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.

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.

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.

A Gold Star for the hippee project

I got a congrats on my Facebook today and I didn’t know what I was being congratulated for. I had surfaced online for the first time in days. I open my school account and find 10 e-mails. Turns out my presentation for my medicine for the underserved elective was voted the top in the class. I was really surprised.  Happy but mostly surprised I have never been signaled out (beyond giving the now annual love disabled people talk).  Too bad my life is run by multiple choice, give me an essay topic and an excellent editor (XOXO to all of you wonderful grammar nerd friends) and I can ace it. Give me a multiple choice test and I will talk myself out of 25% of the right answers.

My presentation was kind of shaky and rushed and very, very different than the other three. Mine was a narrative with a lot of photographs of children and Eastern European art and scenery. The others were very public health focused, people were cured of malaria, maternal and infant mortality were decreased. There were statistics and evidence based medicine and epi. I had a single slide of stats which were colorful and again bordered by bright eyed beautiful children.  I didn’t cure any diseases this summer, I played Nannie more than developmental pediatrician even.  I was the last presentation of the day. After 45 minutes of public health and EBM, I was anxious and uncomfortable in my semi-sensible looking professional clothling. Who was I fooling? I make a better flower child than a public health officer. peace. love and medicine. woot.

Needless to say I was bewildered when the e-mail came.  I am thrilled, its somewhat meaningless beyond an extra sentence on my CV. But its kind of nice to know that perhaps my class does not think  I am completely bonkers…  or maybe bonkers was easier to stay awake during than sane.
at least I told 100 folks about the plight of my tribe in Romania.