Dr. Jedidiah’s Diary: Larry's Second Chance

Dr. Jedidiah is a psychiatrist who loves traveling, meeting new people, and exploring different cultures. As a single father who lost his wife Demi to drug overdose 10 years ago, he has not been his old perky self for the last decade. During those hard years, he has met hundreds of, thousands of people from various walks of life around all over the world. Meeting new people and listening to their stories outside his office have given him different feelings from the ones through the formal encounter groups or support groups for therapy. These people he has accidentally come across were the paths through which Dr. Jedidiah could look back on his own life, being truly honest with himself. Here is Dr. Jedidiah’s monologue that has left him with some food for thoughts in life….or a fodder to justify his own mistakes in the past.

Episode 16. Larry’s Second Chance

The first thing that came to my mind when I first met Larry was that we could build good friendship that I had hardly ever experienced in the past of my life. Since I had been so focused on my patients, who all had miserable mental problems, I’d had hard time showing my true self to anyone, even if that anyone looked sincere and honest with me. I was surrounded by an invisible wall for the purpose of self-defense and strong determination to stay unaffected by my patients at my office. However, such a strong resolution of mine was not indefatigable at times. Larry was the very one that reached my mind, not as a patient but as a friend. It was probably because of his unforgettable smile.

This smiley, mid-aged guy was discharged from the prison through compassionate release due to his illness. He said he was lucky enough to see a shrink thanks to the fund collected by one of his juvie teachers’ help. The million-dollar smile on his wrinkly face would make me confused about his nasty old days before his prison sentence as a flimflam. He was tossed out into the dark side as a child when his parents passed away due to the accidental drug overdose. He became street savvy way too early, and had to learn how dim his own prospects are without nurturing parents in a cozy little place he could call home. Larry had been shuffled around from the juvie to another shelter, which had left his life smeared thick with pains of being stigmatized as an irreparable outcast. However, quite surprisingly, he was always all smiles, not fake, but rather simple and innocent. I remember asking him the same question over and over again, especially after our official clinic session was over. “How come you have such a big smile? I mean…how could you keep yourself intact from all the bad times you’d gone through?” Sometimes Larry just smiled again, or at other times he said “I just had no shoulders to cry on. I just had to smile."

Awkward silence filled the air like dark clouds while no words were being exchanged between Larry and me. What he said before he left our final session hit me like a thunderbolt out of nowhere. Exhaling a long, deep sigh, Larry said “Nobody asked me why I destroyed my life as well as others’. Nobody ever wanted to learn why I continued to deviate from my right way. Nobody cared what I had been thinking in the absence of mom and dad.” He went on to say that “Those I deceived were at least into what I talked them into. I felt I was seen. I thought I was recognized.” Now that he got only a couple of months left to live, he said he felt truly deeply sorry for those who sold out to his lies.

Larry taught me, no, changed me into someone who tries to be a listener with a warm heart. I had been a corrector, not a care giver. All I was focusing on was to give him a solution, not a sense of shared feelings. Maybe I was unnoticeably enjoying some kind of frisson of straightening him out all along.

I heard that Larry got married to a wonderful lady he met at church a few years ago. Although he died of pancreatic cancer only after half a year into his marriage, the news that he finally found the second chance in life to meet someone who listened to him put a smile on my face. This smile resembles Larry’s, I thought. I lost my beloved Demi, my one and only shoulder to cry on, so I just… smile.

Expressions

   

   1.  indefatigable: incapable of being fatigued/ untiring

   2.   compassionate release: policies designed to allow some of the dying prisoners to be released from prison or jail before sentence completion

   3.  flimflam:  a swindle/scam in which you cheat at gambling or persuade a person to buy worthless property

   4.   smeared thick with…: (figuratively) one’s reputation has been stained/ smudged by…

   5.   frisson: a brief moment of emotional excitement/ thrill/shudder

English Idioms about the State of Health

Spring is the time of budding and starting your life with a fresh mind. However, not everyone is in perfect shape, either physically or mentally. This week, let us practice some living and health-related expressions/ idioms in English.

1.   keep body and soul together: to have or get enough food and money to survive

2.   hale and hearty: someone, especially an old person, who is hale and hearty is in excellent health (*similar expression: to be as right as rain)

3.   (to be) on one's last legs: to be in a very weak condition or about to die

4.   hair of the dog that bit you: using as a remedy a small amount of what made you ill, for example a drop of alcohol when recovering from drinking too much, is called 'a hair of the dog that bit you

5.   touch and go: If something is touch-and-go, the outcome or result is uncertain.

6.   couch doctor: shrink/ a psychoanalyst or psychiatrist who puts his patients on a couch to talk to them

7.   (to be) in remission: a disease that seems to be getting better

8.   socialized medicine: a system of national healthcare that is funded by taxes and provided to people by the government.

