Mortality

I layed in bed last night with my mind racing. Planning how I would react if I got in a car accident on my way back to Youngstown this evening. Walking through what I would do and how it would feel to be in a trauma bay with my classmates in the room as I lay on the bed with my clothes cut off and tubing being shoved down my throat. As I was lying there, I remembered my drive home from the hospital on Thursday. How I played through the same scenerio. How I pictured the humiliation of being wheeled into the trauma bay at St. E’s with all the residents and attendings that have been my colleagues and teachers for the last few weeks.

These are new thoughts for me. Working in the ICU with teenage patients, healthy 40-something year olds and college students who have been taken out by a car accident, ATV crash, or any other freak accident you can imagine seems to have brought me to terms with my mortality. Seeing previously healthy people being knocked down by accident and illness with no prior hints has been humbling to me. Who am I to think that I’m above a freak accident? Who am I to think that “this” could never happen to me?

I had my first patient who was actively dying on Friday. It didn’t phase me much at the time. I was engaged and interested, but not really bothered by the idea that this man most likely could be ‘expired’ by morning. But then this morning at church we were singing “Sin has lost its power, death has lost its sting” and it all of a sudden hit me. I wondered if I could really rest in God's assurance that he's bigger than death. While I feel death carries no fear for me, can I say the same thing for my patients? For the human lives that I work with that aren’t walking with Christ? This has the makings for an interesting year.

In the back of my mind, I always wondered if I'd love medicine and being at the hospital as much as I thought I would. You sit in classrooms and pouring through books for years anticipating that one day you'll be with patients and it will all be worth it. The funny thing is that it's a mere hope; that at the end of the day the years of work and the $100 thousand that you've invested in your education will be worth it. Well, last week proved that I do love medicine every bit as much as I thought I did. I think it's a good sign when you spend 30+ hours straight at the hospital and aren't counting down the hours till you can go home. I love the patients (as crazy as they can be), I love the residents, I love the smell and feel of the halls of the hospital. I love suturing, and procedures, and even being confused. I can't believe I'm lucky enough to go into a field that I'm this passionate about.

Some days I feel like I'm more extroverted than introverted. I don't know what to do with that.

the book that I love.

For 6 months I've carried around this book. It's not intimidatingly overwhelming from the outside--no more than your average textbook. It has "First Aid" plastered in large font over the front cover, implying a simpler topic than what's below it "USMLE Step 1". But it contains 80% of the information (in abbreviated form) of what I need to know. I've lived with this book for months. I've read through each page 3-4 times now. I've noted each bullet point that is representative of an hour of lecture. I've highlighted and I've neatly printed elaborating notes and important points in the margins. The pharmacology pages are neatly marked with post-its. This book has almost become an extension of myself. My own handwriting throughout. My own notes. My own emphasis on important points, or on points that for the life of me I can't remember. As much as studying has been tedious, I still love this book. I love the knowledge that it holds. I love the centuries of research and discovery that this little book opens to me in simple statements.

I've complained that it's tedious and a bit monotonous, but I had a realization on Saturday. Numbers 11 talks of how the Israelites complained about the manna--how there wasn't enough diversity and that they were "bored" of the manna. And while I know there are great spiritual depths here that i have left unexplored, what struck me was their ingratitude for a blessing. This was convicting in the wake of my life of studying. I've always said that my education and the pursuit of medicine was something that was a huge blessing to me. One of the greatest gifts that God has given me. Why, then, am I complaining for living in "only" this blessing for the time being? Shouldn't any blessing of God's be blessing enough? So the next morning when I opened my books, I had a new perspective.

Ok, that was a good study break--back to the books :)