Surprising Beauty

Is something beautiful because you love it or do you love it because its beautiful?? I don’t know. But if I did I could explain why I love Bucharest.  Bucharest at first glance is a filthy, graffiti covered city made up of endless gray communist bloc apartments for as far as the eye can see. Beggars on every corner (although this is improving), stray dogs in every doorway. But if you look twice you will be surprised by the wildflowers that grow everywhere, the old trees spread throughout the city, the gardens in each balcony and each little yard, the children running down the wide sidewalks and colors of clothes on the line, bright curtains, ads that mask the gray. I love this city.

Maybe its because I love its people. I love to sit on the bus or the tram or the metro and watch people. Romanians are proud and always dress up to go outside their house. They are fiercely protective of their children (yes a bit ironic) and although they don’t smile enough for my liking at times when they engage you they are warm and will probably invite you to dinner.

Maybe its because I love the children. I am back at the baby hospital again this time. I could spend all my time there and be perfectly happy. These children resilience, their beauty, their capacity for love when they have not been loved has always given me a window to the divine yet also of the silence desperation of the orphans.  I thought it would be harder being close to the end of my training but its better somehow. Even though I at times know the grim statistics these kids face, I also know of their potential first hand. I cling to that at times because I believe they cling to it too. They know what they want beauty and love over despair.

Perhaps its because I am an American and optimist that I see such beauty in the mist of such drabness and pain. I probably sound hopelessly naive but I am not as much it may seem. I know the dark side I am just surprised that there can be such dichotomy.

I hate to admit this but I need Romania far more than Romania needs me. This place has always been a place of such spiritual and emotional renewal for me. I think its how simply I live when I here.

Why the world is messed up Part 1

I love this country and only God knows why.

I walked into the pediatric oncology ward today and the first patient I met had a brain abscess of unknown pathogen origin but since she has cancer it could be a very, very bad bug. She was in a room with two other leukemia children one who was questionably neutropenic (no immune system). I was really, really upset. I get the whole limited resources concept. I get the whole this is not America concept but I can’t turn off the little doctor in my head that says this is a way to kill three children for the price of one. We painted their faces and make necklaces and bracelets and it was the only child life (hosp playroom) time these kids get. Their parents make their meals, give them all of their oral meds, wash them, clothe them and do all beside care that does not involve the IV pump. There are no portacaths so the kids get IVs perpetually. I was pretty saddened by the whole thing.

Especially in light of story number two. So ‘Mike’ is 16 and was my bosses’ first patient here back 1994. He has a stricture (a narrowing) of his esophagus. He needed surgery to fix it but he had to grow and there were no surgeons in Romania any way. Finally they found someone to do it after a more than a decade of suffering and being told that there was nothing to be done but wait for death, they found someone. Health care is supposed to be FREE for all children under the age of 18. And by FREE they mean that if you want your child to live the hospital alive after major surgery try a 3000 dollar bribe. That’s more than most families make here a year. And it needs to be in cash and by the way it’s all under the table so the doc will never pay taxes. The missionaries, the boy’s community and his parents have scrimped and saved and raised the funds. The boy survived the procedure and is in the ICU. The only words the surgeon told the mom was the esophagus was dilated before the stricture, we should have done this years ago. The mom has to pay a bribe every time she wants to see her son. 3000 under the table? And the mother can’t even be with her son???? 3000 untaxed dollars in a country where children with treatable cancer die because they can’t pay bribes for isolation rooms.

Don’t get me wrong I know America’s health care system is broken. But at least it is mostly honest. I mean insurance companies are evil but they are upfront about it. I would take truth even it means capitiolism runs health care over corruption running health care any day.

Also this http://www.wxii12.com/video/19854698/index.html watch it… and count the number of time they use the word inspiration or something similar. I know this girl, she is a friend of mine, and she is extremely kind and generous with herself. But I post this because it’s such a good example of America’s idea of disability. I can be a cursed beggar/prisoner of an institution or I can be a poster child for a Disney movie.

God Bless America……and Romania

Good grief. Dear God please tell me there is some happy medium in the world where gimpy people are not martyrs but rather teachers, parents, doctors, lawyers or whatever they want to be when they grow up. And no one finds it extraordinary that they managed but rather find it extraordinary that anyone would think otherwise.

….there are many kinds of freedom, and even more kinds of slavery.

End Rant.

 It is a lovely Tuesday night in Bucharest. Emily and I have settled in well. We got our clearance for the baby hospital today, we start on Thursday. Emily has been busy with school, I have been busy with clinic. I already know at least one reason why God has brought me here this time. One of the new social workers at the clinic has a 22 yo sister with Cerebral Palsy who is brilliant but is stuck in the complicated system of being disabled in Romania. We will go visit her in a rural village on Sunday. I have done lots of physicals on missionary families, Romanians, Turkish, Dutch, English diplomats. Tomorrow we will do the whole Mormon missionary force in Romania. Its fun work. I assisted on a small surgery today. The only sadness is I cannot get clearance to go work with the disabled children from last time. The one child who I had a special relationship with though has been moved to a private Catholic orphanage and I am hoping to get clearance to go see him at least.

Things are slightly better accessibility wise here. There is a van with a lift to help one get off the plane and lift into the terminal. I actually rode down the whole street today by myself in the green machine, curb cuts the whole way. I almost had tears in my eyes. Such freedom, my people here have never known such physical freedom. I learn so much of spiritual freedom from these simple things. God wants to free us from our sin and our own selfish selves but we have to let him tear down the walls (the curbs) in our life. I think often of my friend who was my initial introduction to the plight of my people who died soon after I met her. I am sad she did not live to see these days but happy to know she is with the Lord. We still have a long way to go education and health care wise, but enviromentally they are making an effort.

God is doing interesting things in my heart. I love this land and I love Eastern Europe. But Romania is chaning rapidly. Romania will need less and less missionary doctors over time. The medical missionaries who run the clinic are thinking about retiring. There is still much work to be done here but I am not sure if this is where God has me to come for the long term. So where Russia? Ukraine? Africa? I recently received an e-mail from one of my future supervisors in Africa he is asking for pediatricians with a passion for the disabled to run a rehab center in Tanzania, they want to start a series of these throughout the continent.  I am going to work in one of them in Kenya in Jan. They were very clear, that my elective is a window to employment, they are almost recruiting me 5 years early it seems. Also on my way here, I ran into a guy who works for Samarthian’s Purse who gave me his card and wants me to e-mail their medical missions dept. It seems possible jobs are growing on trees at the moment…

 

,.,,,there is so much to tell about being back here and about Spain and Italy and France…but it will take me a while to get back to speed with my blog. I am also writing my reisdency personal statement wich is a painful endless process.

Boards OVER.

Leaving Roanoke in less than 24 hours to drive to Dulles to fly to EUROPE.

Leave for Romania from Spain in T minus 11 days!!!!

so happy right now.

New photo site for the year of insanity:

http://amyadventuresabroad.shutterfly.com/