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.

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).