hike, San Diego!

Note: If you experience changes in appetite, weight, energy, interest, sleep, suicidal thoughts, depressed mood…you need to seek medical attention. 

A Beautiful Morning

Hello 2013! You’re a big year for me:

1.matching for residency (internal medicine) 3/15

2.graduating from UCSD 6/2 

San Diego, California

Both of these I consider life defining events, and in-between all these things will be getting Step 2 CS results, submitting my research paper, ICU rotation, and figuring out my residency rank list which I set out to do this week. As I’m wrapping up my interview season, I’m becoming more and more certain of which geographic region I want to be, but more confused which program will be the perfect fit for me. Everything I set out on excel to measure how well a residency program will fit my personality has been trampled by my ultimate gut instinct preferences (which strangely, is the exact opposite of the excel score sheet).

French toast

Blackberry pancakes

So, I decided to spend the morning with friends, having a yummy breakfast, and…taking my own new year resolutions to heart…see the ocean, and taste some goodies (so amazing!)

The view is incredible! (Pacific Beach)