It feels more easy to tell about someone else, than to tell  about my story. It's hard to start where. For introduction, my name is Eka Gunawijaya, Balinese, Hindu. If you look at the name, it doesn't seem like it's Balinese. My father is Balinese, Ir I Made Ardika, born in Rendang Karangasem. My mother is Anny Marfuah, a Javanese-Balinese mixture, born in Denpasar. My name as a child used the Balinese name, Pande Gede Halilintar Wisma Indra. But in the end it had to change my name, because I frequently got sick, it didn't fit using Balinese name. I was born in Sanglah Hospital Denpasar, December 18^th 1968, helped by Dr. Edi Katimansyah, the first obstetrician in Bali. I am the first child of two siblings. When I was little, I lived with many families in one yard in Sanglah. There were multiethnic Javanese, Balinese, Lombok, with different religions, namely Islam, Hindu, Catholic.

I started school at the Swastiastu Catholic Kindergarten Denpasar, now the name is Santo Joseph, but only for 1 year, because I had to have sinusitis treatment in Surabaya for several months. Then I returned to school at the Swastiastu Catholic Elementary School, which is only about 500 meters from home. When I was in elementary school, I represented the school for a drawing competition, but unfortunately I couldn't win. Almost always my work is used as a school display, but my grades don't stand out. If you look at elementary school report cards, the number of sick days is around 15 days each semester, being frequent sick since childhood.

When I started junior high school in 1981, I started getting sick less often. I went to SMP Negeri 1, about 2 kilometers from home, commuting by 3-wheeled bemo. My father was prohibited me from riding a bicycle, because I had a history been hit by a motorcycle. I started to pursue extracurricular painting, participated in representing schools in painting competitions, sculpture competitions, and even won painting at Shankar's International India. My grades are still mediocre, I never got a ranking. Only a good scores in history lesson, always got 100 in exams, that's because history lesson are mostly about war stories, and I was most love war stories and films, in line with my previous dream of want to become a soldier.

When I was in high school it felt easy to enter my favorite school at that time, SMA Negeri 1 Denpasar in 1984, even though my grades were sufficient only, maybe because I had painting achievements, or because dropping out of SMP Negeri 1 was a priority. I was still doing extracurricular painting in high school, and my paintings of realism from oil brushes were used as collections at school. My grades began to creep up, maybe because my father had a side profession as a tutor, he gives chemistry-physics-mathematics lessons every evening, outside of his profession as a chemistry lecturer at FK UNUD. Meanwhile, my mother had to be a library employee at UNUD, but stopped working after I was born. Starting with ranking 1 in grade 1, then reaching its peak during the final high school exams to become champion 1 in NEM (Nilai ebtanas murni, pure ebtanas value) in high school and everybody said in all over Bali. The joy was extraordinary at that time, it made my parents proud, after all, it made private tutoring in demand, because his hermitage delivered the NEM champion.

After graduating from high school, I continued to FK UNUD in 1987. I remained in Bali, never left. Actually, when I was in grade 2 high school, I planned to choose the PMDK (Penelusuran minat dan kemampuan, Search for interests and abilities) pathway at the UGM engineering faculty, because my talent is painting, suitable for being an architect, after all, living overseas was a challenge at that time. But what happened? On the day of filling out the PMDK forms that had to be filled at school, my father came, intervened in class, talked to my homeroom teacher, forced me to change my interest. So, I was accepted by the PMDK path at FK UNUD. In the first semester of college, my grades were barely enough, because FK was not my passion. Maybe because I ran away, I was even busy in student organizations. Starting from being chairman of the large-scale committee at that time, namely The birthday of the great FK family (HUT BKFK) in semester 1, to participating in establishing the FK UNUD medical assistance team (Tim bantuan medis, TBM), ultimately serving as chairman of the FK UNUD student senate. Before the coass, I even had time to prepare to enlist into the army via the milsuk (militer sukarela) route, but unfortunately I was late in completing the registration documents, even though my parents had already approved. During coass, my grades started to improve again, because I preferred practical lessons than just a college. In 1994, when I graduated from becoming a general practitioner (GP), I got the best graduate grades between half of us that who were appointed. Not bad, even though when was married in coass, I had 2 children, the first was a girl named Anlidya Permatasari Gunawijaya, born in 1992. The second was a boy named Dico Gunawijaya, born in 1994, just before I finished my GP. My wife, Yuliani Antariksaningsih, was forced to take maternity leave while in college.