9.   One’s back teeth are floating/or swimming!: to need to go pee/ urinate right away! When somebody has to pee so bad that the urine has filled their whole body all the way up to the back of the mouth and makes the back teeth float in urine

10.             (to be) down in the mouth: to be visibly sad, depressed, and unhappy

Now let’s use the above expressions in sentences.

    

    1.   Jill has been so down _________________________ for the past 5 weeks since her beloved cat died.

    2.   Drew was advised by his friend to go see a _______________ doctor about his depression.

    

    3.   Americans are fed up with their medical expenses, which made them even wish to move to another country like Korea where they have good _____________________ medicine.

    

    4.   Ashley had to get another job to keep _________________________ together, because her existing job as a janitor was chicken feed.

    5.   Everyone thought Mr. Smith was on his ______________________ after the recent surgery, but thank goodness he is hale and ___________________ at the moment!

    

    6.   It was really _____________________________ after the surgery whether she would survive, but she’s been in _________________.

    

    7.   Jack couldn’t understand when his uncle gave himself another glass of Whiskey to cure his hangover from last night’s party. Jack’s uncle says it was the hair of the ______________________.

8.  Jordan was looking everywhere in the building for a restroom. His ___________________________________  at that moment.

*Answer Keys*

1. down in the mouth

2. couch

3. socialized

4. body and soul

5. last legs, hearty

6. touch and go, remission

7. dog that bit you

8. back teeth were floating

Basic English Expressions at Hair Salons

Is it time to get a new haircut or highlights? Giving your hair a bit of change from time to time could make you feel much lightened up and help you snap out of bad mood. Let us go over some basic English expressions  that we can use in hair salons this week.

Match the following vocabulary with each of their proper definition. 

(*source from https://www.myenglishlanguage.com/essential-vocabulary/hairdressing/)

1.   trim	a.   hair cut in different lengths, shorter on the top layer and longer underneath
2.   thinning	b.   hair at the front that comes down over the forehead
3.   balayage	c.   a small amount of hair cut off the ends of the hair to neaten your current style
4.   layers	d.   a long bob style
5.   fringe	e.   hair that is cut short all over using electric clippers, normally very short like in the army
6.   lob	f.    a highlighting technique where dye is painted on directly, without using foils or cap, to create a graduating color effect
7.   buzz cut	g.   parting at the side of the head or at the center of the head
8.   parting (side or center)	h.   Thick hair is cut with scissors to make it more manageable
9.   up do	i.     a hair style, especially among Rastafarians, in which the hair is worn in long, ropelike locks.
10.  dreadlock	j.    any hair style that is pulled up and back off your face – common for formal events, such as weddings

<Answer Keys>

    

     1.  c

     2.  h

     3.  f

     4.  a

     5.  b

     6.  d

     7.  e

     8.  g

     9.  j

    10. i

Learn the following expressions as well to say what you want or need at a hair salon.

<1> When asking for a service you want:

I’d like or Can I get a haircut/ some highlights please.

I’d like it straightened/ colored please.

<2> When making an appointment or a change of appointments:

Can I make an appointment for my hair color with (the name of your hair stylist)

Are you available this Saturday?

Can I see you this afternoon?

Can I possibly cancel the appointment for the haircut?

Can I put it off until next Wednesday?

<3> When asking about the cost:

How much do I owe you?/ How much do you charge for (a haircut/ a perm)

Will that cost extra?  (=Do you charge for that?)

Is that complementary? (=Is this service or product free?)

Allergic to Studying English Idioms? Hope not this week. ^^ Various Expressions related to Physical Allergic Symptoms

Spring has sprung! It is one of the most welcomed seasons after a long, brutal winter time. However, to some people out there who are suffering from a variety of allergies, Spring is not such a pleasant phase in a year. This week, let’s brush up on some idiomatic expressions related to allergy symptoms.

     

     1.      hay fever: a seasonal allergy to airborne particles characterized by itchy eyes, runny nose, nasal congestion, sneezing, itchy throat, and excess mucus

     2.      wheezing: producing a hoarse whistling sound when one breathes with difficulty

     3.      flare-up: a sudden appearance or worsening of the symptoms of a disease or condition

     4.      splitting headache: terrible headache

     5.      to feel under the weather: to feel sick or ill

     6.      to break out in a rash: to experience visible skin irritation

     7.      runny nose: (opposite to stuffed-up nose) A runny nose is excess nasal drainage. It may be a thin clear fluid, thick mucus or something in between.

     8.      to be on the mend: to be getting better/ recovering after an illness or an injury

   

     9.      to be out cold: unconscious or deep asleep

Time to practice!

