I haven't posted in awhile, life changed pretty drastically three weeks ago when I started surgery. Went from 5 hour days to 13 hour days. Went from working one weekend on psych for an average of 4 hours, to being on 24 hour call every 4th day. So I've already done 5 days of 6am-6am, only one more to go, woo! So yeah, surgery has been quite the time commitment! I was worried about being miserable, but I've kinda liked it! I've spent most of my time so far on Trauma, where we wait around for trauma alerts to come in. This is anything from a wreck to a gunshot wound to a fall that is critical enough that it deserves a lot of attention. When you are a trauma alert, either EMS or an ambulance brings you to the hospital. They roll you in and you get moved to the trauma bay bed. Immediately all your clothes are cut off and about 10 people stand around you (with more watching), poking you to see where you hurt, asking you questions (if you can answer them), sticking you with needles, yelling things to each other- 'breath sounds clear and equal! pelvis stable! C spine clear!' Then if you are stable they roll you off the CT and Xray too if you need it. If you're not stable you might have to be taken back to emergency surgery. Then from there, broken bones are fixed, lacerations are sutured, internal injuries are monitored to make sure they don't worsen... It's not a place anyone wants to end up. I mean, you'll get good care. But you never want to have to be there. I've made a mental list of things I should NEVER DO that I might avoid ever being a trauma alert. They include

#1- going seat belt-less. The majority of the people we see are unrestrained drivers or passengers, sometimes ejected sometimes not. And probably the people that did wear seat belts that come in would be dead at the scene without it! It's just crazy. It's such a simple thing!! I had that drilled into my brain as a kid, so it's never been a problem for me. I can remember my sister bursting into tears when she was little because my mother had started backing out of the driveway and she didn't have her seat belt on yet.

#2- ride a motorcycle. These things are death machines, people. Don't do it! ATVs also very bad news.

#3- hang out with the wrong crowd- gunshot wounds and stab wounds galore.

#4- go to a gas station at night- there have been several gas stations that have been robbed lately. Also good rule of thumb, don't go anywhere at any time of the day near USA hospital.

#5- dont be drunk and do stupid things. Driving for starters, like this one dude that was drunk and drove off a bridge. Or think that you are coordinated enough to stand on something high off the ground. You aren't, you're gonna fall off, trust me. Drugs go in this category too. There's a terribly sick patient who got hit by a car who probably had drugs on board.

#6- don't breed evil. I saw a woman who had 2 huge slashes on her face that were bleeding a lot. Why? Her daughter cut her. Frightening...

#7- for the love of all things good and pure, definitely don't combine any of these things!! That's even more recipe for disaster!

It's sad. A lot of these people won't ever be normal again. There's many of them that have limited to no brain function, living off machines. It's scary how in a second your life and everyone around you's life can change so drastically. And it can happen to anyone... so be careful out there! And there's exceptions to the rules. The only pediatric trauma alert we had was a boy who had gotten hit by a car. Even though he wasn't able to talk after first coming in, I got pretty attached to him in the 3 hours I was there. Made me remember how much cooler kids are than adults. I went to go visit him last week at the children's hospital and thankfully he's doing a lot better so hopefully he'll be ok.

I still have 5 more weeks of surgery, but I think I'm gonna make it without losing my mind or becoming too depressed.

when all means fail

With all the mess that has happened and is happening right now in Alabama and around, I thought this blog entry was very appropriate. Yesterday David Wilkerson, a pastor of a church in NYC, wrote this. He also died yesterday in an car accident.

When All Means Fail

The first few times I heard the song blessings by laura story, I thought it sounded really cheesy so I never really listened to it. I was like, whyyy is she singing about rainbows? But then I actually read the lyrics. Wow. Pretty dead on. When the most treasured things in our lives are taken from us, its hard to see that as blessings. Or his 'mercies in disguise'. And truly this side of heaven we may never understand why we were brought through certain trials. He may reveal it to us, he may not. But he loves us way too much to give us lesser things. I know there are lots of things I can look back on and say that sucked when I was there, but man am I glad it happened that way. God knew what he was doing- surprise, surprise. There are others things I can't do that about yet. Or I can look at things in others people's lives and it doesn't make much sense to me either. But so great one of the last lines in this song, that our pain, our achings in this life, are just showing us we weren't made for this world! We don't fit in just right... so of course life isn't gonna be perfect. Far from it. But oh just wait.

