I dreamt last night, of all things! of my oncologist Dr Mark Bentley. In my dream he looked like a plump version of one of Hollywood’s most popular leading men, better known as the Batman actor Christian Bale, who no less had become a rock star instead of my faithful reassuring doctor. I was upset to say the least by the turn of events and it isn’t as if my dream had no basis. No, it wasn’t one of those dreams where you could have after one too many drinks on a Friday night where you held your boss at gunpoint and under extreme duress (he not you) demanded a raise together with a two-day work week while Keannu Reeves acted as your lookout and sidekick and this was right after you had both robbed the National Reserve with a rubber duckie and wired the money to World Vision, before speeding off in your Ducati in a blaze of glory.
No it wasn’t one of those dreams where you woke up relieved but still grinning and was a bit tickled, and mostly you knew that it was ‘way out there’ and really loved the script.
My dream was fully operable in reality and in the scheme of things lately, I wouldn’t be surprised. You see, I’m up for my biennial follow-up blood tests and consultation but my repeated attempts at getting hold of Dr Bentley to re-issue an updated blood test advice slip (mine was two years old) had failed miserably. The first and second calls to his newly relocated clinic was at least answered by a real human being—a woman receptionist who sounded rather harangued and subsequently incoherent perhaps because of repeated yelling by angry patients and whom—on speaking with her, was a dead giveaway that the phone number was merely a call service center rather than Dr Bentley’s physical clinic. The phone line has now been diverted to a message bank. There is no more harangued receptionist and that means I cannot find a real human to (yell at or) politely enquire about telling me my expired test advice slip works just fine until it got rejected by the folks at Sullivan Nicolaides Pathology. Two weeks after, still a message bank that collected all my first sweet-then-turned-sour messages. No one dared to ring me back. Have gone to my GP to get my slip re-issued but the darned message bank still hasn’t got anyone to ring me back regarding a change of appointment time and date.
A month and a bit later, we run into my old friend Dr Goh who is my missing-in-action Dr Mark Bentley’s counterpart and friend. A few minutes into conversation with him led to an astounding discovery regarding my recently can’t-be-contacted physician. According to him, my doctor has found himself a second calling: jamming in some music band. ‘A mid-life crisis,’ chuckles our friend. I was dumbfounded for a moment. Eyes wide as saucers, I expressed my disbelief by mocking a ‘faint’ and then steadied myself on my husband’s arm as I try without success in my mind to visualize my very dignified-in-appearance Dr Bentley as a maniac on drums. What would he wear? Ok forgive me for the ridiculous question if you are something else—but every real woman thinks of this first! Dr Bentley, Dr Bentley?!! I’m going to faint again except for real this time. Never seen him in anything other than a well-tailored suit and a pair of designer men’s shoes in high shine. Really? A rock band musician? The same oncologist who’s done such a brilliant job of my post-cancer care and convinces me to join a patient panel for research and pilot testing of medical software at the Leukaemia Foundation? I call him Mark usually, just because he is a very friendly doctor and it just puts me at ease to pretend we are friends.
And, according to my reliable sources, Mark is trying to scale down his medical work obligations in order to devote more time to his newfound passion…yes the music thing. Scale down! This is the guy I have to rely on if I should relapse or have any other related medical emergency! How dare he scale down! What about me, Mark?! And what about those other poor patients (such as the newly turned bald) of his still going through the throes of nausea and having to grapple with chemo? Is he leaving them in the lurch too! Unbelievable. The audacity of it simply incensed me. A mid-life crisis? It can’t also apply to physicians who have the world to save, can it? I mean, I just turned 40 last month and the new designer skincare regime, mad lingerie shopping and a new penchant for Xavier Pauchard Tolix chairs—that might well be all part of my personal process and ‘middle age crisis’ but Mark, you whom I deem as one of the most ‘arrived’ people I know, such a thing as a midlife surely cannot happen to you.
In my dream last night I harassed you about all these to the point of breaking. In your shaky voice, albeit with the head of a chubby Christian Bale, you even croaked with undying loyalty that if you, Mark Bentley, should ever completely retire from your medical practice to become a full-time rock musician, that you vowed to retain me as your one and only patient and not a cent shall be billed. You had me at ‘one and only’.
It is literally with dreamy satisfaction that I forgave you for your folly, Mark. With forgiveness comes renewed empathy. It was then that I had an epiphany of what this was. A mid-life crisis was, like Christ, no respecter of persons and inflicts us all at some moment in our adult lives. We are always restless souls searching and probing, questioning and trying to unearth what it is we’re wired to do in this life. Our purpose, it seems, consumes us our entire lives as we engage in self-dialogue that so often leads to self-doubt surrounding what we currently do for a living. It is as if we were doomed or may have wasted our life had we not been intuited with the foreknowledge of what God had meant for us to be doing in our lives.
Is there such a thing as ‘true calling’? If even my secularly successful, well-heeled and distinguished oncologist seems to tire of his privileged life—what hope is there for us ordinary folk, to escape the mid-life crisis?
And even if, say we are amongst the more fortunate ones who happen to discover what it is or have an inkling to do the very thing that makes us happiest or like the cliché says ‘makes us tick’, how will this second calling fit in the new scheme of things financially? Should we then still continue being true to ourselves doing whatever it is we know we ought to do and ought to be,even if it comes at a great expense literally? How will this new calling support our mortgages,the kids' private schooling, university education and will it fund our current lifestyle and allow for family holidays?
It all boils down to risk-taking again isn't it? It takes great courage,boldness to succeed and you'll have to agree,enough savings stashed aside as you pursue your second and hopefully, true calling. Damn, no wonder, Dr Bentley--no wonder you took the plunge, you already made enough dough to outlast whatever possible failure can occur in your quest for rock stardom! Now you've really become an inspiration. No guts no glory indeed! Go,Mark,go!
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