Whatever It Takes

Hi everyone. Good evening. Adel’s here.

I know I know, I said I wouldn’t be back until early September but . . . writing has been the thing that helps me deal with stress so your girl is back with yet another lengthy post. Grab your snacks and let’s begin with our monthly update. If you’re new or you miss my previous post, I am no longer at Batam. After three months staying in the comfort of a fully equipped kitchen and loving parent, I am now back at Jakarta.

Actually, nothing much happened on July. I spent most of it by stressing, binge-eating and depriving myself from sleep, unconsciously. The routine was me waking up at 7-8 AM, eating breakfast, exercised and then studying with my friends until we hit our limit or we felt like throwing up. Jakarta is still pretty much a big gigantic mess, before, during and probably after the pandemic is over so I don’t think I have to write on how ignorant and self- centered human can be, especially when economy is tight and a bit unforgiving.

However, August has been quite dramatic to say the least. First, I made another trip to emergency room 5 days in prior of my skill exam. To catch you up, this exam was supposed to happen after the boards. However, due to some reasons, my campus decided to speed things up and did it before CBT. Being registered with the name “Adella”, I got the first session on the very first day. And my stomach, as if it didn’t know or undergo the same amount of stress I’ve been putting my whole body to, just decided to go on riot. Everything was okay until Sunday night. I have been avoiding some certain food and eating more frequently to not trigger an episode. OK, maybe not all because I drank coffee almost every day, but to be fair, I consumed it after I had my meal so it wouldn’t be too acidic. But, still Monday happened and I started to have severe diarrhea episodes, feeling nauseous and vomiting. This wouldn’t be a problem if only I could eat but whenever I smelled and/or attempted to put something into my mouth, I would end up pouring everything out at the toilet; including water. After six to seven hours, I decided to go to the hospital. To cut it short, I was concerned because not only I lost a day to prep, but I also increased the chance of being infected by COVID-19. It’s very concerning because one of the requirements that I had to meet in order to join my board was a non-reactive Rapid Test. Thankfully, the test came back as negative and I am now very happy to report that I had finished all the exams. Like the title, I literally put everything I had and did everything I could to finish. Although I would love to finish in a stronger note, I think I should give myself a loving pat for everything we had accomplished. It was never an easy journey but we managed to pull through in one piece. Kudos, dear self #hug

Second, let’s talk about the actual exam itself. OSCE was a big gigantic mess. Internet connection couldn’t have picked a better time to troll us. So, in non-Corona settings, OSCE was supposed to happen face-to-face, where the doctor, patient and student be together in one room. Then we did all the fun jazz; from anamnesis to physical examination to then doing the skills that you were asked to do. The concept was pretty much impossible to do during this time because social distancing is still mandatory and since we came from a medical background, we had to send out a good example to society. As a solution, they came up with an idea of doing an online evaluation. Its sole execution would rely on the strong and steady internet connection and that did not happen on my exam day. Basically, there were some problems with it and just when they thought they got it back, a black out happened, throwing all their efforts back to zero. I remembered waiting for almost two to three hours before actually doing it. It could have been fine if the problem stopped there. I couldn’t speak for everybody but at least for my case, the madness continued. Things started to go south after my first station. When I got to my second one, my friend was still on it. Being confused I asked the staffs there. To my surprise, none of them actually knew what to do and I was left hanging, with my time ticking still. There were some who literally shouted at me, asking me to go in and shooed my friend out while the other half told me to sit tight and calm down. On normal circumstances, I knew I wouldn’t freak out as much as I did that day. In my defence, being stuck in the middle of a fight where you had no power at all in the middle of your biggest exam was terrifying as hell. All I knew was the longer they talked, the more seconds I lost. At the end, they decided that I would come back to this station later on after everyone had finished. Then I arrived at my third station to face an even crazier scenario. I could see my patient and doctor but somehow, they couldn’t hear me. The patient even got mad saying “Speak louder doc. I couldn’t hear a thing you’re saying. Shout at the mic!” And I lost 6-7 minutes there. Faced with such troubles two times in a row just pretty much threw me off my game. The rest of the day was not helping. Bad Sushitei experience, lousy WiFi at my dorm and a cancelled promised phone call. Overall, it's one of those days which you hope to never experience.

CBT was slightly better. Thank God, internet decided to be a friend however, the questions were super tricky in a way they tried to use tons of “keywords” in one question, leading us to wonder whether they wanted us to answer A or B or even E. The ambiguity was a torture and no one could actually say for sure which one was the correct answer, leading to a non-climatic feeling when we finished it up. We expected ourselves to feel relieved as we just completed our final assignment to actually graduate as general practitioners but that didn’t happen, as most of us left with worried hearts and the feeling of uncertainties. I was very lucky that I could go back home to a successful and very comforting four-hour call but some was not as lucky as I was. In conclusion, I didn’t end as confident as I wanted to be but again, still very grateful for the fact that I stayed this long and didn’t give up in the middle of the way.

Third, going back to “normal life” is not easy. OK, maybe little things such as cutting my hair short, groceries and a bit of shopping were fun but work definitely didn’t feel that way. Some major things I’m going through that I can share are … ooh, I’m moving in with my sister so I have been packing for the last two days. My allergy reactions were quite severe but nothing worrisome. Then, what else.. oow, I can finally give some final touches and edits to my magazine. Honestly speaking, I’m not sure whether I still have that job waiting for me but, I have decided to finish the project regardless of my employment status. Good thing I have another work waiting for me, sort of a start-up project but very different from what I usually do so that’s exciting. I also am thinking of creating a podcast. I was very inspired by Day by Day that was by Adam Faze and Jamie Dolan on Spotify -if you’re looking for ways to listen to Hero Fiennes Tiffin talks for more than 10 minutes, head on there. His voice sounds sexier than ever- I was thinking of doing a spin-off to that concept, focusing on relationship problems that people might face during quarantine and WFH period of time. I think it can be interesting to have another perspective and open platform that addresses more than just the typical problems we heard about love and all its jazz. I’ll let you know and you guys probably will know if I go with that idea. Oh, also, my book, both HHG I : Records of the Broken and Damn and HHG II : Epiphany of Agony are still up for grabs. So, head on to my IG and I’ll fill you in.

To close this post, I want to remind you to not start letting your guards down! If it’s really that simple, we would be Corona free by now. Please kindly process the information you get. I know it’s frustrating to wear mask everywhere you go. I get it. I also feel the same way but trust me it’s even more annoying to those who are working at the hospital. Everyone is affected by this. Your ignorance and lack of empathy towards the situation aren’t going to help. Like everything else in life, nothing worth comes easy. The only way to be “soon” free from this pandemic is to be compassionate towards one and another. If you’re sick, stay at home. If you don’t have any urgent matter to deal with outside your house, don’t bother going out. If your mind starts to play tricks on you; for example, your teddy bear starts talking to you or the walls seems to come crushing in, contact a friend. It might not give you the same “feeling” as meeting them in person but even a call, be it voice or video call will really help you come back to your senses. As I’ve said in my previous post, everyone at this point is already starting to lose their sanity, be it little or much so, you’re not alone. Who knows you are the reason your friends and/or family members are still okay this far. 2020 had been a very meaningful year in a way that it reminds us to be grateful and kinda forces us to reflect on things that we usually ignore due to lack of time. Now time is a luxury so I really hope you use them well and hopefully, when this whole madness is over, you come out with a better version of you. 

Anyways, thanks for reading this post until now.

Stay safe, stay healthy and I’ll greet you soon with another post.

Love, always and forever,

Genoveva Verena Adella 🥀