The anniversary of my Dad’s death approaches. I barely had any time at home today and promptly need to go to bed. Being an intern is stressful and demanding. I miss my Dad a lot, there are many things I wish I could tell him about, and things I wish he would be around for in the future. Life sucks sometimes and isn’t fair. But the days continue on and there’s not much else to say about that.

I’ve been trying to think of a fun memory to share – thought it would be nice for everyone to share a memory of someone who isn’t part of their lives for whatever reason – to just know that we’re grateful for the people in our lives. :)

I don’t really recall it too well myself, but it was captured on video – as a kid we went some Japanese festivals and sometimes I would wear my kimono. They are kind of complicated to put on, and things must be in the right place, tied this way, ribbons this way – pretty particular. Anyways, my parents are dressing me and my uncle is taping – and somehow my Dad is pulling too hard and pulls off one of the ribbons to tie it all together. ;) I can just hear my Mom telling my Dad he broke it. Opps!! This is where the term was coined, brute force that’s been responsible for a few mishaps. :)

I don’t think I ever posted about this… so back about a year ago now, it became clear that my Dad would not be there for my med school graduation. I feel as if I’m repeating myself but it was something that was important to all of us.

While I was at a wedding, my parents worked on a graduation gift for me from my Dad. Although my Dad was never strongly Japanese in raising me (minus the vigorous academic pressure) he still held a lot of the ideas about Japanese culture. My parents decided on a necklace because I usually will wear a necklace. I don’t have to worry about removing it for the OR like rings/bracelets and I get less metal allergies with them. Having a necklace say something like “to my daughter love Dad” is just not the right taste – I don’t know how to explain it really. They did toy with the idea of putting the characters for father and daughter but it just wasn’t right. He finally decided on the characters for doctor. :) I think it was the right choice – although I probably would say that with nearly anything! It just is something I can imagine him picking out. Maybe when I’m rushing about, trying to get a handle on my intern duties, it will catch the light just the right way – a little signal I’m doing ok, I miss him much, but carrying on :)

I had written this entry about not having my Dad anymore a few days ago. It was so charged with emotion, I just never finished it. When emotions are all strong like that I need to take a break and calm down. Some people might say I need to release them, but it’s just this like angry fireball that doesn’t allow me to consider what I’m feeling.

Either way, some things recently have been harder without my Dad. The big one I had been writing about was graduation. My dad had a very zen like attitude about the pancreatic cancer and the ever shortening time he had left… but something that we all were upset about was the fact that he wouldn’t be at graduation. In medicine, you really learn that there are all sorts of possibilities, but it’s usually the middle road that end up happening. So at first when I learned that my Dad had metastatic lesions (the pancreatic cancer that had spread) in his liver, it didn’t necessarily mean he wouldn’t make it to graduation. It made it less likely than if he just had cancer that hadn’t spread, but didn’t necessarily rule it out. Then he had all this bleeding and was getting transfusions left and right from the tumor(s) and it was almost certain he would not make it to graduation.

I sure you can imagine him not being there was hard. I don’t like to make things a “you have to be in my shoes to know” but there’s something about not having someone like your parent at something so huge like a medical school graduation that you’ve been working years towards that is really, really difficult. It’s also hard to get some of those pitying looks, I’m a strong girl. I don’t need pity, I just want my Dad back for one more day of my life but some things aren’t meant to be.

There’s a coldplay song 42 with a line “Those who are dead are not dead / They’re just living in my head” I first heard this before any of the stuff with my Dad and thought it was an odd lyric. But then I heard it when my Dad was sick and it struck a chord that this is where my Dad would continue to be when he wasn’t here anymore. So I know my Dad wasn’t there on graduation, but I still have an idea of what he would say and his big smile! And that’s what I’ll continue to have for other moments of my life.

This father’s day I don’t have some silly card to give him, or some present. Maybe this year I could have gotten away from graduation from medical school as my present! joking :) I miss him a lot though, wish he could be there that first day I put my long coat on it with Dr. Goofy Girl, the first one in my family. Just not meant to be and I’ll just imagine his calling me an onesan – literally a big sister, but more meant as a grown up. And of course making that silly noise that Japanese people do when they are amazed – oooo! :)

I can’t quite believe it’s May!

This is the month I’ll graduate. I can’t tell you how much I’ve been longing for this time to come – and then there’s the whole thing of my Dad not being here for it. I’m still absolutely looking forward to graduation, but it really puts it right there in a way I can’t deny that my Dad is not here. As stupid as it might be, there’s some kind of rationalization that goes on of why I haven’t spoken to my Dad. I don’t consciously do it but then there’s this heaviness inside of the reality of my Dad not being here, never going to be here, all that happened with having to say goodbye and the suddenness of it all. I know my Dad told me that he’d still be there, in just a way that I wouldn’t know – but !! :( It’s really something I had wanted to share with him and is really, really hard to swallow.

Now for something lighter and fun!
1. The first rule of working in an office and getting along is __drop it, as in the emotional stuff, not the physical things___.
2. ___I don’t eat__ clams.
3. When I think of carnivals I think of _of the smell of popcorn, cotton candy…___.
4. __Tulips are___ my favorite spring flower.
5. Things on my desk include __paper, papers, more paper, stuff I should have taken care of but was neglectful…___.
6. _____ makes me wanna _____.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to __class BBQ___, tomorrow my plans include _looking for the rooting reflex____ and Sunday, I want to __play some tetris with buddies___!
Play here!

