There is something magic that happens after you live in a new place for 6 months.
It's been about 7 months since I moved to Bay City and it finally feels like I've settled in. Erin Cvengros and I have noticed a pattern when moving to an unfamiliar place, so therefore I think it's starting to become a rule. A rule that says you must wait 6 months before judging a new city or deciding definitively if you like it there.
I like it here. I like walking in the hospital and saying a familiar hello to nurses and doctors I recognize. I like knowing the other students comfortably enough that I feel like I could call them on a weekday to go grab dinner or a drink because I also like that I now know where my favorite places to eat and drink are located. I like that I feel comfortable in the role of a third year medical student. I like that I can go to a new rotation and not feel nervous about not knowing what to expect. I like that constantly changing environments are now what I expect. I like that I've learned to be more comfortable in my naive medical and life knowledge. I like that I'm adjusting to being asked questions on the fly. I like that I'm here. And I like that I don't wish it was over.
I like feeling comfortable in my own skin. Upon reflecting back to where I was 7 months ago, it's hard to imagine where I'll be 7 months from now. And also really encouraging. I'm enjoying the uncertainty in my life because I am happy with who I am and where I am. And because I've finally persevered through the magic 6 months of growing pains. Here's to the next year and a half before doing another trial of the 6 month rule!
And I'm also really enjoying OB-GYN. It's been a very good week.
So this week I'm on "nights". Here at McLaren Bay Region, on the PCIM night shift, very little happens...especially for those in the role of medical student. So my nights have consisted of 1-2 hour Facetime chats with my family at home, discussing the cabbage soup diet and calorie counting. I've also started some presentations on hyponatremia and acid base disorders. And, Chicago Fire is a great new show if anyone's looking.
And I started a new book called Undaunted. It's written by Christine Caine. She and her husband started The A21 Campaign. Their organization works to prevent trafficing, protect the trafficed, prosecute the trafficers, and to partner with others to accomplish these goals. The trafficing mainly for the purpose of sexual exploitation or forced labor. Anyone remember the movie Taken?
Some quick facts from their website: the average victim is 12 years old, currently it's estimated that 27 million are enslaved, and only 1-2% of all victims are ever rescued.
I've only made it through the first couple of chapters. But sitting here without work to do is very uncomfortable when I think about 12 year old boys and girls, especially those I know personally, in situations I can't even begin to fathom. The website has 21 ways to get involved. Write a letter, Save your pennies, Get social, Get informed, Intern or volunteer, Be a Billboard, Send stuff, Pray, Request a speaker, Remember the 21st, Read their stories... Click here for more...
Sometimes I tell myself not to get involved. Sometimes I tell myself that I'm too busy. Sometimes I tell myself that if I get involved in every good cause I hear about then it'll be too much and I'll be spread to thin...Sometimes I tell myself I am doing enough already. Sometimes I tell myself I won't make a difference. Sometimes I actually try to do something.
So I think I smell another pancake dinner (my favorite fundraiser) in the near future. We can talk about it. We can write letters. We can collect things to send to victims. We can do something.
I wonder what nights are like for the millions enslaved. And then I remember the words of Christ, "In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, for I have overcome the world."
In the past month or two it feels like I've taken a step that resembles the steps Neil Armstrong took on the moon. Steps where you decide to let your foot leave the ground and then you hang in a weightless, mid-stride moment. Awaiting the moment your foot finally meets the ground again is a little unsettling, but mostly just because it's new. But, taking that step feels so good.
Perhaps I shouldn't compare deciding to pursue pediatrics to taking steps on the moon. For whatever reason, it's the visual that came to mind. Over break I began the first step to residency applications, that is, I set up my audition rotations at pediatric hospitals in the Air Force. I'll be spending a month in Bethesda, Maryland at the Walter Reed Medical Center doing adolescent medicine. Then, I'll spend a month in San Antonio, TX at the Brook Army Medical Center with 2 weeks of pediatric infectious disease and 2 weeks of pediatric hematology/oncology. That sounds incredibly dull and businessy--but I'M SO EXCITED!! I think it might feel better than walking on the moon...sorry Neil. Perhaps medicine is my proverbial moon.
Over Christmas break I suddenly realized that I needed to set up these rotations. Which I'd been avoiding so as to avoid making the "final" decision between peds and family medicine. And I handled it like I handle most things--at the last minute. Right before I left for Haiti. Oh yeah, I went to Haiti! More on that later... As for the rotations, it has all worked out beautifully. As it always does. I feel so blessed. Especially when the Lord gives me conformation that this is part of the journey for which I was created. For example, I'll show you how this happened in just the last 24 hours.
Last night I spent some time with a 21 year old lady in the hospital. I have learned I find great joy in taking care of young ladies. By the way, I like the word lady. I don't think I'd call her a woman, but calling her a lady imparts the respect for which she and other females over the age of 16 are due. Or at least the respect I wish every single girl could have for herself.
In summary, she comes from a difficult home, one of drug use and abuse, has been in prison for the better part of the past year, and has been smoking, binge drinking, and experimenting with drugs since 14. She has a history of major depression and suicidal tendencies. She came into the hospital with a blood alcohol content of 0.43. That's really high. Levels over 0.40 have been associated with death from the toxicity. Yet, when I spoke with her last night, after some detox meds and R&R, I learned again that the person you read about in a chart should never be the end of the story. What I appreciated about her was that her vision of what she wants her life to look like is not dead. She hates the way she is and wants to change. Perhaps the beauty of our encounter is that I'm new enough at this that I'm naive enough to believer her. That's what a lot of people would tell me. But Christ doesn't give up on people. Of that I'm convinced. So I'm choosing to believer her. Obviously wanting something and then actually doing it are two different things. But, upon asking her about her goals she told me she wants to leave the city, start fresh, get her GED, go to college, major in zoology, move to Africa, work with children and animals, and, I quote, "...do ministry there." Woah. Big things. Awesome things.