     

     1.      Jack has been hospitalized for the last two weeks and now dismissed. He is on ____________________________.

     2.      Melinda is addicted to taking selfies. Although she knows even getting near flowers would make her break _______________________, she still takes her own A-cut selfies in the middle of dandelions.

     3.      Just hearing weather forecast about today’s pollen index makes me feel _____________________________________. I even got a ________________ nose now.

     4.      At this time of year when flowers are in full bloom, I become miserable suffering from hay __________________ and ____________________ headaches.

     5.      As Doug was heading into the trail, he started to feel the ____________-up of  _____________________ cough.

     6.      Patricia was __________________ for two full hours after the surgery was done. Now her doctor says she needs to take three weeks off from swimming practice so she would  recuperate.

<Answer Keys>

     1.      the mend

     2.      out in a rash

     3.      under the weather, runny

     4.      fever, splitting

     5.      flare, wheezing

     6.      out cold

Dr. Jedidiah's Diary: Episode 15. Living Final Days Fully in Colors

Dr. Jedidiah’s Diary

Dr. Jedidiah is a psychiatrist who loves traveling, meeting new people, and exploring different cultures. As a single father who lost his wife Demi to drug overdose 10 years ago, he has not been his old perky self for the last decade. During those hard years, he has met hundreds of, thousands of people from various walks of life around all over the world. Meeting new people and listening to their stories outside his office have given him different feelings from the ones through the formal encounter groups or support groups for therapy. These people he has accidentally come across were the paths through which Dr. Jedidiah could look back on his own life, being truly honest with himself. Here is Dr. Jedidiah’s monologue that has left him with some food for thoughts in life….or a fodder to justify his own mistakes in the past.

Episode 15.  Living Final Days Fully in Colors

It was late autumn in 2017. The Good Samaritan hospice, where I was volunteering as a shrink twice a month, was filled with way more somber mood than any other sad days. Every patient at the hospice was feeling a huge void in their heart that day. Ricky was gone.

Ricky Valore was one of the terminally ill patients who had been seeing me in the consultation room for over a year. Had they not ever known that the place was a hospice facility, one could have thought of Ricky as the most cheerful, bubbly guy in the whole world. He’d always smile at everyone, humming Billy Holiday’s oldies but goodies tune all the time. It was only in that private consultation room with me when Ricky was showing his physical and mental anguish to the bone.

As the heavily depressed mood was sinking in at the end of our consultation session, Ricky used to say “Thank you doc for hearing me out again. Want me to belt out Jacky Wilson’s Lonely Teardrops now? Yeah…we need to snap out of this bad mood, right? I’m not as smooth as Jacky, but I can still jump and collapse like a feather!” All I could do for him then was no more than giving him a great big smile, wondering where this frail old man would gather all the force to stay upbeat even in the throes of his struggle to survive such a devilish illness.

I was increasing my personal time as a volunteer shrink outside my clinic to spend more days, even if it just meant a few more days, with patients at the Good Samaritan Hospice ward. Each time I paid a visit, Ricky’s dance moves or singing voice were gradually getting out of sight in the hallway or the living room. He had become bed-ridden with more sedatives and pain alleviators than just a few months before. When his eyes met mine on my last visit with him before his demise, Ricky was trying to say a few words that were hardly heard without my ears right next to his mouth. As he was tapping his thin fingers on his white linen sheet, which just looked as if he was able to hear the IV drips, Ricky repetitively said “…should have come here earlier, …..should have been earlier than that….” I knew what he meant by those words. Most terminally ill patients that I’d met at Good Samaritan must have understood Ricky’s mind. All they wished for the rest of their lives was staying in painless state.

I came to think more about the palliative treatment and care for patients diagnosed with serious illness. A lot of them I met said they had to be shuffled around by their family to get active treatments to no avail against their own will. When they learned about this peaceful way of wrapping up their lives with no pain, they were already so tired of convincing their family to let them turn to hospice where palliative care was provided. Ricky was one of them. After being hospitalized for so long, resorting to all those intricate machines that prolonged his life, he just wished for a handful of moments day to day with peace of mind to forget that he was soon be gone. It was not giving up their beloved family at all. Since his family finally listened to Ricky’s wish and brought him to Good Samaritan, the colors of his final days turned bright and jolly like his signature dance moves that resembled like Jackie Wilson’s velutinous and velvety smooth version.

Just like his name claims, Ricky Valore fought for his final days with true valor, not as a hopeless patient on his deathbed, but as a strong and cheerful trooper for life.

Expressions

     1.   to hear one out: to listen to them without interrupting them until they have finished saying everything that they want to say

     

     2.   to belt out: to sing out loud

     3.   palliative care: a palliative care is an action that is intended to make the effects of a problem less severe but does not actually solve the problem.

     4.   to resort to something: to adopt something because you cannot see any other way of achieving what you want

     5.   velutinous: silky/ soft and velvety