Blessings

We pray for blessings We pray for peace Comfort for family, protection while we sleep We pray for healing, for prosperity We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering All the while, You hear each spoken need Yet love is way too much to give us lesser things ‘Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops What if Your healing comes through tears What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You’re near What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise We pray for wisdom Your voice to hear We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near We doubt your goodness, we doubt your love As if every promise from Your Word is not enough All the while, You hear each desperate plea You long that we'd have faith to believe When friends betray us When darkness seems to win We know that pain reminds this heart That this is not our home What if my greatest disappointments Or the aching of this life Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy What if trials of this life The rain, the storms, the hardest nights Are your mercies in disguise

oh the wonders of caffeine

Let me tell you the great thing about the past 2 months- it's been like a vacay. After I finished peds (tear...), I moved on to neuro. I am no big fan of neurology to say the least, but I sure did love this rotation. It was eeezzzzzzzz. I may not have learned anything, and it may seem kind of like a waste of tuition money when I didn't get anything out of it, but I do have my best grade of med school to show for it. Doesn't make too much sense, but such is life.

Then I moved on to psych. Psych I love. Also has been kind of a cake walk. I have learned a ton more, was given a lot of freedom to make decisions, doing doctor-y like things. However, half way through the rotation my attending had a bit of a ruptured appendix, so for a while we were basically working with the residents and they were good to let us go pretty early. But then I got moved to working with a child psychiatrist. Outpatient stuff, not getting to do anything, but cool because it's kids and the doc is teaching me a lot. Still working very few hours. This whole rotation I haven't come close to working 8 hours a day. I may say more about psych another day...

Needless to say, I haven't been needing/depending too much on caffeine lately. I'm not a big caffeine person to begin with, maybe a starbuck's frappuccino or a diet coke from time to time. Tonight after dinner I decided to stop by starbs, since I wanted to do some studying. I got a grande mocha lite frappuccino. Yum. That was seven thirty. IT IS NOW THREE FORTY FIVE. Glad tomorrow is saturday and I have no plans but to sleep in... So I'm currently catching up on the latest infomercials, you know they just don't show enough of those during the day! I may retry to sleep pretty soon here, but I feel like I could keep going.

Surgery here I come. I hope the caffeine will work for me then as good as it did for me tonight. I will be needing it.

Isaiah 53- take two.

A servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling, a scrubby plant in a parched field. There was nothing attractive about him, nothing to cause us to take a second look. He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away.

We looked down on him, thought he was scum. But the fact is, it was our pains he carried— our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures. But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed. We're all like sheep who've wandered off and gotten lost. We've all done our own thing, gone our own way. And God has piled all our sins, everything we've done wrong, on him.

He was beaten, he was tortured, but he didn't say a word. Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered and like a sheep being sheared, he took it all in silence. Justice miscarried, and he was led off— and did anyone really know what was happening?

He died without a thought for his own welfare, beaten bloody for the sins of my people. They buried him with the wicked, threw him in a grave with a rich man, Even though he'd never hurt a soul or said one word that wasn't true.

Still, it's what God had in mind all along, to crush him with pain. The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin so that he'd see life come from it—life, life, and more life. And God's plan will deeply prosper through him. Out of that terrible travail of soul, he'll see that it's worth it and be glad he did it. Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant, will make many "righteous ones," as he himself carries the burden of their sins.

Therefore I'll reward him extravagantly— the best of everything, the highest honors— because he looked death in the face and didn't flinch, because he embraced the company of the lowest. He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many, he took up the cause of all the black sheep.

isaiah 53

¹ Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
² He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
³ He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

⁴ Surely he took up our infirmities
and carried our sorrows,
yet we considered him stricken by God,
smitten by him, and afflicted.
⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
⁶ We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

⁷ He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
⁸ By oppression^[a] and judgment he was taken away.
And who can speak of his descendants?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was stricken.^[b]
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.

