soldier on

the 5 week tour of the north burnett region in queensland is over!

how did it end? how did it end? a string of back-to-back 16 hour shifts with middle of the night call-outs and no spare time to even scratch my arse - that's how it ended. that and a lot of hugging and kissing with staff and patients (would you believe)

how did you feel? how did you feel? i felt fucking tired - exhilarated yes, but really fucking tired, and unsafe towards the end of days when i realised my brain had slowed down to the point where i was no longer able to recall simple medical terms. the constant low-grade anxiety of being on-call 24-7 is something i could have had a break from for at least one night to be honest. when i finally got back to melbourne at the weekend, i jumped on the scales at my parents' house and found that i had lost over 10 years.

was it worth it? was it worth it? damn straight it was worth it - i'm loving all the experience that i've gained, though i've come to realise i am far too underskilled to be working in those sorts of positions and it's highlighted to me which skills i need to gain in order to feel right.

what happened then? what happened then? well i missed my fucking flight out of the middle of no-where back to brisbane (didn't i?) and hence missed my connecting flight back to melbourne. when i turned up at the airport (which was actually just an airstrip in the middle of a field) with my just-been-released-from-prison smile on my face, and saw the plane scooting off down the runway without my fat arse inside it, i considering having a nervous breakdown. after a few short moments however, the realisation that i was about to have a grand adventure kicked in, and i felt greedy for it.

i ended up squeezing into a freight van with a delightful fat creature that drove at 140kph along a pot-holed country road with a fake 8 dollar flashing alarm light on his roof for kicks and ranting about how many seconds he could save by overtaking the next guy. when he got thirsty and stopped for coke, i ran into a pub and bought up some whiskey in order to be able to open my eyes without clenching my teeth and actually enjoying the conversation. later in the night, after being dumped on the side of the road in rockhampton, i was picked up by claudio - the lover that i had met on the internet two months previous and flew up to rocky to meet on a whim - and he took me in and fed and sheltered and pampered me until it was time to head off to brisbane the next day on an early flight. there was something about the whole affair that was marvelously coincidental and satisfying on a number of levels.

what happened to the bbq? what the hell happened? thank you to everyone who turned up! it was lovely :) should have known not to trust melbourne weather, and i'm sorry for the confusion relating to change of location. it made me feel warm and fuzzy to see all your smiling faces :)

what are these photos? what are all these photos? another great reason to be in melbourne was my cousin's wedding on sunday, which was the first time the extended family (all 9 people) had been in the same room in well over 10 years. naturally, a good time (and feed) was had by all ;)

what happens now? what happens now? well i'm back to brisbane for one night only, and then jetting off to blackwater, west of rockhampton, for the next two weeks. to be honest i'm not 100% looking forward to it, as i haven't been able to catch up on sleep these last few days, and i'm still wary of not knowing enough to be out there doing this sort of stuff. having said that, i'm keen for more learning opportunities, so if i have to be out there, bring it on.

pic 1 - vov, me, mum and dad
pic 2 - mum and i
pic 3 - dad, nick (vov's partner), me and (uncle) paul
pic 4 - m + d
pic 5 - me and vov
pic 6 - mutton dressed as lamb

'The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue; courage is only the second virtue' Napoleon Bonaparte

english, my love.

Biggenden, Gayndah, Mundubbera, Eidsvold, Monto. Read them – like a list of dead and dying Queensland country towns clinging to life at the edge of an enlarging man-made desert, in marginal farmland whose rape should have been abandoned whilst it was still a twinkle in a colonist’s eye, and whose under-resourced medical minefield has been exploding with education and confidence building opportunities with each asymmetric footfall.

It’s the worst drought in a century, but during my rounds we’ve had the biggest downpour in over a year. I would join in the celebrations were it not for the increased risk of motor vehicle accidents, inability for rescue aircraft to land, and the fact that I’m the only doctor in town. But that’s exactly what I’ve come out here for, so when they snap their arms, shove sticks into their eyes, stroke out, arrest or just die for no other reason than the lack of other diversions, it’s been your friendly local doctor and correspondent on the other end of the defib paddles, the internet searches, or the harassed telephone calls to evacuation services.

At the end of each week there is a 60 minute period that I have come to call ‘the golden hour’. It’s the one-hour drive between towns. In that one hour – unlike the other 167 hours in that week – I am completely uncontactable, completely responsibility-free and completely weightless. I could stand on a set of electric scales and they wouldn’t even activate. I could throw myself from the roof of the hospital and float down so gently that I would be sleeping like a baby that has overdosed on phenergan by the time I touched the ground. Then I arrive in town ‘X’ and it’s time to get back into it again, and my brain reassumes its usual Orwellian double-think of hoping for the quiet best on the surface, but further down craving the absolute worst – the bus crash, the intra-cranial bleed, the massive MI. For though I don’t want these things to happen to anyone – no no – I realise that misfortune is one of the staples of any human life, and I want the privilege of learning from it. I want practical skills and knowledge born of experience. I want to look at myself as I stand alone and think without reservation: ‘you are a competent doctor’.

Where I am now is cattle-country. When asking patients whether they have any meat-free days a week I have on more than one occasion been met with the response ‘yes of course – on such-and-such a day I only eat chicken’, and my requests for a vegetarian diet from the hospital kitchen are not so much met with suspicion as they are with fear. It’s like being back in China, though in China I at least sometimes felt like I was speaking the same language as the locals ;) People are as friendly and open as the stories and stereotypes suggest, and though I love working and being here, I love working and being here on a temporary basis. Don't think i could do the long haul. anywhere.

And so I’ll be popping back to Melbourne in a couple of weeks, and I can’t wait. I hope to see all of yous (sic) at the BBQ in Albert Park on Saturday 25th November. My phone has no reception until I fly out on the night before, so please email me if you have any queries and have been battling unsuccessfully with my answering machine over the last 3 weeks. Otherwise, gather your vegetable paddies and sausages and breads and drinks and games and friends, and I’ll see you then!

pic one - the big mandarin in Mundubbera

pics two to five - scenes of north burnett

'a good man is hard to find; a hard man is good to find'. Mae West