After graduating a doctor, I served as a GP at the Manuaba clinic and Darma Usadha Hospital Denpasar, before being dispatched as a non-permanent employee (Pegawai tidak tetap, PTT) doctor who served as head of the Gleno puskesmas, Ermera, East Timor, 1994-1997. The hard life there hammered a lot of my life. My wife followed 1 year later after graduating veterinarian doctor, while the first child followed 1 year later to attend kindergarten. My wife and I were eventually appointed as government employee in East Timor. I applied for a specialist doctor education program (PPDS-1) 6 months before I finished PTT, using a state scholarship. My intention was to follow obstetric specialist education, but at the invitation of my uncle, Prof. Dr. Abdul Hamid SpAK, I moved to apply for a pediatric specialist. His son plans to apply for obstetric specialist education next year. At that time, there was a rule that prohibited admitting 2 doctor with family ties to the same educational institution.

In 1998 I was officially accepted as a participant in PPDS Child Health FK UNUD, there was not much savings that could be used for school fee at that time, lucky they still wanted to bear me living at their home with my 2 children, while my wife was still on duty at the Ermera animal health post (Pos kesehatan hewan, Poskeswan) East Timor. In 1999, I gave permission to leave school for a while, because of a pre-service training for government employee with my wife in East Timor. The atmosphere was not conducive at that time, there were many demonstrations, violence, arson, killings, gunfights, just before the opinion session, thank God I was able to go home safely. A few months after that, the results of the opinion session decided that Timor Leste would become independent, my wife was sent home and served in Department of animal husbandry Bali. We as a family finally got together again. A year after that, in 2000, my third child, a girl, was born, named Idfi Amilasari Gunawijaya.

I finally graduated as a pediatrician in 2003. I was allowed to serve in the Department of Child Health at Sanglah Hospital, under the guidance of my uncle. In the same year, my uncle died of a stroke, with his last position as head of the study program. In 2003, the conflict broke out in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, where I was obliged to undergo an official bond as a medical doctor at Meuraxa Hospital, Banda Aceh. Not yet a year on duty, 26 December 2004 a tsunami devastated Aceh, the death toll was around 250 thousand people, but thank God, of the 30 specialist doctors assigned, none of them were victims. This is the hardest life experience I don't want to remember anymore. Because the hospital where my assignment was lost swallowed up by tsunami, moreover there were already thousands of volunteer medical personnel in Banda Aceh, I was transferred to a mountainous area in Aceh, at the Blangkejeren Field Hospital, Gayo Lues. This hospital is unique, consisting of 5 containers that can be moved using a transport truck, namely: 1 operating room container, 2 inpatient room containers, 1 polyclinic container, 1 supporting container. In this hospital I also experienced a unique incident, helping a Brimob squad that was ambushed by the GAM (Gerakan Aceh merdeka) gang. I had time to sew a torn wound in soldier stomach that was blasted by bullet, a pediatrician worked as a surgeon.

In 2006 my term of service in Aceh ended. I got a call return to duty at Sanglah Hospital, because it needed 1 pediatrician to be sent to study as pediatric cardiologist. Actually there was a little bit of disappointment, because there were friends who said this was an arid work area, but its study was the longest and the hardest. This view changed when I started fellowship school in 2006 at the Faculty of Medicine, UI, Jakarta. In fact, there were a lot of pediatric heart patients, they also handled it with modern technology. I was helped by an SPP scholarship from Sanglah Hospital, but I still went to school while working as a private doctor, to meet my daily needs. The salary of my wife and me were used for the tuition fees for my first child who was accepted as a FK UNUD student, as well as the living expenses for her 2 younger siblings. In 2008 I finished my education in the pediatric heart fellowship, but it was not until 2011 that I was confirmed as a consultant of pediatrician (SpAK). Actually, while in Jakarta, I had the opportunity to complete my doctoral education, but unfortunately I only managed to complete a 6-month college period, due to no remain cost for continuing it.

Upon my return from Jakarta, August 2008, a tough task awaits me. I started working on the Division of pediatric cardiology at the Integrated heart service, Sanglah Hospital, even though the building didn't exist at that time. Starting to carry out echocardiography examinations, providing pediatric cardiac education for people, fostering patient trust, inviting various medical device partners to join, collaborating with cardiac surgeons and adult cardiologists, as well as cardiac catheter specialist nurses. In May 2009, I did my first cardiac catheterization for child patient, then in February 2010 I just started undergoing a transcatheter closure procedure. To date, about 1,151 cardiac catheterization procedures have been performed, 740 of which are transcatheter heart corrections. Several years after that, the joining of Dr. Veny Kartika Yantie SpAK made the pediatric cardiology division even more advanced. The heart actions we are undergoing are getting more and more advanced. Hopefully this will be a provision for our successors. I don't feel like my age is getting older, my children are almost finished specialists, the first child is taking pediatric specialist education, the second is a neurology specialist, the third is still studying general medicine, all of them are in FK UNUD.

When I remember all of my life's journeys, none of them match my dream. Everything went like fate, as if it just happened. But there is one thing that I realize, wherever we work, whatever we are, as long as we pursue our work wholeheartedly, even through hard times, we will definitely be able to get good results in the end.