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.