The temptation then is to be more than the medical student on her case, the temptation to adopt her as a sister and take her into my home, is strong. I am learning to surrender each day, moment by moment, to God, to be ready for Him to use me. Because right now as a medical student, as a short term volunteer in Haiti, and as a physician in the future, I'm unable to be the social worker, pastor, nurse, case manager, dietitian, motivational speaker, confidant, teacher, friend, and health provider. But, I know that God can orchestrate that for her, and maybe if I'm lucky, I can play a small part.
I want to do big things. Big things really quickly. Like my new friend, it's frustrating when those big things seem so far away. Even impossible. At times, those desires turn into disappointments due to their unrealistic expectations or distant reality. I refuse, though, to let go of those desires. I pray she does, too.
Instead, the less daunting approach and equally rewarding I think, is the approach Mother Theresa encourages:
Do not think that love in order to be genuine has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired. Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies. Do small things, with great love.
The ENT doc I'm with always tells patients with hearing loss that it makes them look "less smart" than they really are, "if fact," he says, "it makes you look dumb." It's his way of encouraging them to consider hearing aids, I think. And to sympathize with their frustrations.
Well, I wonder if I look dumb, standing in the exam room watching doctor-patient encounters. Because sometimes that's exactly how I feel.
Every once in a while, maybe more like every once in day, I feel especially dumb. I wonder why didn't I think to ask that question or look at that part of the exam or think of that diagnosis. I need to have "hindsight is 20/20" tattooed visibly somewhere on my body. Today was a day I asked those questions to myself more times than I care to remember and that always leads to the thought, I'm never going to be any good at this.
I realize the irrationality embedded within that statement. But, for a split second it's really what I think.
It's hard to be patient when I spend all day with a brilliant doc who has been practicing medicine for the better part of my existence. Comparing my abilities to his is an easy trap to fall into during just about every patient encounter. Plus, he makes what he does so easy, so easy.
Someday. Someday I'll read this and be thankful I'm not a student anymore. I don't like feeling useless. I like having jobs I feel competent doing and helpful completing. I'm pretty sure when I asked if there was anything I could do to help during a procedure today he handed me a band-aid to entertain my helplessness.
I'm learning it's a hard thing to be taught. It's far easier and more comfortable for me to be the teacher.
I'm also learning that as soon as I think I have figured out how to handle a particular situation, I'm usually missing something. Not hard things. But things I thought I wouldn't forget to do when interviewing, examining, or diagnosing patients. If they were hard things I was missing, maybe I'd be easier on myself. Maybe. Maybe not.
Pride comes before the fall. And the fall is never very much fun.
This is my summary (with the main point excerpts, at least to me) of CS Lewis in his message entitled, The Weight of Glory.He portrays a beautiful picture of what I think should motivate us, especially as Christ followers, to love.
"The negative idea of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love."
Lewis goes on to describe heavenly glory as fame or good report: "...not fame conferred by our fellow creatures--fame with God, approval or (I might say) appreciation by God...."Well done, thou good and faithful servant." ....I suddenly remembered that no one can enter heaven except as a child; and nothing is so obvious in a child--as its great and undisguised pleasure in being praised...And that may raise our thoughts to what may happen when the redeemed soul, beyond all hope and nearly beyond belief, learns at last that she has pleased Him whom she was created to please....To please God...to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness...to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son--it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is."
And then connecting the weight of glory in ourselves to the idea of Christian love Lewis described first, He says: "The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor's glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken....Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, you neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat--the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden."
James Taylor's Pandora station makes me wish I was 24 in the 70's. It makes me wish I were a better guitar player and it's the station that most frequently accompanies me on a car trip longer than 20 minutes. Well, it shares a spot with Taylor Swift's new album Red to be perfectly honest. And I'll admit, the idea for a James Taylor station came from a line in Taylor Swift's new song Begin Again. And, can I just say, James Taylor and his music making friends make for a fail proof, dinner party kind of Spotify playlist. I'm kind of excited about it.
I started a new book. It was an impulse buy that had been mulled over many times beforehand, somewhat justifying the purchase. The Weight of Glory is a compilation of CS Lewis. It includes this quote from his speech Learning In War-Time I wanted to share in light of the current political loyalties...
There is therefore this analogy between the claims of our religion and the claims of war: neither of them, for most of us, will simply cancel or remove from the slate the merely human life which we were leading before we entered them. But they will operate in this way for different reasons. The war will fail to absorb our whole attention because it is a finite object and, therefore, intrinsically unfitted to support the whole attention of the human soul. In order to avoid misunderstanding I must here make a few distinctions. I believe our cause to be, as humans go, very righteous, and I therefore believe it to be a duty to participate in this war. And every duty is a religious duty, and our obligation to perform every duty is therefore absolute. Thus we may have a duty to rescue a drowning man and, perhaps, if we live on a dangerous coast, to learn lifesaving so as to be ready for any drowning man when he turns up. It may be our duty to lose our own lives in saving him. But if anyone devoted himself to lifesaving in the sense of giving it his total attention--so that he thought and spoke of nothing else and demanded the cessation of all other human activities until everyone learned to swim--he would be a monomaniac. The rescue of drowning men is, then, a duty worth dying for, but not living for. It seems to me that all political duties (among which I include military duties) are of this kind. A man may have to die for our country, but no man must, in any exclusive sense, live for his country. He who surrenders himself without reservation to the temporal claims of a nation, or a party, or a class is rendering to Caesar that which, of all things, most emphatically belongs to God: himself.
And here are some photos from a recent trip to Mackinac Island with the Maxwells and Erin for a half marathon...probably my most favorite course to date.
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