when my worlds collide questions emerge

How important is it to be 5’3???  I of all people should have an answer. I am sort of walking medical mystery. A dwarf in terms of genetics who never fell off the growth curve. My family with its hybrid of medicine and religion has its theories, as do the physicians.  I grew up being told I would be some where around 4 and half feet. Being little was not a scary concept for me, I had friends who were little. I realize as always my bias.

Today I met someone who has another genetic variation far more common than mine, she has one X chromosome (Turner’s Syndrome for the medically inclined). She is of short stature and is now on growth hormone shots once a day. She hates them. (she is quite young) and they might not even work. In the back of my mind, the part that has existed before the medical school brainwashing, I said why are we doing this???  What is so terrible about being little? I mean it has its social challenges but medically there is not much we are fixing.  Dont get me wrong the social challenges are REAL, I consul teens with the SED/KNIEST group about it. But the same voice in my mind shouted some of the social challenges are societal…classic medical model thinking.  It wasn’t so much that I disagreed with the decision as it was I disagreed with the absoluteness of it. Growth Hormone is what you do for THIS.  THIS is obviously a disease, a medical problem.   A medical problem according to whom?  Turner’s itself has some other complications that I would classify as PROBLEMS but short stature I think of as variation. Injections of growth hormone every day is not entirely a benign procedure physically, risk wise and psychologically. Is it worth it?

Would I have taken it if I had the choice? The answer is probaly not but it was because I was brainwashed to believe that height was not important.  Its all about perspective.

What if the biggest enemy in the exam room is not the so called disease but our perception of it?

yeah we all see why medical school is problematic for me at times.

not dead…

I wish I had profond and exciting tales to tell but I dont really. I finished OB and did well on my final and then did two short of longish weeks of Radiology and then Anesthesia. Lots of sitting in the dark and lots of watching people sleep and freaking out with the slightest twitch of the vitals. I then wen to vacation for two glorious weeks. I went to the Bahamas with my family in which I read, swam, read, slept, swam, read, watched the Olympics and snorkeled. The second week I went to DC to hang out with my Dad, to Richmond to see my adorable niece-son (niece plus cousin, its complicated) and then to Roanoke to do laundry and eat food.

NOW I AM BACK AND TODAY WAS MY FIRST DAY ON PEDIATRICS AND IT WAS AMAZING. And today was orientation, I oddly became one of those annoying kids who like knew the answers to the questions and stuff. It was a new experience. More importantly I sat through 3 hours of lecture and wasn’t bored, shocking. Best of all my community pediatric health rotation (first month) is simply spectacular: a week of genetics, a week of newborn nursery, a week of general peds and a whole week of nothing but special needs kids: NICU follow up, two mornings in a special ed classroom and a day of homecare and then some other related clinics!!!!!

if only all of med school could be so fun.

Wal-Bride…

I went to David’s Bridal today for the first time. I was to be fitted for my first real bridemaid’s dress. I walked in and found myself in a huge room filled with rows and rows and rows of dresses. I shivered in the air conditioning. One side was for bridemaids and the other side for brides. It was an overwhelming swarm of purples, blues, greens, blues, oranges and pinks in contrast to egg shells, cream and white. I was absolutely overwhelmed by the selection and by the sheer majesty of a sacrament/rite of passage/etc supersized and Americanized! stood there for a minute and waited to be directed to the blue light special on aisle 8. It took me 10 minutes to wade through the forest of dresses to find someone who worked there. I told her I needed to be fitted for a dress. She found the bride’s name in the computer and pulled a dress from the forest of a different shade but the same model as my dress. I tried not to think about the 1700 other size 6-8 girls who had worn this generic 100+ dollars worth of satin to be fitted. It reminded me distinctly of buying a car, I was test driving and then sending away for the right color. I was led to a changing room. It fit although it will need to be hemmed. I looked at myself in the giant mirrors up on a stool they use for altering and felt overdone, on display and well ridiculous . Is this beauty? Is this what I am supposed to want? Is this what every little girl dreams of? Walking into a store like this, pulling the magical white dress from the plastic hanger and then standing up here for everyone to see how beautiful she is?  This is one of the ultimate displays of love between two people?

10 minutes later and 150 dollars later I have a brown satin dress on order.

Where is the sacred in this strange form of marriage? In all the money we spend? In the party we throw? In the gifts we receive? There is celebration and love of course but where is mystery, the divine in all the fluff. What am I really doing…Am I assisting my friend by standing with her, affirming her commitment, her love? That I think I can do, the rest of it well I dont quite understand. I know very little of these things of love, of romance, of glamor, of marriage . But the glimpses of what I see I find disappointing.

I love my friend and I will do my best for her.

and so I enter into to this strange cultural ritual.

Dream

I am scrubbing into a case in the OR, my hands dripping and I look down and I see I am not in scrubs but ordinary clothes. I rapidly find a place and change and then scrub in. I am stressed about being late. I walk into the case and the surgeon is messing with his Blackberry and everyone is waiting for something. They hardly notice me. I wander over, pull my gloves and watch the clock. Then a nurse comes in and says we cant find the patient. Everyone groans and starts looking. I look too. Then I see a chart and realize the patient is me. But no one seems to know its me, its as if my green scrubs offer me some sort of immunity.

then I woke up and Sunday morning sunshine was streaming through my window.

weird.