Speed Bumps

Three years ago I made a mistake. I was given a ride to a movie which all my friends had already entered. I was late. My ride dropped me off at the door, and, spotting a friend, I ran to catch up to her.

Thus the mistake. I was wearing flipflops at the time, and I've never been a graceful person. I tripped - hard - over a speed bump, and stubbed my toe.

At the time, it hurt like hell. But it always hurts when you stub a toe. I ripped part of the toenail off and spent the entire movie with a bag of ice over my bloody foot. It hurt for months afterward, if I stepped wrong or wore a particular shoe.

Now, years later, I have just discovered that I actually did some permanent damage to my foot. Parts of my foot are indefinitely numb, and I have some sort of neuropathy in both my ankle and my arch. My doctor is mentioning tarsal tunnel syndrome and nerve conduction tests. All because I tripped over a speed bump.

It just goes to show the delicate state of our bodies. Football players and marathon runners are absurd on the one hand for the voluntary damage they do to their bodies, and heroes on the other for the pain they live with each day.

My advice, however, is to take care of the body you're given. We can't all take tackles each day and survive, and I have seen up close the total knee and hip replacements required to allow bodily abusers to walk. They are violent, bloody operations, hardly worth that momentary soccer fame or those seconds of air from a snow drift.

Our bodies can do amazing things, but, unfortunately, they are also breakable.

A Weak Heart

Exercise is hard.

I have asthma, meaning running is twice as hard as it should be (or at least I let myself believe that). I ran nearly every day for a year, and my endurance only increased a little - running three miles without stopping was something for me to be proud of. My lungs burn with intense cardio, and I feel like I never get my second wind. It only gets harder as the minutes pass.

I stopped running completely after my dad died, and after a few months I could feel the weakness in my body. My legs would burn as I walked up stairs, and my heart would strain against the exercise. Living life was a lot harder than it should have been.

I've never been a healthy person. Asthmatic, anemic, and hypotensive, I often feel like I'm living in a dark, dizzy bubble. None of that makes aerobic exercise any easier, but I know my body needs it. I want my heart to be as healthy as possible. I refuse to be a victim of heart disease.

After the run, I feel so good. The runner's high is something I look forward to. Despite my body's troubles, I feel healthy. But lately, I can barely keep my pace up. I've downgraded to the elliptical, and I feel like that is somehow cheating. I can go so much longer on the elliptical, and that makes me think that it's just not as good for me, that it doesn't stack up to the benefits of the treadmill or the road. Is this the case? I still haven't decided.

Code Blue

I work at a hospital, and today was uneventful. Patients came in, had their surgeries, and left. Nurses teased, doctors laughed, and every person on the third floor stopped by our clinical instructor's office for some Halloween candy. It was a normal day.

I left the hospital in a good mood. Brooke and I were planning to carve pumpkins in my backyard. As I pulled out of the parking garage and into daylight, I found myself at a stoplight. I glanced to the right, and there, sitting in the driver's seat of a dark blue minivan, sat an older woman, tears staining her face. She wiped at them gently, pulling her glasses away from her eyes to better clear the evidence.

I knew immediately that someone she loved had died.

Was it her son? Her husband?

It came to me then that I work in a place of death. While we, the healthcare providers, hold ourselves aloof from the tragedies our work inevitably brings - painful or terminal illnesses, stillborns, traumas - the families of those tragedies suffer around us. We can't be a part of it. We can't suffer with them.

But still, that old woman and her grief truly rattled me. I stared at her for as long as the red light would allow, until tears began to well in my own eyes. I had felt that woman's grief before. I didn't know if she had expected the death, if it had come swiftly or slowly, but I knew her pain.

Loss is something we try to ignore, but I think now, when a code blue is called, when the crash cart is summoned, when that steady beep from the LCD finally flatlines, I will remember that old woman, and the grief which our failure brought her. Being a doctor, I think, will never be easy, but knowing the depth of what rests in my hands will make it just a little easier to bear the burden.

Crimson and Cream

I interviewed today for the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine. Today was only the second day of interviews, meaning I beat a lot of people out, which makes me a teensy bit proud.

OU, however, was not my first choice.

I want to go to Oklahoma State University College of Osteopathic Medicine. First of all, it's in Tulsa, meaning Olen and I wouldn't have to move. Second of all, it's an osteopathic school. I really wanted to learn manipulative medicine.

OSU will not interview me. A small technicality in their application requirements confused me, and has therefore made me ineligible for acceptance. I won't pretend that this isn't my fault, and I've looked at countless colleges over the last two days trying to find a way out of this mess. But it's no use. OU is now my first and only choice.

At first I was severely upset. And then I went there today. The campus is absolutely beautiful, the students are friendly and welcoming. The technology they have there is ... impressive (to say the least). While I'm not thrilled at the idea of moving from this house that I've only recently finished decorating, I am excited about the change this will bring. Most people don't like change. I thrive on it.

But none of this matters if my interviewers didn't like me. First, I must be accepted.

Dream

I dream often that I am back in school, that some technicality has forced me to start the dreaded process all over again. Toward the end, I hated school. Going back would be nothing but misery.

