Medicine is an art form; each chart is a blank canvas on which we document the interconnection between ourselves and our patient. Through medicine we allow patients to publish their own autobiographies, as we ghost-write it, pen to paper, in our medical charts.
I have been on hiatus from this blog because I went back to Colombia for vacation. Colombia is a country in which I’ve spent a lot of time in in the past few years, since living there from 2008-2010, and disconnected completely from technology. My smartphone (poor neglected thing) lay buried under dirty laundry at the bottom of my backpack and I removed my watch for the next few weeks, relying on the kindness of neighbours to tell me what time it was, when it mattered enough to ask.
Each time I venture across the Western Hemisphere to return to Colombia, it feels like trying a favourite dish in new ways; the past 11 months of life experience bring out certain flavours that I never noticed before and that add an exquisite richness to the palate of cultural experience. The more times I go, the more it feels like home, as if the culture has nuzzled its way into a part of me and I can never consider myself simply a “Canadian” again. Here are some of the experiences I had that, I believe, can only be found in this loving South American nation.
You know you’re in Colombia when…
When I was at Queen’s University, studying for my BSc degree, I would go to the gym daily to sweat out the stress and sluggishness of classroom and library time. I would go to the gym for as long as 2 hours, which didn’t seem much at the time, when you factored in the wait time for the popular cardio machines (especially after the New Year). Then I joined the Queen’s Triathlon Team and would bike or swim for 2 hours before hopping on the treadmill for another half hour. I worked out like an Olympian, watched what I ate and yet I still felt breathless while ascending stairs and I still maintained my weight at slightly higher than it is now (these days I do 30-60 minutes of light to moderate exercise a day). What gives? The answers, my friends, is physiological adaptation and cortisol.