" . . . and therefore, never send to know for whom bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

The above is from John Donne's Meditation XVII, which is one of my favorite poems (do "meditations" count as poems? I don't even know.) ever. I thought of it today as I was reading this article, about the tens of thousands of orphans left by the earthquake in Haiti, in addition to the 380,000 orphans the country already had before the earthquake. That's, at the very least, estimating very conservatively, 400,000 children without parents or homes. I was sitting at Noah's Bagels eating my lunch today thinking about a) how mindblowing a number that is, and b) how those children are the world's responsibility now; that even though this tragedy happened in a country that might be far away from our safe, privileged lives in Seattle or wherever else, it is everyone's moral obligation to take ownership of it and do what they can to help. Also, I was wishing I had a huge house and a ton of money and could take in at least a few kids myself.

I do know that at some point, when I am ready to have my own kids, I want to adopt them. I know I want to be a mom (although not for several years!) and I think that saving a child from unsafe, unfair circumstances is one of the greatest good deeds anyone could perform. Doing good while also getting a chance to do something I really want seems like kind of the ultimate win-win situation.

Photo from: http://hosted.ap.org/photos/A/af50da05-26cf-47df-9976-c7a1295a7b08-big.jpg

"And what would happen to me, may I ask, if I loved all the children I said goodbye to?" (Mary Poppins)

I was thinking a lot about that quote today. It was the last day for many of the children in the prekindergarten class I've worked in almost every day for almost a year. I've gotten really, really attached to some of the kids, and it was hard for me to tell them goodbye. I think it was hard in a way for some of the kids, too, but they handled it the way five-year-olds handle a lot of things . . . by acting goofy and overexcited. One little girl spent the whole afternoon running away from me, jokingly refusing to give me a hug, acting like a little spaz when I tried to take a picture with her . . . and then right before her dad took her home for the day, she came and wrapped herself around my legs and said "Goodbye forever, Beatrice." I came very, very close to crying. I also came very, very close to making her father sign a legal contract that he would have me over to babysit, ("This is my phone number, here's my email. Call anytime. Seriously!"). The other time I almost cried was when I was giving a goodbye hug to a little boy I really love, and I guess my eyes were already welling up, cause he looked confused and said "Why does it look like you're going to cry?" Um, because you're adorable and I'm going to miss you like crazy, that's why!!

Another quote I've been thinking a lot about today:

"Never tell a young person that anything cannot be done. God may have been waiting centuries for someone ignorant enough of the impossible to do that very thing." ~G.M. Trevelyan

HCASB

Greetings from Yakima! I wasn't sure if I was going to have the internet here, but it would appear that I do, which is pretty cool.

I'm here for Health Care Alternative Spring Break (HCASB), which is a student-run program at the UW to get pre-health students interested in rural healthcare. They send teams of students out to rural/underserved communities in eastern Washington where they stay with local families or at churches, shadow doctors/dentists/health professionals in their chosen fields, and learn about what it's like to practice medicine in a rural/underserved area.

My team is four people, all girls. Our team leader is Erin, a fifth-year senior who's graduating this year and has already gotten into med school. Then there's Catherine, who's a pre-med sophomore, like me, and Stephanie, who's a pre-pharmacy freshman from Taiwan. Oh, and there's me :).

We left the UW campus on Sunday afternoon in a rental car provided by HCASB. It only took a couple of hours to get to Yakima. The drive in itself was kind of an experience for me, since I've never been to eastern Washington before. I'm a straight-shot DC-to-Seattle transplant, so really, aside from Seattle and Olympia, I don't know Washington that well. I was amazed at how much the scenery changed after we went over the pass. Basically, it's like the primary color of the landscape changes from green to brown. On one side of the mountains you've got these seemingly never-ending forests of pine trees, and then you cross the mountains and you're practically in the freaking desert! Any longtime Washingtonian who's reading this will probably laugh at my ignorance, but it still kind of boggles my mind.

Anyway, we made it to Yakima in a couple of hours, drove around for a bit and got the lay of the land, met up with the other Yakima team and got some dinner, then went to our homestays (Catherine and I are staying in one house, Erin and Stephanie are staying in another). My host family, the Jennings, are so nice. The husband, Ron, is a pharmacist at the clinic where we're all shadowing (Steph is actually spending almost all of her time shadowing him, since she's pre-pharm), and the wife, Jeri, is a registered dietician who works mostly with patients on dialysis. They have really cute pets: Jammer the black lab, Boomer the pug-like mutt of indeterminate ancestry, and Duncan the gray-and-white kitty.

We're all shadowing at Yakima Neighborhood Health Services. When I got my assignment, I was a little bummed that I didn't get to go to some teeny-tiny, middle-of-nowhere town, just because that's something I've never experienced before and I'm all about trying new things. But I now realize that the upside of going to a slightly larger town like Yakima is that I get to shadow at a place like YNHS, which is a pretty big clinic, so I get to see a variety of different things. They have internists, pediatricians, family practicioners, an OB clinic, a pharmacy, a dental clinic, a WIC program (which provides information on breastfeeding, etc. to new mothers), a walk-in clinic, and a clinic for the homeless. I'm going to get to shadow at least once in most of those areas during my stay here. I'm pretty psyched.

