Juxtapose

Had a number of rather "odd" patients today. There were numerous episodes of unprovoked tears, bizarre repetitive questions, multiple viewings of the floor's coumadin teaching video... all within the first hour I got on the floor.

Anyways, I always try to give it the benefit of the doubt, you know, give these poor peeps a break. They just went through surgery - pump brain and all that - give them a break, Cass, you big mean jerk. I know, I know. See how gracious I am? So I go over coumadin video again, I pat backs and wipe tears and apologize for my inability to allow my diabetic in failure to drink a giant extra-extra from Dunkins. I do my best, okay?

There is a point, though, where the family comes in and you shake hands and then, all of a sudden, you see that maybe this is not a new thing for the patient, and Weird is just the world some people live in. It's an odd, bizarre, strange world, but it's their world nonetheless. I knew that moment had come for me today when my patient's adult daughter asked me if her mother could shower at home and get water on her chest incision. I gave the lowdown and explained that they use a cousin of superglue to hold the incision closed. I emphasized that it holds the wound together very well and will come off on its own.

This is where is gets weird.

Daughter (adult, working, drove motorcycle to hospital... presumably functioning?) gets an interesting glint in her eye and describes in great joyous detail her enjoyment of using superglue to play with as a pre-teen. Super glue spread on her hands, then a clasping of the hands and then ripping apart of the hands and, "Oh, it didn't usually take off too much skin... *glintyeye smile*... I was an odd child!!!"

I can't say I would/could/should argue with that.

But then.. what to say at all? So I stood there, mute, reeling from this story describing what seemed to be an incredibly intriguing activity and, believe it or not, I did not know what to say. I couldn't say, "I love that too!" or, "Gotta try THAT sometime!" Acknowledging out loud the possibility that this might be something worth trying in the most dire, most tragic of boredoms seemed a tenuous truth at best. What's worse, I felt my childhood fears of peer pressure creeping back in: "If the cool kids see me hanging out with this strange person, will they think I LIKE strange people and, by proxy, am strange myself?" Also troubling was the statement where the daughter referred to herself as "odd," which was not something I felt in any position to dispute, knowing only three things about her: mom's medical history, superglue fun and her apparent ability to drive a motor vehicle. I fished for any viable response - anything, really - and came up with nothing, so I cut the conversation short the way I do in those instances where I have no words and I am extremely mortified with embarrassment: complete and utter avoidance.

"Oh. Well. Drive safely!"

And then she was gone, and as she was walking through the doors of the unit, I locked eyes with those of one of our cardiac educators. She gave me a look that said she understood exactly what I was thinking. And as I turned to get on with my day I thought that thing I've thought many times before in situations such as these:

Thank you, Mum and Dad, for not being utterly insane.

God is so good, so giving, so full of grace.

My husband is so handsome.

Baby is so silly.

My life is full right now. Home, work, life. I just want to eat it all up and fill up on the goodness. Don't want to waste a single morsel of this sweetness.

Getting used to quietness has taken a little bit of adjustment. Sleepy mornings with the baby snoring until late, me on tiptoes to preserve the calm, midmornings where I am confined to the couch with her, again, snoozing on my belly and letting out a yell whenever I move to reposition myself, and late nights with my arm (again falling numb) hanging awkwardly off the edge of the bed to rock the cradle. I listen to her, for that moment when I think I can take my chances, and I let go, turn to my husband, bury my face in his shoulder, and fall asleep before I can even settle in. I wake up at 4AM with limbs numb and still wearing my glasses. I've found that this little buggie requires a lot of sleep and attention. If I expected caring for a baby would be complicated, I was wrong - there is nothing complicated about it - but where I once considered sleep to be a bit of a waste of time, I now see that *some people* consider it to be completely vital to growth and development. Surprisingly enough to me, I have come to enjoy the odd nap here and there, if for no other reason than the fact that I have no choice; if I move, she wakes unhappy. As difficult as it is for me with my restless leg syndrome/ADD/fidgets issues, it's easier to deal with my body itching and aching to move than it is to hear her wail. And so, I sleep.

