"I've gotta go."

[travisjhall]

I'm sitting around in my parents' living room with my mother. Half an hour ago, the phone rang, and my father took it in another room. Fifteen minutes ago, he walked through to the stairs, simply saying, "I've gotta go." It's just like the first quarter-century of my life.

For most families, having Dad called away suddenly on Christmas Night would

Comments

[ozisim]

*nods*
Most of our family have emergency pagers.
We are quite used to abandoning our own celebrations for a few days till the fires are out.
I hope that everything turned out OK.

[travisjhall]

He didn't say whether it worked out okay. That's also typical around here. I know it hurts him to lose a patient, because I've seen through the cracks, but... well, I guess I may have learned compartmentalisation from my family too. You know how some roleplayers, when we play traumatic games, put the traumatised character in a little box in our heads and let the pain run it's course there, while we return to our day-to-day lives? He does that with real life. I think, anyway.

I don't think this is just bottling it up, either. I'm pretty sure it gets dealt with somehow. (My mother has said that what they do is difficult, not just the job itself but the effect on their lives. In fact, she has said that if the job wasn't well-paid, they wouldn't do it. The comforts of high pay take the stress off in other parts of life, which has enabled them to do this stuff for 40 years.)

But most of the time, nobody ever finds out what happened. They do what they do and go on with life.

[divaflip]

is he a doctor?

My dad is a GP, he always covers Christmas day at the 224 hour medical centre so those with young families can have Christmas with their children. My aunt (his sister) is a nurse (NOM) who works in hospitals, and she does Christmas day for the same reason.

by the time they get off work it is quite late, so our family Christmas 'lunch' is usually around 3.30pm. I actually skipped it this year so I could put on an orphan's christmas for friends, but I always think it is very thoughtful of them to put others first, the way they did for us when we were kids.

[travisjhall]

Yes. Physician, heads up Brisbane's major stroke unit and at least two medical wards (at different hospitals). But with Dad, this has been going on as long as I can remember, not just since my siblings and I grew up. There are other doctors who can handle some things, but above a certain level there's very few others who can cover.

My mum is a GP. She's not on call as much, as it's easier to find GPs to cover, but she does her bit too.