Friday Morning Thoughts

Sometimes we love a person so that we can realize how much love we are capable of giving. They need love and we have the ability to give it.. so we are allowed the opportunity to give it. 
But we take their inability to love us with the same intensity as a sign that something about us is hard to love. We regret giving so much of ourselves because we are left in pain wondering why what we gave was not valued or appreciated. 

Just remember this: the love that you give never goes to waste. 

I picked out a few lines from a quote and put them above.
The thing is, I don't regret giving so much of myself.
I don't.
I do know things about myself that there was no way for me to know without that experience.
I'm scared.
I'm scared that I'll never be able to muster up that much effort again because it yielded no long lasting relationship.
I tried as hard as I could and it wasn't enough so why try again?
That's my issue.


I'm trying to employ this thing my mentor told me...don't let your feelings control your feet.
You may not want to do x, y, or z but your feet go on the date.

I can feel myself retreating into the safety of studying, of school, of academics.
I've always relied heavily on friendships and I can see myself never getting away from that even though I do want to be married.
I guess no one has inspired me enough to want to give that much effort.
So maybe its not that I can't but more so that I don't have a reason to.

Yea...I'm going to go with that.
And hope less is sometimes sad.
I want to be hopeful.
But I feel like I used my whole tank of hopeful and now I'm on E.
God, go on ahead and replenish that when I'm ready to handle it. Thanks!

I Belong to Them

People

need

people.

Caregiver

You're the caregiver! Jung identified this archetype in many goddesses and female role models throughout history. You're the mother figure: the selfless caregiver and helper. Everyone comes to you for advice. You truly love others as yourself and your greatest fear is selfishness and ingratitude. You manifest compassion and generosity. A Jungian psychologist would tell you to be careful not to be taken advantage of and never let yourself play the martyr.

This is what a quiz said about me....
and its true.

I've been talking to some folks about this whole dating thing and I've realized some things about myself.

I take care of people.
Its what I do.
When I tell people how I took care of my ex, they're always astounded....both that I did all that stuff and that she didn't want to be with me.
But its who I am.

I want to take care of you.
And I've realized that its by taking care of people, that I fall for them.
Its the fact that they need me that I'm drawn to.
And I think its part of why I'm not terribly romantically interested in the girl I'm currently dating.

I started to recognize that this could happen in one of my good friendships.
She loves to be taken care of.
She loves to be catered to.
She loves my cooking.
And I'm a caretaker.

Let me tell you what started happening.
So she's been off her game with studying all year. I've felt like I've literally been dragging her through 2nd year at times and told her as much. I actually almost ended our friendship because of her attitude towards schoolwork and she was really hurt. Way more hurt than she thought she'd be actually and she's been trying really hard to do better.
So I started cooking so she'd come over and study.
And then that became "So you cooked right?"
Then it was "can I borrow some sweats when I get there?"
And soon I was like........ I spy a pattern.

In quite a few ways she's like my ex except that she's straight. Like in a committed relationship with a dude straight. And no, I don't have romantic feelings for her but I know I could develop them if this whole "me being your girlfriend" thing continued.
And by being her girlfriend I mean cooking for you, pestering you about your school work, studying with you, encouraging you....alladat!

Those are all the things I did for my ex and then they just blossomed like a brain contusion ( yes that's what I was just studying.)

So anyway, I actually talking to this friend about this and she understands. She knows who I am, who I was with my ex, and that this is my weakness so she's letting those regular meals go.

What really started to happen in its simplest for is I was being her girlfriend but she wasn't being mine and that's something I can't have. I can't be crossing boundaries that for me feel like more than friendship if that's not a mutual decision ever again. And I can't cross them with you and have you pretend you didn't know what was happening though you were a willing participant.

I do however want my future relationship to kind of grow like that. I want it to be a friendship that just gradually becomes more. That's what I had with my ex and I think that's what feels most authentic to me.

And just in case y'all wanted a list of things I have actually done for my ex.... here's a dat in the life.