On the days I work, I leave a forty-five minute long trail of guilt and motor exhaust behind me until I get onto the unit to take up my assignment and care for the polar opposite of Amelia's place on life's spectrum, the aging and the nearly-dying. I have a mind that can only keep track of a certain number of things at once, which is why my little paper brain I carry with me at work is a thing honed by time and experience, full of information on the complexities of my patients' care. I know what each of their tubes is draining, what medications are dripping into their veins, what is floating around in their blood, the color and makeup of their pee, the electrical currents of each beat of their heart, the sounds of their lungs, and have planned out their day for them on the basis of all of these things and more. They are complicated, these people, they fill up my brain with very real worries about their health, their emotions. I put my heart and soul into helping them limp slowly towards an acceptable level of health. I encourage them, sometimes with tears of my own, and watch as sometimes all that I do is not enough to fix their needs. I find it happy, fulfilling, exhausting, sad. Bodies begin to shut down and it may take a hundred things, done in perfect order with perfect precision, ordered by a perfectly brilliant mind, and with interventions and medications working in exactly the manner that they are meant to work. But I am imperfect, not brilliant.

I come home to find this baby, ten weeks out in the sunshine and full up of milk and poop and goofy smiles (when she is not in a mood), who is perfectly, gloriously simple in her own little complicated way. As fast as the old are shutting down, her cells are busily weaving this matrix of a little person. I can't help but rejoice in her simplicity. That she is here with so little effort on my part. That she is a little person. I am renewed.

Once there was a boy named Mark with a blue truck named The Tick.

He was a dairy farmer in Virginia.

One day he decided to go to a wedding of two dear friends, taking place in Arkansas. Also there were many other dear friends, such as a girl named Jen from Michigan and a girl named Cassie from Massachusetts.

He decided it made a lot of sense to streamline his trip and detour by way of Massachusetts. VA-MA-AR. Makes sense... right?

The wedding was a blast. Everyone stayed in a giant yurt and swam and roasted in the Arkansas sun for a week before the wedding. Cassie had fun and decided, later that fall, to make a detour down to VA on her way to, er... well. She just went down to VA. It was October, during Mark's birthday weekend, and they went all out and went to a harvest fest at Mark's ye olde Southern Baptist Megachurch of his youth. They took a really flattering picture together.

Before leaving VA, Mark's mother made a big deal about how Cassie and Mark should hug goodbye. Cassie got flustered and took a not-so-flattering picture. Mark managed to look somewhat possessive.

Cassie had, as many of her compadres had at the time, "Kissed Dating Goodbye" for the time being and refused multiple offers of a "dating" status from Mark. He visited anyways, like a champ, and finally, a year later on her birthday, sucked her in anyways with the gift of a handmade cow-tooth necklace. He was invited to the family 4th of July picnic like he was someone important.

Everyone went camping that summer and got really grungy up in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Heidi and Sar and SJ came too! Cassie was really into Mark's sooty-smelling hoodie.

Nine months later, Mark proposed, Cassie said yes, and they spent the one Valentine's Day of their engagement days sick on the couch with a miserable flu and a cough that lasted a good three weeks (this was pre-Swine Flu days). Good thing V-Day is for suckers anyways, right?

Their wedding ceremony was 7 minutes long but the reception was longer and very fun. They went to Williamsburg, VA for a honeymoon where, in January, it was a good 70 degrees out every day, very fortuitous indeed.

"Pretty cute," she thought, "Good thing I kissed dating hello finally."

Since they got married, they've done tons of fun stuff:

They've gone to the beach.

They briefly foster parented a turtle, Omar, that was going to be squashed by traffic.

They've gone to Six Flags with one half of their favorite West Coast couple, Heidi and Josh, as well as with Cassie's favorite sister, Tess.

And they've eaten ice cream. Lots of it.

The end... or is it?

A deceptively chilly but sunshiney day. No plans until 1030 this morning, which seems like it is forever away at this point. Thankful that Christos anesti, alithos anesti, and He continues to live and continues to be risen, and continues to conquer death. Thankful for a faith that lets me celebrate His resurrection every day of my life, knowing that I live because He died.

Sad weekend at work. For a weekend that can be spent contemplating the resurrection of Christ, I spent an awful lot of time with actively dying people. Who won't be resurrected. This is their life, their chance at it, and now it's almost over for them. While you can never really know when your time will come, it must be pretty sobering to see it staring you right in the face when you do know it is imminently arriving to cut you off. I can see the sadness people have to see it coming, and the difficulty they have with reconciling that with the reality in their heads. Sometimes I don't know how to talk about this stuff, and I also don't know how to not talk about it, it eats away at me so much. Last night I was just thankful for a long drive home with Mark while he listened a lot and I talked a lot. He's good about that, and I needed it.

I did love yesterday, though, spent with people I know and love. I'm still full of food and time spent with my family, my grandparents, my aunt and uncle and their family, and the newest members of our family, the family of Drew's girlfriend, Amanda, who I already find myself loving after such a short time. Happy times.