Dreams, Love, and Providence

we’ve made it back from vacation and i have had a couple of immediate realizations through the whole tropical experience i’d like to share.

1. taking care of sick and dying children is emotionally and psychologically taxing- yes. it’s taken me a while, but i’ve admitted it, perhaps in an honesty yet found in this lowly intern.

2. i don’t know what to do after residency- i’m still debating and i thought vacation would afford me clarity. but it didn’t. the ocean has you forgetting more often than thinking clearly.

3. time with God is a priority- my pastor preached passionately (as usual) on this subject and i was convicted to the marrow. i wish someone could get up to the pulpit and read their sermon like they were reading the phone book and i would be convicted. but i’m not that way, so God gave me Reddit Andrews III as a pastor.

Bob Marley songs will be running through our minds for weeks!  Jason and I arrived home in the wee hours of the morning after a 13 hour commute from Jamaica.  Five nights and six glorious days were spent laying around in hammocks on the beach, sailing on the crystal clear carribean water, snorkeling with colorful fish etc… 

IT WAS AMAZING!  Honestly, I could blog for days about how perfect of a trip it was, but it would only make many of you sick with envy, and that is not the purpose of this blog. 

Basically, we HIGHLY recommend the all-inclusive route as far as vacations go.  We stayed at Couples Negril and we will say with full conviction:  IT WAS WORTH EVERY PENNY!

Here are a few pics–enjoy!

i just got home from work.  it’s about 11pm, and i left for work this morning at 6am.  i had a crazy, chaotic day at work today.  the kind where i don’t sit down to eat lunch until 5pm.  however, i was able to leave work around 7:30pm and go grab a drink downtown and unwind with a good friend.

not too bad.

jason, however, thought he was going to have the weekend off leading into his official vacation that starts on monday and was so excited to just ‘veg’ out today and do a whole lot of nothing.  unfortunately that thought was abruptly put on hold when he was paged to come in at 7am this morning and cover a 30 hour shift for an intern who called in sick.  ugh.  30 hours.  managing several kids with one other doctor. 

how does he do it?  i am not totally sure.  i am almost cross-eyed i am so tired, but jason, he still has another 13 hours!  and  you know what?  when i left work, he was smiling, calmly managing patients, hanging out with the nurses and doing a fantastic job.  and without complaining.  what a guy…

i thought i would follow jason’s example and actually post something.  anything, right?  many of you have asked why we even have a blog when its pages remain untouched for months.  well, sorry.  we will try, try, try again.

time goes by too quickly.  i think of things to tell everyone, and in my head they sound great, sometimes funny, sometimes sad.  but the action of actually typing it out and posting it hardly ever occurs.  so, here we are, reconciling with the computer, apologizing for our absence, and breathing life back into our blog.

what’s new? you may ask.  a lot.  and i don’t have time right now to explain it all.  too ‘catch up’ on blogging would be a totally different avenue then to ‘revive’ our blogging…

today i am playing catch up.  we entertained some dear friends of ours the last few days and now i find myself cleaning, getting the room ready for another guest who is coming on sunday, and then i think i will begin packing for our vacation–Jamaica, here we come!  vacation could not have rescued us at a better time.  the white sand is calling us by name…

don’t worry, we will post pictures. we will. really.

and…here is a sample of my ’spring’ music.  great to listen to with the windows open and a fresh glass of iced tea.  the artist is beth waters–she is local to northern california and played at Berkley last weekend…i missed it.  dang.

01-patience

vacation is coming. kate and i are going to jamaica and we can’t wait. white sands, blue water, and some form of rum. :-)!

in the meantime, the days are running long- i just finished a rotation where i learned to evaluate child abuse. it was ruinous. i’ve never wanted to protect the innocent so much. the rotation was terrifying because you get faced with the fact that abuse is common. 2.5 million cases of child abuse and neglect are reported every year in the US. of substantiated cases, a third are physical abuse, one half are neglect, and the remaining cases are sexual abuse.

one of the worst moments of the rotation was watching the kids describe sexual abuse. i heard young people describe things that never should have happened and as they spoke, they re-lived a portion of that terror. i heard children describe their parents using intravenous drugs. one girl said, “i saw my mom and dad use drugs, the kind you use a needle in your arm.” she was obviously distinguishing those from others she had seen.

the rotation left me heartbroken, i admit. i am left with many questions, the foremost being, “how long, oh Lord?” injustice is a cruel twist for the innocent.

i need a vacation. jamaica, here we come.