Lesson Learned

This week has been an excellent example of when Meg has so very much bouncing around in her head but insufficient ability to mold those thoughts into words. Somehow, all of it came to a culmination today, and I must either write or explode. So if this sounds like it should be about three different blog posts, it probably should. If I were concerned about decorum or literary style, I would separate them-- but I like to live life on the edge.

I started this post during clinical last week but couldn't figure out where to go with it....


As I write this, I'm sitting in the nuclear medicine department at Vanderbildt while my patient undergoes a stress test.  She's an absolutely fascinating pathological case study, though most of her care has been relatively straightforward.  As complicated as the pharmacodynamics may be, nuclear medicine is mostly a lot of waiting... and waiting... and redosing so you can wait some more.  Since she's my only pt today (the joys of being a student), that leaves me with a lot of time to think and remember as the mechanical melody of the hospital-- the shuffling of footsteps, the beeping of monitors, the methodic whir of a CT-- lull me gently into introspective reminiscence.


My thoughts turn to the dozens of patients I've cared for in the last two years. I can still see each of their faces clearly in my mind.  One was a certifiable genius.  He worked on world-renown projects that you would all recognize if I were allowed to tell you about them.  But then he dreamed up a cutting-edge endeavor that went horribly wrong, and several of his coworkers and close friends were killed.  He blamed himself and went crazy with guilt.  By the time research revealed it wasn't his fault at all, it was too late.  He had lost touch with reality completely.  Now he was dying alone in a tiny central TN hospital.  It is his story I remember when I lose a patient.  Sometimes forgiving yourself-- even if the guilt is irrational and misplaced-- is the biggest hurdle.


Another patient I treated was in an incredible amount of pain but was already maxed out on pain meds.  He had a plethora of problems that all antagonized each other.  The medical focus had become so centered on just keeping him alive that some of the simpler comfort measures had slipped through the cracks.  His skin was so dry and itchy that he was literally scratching it off.  I brought some lotion and began spreading it on his back.  He was too weak to even finish a sentence, but my heart knew the words as he spoke them. "Jesus said, 'Whatever you do for the least of these...'" His is the voice I hear when my heart needs perspective.


I penned those three paragraphs almost effortlessly and then spent about an hour gnawing on my pen and trying to decide what to write next. Those stories have great meaning to me, but I feared they would leave the reader (that's you!) with a bit of a "so what?" feeling.  I mean, I've written pretty extensively about my patients before.

Today was another clinical day. I was assigned two patients this morning, and both of them were very medically straightforward and easy to care for. I had a lot of free time, so I bopped from room to room looking for interesting procedures to help with or observe.  As I was helping a wound care specialist change multiple bandages on a poor sweet old woman with several pressure sores, she asked some polite chit-chat-type questions: Where are you from? Where do you go to school? What do you want to do with your life? I gave her a ten second summary (...came from Illinois, currently at Belmont, headed to Africa...).  She sighed with a smile and said, "You know, I would love to do some mission work, but I know my heart would be captured and I would never be able to come back, so I better just stay here."

I was speechless.

Isn't that the point?!

Such innocent words, spoken with friendly honesty.  My heart struggled for a response for a moment before settling on one.  Pity and sadness welled within me, for this woman had, due to reasons I am not privy to, deliberately decided to deprive herself of a joy second only to experiencing Christ himself. In fact, it's an experience that would likely include the aforementioned encounter.  And in such a sideways way, it was almost like her heart knew it, even if the rest of her had absolutely no idea what she was missing.

And I wished that she could have met that second patient of mine, because her heart seemed to be searching for perspective.

A few minutes later, an exceptionally irritable and difficult patient received an order for a blood draw. She was obese with deep veins and labeled as a "hard stick." IV therapy had been called the last time she needed a blood draw, and the nursing consensus on the floor was that they probably would need to be again.  The patient mentioned that they had called a neonatal nurse to stick her during a previous hospitalization (I'm telling you, this lady had freakishly tiny and tricky veins). I decided to give it a go. I got blood on the first stick. As I held the needle and filled the vial, my memories flashed to a tiny little boy I barely had the chance to get to know, a child whose tired little veins just would not accept an IV needle from my inexperienced hand.

Then I remembered my first patient, and decided it might be time to begin forgiving myself.

As the shift neared its close, I slipped into the nurse's lounge to polish off a therapeutic ham sandwich.  One of the other nurses from the floor (whom I admire and respect greatly) struck up a conversation that quickly (through her guidance, not mine) turned towards Zambia.  She had asked me once before what kind of nurse I wanted to be, and now she was wondering if and when I planned to return to Zambia.  She probably didn't expect a month/week/day countdown.  I laughed at her surprise. "Sorry-- I suppose I'm just a little anxious to get back to them."  Her answer might be the most calming and confirming thing I've heard since I set foot on American soil in August. "Well of course you are-- they're your kids. You can't just walk away from your kids."

What I would give for my family and friends to understand that... or even to understand it better myself!

Because I don't know what those kids are to me, really.  Amy and I were talking the other day and she reminded me that I have "23 nieces, or nephews, or pseudokids, or whatever they are..." waiting for me when I return. I don't know who I am to those children, or who exactly they are to me. I mean, I'm Auntie Meghan, but not "Auntie" in quite the same way that some of the hired nannies are-- for many of them, the job is predominantly just that: a job. But I'm not their mom either. I have a niece whom I love dearly and would do anything for. It's sort of similar to that, but still not quite the same.  I hope to be in their lives for a very, very long time (approximately forever, actually...) but I don't know what even tomorrow holds, or if I'll be needed more elsewhere sometime down the road. Kazembe may not be where I end up. So the only way I know how to describe them is just to say that, in some way they're mine. They're a lot of other people's, too. A whole lot of people care very deeply for these kids. But that doesn't make me any less attached. That doesn't make me any less protective, possessive, or in love. In many ways, it actually makes me more so.  Forgive me if that makes absolutely no sense at all.

This life that I have chosen (or that has chosen me)-- nursing and mission-- is a double-edged vocation: I see people at the best times in their lives, and I see them at the worst times in their lives.  I'm expected to be healer and helper, friend and advocate, teacher and prophet, warrior and peacemaker.  I smile when they smile, and sometimes I cry when they cry. Shoot, sometimes I cry when they don't cry.  Sometimes they look to me for answers that I don't have.  Sometimes they demand more of me than what I think I can give.  Sometimes my courage and confidence are stretched to the breaking point and then a little further still. Sometimes they learn from me. Usually, they're the teachers.

If today is any indication, I have a lot left to learn, ladies and gentlemen...

One beautiful and unexpected lesson at a time.