There’s a stretch of the Southern line between Otahuhu and Penrose where a playing field backs onto the tracks, buffered by bare trees and a carpet of dead leaves, gilded with frost. I notice it most in the mornings, especially returning home from a night shift, and in my sleep-deprived state it always tugs at my heart. It reminds me of my favourite place in the world, looking out onto a similar playing field, in Oxford.
I’ve been living in New Zealand for over nine months now, long enough to have carried a child to term. Some of the first friends I made have left to return home, others have applied for visa extensions and new jobs. And it’s crazy how sad it can make you to say goodbye to people you’ve only known a short while. Most of the time I’m too caught up in my day-to-day to feel homesick, but sometimes someone sends a particularly evocative photo from home, or I catch wind of plans being made in my absence, and I feel a chill all of a sudden, like stepping into a dark musty room after spending the whole day outside in the sun.
When I last wrote, I was flying out to Melbourne for the weekend. It’s been such a long long time since I posted anything, so it seems as good a place as any to pick up.
This was my first time in Australia – and my first time leaving New Zealand since I arrived here last August(!). The flight took four hours, longer than I had anticipated, but it came as an unexpected relief, a little window of time in which I was completely disconnected from all responsibilities. I was alone on my aisle. I wrote. I read. I took photos of feathered ice crystals forming on the windows, and let the sun warm my face. I watched films. (I, Tonya, which reminded me of my last trip to America (November 2014) and made me cry a little; Call Me By Your Name, which was set in countryside that reminded me of my French childhood).
Arriving in Melbourne, you understand straight away that it is a city in the way that Auckland is not. It stretches out over a vast expanse, bordered by arid brown squares of land, although the parks within are lush and green. Mirrored glass buildings rise high from the red brick of the CBD, dwarfing the plane trees that flank its main streets. Back alleys are packed with tourists posing with street-art, trams rattle by, and the Yarra river wraps lazily around it all, providing launchpads for Heli-Tours, sight-seeing cruises, and a bustling riverfront promenade.
There were endless coffee shops and hipster haunts, and I’m sure Melbourne is a delight for city-lovers. I found myself drawn away from the crowds, to the beautiful Botanic Gardens (to absolutely nobody’s surprise), the National Art Gallery, the ACMI. On my first evening I swam in a rooftop pool that looked out over the glittering lights of the city, but was close enough to the moon and stars to make me feel at peace. I met up with one of my oldest undergraduate-days friends, who I hadn’t spoken to in years, and it was so lovely to reconnect, to see how far we both had come, how much happier we both were.
I was at my happiest that weekend with K. We had lunch in South Wharf, ice-cream from inside the Crown Casino, and stopped to watch dubious street artists perform underwhelming skits (- a drummer making music out of containers, a Wellingtonian fire-eater with a self-deprecating wit much sharper than any of his tricks, a fluffy blue monster playing the bagpipes). We ate Italian and drank too much wine, took Ubers for the first time. We stumbled upon barges of fluorescent cocktails, underpasses defaced with Vegan graffiti, and when we arrived in Fed Square it was full of dancers.
On the flight back I watched Ladybird (on your recommendation, Becca! – we can discuss). It was early morning by the time I arrived home.
Melbourne was a break from Obs and Gynae, which was a three-month job just like all of the others I have worked over here, yet went so fast. I remember my first few days as though they were yesterday, but there were so many different facets to the job, so many different shifts, that every day felt like a first day for well over a month. In addition to the regular ward work and night shifts there were pre-assessment clinics, theatre lists, long days seeing new patients in the emergency department, antenatal reviews, miscarriage counselling, post-natal discharge rounds.
I enjoyed working with the gynae registrars, who temper the unemotional practicality of surgeons with a unique softness and sympathy when addressing their patients. I liked the hands-on nature of clinics and admissions, taking pipelle biopsies and inserting coils, and loved the days when I was allowed to go to theatre to assist with Caesarian sections.
On the wards I learnt how to tell if a womb was well-enough contracted for a new mother to be discharged home, how to look out for early signs of endometritis, and how to redirect questions about breast-feeding to people who knew much more than me. I learnt how to manage the spiking blood pressures of PET, when to know they were still rising, when to expect them to begin to fall. I learnt how to address extreme vomiting, how to investigate abdominal pain, how to approach anaemia. But it was in antenatal clinic and ED that the learning curve was steepest.
