for the love…

I love my job. I love my job. I love my job.

I had great intentions of writing an epic entry about how much I love my new surroundings and how challenged and encouraged I feel at my new program.

Then today happened.  And well.

I love my job. I love my job.

but some days it sucks.

5 mon old with a trach due to a cyst in his airway that she was born with.  She is beautiful, she smiles and tracks and loves people.

She lives in a neighborhood that happens to be rape capitol and most violent places in America. Its also one of the poorest.

For three weeks since I got here we have worked to get him, his pregnant, single, Mom who is younger than me HOME.

I have talked to her pediatrician, home health, social work, discharge planning, ENT, GI, God and Mom. I spent my first two weeks of internship loving and advocating for this little girl.  Because this is what I believe in. I believe that early intervention can work in the slums, I believe these kids are worth fighting for.

Today was D-DAY.

Home health called after rounds after I told Mom that today was the day.  They  did a reevaluation….they won’t send anyone to THAT neighborhood anymore plus Mom is a social concern, did we know she was pregnant??? And single??? And uneducated???

Yes we knew and yes we are skeptical too. Thats why we spent four weeks teaching Mom to do trach care and tube feeds. She learned it all beautifully and yes she is poor but she is not stupid.

And the fact is, this is America. We don’t take kids away from their parents just because they are medically complicated.  I’ve been in a society like that and believe me while this situation isn’t ideal that one is a diaster and a moral travesty.  The thought of this beautiful baby who is cognitively a 110% been warehoused makes me sick.

Mom deserves a chance.  The baby deserves the chance at his blood family before being turned over to foster care.

After my attending and I begged home health, listened to the SW and the nurses bash Mom, home health, the universe and our team.  And getting no where for hours and hours.

I had to go tell Mom.   She told me that she knew we didn’t trust her especially the nurses….and she thought I was lying because every day I come in and say he is going home and yet he never does.

An hour later I got another page and we went through it again.

And then I came home and crumpled

I love my job. I love my job.

because I love these children. I don’t care where they live, or what country they hail from or how much we think their situation is terrible.  Its not about that.

Its about the child.

A precious child who while I am telling her Mother and she is yelling at the me, at the situation (I would yell too).  She is just smiling at me as if to say I forgive you.  I forgive them.  I love you because you care even if you fail.

and i crumple in the light of her grace, of her wisdom.

I only wish that we could all just for a moment stop moving, stop screaming, stop writing paper work and filing medicaid and remember that in the end this is about that.

Its about the child…

Homesickness

When i was a kid, my family was ridiculous…ok come to think of it we still are.  Moving was a lifestyle.  It sort of defined us.  We didn’t buy certain things because we wouldn’t be able to move them.   Or we would take great comfort that we would find that missing shirt or the remote when we moved.  When it came time to move.  It was like a well oiled machine.  First we house hunted, my parents knew all the tricks, knew how to find the right school district, church, grocery store, park all the while being frugal to a fault. Mom would have a party for each us to say goodbye to our friends, we made t-shirts with hand prints and quilts  and friendship bracelets.  Then we taped, we packaged, we boxed, we carted and we got it done in record breaking times. Then we got in the car and would drive 12-15 hours with three kids, a dog, a cat and various rodents that my sister Victoria had that never seem to quite last long enough for us to remember their names.  Then we started anew, we unpacked, Mom would take us to our new school and we would meet our teachers.  We would go to all the play groups and play grounds and meet new friends and then we would have parties to get to know them.  Basically my family made moving 10 times before the age of 18 a great adventure rather than a series of childhood traumas.

I am still that navybrat inside. I am still a homeless  nomad always in search of my next adventure. Or so I thought till I moved to the Midwest.  Yes my house was unpacked within 48 hours of hitting Ohio soil.  Yes by the time orientation started I had all my paperwork in to the state of ohio,  been to the grocery store and had house plants. I transplant well.  My family is still  like a moving machine.

But the difference is I am homesick. For first time in my 25 years of moving. I am truly homesick. Its not my parents, its not my school, its not even my friends that I miss. Its the sameness.  Its the culture. Its the manners: the thank you m’am, No Sir, hold the door open for a lady or a baby stroller every day occurrences that I have taken for granted.  Its the sunset over the mts in the summer all lavender and deep blue blending together. And its also the ability to get in my car and be at the ocean in 4 hours or with my grandparents in 4.5 or nearly all my best friends from college/high school and my family within 2-3.  Its the anticipation of basketball season even as early as July.  Its the accent, deep, slow and quick to laugh like a summer afternoon.  Its the people walking their dogs and waving at you while you water your plants. Its the neighbors who don’t need a reason to walk on over and shoot the breeze with when you get your mail. Its the check out lady at the grocery store who tells you about her dreams of becoming a famous artist while she rings up your ground turkey and bananas.

These things leave a hole deep down.  A hole that cannot be filled by amazing ice cream or my awesome, new friends who are just as nerdy and in love with pediatrics, global health and board games as I am or the best farmer’s market I have ever been too or a faith based pediatrics clinic that I get to be a real pediatrician one half day week for the next three years or my cute little emerging church…..

And I realize that I am no longer a nomad.  I have a home.   And its sort of rocks my world.  Because being a nomad is who I have been for 25 years.   I realize that for the better or for worse some time between 10th grade moving to Roanoke and May 17, 2010 graduating from Medical school.  Western NC/VA (very similar although unique in their own rights) became home.  Somehow the southern drawl, the BBQ, the outdoorsy, laid back, sweet tea, banjo music and James Taylor with a touch of class up Roanoke way has taken root and its not going to be able to weeded out by Ohio or probably anywhere else in the future.

It doesn’t mean that I am not glad to be here. That I don’t wake up and pinch myself that I get to learn pediatrics at one of the best (if not the best) children’s hospitals in the world.  Because I am still doing that.

It just means that when people ask me where I am from, for the first time in 25 years…I have an answer.   And it an answer that fills my heart with longing but also a sense of belonging, of being from…

And I think that doesn’t mean I won’t thrive anywhere, that I won’t thrive here, it just means I have a home.

and I didn’t know I needed one.  But I think perhaps I am a bit more whole now that I have one.