Piles of Paper and Mountains of Gratitude

Can you tell that it's my mini-vacation right now (break between summer and fall quarter, and relatively few shifts at work), and I actually have time to do things like blog? And sleep, and read, and hike, and breathe? Yeah, it's awesome. Today, I decided to do something not especially fun or crazy or festive, but highly necessary, namely organize the insanity that is my desk. Seriously, why do I have so much stuff? Especially so many papers? What are they? Where did they come from? Why did I ever think that keeping 90% of them was even remotely a good idea? I've been working on it for over two hours and still have barely made a dent.

But anyway . . . that's not the point. The point is . . .

While cleaning, I found two lovely letters from friends that I'd forgotten I had. I read through them again, and was freshly touched by them. One was a Christmas card, and one was a just-because letter, and both were full of kind words and affection. Both letters made reference to me someday becoming a "world-famous doctor," which meant a lot to me. To be honest, I'm sure I'll never be world famous, and I'll be perfectly happy just to be a clinically skilled doctor who makes a real difference to her patients and is pleasant to work with as a colleague. But it is absolutely wonderful to be reminded that people who are important to me believe I can accomplish my goals. There's so many days when I don't believe it myself -- the days I screw up, oversleep, don't study enough, don't score high enough, don't feel like I'm trying hard enough, etc . . . that hearing (well, reading, actually) someone else say, unprompted, that they think I can do this, just makes me so happy.

And it's not just the two people who wrote those letters, either. I have so many people in my life who believe in me and support me, and I am so grateful for that.

Thank you for your faith in me, guys. I will do my best to never disappoint you.

*Hugs*

Free Knife with Purchase, or, Beatrice and Chloe go to Wallace Falls

One of my goals for this summer is to go on as many hiking/camping/Anderson Island trips as I can. I feel like even after living in the Northwest for nearly three years, I haven't taken advantage of the many outdoorsy opportunities available. I love hiking, I just never seem to have/make time. But anyway, in the spirit of that, Chloe and I headed out to Wallace Falls today, piloted by the dubiously trusty Rufus, who mercifully handled the journey very well.

It was a pretty drive, and not that long, although we did add on a little extra time when we decided to assume we knew better than the Mapquest directions, and also did not stop to consider that "First Street" is actually one of the most common street names in America, and there might in fact be more than one. Yeah, that was cool. But what was even cooler was when we were passing through the thriving metropolis of Startup, Washington, and we saw a sign for a garage sale advertising "Free Knife With Purchase." We were laughing too hard and driving too fast to stop and take a photo, but personally it was my favorite part of the trip.

We had another adventure finding parking . . . Wallace Falls is a popular spot and we got there past noon, so the parking lot was full, but a cheerful park ranger informed me that I could park on the side of the road past a certain point. But because there is no justice in the world, all the nice, flat possible parking spaces were marked with giant "No Parking" signs, and once I got to the okay-to-park zone, the theme seemed to be "enjoy parking here in this ditch!" We ended up with the car tilted at what felt like a 90-degree angle (but probably wasn't, since, you know, that's not physically possible) and with me having to actively climb out of the car, but Chloe basically falling out.

Anyway, after our driving and parking adventures, we had a really nice hike. I learned about a lot of Northwesty animals that I didn't know about before: corn snakes, almond bugs, banana slugs. And the waterfalls were beautiful! It was definitely a reminder to me of how not burly I am; we hiked a total of 2.1 miles each way, and it was rated as "moderate difficulty" in my hiking book, but I was definitely red and sweaty and totally worn out by the time we reached the waterfall. Well, it's just a good reason to go on more hikes and increase my burliness level!

"I can't solve the world's problems . . . but if you've got broken people, you put them back together. That just makes sense to me."

I saw the movie Living in Emergency, about Doctors without Borders today, and it was as excellent as I had guessed it would be. I first became aware of the movie yesterday, while driving home from Trader Joe's with Chloe. We drove past the Neptune, and the sign outside had the movie's full title, Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors without Borders. Being the complete and utter medical dork that I am, I got all excited and pointed and said "Hey Chloe, look! Look at that!!" I may have literally stopped the car. I believe her response was something like "That's awesome . . . uh, the light's green."

Anyway, today the delightful Flannery agreed to go see it with me. It's a documentary that follows four doctors to Liberia and the Congo on their missions with MSF. There's some really amazing footage, from a medical point of view; one patient featured is this woman with a hernia so huge it literally looks like a second abdomen. Some of the medical footage is really intense, if you have issues with blood I definitely wouldn't recommend it; there's one scene where you actually watch a leg amputation, and another where you see close-up as the doctors trim off infected portions of a bowel and then put the rest back in the abdomen.

I think for me, the most interesting part of the movie was seeing how the four doctors dealt so differently with what they were faced with on their missions. One was this young guy, probably not too far out of residency, who had been placed in charge of a 40-bed hospital out in the middle of nowhere and was clearly just falling apart. One is a veteran, who's done a bunch of missions, and says from the beginning of the movie that this is going to be his last one. Another was this older guy who had practiced for 20+ years before starting work with MSF, and was on his first mission but seemed to be really thriving. And the fourth one was this French doctor who was just badass. Seriously, I want to be this woman when I grow up.

Anyway, the movie made me think about how I've been getting steadily more and more attracted to the idea of working in a rural area without many resources, how even though I've always said I want to be a pediatrician, I've been thinking about doing family practice with OB, and maybe getting double boarded in ER medicine, so I can work in an area like that. And I really think I want to try to do at least one mission with MSF in my life. I'm not sure what it is about it that I feel so drawn to. I think part of it is the idea of helping people who really, truly need help and would not be getting it if I weren't there. I think that's most of it. But then of course, there's also a more selfish level. When I went to Ephrata for HCASB this year, there were four doctors in the whole town, who saw patients in clinic and covered the ER. Those four guys run the show in that little town, and every day they get to see and do things that no single doctor, especially not a family practice doctor, in a big city is going to get to do. Something about that, about getting to be in charge and autonomous like that, really appeals to me. I mentioned that to one of the docs I work with once, and he smiled and said "Let's see if you still feel that way when it's you on the line . . . it's a lot different when you're not just watching." And he has a point. I have no idea if I'm cut out for that kind of work, especially the MSF part of it. I have no idea how much I can handle, or really even what I can handle. But, somehow, I know that I really want to find out.