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Last weekend I was on call at the hospital..

Started my day early as usual at 6am.. got out of the car in the parking lot… pouring rain.. cold.. and walked into the hospital… my mind preoccupied with the dreary weather and wondering about my long patient list that I had to print out and get acquainted with for the long weekend….

In the elevator up to the cardiac floor I heard “code blue dialysis “… I suddenly fell out of my heavy thoughts and paused…. someone was having a worse start to their day than I was….

I silently said a prayer for this stranger….. the doors opened and my thoughts were more reserved as I went about my ritual of getting ready to see patients.

I went to the room of the first person on my sterile list… I didn’t know anyone for this call.. everyone was foreign to me and my usual task over the next 2 hours was familiarize with everyone…

Mr O was not in his room. I inquired from the nurse where he was. She simply said.. ” I think he went to dialysis”

I stopped in my tracks… ” shit.. what if….nah can’t be” But I picked up the nearest phone and rang dialysis…. ” Hi good morning this is Dr Bhatnagar, I heard a code blue over head, who was that? ”

The nurse replied panting ” it was Mr O…. we just finished the code and pronounced him”

” i was supposed to see him today….Sorry to hear that…… may he RIP” and I gently put the phone down…. heavy hearted I looked at my list and crossed him off. One less person I could have helped I thought as I ran his signout in my head.. could I have done more I wondered.

So here I was preoccupied in my mind about the weather and my upcoming future day and all its grumblings and at the same time the man I was never fated to meet was fighting for his life….

Guess it was not my day to make any difference in his day.. but he did make a difference in mine…

I pondered about this… we usually are so preoccupied with our days and at times look at all our worries, troubles, concerns and fears in a big pile… yet there are those who may be dealing with even more.. could be finances, relationships, home, health, family or fighting for their very lives……

When we look at our own troubles compared to another’s we would rather pick our own than theirs, yet we never hesitate to complain to the world about our own woes.

Each of us are all going through some challenge in our own time.. it is unavoidable…. and to spend the time to avoid them leads to suffering..

Looking back at the case of Mr O, I may or may not have been able to help him… but it was his time to depart and all the technology in the hospital and other doctors,nurses and staff there couldn’t save him..

we each have a birth date and a death date… what we do in between those 2 dates is our journey.

The key to life in my opinion is to see things as they are.. and make the most out of the experience.. as complaining rarely does anything except generate more ill will…(hard to do when not present in the mind and moment)

We are fated to meet some people and some through a distant connection… yet we each can learn and contribute to each other’s lives as we are all traveling together through the universe in our small blue green space ship

Think about your fellow human for a change…. they may need you more than you know.
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I love you