Home Away From Home

Of course, I meant the theatre! Where else? One of my favourite quotes is 'home is not a place, it's a feeling.' The euphoria I get walking the corridors to the Operating Theatres (OT) is second to none. The theatre is my home away from home. It is my happy place- my place of respect, hard work, creativity, passion, inspiration, and greatness. It's past 4 am and I just came out of the theatre singing and nodding to Maroon 5's 'I don't wanna know'. I don't even know why I started singing it (laughs). It has been a long day, and I am destroyed. My legs hurt, but the theatre gives me so much peace, I forget the pain. Before going to OT, a few things had happened that I wasn't so happy about. I have been working for the last 20-ish hours, and I still have some more to go before I end today's 24-hour shift, and no lie, I am tired. But walking out of that theatre, knowing that I might have given my patient a chance at walking again lights up my heart, and I beam from ear to ear.

You know what also makes the theatre so much fun, the people in there; my work family. If you're humble, polite, and pleasant, you can learn so much from everyone in there. They know a lot about so many things. Some of them started working in theatres while I was struggling to get into medical school. Over the years, I have gained a lot of skills and knowledge from this amazing bunch. We have seen some very high highs and some pretty low lows in there. Just yesterday, one of the anesthestist nurses and I reminisced about how far we've both come. We started working almost at the same time. I was learning basic skills like suturing while she was observing the anesthetic procedures being done. We have watched each other grow and supported each other through some good and bad days in the OT. Yesterday, we had a moment. We took some time between our cases to celebrate and say how proud we are of each other. Little things like these are what I look forward to every day. They are the things that give me hope that one day, our health system will be better. Because many people are doing their utmost best to be better at what they do.

In a few hours, I'll end my shift and go home. I'll try to sleep a bit, maybe do a few errands and then get ready to come back to work- back to OT. And when I do, I'll say to myself in the iconic words of Derek Sheperd, 'it's a beautiful day to save lives, let's have some fun!'. 😊😊