There is a question you are asked in every interview: “Why do you want to study medicine?”
At 16, I drew myself taller than I was. “I want to do a job that is intellectually stimulating,” I said, “but also practical. I want to make an impact I can touch.
“I want to help people,” I told my tutor firmly.
His eyes sharpened into a splitting laugh. “That’s what everyone says,” he crowed. “No one ever means it.”
“I mean it,” I insisted, acutely aware of the weakness of it, the snickers of the others in my class, the university student who presided over us with all the knowledge of someone three, perhaps four years older. He’d made it. We hadn’t.
The tutor sighed, pushing his glasses up his nose. “It doesn’t matter. Whether you mean it or not, it’s the oldest answer in the book. Try something else. The passion in your voice is engaging, though. Make sure you keep that.”
My weekends overflowed with coursework, my best friend and I comparing notes with cool bubble teas pressed into our hands. Home time was work time, and school was a series of hours spent impatiently waiting to learn more, to be more than I was. I felt like air trapped in the smallest of bubbles, and the world was the blue sky yawning above me. My love was a warm balloon.
Charlotte Cachia. Source: Supplied
Medicine was my life. Every waking moment of my high school career was studying, my free time spent thinking about studying, and time spent with classmates naturally devolved into discussions on who wanted to go where, and who was likely to go where.
“We’ve been stockholmed,” joked my best friend.
“It’ll be better after,” I promised her, and myself.
“Do you think it will be?” she wondered. The doubt in her voice was petrifying, and I had to steel myself before replying.
“It has to be. Anything’s better than this.”
“I don’t know about uni,” she said, “but work will definitely be better. At least then we’ll be slaving away for pay instead of grades.”
“We’ll have a purpose,” I added, because my love was bold and full of imaginings: treating cancer, treating pain, performing life-saving surgery, holding the hand of a dying woman, keeping her comfortable in her final hours.
My friend looked at me like I was destined to fail all my exams for stupidity.
“Sure,” she said, as gently as she could, “but work is work. I don’t know if I’m heading down some grand path in life.”
I pitied her then and anyone who didn’t know what it was to have a purpose driving them, a love so fierce it overcame all sense.
But that was then, eight years ago, a lifetime. This is now.
Selfie from the Emergency department, 2021. Source: Supplied
“I’ve been waiting five hours! And for what – results? A CT scan? A bed on a ward? You must be the most incompetent doctor in the joint. Jesus. So-called doctor, can’t even organise a f***ing bed,” the angry patient yelled.
Be calm, professional. Don’t go in alone, escalate to security if necessary.
“I’m sorry, sir. We’re very busy tonight.” I heard the words from my own mouth. I felt as if I were on a distant shore, looking at a life I’d already left behind. “We’ve had several, extremely unwell patients come in. The radiologists need time to interpret your scan.”
Next patient: a vacant face, empty of blood. For a moment we all stood there, looking down at the dead man.
“Time of death, one twenty-three AM,” sighed the team leader, eyes bright with dangerous fatigue. “Back to work.”
This is what I came back to: the angry patient standing over my head, raising his voice, fists clenched so tight the veins nearly popped out of his skin.
Men like this scared me, once. After a year of working in emergency, I’ve seen a hundred men just like him: throwing their weight around because I’m a woman, because I’m small, because I look like an easy target.
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” I said dryly. “I would recommend you stay. You’ve got a high fever, and you’re on the list for gallbladder surgery tomorrow morning.”
The patient paused and slowly slumped back in his chair. “I need pain meds,” he said.
“I’ll arrange that for you.”
I left my patient to stew in his own thoughts and stepped into the back room. What I really wanted was fresh air.
I sat on the counter and breathed in the dark. Eight years. Got the mark to do anything. Could’ve been anything, anyone.
I know I’m dying,” she said, in a moment of lucidity. “Doctor, I’m dying, aren’t I?
In the first minutes of dawn, I saw an older woman, alone. A piece of paper came with her: Not for Resuscitation.
“I know I’m dying,” she said, in a moment of lucidity. “Doctor, I’m dying, aren’t I?”
“Your cancer is very advanced,” I told her, feeling more present than I’d felt in months. I wondered where her children were if she had them. “Your blood tests aren’t looking good.”
“All right,” she sighed, settling back into her pillows. “I love you, Michael,” she said. But the room was empty – no husband, no son – only the soft thrum of machines and the sound of her breathing.
She didn’t have my grandmother’s face, or voice, or eyes. Her hands stretched out to close into fists around her blankets.
Inside me was a black-hole heart, from which no light could ever escape. When I slept, I pushed my memories down into that pit. Each day, I woke with less love than the last. Every little part of it, I’d given away.
When I was a child, I held my grandmother’s hand and loved her. I gave and gave my love, and gave some more – only this time, my love was never returned, poured into a void of sickness and anger and grief, smothered in masks that bruised my face, and told me it would never be enough.
The day I quit, I emerged from the hospital to find the sky was clear.
The day I quit, I emerged from the hospital to find the sky was clear. I breathed in the light. Then I buried my tears into a tissue and went home to eat junk food and watch television with my girlfriend. That was then, eight weeks ago, a lifetime. This is now.
I catch myself smiling at toddlers carted by their parents through the supermarket.
My love comes back slowly, painfully. Life is like a current, drawing me back like sand in the tide.
I make a list of things I love. I fill it with music, art, family, friends. I remember I have friends. I meet them for hotpot.
“You’re looking healthier,” my grandmother said, pressing a mug of hot tea into my hands. It is more tapioca than drink, but there’s something impossibly comforting in my grandmother’s tea that no chain store could possibly replicate.
My grandmother showed me photos from last Christmas. My whole family was there, my mother and cousins. I was not there. I was at work. Resentment bloomed in my gut, giving way to sorrow. My grandmother saw my face and said, “Don’t worry. There’s always next year.”
Life is short. Love is a warm balloon. We go out into the garden together and enjoy the day.
Charlotte Cachia is a junior doctor from Sydney, NSW. After working through the pandemic, she is taking time to focus on writing fiction and enjoy rare days of sunshine. You can follow her on Twitter .
