Wishes.

Today, I had two different concepts of wishes.

Well...one, to be more precise.

You know the age old saying, "Be careful what you wish for"?

That came true in more ways than one today.

One was a lady who came in with hypokalaemia about 2 months ago. Basically low potassium in the body. Which completely wrecks havoc.

She also came in with low blood pressure and a fall which cracked two vertebrae in her spine.

Oh okay.

Typical case of your elderly lady who falls and then ends up with compression fractures.

But then, she started complaining of ongoing weakness in her legs. She was unable to walk and she collapsed on me once. After that, she was pretty much hoisted into a chair everyday.

She was a weird one, that woman. For one, she actually wanted her scans to be bad. She wanted something wrong with them. Perhaps, she knew on the inside that something was happening. Perhaps, she knew that she wasn't quite right.

Dr USA and I were treating her, trying to find out what was wrong. Apart from the normal scans that came back showing that her spine was perfectly okay, nothing wrong, nothing poking at the spinal cord, we couldn't quite figure out what the heck was going on.

Until we looked at her past medical history. She had a mastectomy. And usually, they don't get done unless you've had something there.

An MRI of her entire spine was done. She was found to have spinal cancer. A growing tumour about 4 vertebrae up from where she fell and cracked two of them. That tumour was pressing on her spinal cord.

Careful what you wish for.

***

Now everyone remember Annoying Flatmate? Good, I can now move on with my story.

He came back earlier tonight compared to his usual 10pm appearance. He was tired, pissed off at work, and hungry.

For me, I was stirring a delicious beef pasta sauce that he (unfortunately, muahahaha) couldn't eat because of religious reasons. He was looking at it and said to me, "Paul, you're cooking beef because you don't want me to eat it."

After a quick talk, where I talked to him about losing weight and trying to gain my "Latino abs" as Sis puts it for my latin shirts and cooking, he got really upset.

I basically told him that cooking for myself is healthier than eating out all the time and that I think that its a universal outlook on health that allows people to respect you a lot more. Sure, I eat a fair amount of junk but I try and make up for it by exercising, dancing, keeping myself active and on my bike as much as possible. An unhealthy/fat/overweight/beer gut health professional isn't a good look, I said.

Then Annoying flatmate looks down at his growing tummy and calls himself an asshole, vows to stop eating to lose weight and literally throws a mini temper tantrum in my room.

Honest to all deities above and beyond, I wonder why.

I told him that he should cook for himself more. He comes back with the retort that he doesn't have time, he doesn't know how to cook, he doesn't have a wife to do it for him.

Wife? Honestly. One thing I must mention, in his culture, the men don't cook. The women do.

And apparently, him and another doctor staying here have been drooling over my cooking for the last two months.

Funny that. So I guess being slightly sexually confused is a good thing after all. +D

So what does this have to do with wishes?

I told Annoying Flatmate that if he hates his job so much as a doctor, to quit. Work somewhere else, perhaps. If he hates his 14 hour days, tell someone or else, tell them that he's not able to cope with the hours.

Then he kind of covers his mouth and mutters, "When they offer you $100 an hour to work, its hard to turn the offer down."

Then I said, "Well, you've chosen to take this job. Look at me. I only earn $20 an hour. I work 8 hours a day. Sure, I'm not too over-the-moon about my pay but it gives me time to do what I want and I'm happy. No doubt, you get paid a lot more but you took the job and you took the responsibility. And whether you get job satisfaction out of it or not, that's up to you. There's no rewards without consequences."

***

Smart words, eh? Eh?

Careful what you wish for. Again.

Wishes don't come without consequences. And I think that's still a lesson I need to learn over and over again. My wishes and my following actions have always had consequences that I'm not too proud of.

But hey, can't get up if you don't get face-planted into the dirt now and again, can ya?

Then again, if I was in Annoying Flatmate's shoes, I honestly don't know whether I would take the $100-an-hour and work 14 hour days or would I still be content to keep my $20-an-hour job.

Its a bit of a dilemma, really.

I kind of think about my ballroom, my dance, my hobbies, the time I spend blogging. +D

Whether I would be willing to give it all up for more money, more prestige, more suffer-now-and-enjoy-later consequences.

But really? Even as a lowly rotational physiotherapist who gets the sht every now and again from every staff member imaginable, I think I have wayy more job satisfaction than he does. He may be earning in a day what I earn in two weeks but he's eating out of KFC boxes, hospital dinner boxes which usually consist of some unfavourable carbs, steamed vegetables, and a meat of sorts.

Don't mind me, I've been reading The Zone by Barry Sears obsessively recently.

What I eat? Wayy better food. I have time to cook and enjoy my meals. I can roast chicken, scramble cheesy eggs, make pasta along with nice sauces, and fry up a steak anytime I want.

And plus, I have 4 out of 8 abs. +)

So one way or another, I win. And he loses. Except for my bank account. Boo.

There's a charity ball coming up. And its traditional formal wear. Guess what I'm going to be wearing. +))))))

Its late, really. And I do need to get a bit of shut-eye. Its back to the rat race tomorrow. But at least my race finishes at 4.30pm and plus, I have 2.5 hours of OARSOME dancing tomorrow night.

La Bamba, tangoette, swing waltz, lucille waltz, merrilyn, gypsy tap, carousel, parma waltz...