I learnt how to use an ultrasound probe to measure pockets of water in the womb, and how to tell somebody that they have lost their baby, or that they haven’t yet but almost certainly will. I learnt how to remove swathes of tissue from the cervix while blood gushes out, how to separate blood clots from pregnancy tissue, how to tell the difference between bleeding that will stop and bleeding that will not. I learnt how to ask patients if they had passed a fetus, how to examine it with dignity and respect, and determine its gestation from its size. I learnt how to sit with loss and pain, how to field questions I had no way of answering, and when to be silent.
Some people told me they had been raped, and didn’t have anywhere to go. Some people cried when I told them they had STDs, others cried when they told me they didn’t have the money to pay for antenatal scans, much less to raise a baby. Many mothers came alone with their small children, and tried to hug them tight and distract them while I examined down below, all unbelievably strong, keeping their composure regardless of the pain they were in. I remember one particular small child, scarcely more than three years old, look upon his mother in astonishment as she undressed in front of him. “I’m sorry bubba, I’m so sorry bubba”, she murmured abashed, trying to soothe him. His mouth was a round O of surprise, his eyes big as saucers, his voice full of reproach for what he couldn’t possibly understand: “Mama!!”
Some patients stay with you forever, and I saw a fair share of such people during this job. Someone my age who had miscarried, but not passed the fetus, and so required medication to help her body abort. She came alone, pale and quiet, and I confirmed her worse fears. But she thanked me so warmly at the end of our consultation, was so grateful for the little I had to offer, that it was me who was left with tears in my eyes, suddenly overcome, lost for words. Another lady I saw come back every week, whose womb was not able to close tight enough to carry a pregnancy to term. Her previous two babies had miscarried. This time around she had undergone a procedure called cervical cerclage, where the neck of the womb is sewn shut, but her waters broke too early, and she developed an infection. She came in to clinic every other day, getting gradually more unwell, but refusing to be admitted or have anything done until eventually one day her baby’s heartbeat was no more. I remember her eyes steeled against tears, her face grim with grief. The stitch to her cervix was not enough to keep her baby alive.
I chose to work an Obs and Gynae job because I had hoped perhaps with its mix of medicine and surgery that it might appeal to me as a career. Ultimately I found it not to be the right fit. I missed the more complex shades of medicine, the variety of different organ systems, the camaraderie of consulting with other specialties, the satisfaction of working someone up and knowing you have addressed all of the issues at hand. I learnt a lot about what I want, and in part these realisations helped me decide to apply for a medical registrar position, which is the first step towards medical training in New Zealand. People who have been reading this blog since the beginning know that I have been agonising over career decisions for a while now, so it’s nice for me to be able to share some resolution with you finally. I applied for a “med reg” position in New Zealand during the national application round back in April, and heard just a few days ago that I have been offered a job to step up in September. I’m equal parts excited and terrified, but we can talk more about that another time.
Towards the end of May I took a few days of annual leave. People here often seem terribly disappointed if you don’t “do” something active with your time off, but honestly all I wanted was space to enjoy my every day: to catch up with friends, visit bookshops, cook new dishes, go swimming and work out, put together some creative projects, and so on. I was remarking to a friend just the other day how everything seems like such a luxury when your time is limited: I feel so grateful for the evenings I’m able to cook a meal from scratch, the mornings I’m able to squeeze in a workout before work, the weekends when I manage to both catch up with friends from home and hang out with friends out here. I know I’ve been less present than usual recently, in this space as well as via text and calls. There’s always something I feel guilty about neglecting.
April, May, June, July. Some weekends are lost to work, but more recently the challenge has been one of meshing two lives together, carving out space for life admin and study in amongst the joy and distractions of a new relationship. More personal projects are on hold for a while. There’s a season for everything, their time will come back round.
