Does Benny Hinn go to the Doctor?

She has long white hair tied back. Her skirt is handmade and long and flowy. She is here for her yearly GYN exam. I as the token med student of the hour review her history and medications with her. She tells me that 6 months ago she was slain in the spirit and Dr Jesus healed her gallstones. I smile warmly and nod. She then tells me since that time she has been off ALL her medications because Dr. Jesus is taking care all her needs. I gently discuss her medications and what they are for and the pros of taking them. I walk out of the room and try to figure out exactly what I am going to say to my resident as I present this patient. The resident is understanding and we manage to get through the rest of the exam without incident. I then walk the patient to the check-out desk and walk to a nearby counter to collect my notes.

All of the sudden I felt an arm around me I look up to my patient’s smiling face. She closes her eyes and proceeds to pray loudly to the point where everyone in the busy nurse’s station is now staring at the two of us. I stand there at a complete loss of what to do. Among the professional ethics scenarios I was never given any guidance on what one is to do when your patient tries to faith heal you. I find myself fighting embarrassment and annoyance. She prayed on and on it seemed (I don’t think it was particularly that long) about God healing the places where my legs had been broken and the spirit descending and such. Her AMEN brought a sigh of relief for me. I mumbled Thanks because well it seemed like the only polite response and then walked away (dare I say limp away) from the counter. I found myself oddly comforted by each bit crackling of my limbs, nothing happened.

I remember once in Belarus I was rolling along with my friend and translator Koia across a field on the way on to a home visit. When a beautiful Roma beggar with long dark hair and traditional gypsy clothing was walking in the opposite direction. She saw me and stopped and started rummaging in her purse and before I knew it she was thrusting Rubles into my lap. Koia explained…Americanka…and passed the money back to the beautiful Roma lady. She looked confused but reluctantly took the money and walked on. I sat there in shock at the realization I was living in culture where my people were lower than even the beggars. At the same time I was shocked by her compassion, as embarrassed and surprised as I was. I was shocked by her compassion when the world showed her so little. I was reminded of this experience after much reflection on my encounter with the faith healer.

Their compassion was misplaced. In the same way the beautiful Roma lady did not know that the woman in the wheelchair on the path was not a poor beggar but a rich American. The faith healer did not know that I have never questioned my wholeness before God that I found much beauty in my so called brokenness. And I realized the most remarkable thing. At bacculature I was asked to be the gospel reader I read the famous passage from Matthew 25 about how the righteous gave Christ food, clothles and shelter. And they ask when did was he hungry, naked etc? And he explains that whenever they served the poor and the outcasts they served him.

I do not pride myself in being one of the least of these nor do I truly consider myself one (that whole rich American thing) but I accept that I am easily confused as one. I think you can appreciate this passage no matter your religious background because it reveals something key about the way our world looks at others. The least of these are the people that everyone tries not to see in society. If you don’t look at them they don’t have to exist and you don’t have to feel guilty about their suffering. Yet you  never know who you are denying kindness and you never know when it will be you who is in need of it.

So even though I sincerely hope that no one tries to faith heal me (especially in the middle of clinic) me again any time soon I am convicted. Not to drop out of medical school and start a faith healing ministry but to notice the things that everyone tries to ignore. And yes to be tactful about acting on it. So I go and not royally embarrass the individual. At the same time I was convicted not to be so dam professional and polite that I miss moments to be compassionate, miss moments to remember my humanity.

cherry obession

I was doing really well with the whole living in America, being a med student living in the now, being content till about 2 days ago. I was in the grocery store minding my own business and then from no where they appeared a bag of cherries. BIG RED CHERRIES…. Way back when I was a wee 19 year old kid full of idealism right after I stepped off of American soil for the first time I found myself surrounded by cherry trees ripe with cherries. I spent a good portion of the nicer days that summer picking cherries and taking them as gifts where ever I went. But there were this bag of cherries sitting ther ein the middle of the produce section next to the grapes looking forlorn and out of place. And I suddenly had a longing for a great big sticky handful of fresh Romanian cherries.

I’ve tried to substitute with American summer staples like ice cream sandwiches and Popsicles. I went swimming in a clean pool with other Americans. I went to the beach a few weeks ago and am going again. I wore a tank top and and read on my porch. I’ve savored air condition. But it just doesn’t feel right. I haven’t spent a summer in America in 4 years. I don’t know what to do with myself.

