The things we tell ourselves…

I have whiplash from this week.  Last Friday I went to my mailbox and was surprised to see my Peds AI grade sheet three weeks early.  I was even more surprised to see an negative comment on my evaluation after getting nothing but positive feedback. I panicked, my residency application was pending, my Dean’s letter. I was also convinced for a variety of reasons that the comment most likely came from the Chairman of the Peds Dept who had been my attending for three days. at the very end of my rotation. I freaked and drove in the pouring rain to Blacksburg to visit Jessica and cry my bloody eyes out over the ridiculousness. I appealed the comment t of course.  My pent of anxiety of my Sept TO DO LIST: apply to residency, have a hip replacement, learn to walk again for literally the 8th time, turn 25 (Oct 4) and make it back to school by Oct 5th overwhelmed me that night.  I cried and cired the whole drive up there and the first hour of being there. I needed to cry, I needed to for a moment not be strong, to let down the facade that I am holding everything together.

Child Pysch exploded this week with the start of school. We got a new attending and new third years and one of the acting interns went a-wall. We had three sexual abuse cases that nearly had us all in tears.  I got my NICU grade which contradicted my negative comment. I submitted my residency application after agonizing over whether to wait for the comment appeal.

My pain doubled from the stress and from what seems to be ever worsening hip health. Sleep is difficult and I keep having wild dreams from the pysch floor, the surgery and the general state of upheaval of my life.

There was strange good moments like James’ brilliant debut of his two new shows and Corinne’s beautiful new baby boy who seemed to whisper to my soul why that God is faithful and why I signed up for this insane profession.  The comment appeal went through and the comment will not be included in my letters. It will never leave Wake.

By Friday I was just grateful that it was over. That I could just get on with this surgery and the rest of my life. I was sitting waiting for my research adviser when it came.  AN RESIDENCY INTERVIEW INVITATION at Emory in Atlanta, GA. I had heard that peds got early interviews BUT STILL. In four days?!?!?!?!  I sat there and was ecstatically happy and grateful.  Not so much that I had an interview but just that there was forward motion. God saying HERE WE GO.

hold on to your hats. Sept is going to be bonkers.

 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.

Family Fued….

I am going wheelchair skiing this weekend.  Its going to be great. Emily is meeting me and I am staying with some friends from school.

I was dreading telling my Daddy (yes its Daddy I am from the south deal with it) .  There is a saying in our family: Victoria will laugh at what Dad says to do, Emily will do it to the letter and I will do the oppositte.  0:)  I love him and we are close. But lets be honest he is overprotective (perhaps for good reason).  If I had listened to hm I would have never gone to Romania, never gone to medical school , never gone to Wake Med and probaly would be living in my parents’ basement.  SO somewhere around the age of 16 I decided that while I loved him. He would always see me as far more physically and emotionally fragile than I saw myself.

Now don’t go thinking he is awful. He is really good at admitting he was wrong. And tells everyone he knows about his oldest daugther double major at Wake who is now going to do medical missions when she graduates Wake Med….he loves to hear my travel stories and we have read lot of good Russian literature and I photographed lots of WWII landmarks for him in my travels.

I could just hear exactly what he was going to say as I told him…are you crazy…you are almost done with your third year…do you really think now is a good time for a femur head fracture….and I would still go but I would feel uneasy and guilty for at least the first 24hrs.

so the day came and I called him and told him.  And then I nearly fell over and broke hip.  “That sounds like fun, a great way to blow off steam…just wear a helmet and use common sense.”  he said.  he was actually happy for me, excited for me.  WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH DADDY?

I decided he was either A. intoxicated, B. is using some sort of weird reverse psychology on me or C. has grown to see me much as I see myself or at lest in the same galaxy.   I like C so I am going with it.

you know we always talk about children growing up, but I think parents grow along the way too.

the not so sacred sacred moments

Why does the sacred have to be confined to places of worship? I recently realized my most sacred moments in life rarely happen in church. For example recently…

Holding the hand of a child as they fall asleep.

Watching my grandparents celebrate 50 years surrounded by their children and grandchildren. Listening to their stories and remembering the miracles of the past 50 years.

Singing and laughing tucked back in a grove of trees with the same folks as the sun sets.

For the first time, diagnosing a child (a 9 mon old) with cancer and hoping and grieving with her mother.

Waking up and finding this in my garden. I didn’t plant this. I have been so busy, I haven’t had time to weed….

Sitting on a stoop in hot, humid, sultry SC with old friends from the other side of the world. Laughing, talking and just simply enjoying the company of people interested in living beyond the America bubble.

Holding my very first well child check patient and watching her eat her first birthday cake. (no HIPPA in Romania mission clinic)

That’s whats up in my life. That and lot of studying for the surgery shelf (not really so sacred).

culture shock…

We are waiting on a Spanish interrupter and I am sitting trying to look busy while my attending and an the anesthesiologist talk. I am trying not to eavesdrop but they are talking right above me and its hard not to hear. They are talking about private schools in the area. They go on and on about the various pros and cons of each and various other attendings’ children who attend school X, Y and Z. The conversation moves on to Aspen. I shift uncomfortably in my chair. I will never be that stereotypical, American physician who sends their kids to private school, goes skiing in Aspen and drives a SUV. Its ironic really, here I am a doctor’s child, a third generation physician no less and such conversations make me uncomfortable. Its not that any of these things are inherently wrong I just seem to have very different priorities than most of my peers and mentors. Maybe its the navybrat, maybe its the wandering in Eastern Europe, maybe its my crazy hippee Christanity but for better or for worse I find myself in many ways in an alien culture of affluence and prestige that I am supposed to be excited about but am somewhat wary of.

On my first day of optho, I find myself explaining my life plan to an attending. I want to be a general pediatrician I explain. He asks me if I know how much the average pediatrician makes. I said yes. He looks at me strangely, you are too smart for that job, do a fellowship, this is a good medical school use your education wisely. I smiled and brushed off the comment but again was struck by how different my conception of using my education wisely was from this respected physician. It wasn’t that his ideas were wrong or less worthy, it was just very different from mine.

doctors yet again such strange people, I have much to learn of their ways before I ever understand them.