¹⁰ Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the LORD makes^[c] his life a guilt offering,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
¹¹ After the suffering of his soul,
he will see the light of life^[d] and be satisfied^[e];
by his knowledge^[f] my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
¹² Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,^[g]
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,^[h]
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

Is this real life?

David after Dentist

Don't complain about the thorns on roses, be thankful for roses among the thorns.

The inspiration of this post is a lady named Fanny. Fanny Crosby. She lived a looong life- died in 1915 just before her 95th birthday! (i feel like i've been around a good while, that's my life x 4!) In her 95 years she wrote over 8,000 hymns. eight. thousand. Maybe you've heard of To God be the Glory? Or Blessed Assurance? Good tunes. On her 92nd birthday she said "if in all the world you can find a happier person than I am, do bring him to me. I should like to shake his hand." What a cool chica! Oh, by the by, little small thing. No big deal, but she lost her sight at 6 weeks of age. Completely. She never saw a sunset, never knew what her husband or children looked like, never saw a thing in this world. I may not have 20/20 vision but I can walk from here to the door without bumping into anything (probably), I can pick up my Bible and read the words, I can sit down and watch a movie with my roomies. I can drive a car. I can become a doctor. Oh man could she have used that to get some pity. But look at what wisdom she had at age 8 when she wrote the following poem:

Oh what a happy soul I am,

Although I cannot see;

I am resolved that in this world

Contented I will be.

How many blessings I enjoy,

That other people don't;

To weep and sigh because I'm blind,

I cannot, and I won't.

How great is that? Later in her life she said "It seemed intended by the blessed providence of God that I should be blind all my life, and I thank him for the dispensation. If perfect earthly sight were offered me tomorrow I would not accept it. I might not have sung hymns to the praise of God if I had been distracted by the beautiful and interesting things about me." And even cooler this realization- "when I get to heaven, the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Savior." Love it!

Philippians 4:4 says "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice." Fanny is such an awesome example of this! If she had started writing hymns at birth, that would be about 84 hymns a year, more than one a week. That's a lot of rejoicing. Man, do I need help with this! I don't rejoice always! I don't even always rejoice in the good things I should be rejoicing about, i definitely don't rejoice in the little annoyances of the day, and hands down, not rejoicing in the hard hits that come my way. But oh do I have so much to rejoice about. Plus the simple truth that God has this amazing plan for my life. So that everything that comes my way, big or small, good or bad, its not all just chance happenings, God ordained it to be because He is GOD and He knows us better than we know ourselves! The things that don't make sense, they make sense to Him. What would it be like to look at a hinderance so great as blindness and say, "I never wanted sight! It would only be a distraction from my worship of God!"

I have a friend who has dealt with something heavy their whole life. It be so easy to say woe is me, and I'm sure people would take pity on them. Yet you almost forget about their battle because they never complain. It's a truly endearing quality about them. I doubt they so much see it as an entirely good thing, but hopefully they can see the good that has come from it. How that struggle has been a part of shaping their life, and the lives that they've been able to touch and will touch and CAN touch in the future in a way that you and I could just not do because we haven't been in that same boat. And I am talking about one specific person but really it could be anyone because we all have our own battles. What if Ms Fanny had been bitter towards God for taking her sight from her and just sat back and let people care for her her whole life? And what if she hadn't been blind? Would she still have become a songwriter or would she have pursued other things that she couldn't do due to her blindness? Countless numbers of people have been touched by the words of her hymns. God had a plan.

Now we can rejoice always and NOT necessarily be happy in all situations. You won't find a verse in the Bible that says, Be happy always! I'd rather be happy always, but stuff happens. Really really devastating things happen. If a loved one died and I was just bubbling with happiness and acting completely normal, something would be wrong with me. Happiness is a fleeting emotion that depends on the circumstances of our lives. Joy is not. It's something so much deeper that comes from faith in Christ and Him becoming a part of us. It's delighting in Him who has died for us and loves us more than we can imagine. And that will not change. The joy of the Lord is our strength! John 15:11 shows He wants His joy to remain in us and for that joy to be full. May we know the joy God has to offer us and may we remember that joy and rejoice through the trials of life because of a Savior that is always faithful.

Be this the purpose of my soul,

My solemn, my determined choice;

To yield to God's supreme control,

And in my every trial rejoice.

-Anon