As part of my palliative care rotation we had to spend some time in hospice. It was really, really hard. There were patients that were transitioning on that were just sad cases – you see the pain in the families faces and know that they are in such great emotional pain. Then there was one that reminded me of all that I had gone through – and it was like “do not cry! do not cry! do not cry!” – I just know what the daughter would go through, and everyday just wishing so much to just talk to her dad – just even a minute to let dad know all the exciting events going on in life. However, as a physician it’s not about you, it’s about the patient. It’s about their experience and their thoughts about it. Breaking down crying isn’t ok, it takes away from the patient and it put the patient in this weird role reversal. So I was glad I made it through ok and can handle situations like this.

So this is the first round of holidays after losing my Dad earlier this year to pancreatic cancer. I thought it would be easier than it was – Christmas was a lot harder than Thanksgiving was. I tried to make things a little different this year so it would perhaps be easier, but it just wasn’t. I just really, really missed my Dad. There’s just something about death and it’s finality that my heart was so heavy with longing. My mom is also sad, and it’s hard to watch her suffer and miss my Dad in a way I can’t even begin to understand. We both did the best we could, and we had a fun time together but there’s just this unspoken sadness in the air of just my Dad not being there anymore. Life will go on, and things like this will get easier, but wow – painful.

Being back on rotation – it’s been good. Sometimes it is hard, we do have some lung cancer on the service and it reminds me of my dad. But luckily my Dad had a relatively easy time with his cancer, he didn’t have all these awful complications and he was opioid naive so his pain was easy to control. Some of the patients are not so lucky. At the same time, these patients are still here and my Dad isn’t so it’s hard knowing that.

I would also like to call my Dad and talk to him… but you know, that isn’t possible. But I can imagine what he’d say, and even though that’s not nearly as good as talking to him it’s better than nothing at all. It’s very hard at times though, I miss him very much.

I was hanging out with a family friend and my mom the other week and the family friend was talking about how she had lost her father a while back, but still always feels his love. I hadn’t really thought about that, but for me it’s true too. And that’s really cool :) I don’t know how that works because my Dad isn’t here anymore, but I’m ok with leaving it as a who knows why.

Mainly because tagging and naming all the pictures is exhausting. I really wish computer could get to the point where I could think it and it happened… there are some kind of scary consequences to that though!

I begin rotations back again on Monday after my very long break. Part of this break was studying for boards time, and the other was because of my Dad. I am pretty nervous to be back – I’ve been at the free clinic I’m a part of several times so it’s not as though I’ve been completely away but at the same time it will be intimidating. It’s somewhat facing reality of all that’s happened in my life – these past couple of months of violent change. The loss of my father is much more real than it ever was before, I think when you’re not expecting that kind of loss it takes a long, long time to process – and being that I process normally at a snail’s pace it’s taken especially long. It’s a lot more heartache than it was before, and just this terrible longing of someone who isn’t here anymore.

I was really, really, excited about graduating and becoming a resident before everything that happened to my Dad. I think some of it was just knowing how proud my Dad was. I think he really respected and admired me for the work I had put into getting into medical school, far more than he did with other accomplishments in my life.

Hold your judgment on some terrible writing here because writing is about top of the list on things I’m bad at. ;) It was kind of like I was sailing along towards this awesome goal and I would look back and see all the wonderful people in my life in the boat supporting me – but the person who was smiling the most was my Dad. And then everything happened… and my boat just kind of stopped sailing, but it was still moving towards the goal but just floating on the tide. So now, with residency applications the wind is picking up again, but when I look back at the people in my boat, my Dad isn’t there anymore. It’s not for the lack of wanting to be there – because my Dad told me how much he wanted to be there, but it was just something that wasn’t meant to be. I’m nervous I’ll never find that wind again, and I’m such an enthusiastic person that not having that wind just isn’t right.

And somehow, Wolfie was in the other room sleeping – and he just knows, and came over to cuddle. :)

I miss my Dad a lot. I would just like it I could talk to him for a little bit and check in with him.

I’ve been on what seems like such a long extended vacation from medical school since studying isn’t the same as being on rotations. Before that it was all the stuff with my Dad. I won’t even be back on rotations until Oct. 6. Its kind of weird… although I hate wearing the short white coat (it is hot and heavy- mainly due to all the books and crap I have in my pockets, a true sign of a medical student!) I do miss it – having the answers, helping patients, having to think on my feet, the constant activity… When I was with my Dad it was still kind of like being in medicine, especially since I would monitor how he was doing and report to the doctors who came in during the day and I did make a couple of suggestions to his care to make him a little bit more comfortable. But it was still very different from being the student doctor obviously.

I know that when I go back to rotations on Oct 6 I will be a profoundly different person than the girl who left rotations to go be with her father who was going to the ER for vague abdominal pain. I’m not sure how exactly it how I am different though. I know many people expressed to me that I would be a more compassionate physician for having gone through this. As I sat with my Dad he told me how he didn’t like how one doctor did this, or another did that and that he was happy that he was able to teach me to be a better physician. So I want all of this to have meaning, to not have been this terribly devastating storm that wrecked my life and my mother’s life and took my father away – but I’m not how to translate it all into me being a better physician. It’s not like I need to know that answer now, and it will probably not be obvious to me for years to come. It’s just this need to take what happened and make it into this wonderful positive thing because it is just so painful to have lost my Dad. :(