Last night I dreamed of high school. Except that the setting was actually my middle school, and our mascot was that of my university - the Golden Hurricane. In the dream, we were forced, as we so often were, to attend a pep rally. I was self-conscious in high school, and my dream self reverted to that. I was never a cheerer in high school. I was the lame kid who tried to read a book amidst all the noise. I stood, dressed in black, close to the stage on which the president (?) of our high school was seated.

I remember a great deal of noise, and even more fog, as my dream-self tried to balance holding a backpack, a ball cap, and a chewed-on styrofoam cup filled with Dr. Pepper that held some significance to the rowdy, loyal crowd. A kid named Ernie had given it to me - the styrofoam cup I mean - as a sign that he trusted my faith in the Golden Hurricane. I believe this shows how much importance I placed in the tokens of allegiance to our school and mascot. A marble seal we weren't supposed to step on and a drum line we were never allowed to insult reduced themselves down to a dirty styrofoam cup half full of a drink I haven't tasted in years.

Oddly, I took care of that cup in my dream. I didn't want to be seen as the one who cursed the team with bad luck. I stumbled down iron stairs in tall heels as people watched the cup reverently. When I'd reached the bottom, I looked for friends to spend time with after school.

I found my friend Stephanie - she wanted to go to the bars (an odd desire for an 18 year old with no fake ID). I also found my friend Megan, who, strangely, did not go to high school with me. She wasn't sure what her plans were. Then I found Brettin. She wanted to go home and eat a peanut butter sandwich. I've known Brettin since we were five. She has always detested peanut butter.

I finally gave up on finding something to do and resigned myself to going home. When I left the crowds behind, I threw that styrofoam cup in the trash.

That isn't all of the dream of course. There were other strange details, like the fact that I was in an art classroom fit for 1st graders, and the president of the school gave me a newspaper that I was forced to wear on my head. The headline read something about our school - something of which he was very proud. People begged me for that newspaper, and because it seemed valuable, I, of course, wanted to keep it.

Anyone who knows me will tell you I have the strangest dreams. This was not the most strange, but it was very vivid to say the least.

On Boredom

It's amazing how, when you're busy, all you want to do is relax. Being in school is a perfect example. Time is never yours when you're in school. Even when all the homework is done you still feel as if you should be studying. Guilt abounds. Any stolen private time feels like a transgression against your GPA.

Being out of school, however, with no job or occupation is much, much worse. I sit alone in my house all day waiting for Olen to get home from work. Once the house is clean and the groceries bought, there is nothing else for me to do. I have no kids to take to school, no friends who do not work during the day. I am indescribably bored, and as a result, completely unmotivated to start something useful, like my wedding scrapbook or a running schedule.

In this economy, finding a real job borders on impossible. I am underqualified for certified jobs and overqualified for the rest. Having a Bachelors without a Masters or Doctorate is akin to cooking a meal without a fire. All the pieces are there, but there's nothing to get you started.

I finally found a job at a hospital, serving as an assistant in the operating rooms, stocking saline and warm blankets. It's a job that a high school graduate could do and it's the best my $100,000 education could get me. In less than a year I'll be starting medical school, and I suppose I'll be wishing for this time when I had nothing to occupy my time but books and countless episodes of The Office. Now, however, I have seen the fence, and the grass is certainly greener over there.

The Fight for Happiness

My dad died.

Or rather, my dad was killed. On an ordinary Saturday night more than two months ago.

I don't know how I feel anymore. At first, there was just this numb sadness, too dulled to cause true pain. And then I saw his body, his lips painted too pink, his stomach so much softer than it ever had been in life. From far away, it looked like he was just sleeping, like I could almost see the slow movement of his stomach as he breathed. But he did not breathe. He would never breathe again.

Depression came next. I'm not a stranger to depression, to true depression. Crying every night from the memory of his voice, not being able to sleep without dreaming of him, waking to a certain feeling of wrongness. And all I ever wanted to do was sleep. I can't describe the fatigue. It seeped into my bones, made my life hell.

A blurry hell.

I can't truly remember what I've done the past two months. What has occupied my time? I don't know at all. But I was getting better.

The depression was lifting; I was less tired, less pitiful.

And then my cousin died.

Or rather, my cousin was killed. On an ordinary Friday night three weeks ago.

I held myself aloof from that death, trying to hold on to the sanity I had so recently rediscovered. I tried so hard not to feel that familiar bleak sadness during the funeral, the feeling that we are all headed toward that coffin one way or another.

Why does it have to be like that? Why do we have to be aware of our own impending demise? Why are we the only species on the planet that must suffer through the knowledge that we are not eternal? And how are we capable of ignoring that fact often enough to live lives outside of worry and panic?

To quote one of my favorite bands, in the end, it doesn't even matter. I'm getting over these low spirits once and for all. I've fought through this sadness, and I'm taking a stand.

And I'm documenting that stand.

Here is my life, starting fresh from today. It may not be a perfect happiness I've achieved, but I'll fight for it nonetheless.