Today I hung out in the special needs eye clinic. You know you would think that I would love love love American health care with all its technology and solutions for these kids. It just also makes me all the more aware of how much my people in Eastern Europe suffer. Its as if I do not understand their nakedness entirely until I see the full beauty of clothes. The more clothes I encounter the more I am ashamed of their nakedness.

yeah I keep sort of deep down wondering if I will grow out the whole e. europe thing…like if this will be some sort of phase of my life that will fade out like that time I used to sing in the choir. but it seems to be here to stay, it seems to have taken hold in strange ways.

I think I shall make a cherry pie this weekend when i go home.

Protected: the hopeless ones

My Stupid Oxen drowned fording the freaking river.

I often “played make believe” with my sisters or friends where we were explorers in uncharted waters or pioneers. Sleeping outside, cooking over a fire was fun. I thought it would be so neat to cross the country in a covered wagon to lands not fully mapped or charted. I naturally LOVED, LOVED, LOVED all the Oregon Trail games (and Amazon Trail and Yukon Trail, etc). My vision was somewhat like an extended family camping road trip. I spent hours at school and home playing those games. Remember when we would all giggle when we caught diphtheria or our ox fell in the river? Despite all our adventures at the end of the game we would could pull out and go back to very charted lives.

No matter how much charting I tried to do it seems my surgery rotation is a small series of not so comical disasters. They say it happens to everyone and it does but I can’t help but become steadily more aware (…yep I am getting ready to break one of my cardinal rules of life….)how much it sucks to try to figure how in goodness’ name to do this with no cartilage. There is no textbook I can buy that can tell me how to round with no sleep in a wheelchair, write, talk and think all at the same time at 5 AM in dark rooms stuffed with 7 tall able bodied people speaking in whispers that my not so superhuman ears can deciper and all the while remain incredibly enthusiastic. There is also no textbook that tells me how to cut right on the knot every time when half the time I can barely hold the scissors right. There is no book that tells me how to make the scrub nurses stop taking my stool to a place where I can get to it and stay sterile. Also written notes…OH MY GOSH, disaster. Haven’t had a handwritten assignment in 16 years, disaster (ALWAYS wrote everything on the com).

And of course its really hard to not hear all the echoes of all the people who think that disabled medical students are a bad idea. And I look at my average classmates and I nearly just give into the fact that I will never be able to compete. It all seems so effortless for them. While I sit there for the 11th time and try to cut a suture they get it on the 1st or 2nd try. While I run around to keep up on Rounds and get names confused as I try to roll and talk and write all at the same time. They stride so effortless from room to room with perfect handwriting and perfect memories unclouded by exertion . I can’t compete with their able bodies.

Pioneering is actually not half as romantic as it is in the movies or historical nostalgia. Its swollen feet, blistered hands, insecurity and endless mistakes.

Today after I had been released from my duties. I went upstairs to the room of a patient who came in with a abscess in the middle of the night that we drained this morning. It had been a crazy exprience for the kid. We had to do the procedure in the OR under conscious sedation because the mass was near her airway. The child had been sick when we rounded earlier in the day. So after another trauma and procedure I went back up and checked on the little one. I went to the nourishment room and got her ice. I think it was the only thing i did right the first time all day. (or the 11th time for that matter). Maybe all week.

stupid oxen.

Landing

About five hours after becoming an official third year I was standing in the OR  doing a bone marrow aspiration on a toddler. Terrfying, exciting and utterly forgien.

I feel exactly as felt when I stepped off the plane my first summer overseas. Confused, exhausted and somewhat helpless. Heck I have even switched time zones.   Its like I have been dropped on a alien planet.

I won’t say I like it or hate it because its just too soon to know. I know I don’t like the feeling of knowing nothing or feeling stupid.  But I can’t help but enthralled by the people as always.

The other sort of side show of all this is I am now a medical student in a hospital I worked in as a volunteer for 5.5 years.  In a way its neat to be living the dream where the dream was kept alive in another way its odd.

And then there is the odd personal commentary in the back of my head. I keep feeling as if I have been recast in a long running play. Pediatric surgery, a world I have navigated for first the 20 years of my life on a regular basis as a patient. So familiar yet so incredibly, perplexedly strange because I don’t know my lines at all. I am flying blind, improv-ing and making it up as I go along.  I keep looking into kids’ faces at 5AM and wanting to whisper I am not really one of them.  I am not really one of those worthless med students who wake you up at 5AM.

oh wait I am.