Get up with her (despite having no where to be myself) to make her breakfast including homemade muffins baked fresh daily
Pack her a nutritious lunch that wasn't left overs from the previous night (I don't do leftovers for bae's lunch)
Clean the house including deep cleaning stains out of the carpet
Cleaned her bathroom
Sorted and did her laundry
Folded her laundry and put it away
Grocery shopped with my money for her kitchen
Ran her bath water so that it was hot by the time she got upstairs from getting home for work
Laid out her lounge clothes for after her shower
Made dinner, from scratch (yes, that's three meals I made her each day)
Made a few different home made desserts every week

And that list is just the stuff I considered regular stuff to do for her. That doesn't include planning elaborate trips or birthday gifts or anything of the sort. This was just my average, regular run of the mill day because I wanted all her time at home to be quality time spent together. I didn't need to watch her do laundry when I could have already done it. So yea, I was the ultimate housewife to my ex. Nevertheless, she's not mine.

But I think for me to love you, I have to feel like you need me. Not in a way that sacrifices who I am, but I need to feel needed to fall for you.

Valuable?

People say your value doesn't decrease because another doesn't see it.

This is true.

I think what decreased for me is my ability to see my own value as valuable.

A Day in the Life

10:30 pm

Just leaving clinic

So many highs

Lows

The in betweens

The teens

One, a mom and trying to do right without the support to do so

Another who prayed her way into a negative HIV test

And one who cried so hard that I scooped her up like the baby she is

When I said there was a baby in her belly

7:45 bright and early

Well dressed

Clearly headed to work after this

A Husband and a Wife

I assume there’s a baby that they want but no

He’s understanding but she’s furious

There’s pain that keeps them apart

Intimacy they both long for

Pain making that intolerable

And I think to myself

How many missed moments have that had

As I write a script for 16 pain pills

Just so they can be together

The woman, run down and beat up

Trying desperately to get disability

Since she can’t stand long enough to work her job any more

The tingling in her feet ever present

Her touch of sugar never controlled

Eyes that can’t quite see enough to drive at night

Her fast food job closing well after sunset

And the kids

She doesn’t know how she’ll feed

Worry consuming her

As she reads that the funding for her children’s meals at school is being cut

On the phone a congressman said she shouldn’t have anyway

Using free wifi

Font on extra large

The girl who says

It was just that one time

I always use condoms

Always

But He said he loved me

And he said just this once

And so

Tears

Tears are falling

And I want to cry too because I know this story

This is the story I hear all too often from girls

Girls I’m about to diagnose with something that will never go away

These are the moments that I pray

When I pick of the phone to call the lab saying

“Jesus”

The one word prayer that providers all around me know

Black suit

Brooks brothers dress shirt

The one with the women’s cuff links

$98 price tag

She’s here too

38 and finally ready to have a baby

a baby we’ve talked about for years

a baby we planned for back when I sent her to have her eggs harvested at 32

back when we decided to do the myomectomy

back when I started writing for her to work from home one week every month

because the endo made getting to the office impossible

But she’d fought through undergrad and law school and the bar

She wasn’t about to let Endometriosis take that from her

And we talk happily

About the new apartment

3 beds, 2 baths and an attached garage

grey argyle for the nursery

gender neutral of course

the nannies she’s already interviewing

And I write for and coordinate those prescriptions and appointments

A child so desired yet not a reality

The asthmatic living in a rundown apartment

Unable to afford the medicines to avoid using her pump every day

Never able to afford enough visits to accurately diagnose her pelvic pain

And unwilling to take a script for it because robbery is a thing in her neighborhood

The asthma pump

That’s what she’s here for

And its $4 and it’ll last a few weeks

While the controller

With no insurance is $240

A third of her rent

So I write for 8 refills at a time because she really can’t afford to see me either

Pregnant?

No it can’t be

I’m 43.

I’ve been through menopause

Or at least that’s what she said a month ago when she came in complaining of nausea and headaches.

And now as I search for the heartbeat I should be hearing at 14 weeks

Another prayer slips from my mouth

Because as I sweep the ultrasound probe across her belly

I see the baby she didn’t know she wanted

Isn’t going to be

I’ve been to 8 different docs

She says as warning bells dance in my head

And no one can fix this pain.

The GI doc, the internal med doc, the ER doc who accused me of drug seeking behavior

And even psych!

The pain is real

Its all the time

From my navel down

It wakes me from sleep

Its stolen my 20s

I’m 31

What do you know different that they didn’t know?

Her rebuttal as I say “I’d like to do an exploratory laparascopy because I think you have endometriosis.”

The girl who’s life turned around on Concerta

D student to A student

All the while wanting to be cinematographer

And finally able to focus long enough to shoot some film

This was my morning.