Our schedules are divided up so that we're all separated and each of us is paired with one professional in the morning, and one in the afternoon. This morning, I shadowed Kelli, a nurse practicioner who works in the homeless clinic. I think the most striking part about that was seeing how important it was to most of those patients just to have someone to talk to, even for fifteen minutes (the allotted time for appointments there) about what's going on in their lives right now. I suppose this is true for a lot of people who go to the doctor, but many of the people I saw today don't have a circle of family, friends, etc. They don't often get asked "What's going on with you today?" or the equivalent, especially by someone who really wants to know the answer. Oh, the OTHER most striking part of the homeless clinic was the somewhat mentally-off-kilter guy who heard that I was from the University of Washington and decided instantly that I must be a doctor (he decided this despite Kelli clearly stating that I was a student). Of course, this guy also said that his job was "tracking various patterns around the state for the betterment of all of us" so I suppose deciding that I'm a doctor is not the least rational of his thoughts. Anyway, he started telling me all about how he wanted me to "pull strings" with my "connections" to get him in to see a doctor at the UW Medical Center (psshhh, I would be hard put to get myself in to see a doctor at UWMC). At the end of the appointment, Kelli told him she was going to leave and would be right back with his prescriptions, and he said "Leave me with her. I have a lot more that I need to tell her!" Fortunately for me, Kelli said "Sorry, she needs to stay with me today," and we left. I guess the poor guy thinks I'm the worst doctor ever.

In the afternoon, I shadowed Dr. Prier, a pediatrician, which basically just re-affirmed my belief that I want to be a pediatrician. I saw a lot of physicals, a few cold/flu/sick stomach/sore throat visits, and one obesity consult with a little girl who was seriously overweight. The doc said that obesity in kids is one of the main problems she encounters in her average day, and that thus far neither she nor any of her colleagues have been too successful in reversing the trend among their patients. One interesting thing about working with her was that all the patients she saw today were Spanish-speaking (at least the parents were. Most of the kids spoke English pretty well). I never took Spanish, and could not carry on a conversation in it to save my life, but I was pretty surprised at how much I can understand, just from context and cognates. I really want to learn Spanish now, though, it seems like it's really important. I mean, the clinic has translators, but it seemed like the fact that Dr. Prier knew Spanish and was able to go without a translator just added this whole new level of trust between her and her patients. My favorite visit of the day was a mom with two little girls, ages four and two, who were both there for their physicals. When the two-year-old was getting her physical, the four-year-old was being kind of disruptive, trying to get mom's attention while Dr. Prier was trying to explain something, climbing on things, etc, so I gave her my notepad to draw on (it helped that I happened to have a purple pen today). She talked to me in a mixture of English and Spanish, and I talked to her a little bit in English, but mostly just nodding, smiling, and hand gestures. She said something to me in Spanish that mom overheard, and mom said to her (I understood the Spanish but I won't try to write it here cause I'd butcher it), "She doesn't speak Spanish, you know." The little girl looked very indignant and said "Yes, she does!" We all burst out laughing, because I hadn't said a single word in Spanish since we'd walked into the room, and had been talking to the little girl only in English, but she was so positive I could speak Spanish. Lol kids are awesome.

We finished clinic at 5:30ish and went home, where Jeri fixed us delicious soft tacos. We've just been chilling out, and I'll probably be in bed before 10:30. I could so get used to this whole early-bedtime, eight-hours-of-sleep, normal-workday-hours type deal, but I guess I'd better not if I want to be a doctor. Anyway, I shadow in the OB clinic tomorrow. I've never done that before, so that should be exciting.

Kid-quotage

Conversations like this are a big part of why I love my job:

Little boy: Beatrice, cows make milk!

Me: Yes, they do.

Little boy: . . . and so do sea otters!

Me: Um . . . sure, okay.

It was just so random that it cracked me up. I mean, what do you say to that?

Kid-Quotage

So as anyone who knows me is well aware, I love telling stories about the kids at my work. And today I have a great one:

So there's this little boy who's one of the cutest, funniest, smartest kids I know (he's four years old and can read and write pretty much anything), who also happens to be Mormon. Today he came into class talking about his new "body book" that he had at home, and I was asking him about it when suddenly he said: "Beatrice, smoking and drinking coffee is bad for your body."
Me: "Oh . . . was that in your body book?"
Little boy: "No. It's in the scriptures."
Me: "Uh . . . well, I only do one of those things. Drinking coffee, I mean."
Little boy: "Well, you shouldn't do that. It's in the Scriptures."

. . . little boy goes back to building with blocks . . .

Me (quietly, to Megan): "I think I'm going to hell."

Obamania

Hi guys,

We lived history today. Just saying. I was at work when the inaugural address was playing, and I turned on the radio in the preschool classroom where I was working hoping I could catch a little of it. Three-year-olds, of course, don't miss a trick, so when I turned it on, a few of them asked "Is this a book on tape?!" "No," I said, "This is Barack Obama! Who loves Barack Obama?!" Almost all of them chorused, "Meeeeee!!!" Haha, gotta love Seattle children. What was cool was that they actually listened to the speech, to the best of their ability. I started thinking about how, decades from now, when they're grown up and understand what an epic day this was, they may have some vague memory of hearing the speech in their preschool class. After all, I remember being about their age and standing in line with my mom and dad waiting to go into the polls for the 1992 election. I was cold, and I pointed this out in a somewhat whiny tone, and my mom told me that the soldiers in the Revolutionary War who had marched in the snow so that we could all have the right to vote for a president had been a lot colder. A pretty heavy-duty speech to give your three-year-old, but hey, maybe that's why I'm politically aware now. :)

Anyway, here are my two favorite quotes from the address today:

"They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction."

"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all the other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more."

YEAH, OBAMA!!!