The Daily Open Minded Writer

It’s funny: as I sit here watching House, I used to watch this show nonstop when I was a kid, and to this day, I can tell you what every person’s diagnosis is before the end of the first scene.  I have watched this show so much, granted it’s been a long time since I watched it, thinking on it, probably right around three years since I have had the time to sit down and watch it because of how tight for time I was, but for so many years this was my go to show when I was super depressed or just feeling down or just overwhelmed with life.  Now I don’t know, I think the nostalgia is there, but maybe as hard as I try to find myself, I still feel like I am struggling with how I think about everything.  I think the thing I love so much about House is that the character and I have a lot of weird similarities because he, like me, is very much alone. I used to have a close friend before he moved. Since he left the area, I have really struggled to make any new connections or friends of any real capacity, for that matter.  I think the most social I have been is really just going to work and talking with my co-workers, otherwise I go to the gym and the time I go no one is ever there but me which is a double edged sword because on one hand its really lovely to have the whole gym to my self and not have to worry about working around others and their workouts but at the same time it would be nice to just semi interact with someone else every once and a while and have some small talk but its also the price I pay for working nights.  The other side of the coin is that I get so much anxiety working-out around others that I end up isolating myself in the corner because I am always so worried about bothering someone or someone taking offense the the direction I look (god knows everyone has seen the reel’s or short clip videos of guys being called pigs or something less then desirable due to the direction they look).  The peace I get on nights is fantastic, but the lack of interaction becomes a little numbing and, for lack of a better term, just lonely. Still, maybe I do want to bull shit with someone from time to time and go out and do something once in a while. Still, it’s me and my dog and me. While I absolutely love her to death and would do anything I could to make her life just a little bit better, she doesn’t talk back (it would be worrisome if she did talk back). She doesn’t really snuggle well either because I think she gets too hot and gets up and moves to the other side of the bed, but who can blame her? I am a furnace (always hot, even in stupid cold temperatures).

The other thing I truly idolize about the character is just how smart he is and how he can make what seems like random connections all fit into a perfect explanation and cause for the patient’s symptoms and ailments (yes, I am very aware that a lot of the situations are for the story plot and drama). Still, I have also seen this occur in real like from just an absolutely genius and I mean absolute genius of a physician assistant who was able to take a nickel allergy and a broccoli intolerance to a rare condition that hardly ever affects those in that patient population and he not only called it but caught it before it got any worse for the patient possibly saving a significant time and further health decline. It was just a fantastic sight to watch this man not only work but also figure out things others seriously missed, or make connections that others would never have made, in what I would see as a standard connection.  I have seen other healthcare providers do this. Still, not to the same extent, like this pediatrician I have had the honor of working with, who was absolutely brilliant in assessing all manner of ailments that can affect this particular patient population. Still, she doesn’t do it to the same magnitude he did, and what set that man apart was that he was able to do this, which is what I have sought to achieve all my life.

I have long yearned to be that guy people go to for answers to complex patient cases, or the guy who can be counted on to either fix the issue or play a big part in solving the problem, with what I hope would be a happy discovery or treatment plan for the patient.  All of this said, I am very aware of my place in the hierarchy and understand that I must do as I am told by those above me. However, I can still, at the very least, seek to be a master of my craft at my level and be counted on to do those tasks to the best of my ability and with the utmost professionalism possible in the given situation.  This desire is one of the many driving factors in my life that push me to grow in my field and learn as much as possible so that I can, I hope, one day be that guy others can count on and lean on in times of need.

I think the other less desirable side effect of more education and the more you experience in what the world has to offer, is just how utterly and incredibly horrible life really is, because you see so many absolutely horrible events that most go about life and never even know about nor does it even ever cross their minds of just how messed up the world can be.  That is genuinely what the character was able to capture, granted, not in every episode. Still, it was able to depict just how dark this world can be and how healthcare workers, regardless of the patient’s ethnicity, politics, or creed, will fight with every fiber of their being to help heal the mind, the body, and sometimes even the soul so that those patients can walk out the front door and not be carried out the back.  Yet, sometimes there is nothing we can do to prevent the inevitable, but that won’t stop those caring for that patient from making them as comfortable as possible and giving them as much personal dignity as possible. And while that didn’t happen often in the show, they were very good at depicting their own desires in caring for the patient in their last moments, all while always looking for a way around the inevitable.