“I think he’s going to pop the question!!!!!!” squeals my colleague

And we laugh and look at wedding dresses

Venues

Honeymoons

Décor

And the Breitling she’s buying him

Because we’re modern women

Of course he gets an engagement gift too

And we sneak into the cocoon that shelters us from the sadness of the morning

Eating lunches packed from groceries bought at Whole Foods

Drinking coffees that cost more than some medications our patients struggle to pay for

The middle to upper middle class shell

that Protects our minds from what we know we’re going to face this afternoon

Pregnant

Yes, pregnant

For the 2nd time in as many years

And only 8 times as many years on Earth

Scared

Confused

Because they used condoms

The condoms I taught her to put on in clinic

But not every time

Not on Valentines Day

Which seems to be the day they conceived for a 2nd time

And she cries

Big fat tears

Tears that mourn her stolen childhood

The things she dreamed she’d do

Tears that choke her and me

And I’m so moved by reality that’s being visited upon her

That instead of the seat designated for a person with my degree profile

I move next to her

The seat normally occupied by a parent

For the kid I’ve watched and educated for years

And like a child

She finds her way into my lap

And we both cry

Running

Literally

Across campus to my 2 pm seminar

Thankfully, its mandatory because I remember my 2nd year of med school

Vividly

You couldn’t catch me in a class that wasn’t required attendance

They’re there

And engaged

Something about teen pregnancy resonates with some many who know

That had they become a parent as a teen

They might not be able to dedicate all their time medicine

Let alone Step 1

And I implore them

It’s so different over there

My morning was teen pregnancy, pregnancy loss, and trying to get pregnant

It was seeing patients who I knew couldn’t afford a follow-up so I wrote enough prescriptions for the next 12 months

Diabetes education

Nutrition, despite the little to no training I have in it

It’ll be pre-natals, post partums, and annuals this afternoon

And that’s what the schedule will say

While the patients will be way more complex that a chief complaint ever is

And just like a God appointed example

My pager goes off 911

My patient, my Pre-eclamptic, that I feel like I’ve carried on prayer  to 32 weeks

From her diagnosis at 14 to now, always certain she wanted babies

Me just hoping to get her one

The surgeries she bore telling me all the while

“I’m doing it for my baby.”

The 2 failed cycles of in vitro

And now finally, a viable pregnancy

That patient

has had a few late decels and she’s seeing spots

Lecture cut short

I’m running again

And talk yelling at my chief resident to be ready to cut as soon as I scrub in

4 lbs 3 oz

Apgars of 6 and 9

She’s little but mighty

Her momma is grateful

Her dream, and to some degree mine too

Screaming her little heart out

And I’m relieved

And behind

Back in clinic I find exactly what I predicted

I somehow managed to only be 75 minutes behind

And I’m back in the middle of it all

Measuring bellies and talking about nurseries

Telling parents it’s a girl, it’s a boy

Its Triplets

Rejoicing because that triplet pregnancy follows two miscarriages

Because those parents are going to be awesome

Because its their hearts desire to be exactly where they are

Because this is the job

This is what I signed up to be

A bridge

Between science and people

And its what I love

And what I’m reminded of each and every day

Even when Its hard and there are tears

The mom who I diagnosed with gestational diabetes

Who logs her blood sugars meticulously

Proudly showing me her notebook of tightly controlled blood sugars

Because we have a deal

Water birth if baby is under 8 lbs

The tremendously difficult decision to be hospitalized

Because the throwing up just won’t stop

And hyperemesis gravida’s ICD-10 code is being added to her chart

And she’s got 2 kids at home

But she’s got to think of herself

Of the baby she’s still growing

The new babies

Squishy and brand new

And oh so sleepy

The pictures we take and post

Doctor and Baby and Momma

The sprinkle of Depo still protecting our new mommies from having Irish Twins

Like my sister and I

And somehow its 8:15 pm and I’m walking out of my last patient’s room

My dedicated and profoundly understanding nurse along side me

Good night girl! Go home to those God children of mine!

I say, shooing her out the door to her response of

“Don’t be here until tomorrow charting!”

And I do make it out of the office

Charting completed 2 hours later

I stop by the nursery to find my patient

Who struggles to her feet post c-section

to thank me for believing she could be a mom

For fighting for her fertility

And I tell her

You did this.

You’re the warrior.

I’m simply the armory,

making sure you could get what you needed to succeed

And fighting your insurance to cover it.

We laugh...those battles littering the calendar charting this long fought war that we’ve now won.

Obstetrics and Gynecology,

Yup,

This is the best decision I ever made.