Wednesday, January 16, 2008 Turns of life By Rene Lizada Papa's Table
WHEN I turned 40, a strange thing happened to me. It was so weird that it was difficult to understand because at the age of forty I became a hopeless hypochondriac. You know what that is, a person who thinks he has all sorts of sicknesses and diseases. Just ask my wife, just ask my doctors. Yes, doctors. All sorts of doctors.
I guess this midlife issue of mine started when I went to a doctor for a check up because I noticed a rash on my skin. She took one look at the rash and then noticed something else. A mole, which she claimed was suspicious looking. My alarm bells rang like mad and she said that it would be prudent to have the mole excised just to be sure. And so I had it removed and I had to wait for an entire week for the result.
Waiting for a result of that nature is not pleasant. After a century I got the results. I was all right. I heaved a sigh of relief but that was short lived because after that I found another reason to get worried. I will not mention it or them anymore because they were just too many to mention.
I mean I went to doctors almost on a daily basis and it is just a good thing that those were doctors were friends of mine otherwise I would be broke by now.
I went to doctors whenever I saw something suspicious.
A mole, a perceived change in my urine, another mole, cough, my breathing, a sebaceous cyst, another mole near a sebaceous cyst accompanied by coughing due to a perceived change in my urine.
I had so many check ups because whenever I felt something I would rush to my doctors who I suspected were silently recommending me to a psychiatrist or the mental ward. I knew that this was crazy, even stupid but I just could not help myself. I was so helpless in my worry and my despair that every time I saw something I went to the doctor.
It even came to a point that when I saw a doctor friend in some public place I would go out of my way and ask her or him symptoms about this or that disease. I had this suspicion after sometime that these doctor friends of mine were avoiding me already, not that I could blame them though. I even stopped watching one of my favorite TV programs at that time, ER. It was that bad for me.
Ask my wife. She was a witness to the insanity of those days. Whenever I noticed something I would ask my wife to take a look at it (which was a really silly idea because my wife is not a doctor!)
My favorite phrase to my wife was, "okay lang kaya yan?" And my wife who must have thought that her husband was going bananas would reply, "ano ka ba Rene, okay lang yan." But that would not end there because if I noticed another thing I would ask her again.
And again, it came to a point where she would just say "ipa check up mo na lang kaya yan" which of course would send torrents of panic across my tormented brain and body. And so I would rush to the nearest doctor and have myself examined.
This went for some time. I would check myself in the mirror.
I checked every thing from a mole to color pigmentation to my eyes, my gums, my toes, my knees, my shoulder, my head. I knew this was madness but I just could not stop. I was asking myself the whole point of this expedition of disease finding.
Why was I doing this? Did I want unconsciously want to find a disease? Was I scared? Why was I scared? What was the source of this behavior? Was this my midlife issue? My health? I did not know because I was too busy looking for something wrong with me.
This went for some time but as in most things, they pass. And I think I am done with that part of my life. But it was something that I had to fight. I had to control my thoughts and my feelings. I had to be logical and reasonable and most of all forgiving of myself. Of course I still have episodes wherein I think something is wrong but I am able to manage them. I have faith in my God.
But God is sometimes funny. After grappling with the demons of my mortality (which is a poetic way of saying I was able to control my fear) He gives me something so tremendous which can only be explained two ways: He either is trying to bring me down or He is telling me, let us see if you really have faith in Me.
You see right now I am working in a hospital! Can you believe that? A hospital! A place where you literally bump into doctors every day. God does have a sense of humor, doesn't He? He puts me in a hospital of all places! I guess He is watching me and saying, let us see what this guy will do.
But in truth I like my work. It gives me a chance to do what I do best. To use what gifts God has given me. And besides, I work with really great people. I never thought I would end up working for a hospital but if this is where God wants me, well who am I to disagree with Him. He knows what is best for me. And for all of us.
There are so many things I like about my job but one of the best gifts this job has given me is right beside my office. Right beside my office is the Nursery. And when I leave for home, if it not too late in the evening, I stand in the hallway and peer into the Nursery where four of five newly born babies lie in their cribs, all wrapped, all sound asleep. I watch them and I smile. I smile at the wonder and the magic of new life, of infinite possibility. Of greatness. There are days when I step out of the office exhausted and spent but I swear when I look at those babies, I end up dancing and skipping across the hallway. Life indeed has its turns.