When I started to write these posts my aim was to create a space in which to record a reflection of my life that would connect me with everyone back home, while collecting a scrapbook of memories to look back upon in the longer term. The creative process of sitting down and distilling a month (or more) of life into a coherence of thoughts and events, finding the words to preserve memories that shift shape right in front of your eyes, identifying feelings I want to share and separating them from those that aren’t right to share, and sifting through photos to find those that best evoke all of the above, is exacting. Words mean more to me than photos, so I love the process, and I love the conversations that my posts have started. But I’m a fairly private person, and there are many things I feel uncomfortable to share in a public forum.
All of which to say: feel free to ask me more about this in private, but I’m not going to share too much of it on here. Even if I wanted to post a picture I couldn’t, because I’m self-conscious and photo-shy and even after all this time we still don’t have a single shot of us together (It’s true mama, I’m sorry!). But what I will say is that I feel at peace. That I feel happy and safe and joyful and calm and I love him more and more every day. And that I see all of those things reflected in him and I know that this is right. I’m so grateful for everything, because I never imagined anything this good. And I’m excited for our life ahead, because this is something we want to choose to make last.
We’ve spent a lot of time together recently, but when I do have time to myself I continue to fill it with all the things that make me happy: evenings of live poetry at The Thirsty Dog on K’Road, a screening of Manifesto at the Auckland Art Gallery, literary festival events, fajitas and thai food with friends, three-way skype catch-ups, birthday drinks, hot tub hangouts, early morning gym workouts, yoga, badminton, and reading, so much reading (Iris Murdoch, Marilyn French, and so many Antipodean authors: Rosie Scott (such beautiful writing!), Ruth Park, Lauris Edmond (- ahhh Bel and Kess, I really want to send both of you a copy of her autobiography, I know you’d both love it! -), Janet Frame, Vanya Lowry, Marilyn Duckworth). I don’t know which authors are taught in schools out here, but I doubt that many of the ones I’ve picked up at random in second hand bookshops are particularly well known. I’ve been reading with abandon, finding myself drawn to twentieth century New Zealand autobiographies, pre and post-war, set in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, and I’m so hungry to read more, as though some part of me is trying to understand the country I’m in, what it’s made up of, what it’s born from.
There’s always more to talk about, but this is probably enough for now. In extraordinarily exciting news I (finally!!) bought myself a new computer, so that I can be an efficient responsible human being once more, and maybe try to get my act together and actually begin to teach myself some medicine again. We’ll see how that goes. As for the day job, I’m currently working on a neuro-rehabilitation ward, and while there are many aspects of this that can prove testing at times, I love my new offsider and I’m getting to see some amazing neurology (new diagnoses of MSA-P and PSP, a flare of CIDP, a textbook new case of limbic encephalitis, an MNDA encephalitis, and a fair amount of the more weird and wonderful brainstem strokes in addition to barndoor MCA infarcts).
Recent happy things: finding THE best burger joint in town, successfully filing my tax return, school night drinks, candlelit evenings, cheese scones, hot pilates, home cooking, puppy cuddles, sleepy kisses, and hysterical workplace laughter born of despair (paper x-ray forms, full ASIAs, crops of cabbages).
And recent Kiwi absurdities: so did y’all know that moving houses is a thing over here?? Like, literally picking your house up, putting it on a truck, and moving it to another part of the country??? Or apparently you can just go buy a secondhand house to put on your land. They sell them at secondhand house sales, a bit like car fairs, but with houses. Not kidding. But that was my reaction too.
I’ve been so incredibly happy to hear such wonderful news from some of you recently -engagements, babies, places on Masters’ courses, completed PhDs, new relationships, new houses – y’all know who you are! And I’m sorry when I’ve been slow to respond, I’m thinking of you all the time, and I wish I were closer to home so that we could celebrate in person. Just wait till I’m back, you won’t know what’s hit you. And in the mean time do continue to keep me in the loop, and keep bugging me to find a time to chat in person. I care so much, and I miss you all every day.
A quick plea before I finish: do I (or do you) know any doctors in Oxford who would be happy to have my lil sister tag along for a few days of work experience? She’s just finished her first year of pre-med at Utrecht University, she works harder than anyone I know, and she’s a dream. I’m the only person with any connection to medicine in our family, and I’m no help to her at all from across the other side of the world… Anyone?
Sending all the love in the world,
and more,
always –
Zx
Mad to Live 