Behold, life and death...

Quoted this morning in family medicine didactics was one of Yogi Berra's "You can observe alot, just by watching."  Comical, yes.

Less comical and somewhat sobering is working in a nursing home.  This is day 3 in geriatrics for me, and I have so far gone to a nursing home, out-patient geriatric clinic, adult foster care home, and an adult day care center.  I have always loved my profession because of its values, mission, intellectual work, etc (you name it, I mostly love it!)   People outside of the world of medicine have no idea what a wonderful and awe-inspiring thing it is to stand in the room of a woman delivering a baby and getting to hold that baby as it cries for the first time.  In its very essence being a doctor is seeing humanity progress.  It is also powerful to be present when the last breath of a person is expired.  My current window into the soul is working with lovely people, who look very different than their former selves, who sometimes forget much of their former life, and who must rely on many people to do very basic activities in life. 

I learned this spring, in being present at the death of a young child (after three rounds of CPR and numerous doses of epinephrine) that America's cultural take on death is very skewed.  I should rephrase that, MY take on death was very skewed.  In medicine, we're trained to be aggressive at sustaining life.  You wouldn't want a doctor to be trained any other way.  However, in holding on to a quantity of life - how far diminished is the quality?!  I was upset at the death of this child, not because anything about his death (during my presence in the ER and PICU) was mismanaged - but because I felt the pure horror and sadness of a young life being ended so early.  I don't know where I heard it, maybe during this summer, but someone said to me, "You know, death is natural."  It's as obvious as Yogi Berra's statement, but it struck me as counterintuitive to my prior culturally held view of death.  [And this is nothing to say of my spiritual take on life and death - that God is sovereign over everything.]  However, I realized that for all my training to save life and keep people out of pain, that I had not once let life go.  When my grandfather passed away last fall, I actually became a little resentful that we missed having Thanksgiving together as we usually had for the past few years.  I hadn't gotten to say goodbye to him, and perhaps that played into it.  Regardless, I hope I have matured enough to be able to say that I now recognize that death is natural.  It's helped me mentally cope with this rotation as the sheer numbers of wheelchair bound and pain-laden patients surround me.  [God IS sovereign and He is STILL at work.  I don't have His calendar on hand to check the dates, but He is always on time.]

Finally, some of you know I've been reading "Questioning Evangelism" by Randy Newman for a few months now (I had to give up leisurely reading for a couple months there, okay?!?!)  Anyway, the last chapter I read was on the problem of pain.  Randy's answer is "I don't know."  I think that's pretty empty.  Actually it's really empty.  It's one thing I would disagree with from the book.  We KNOW who God is and what His nature is... we know sin has wrecked our bodies.  We know we each of us deserve interminable ("intractable" as we medically describe it) pain - why any of us is given a moment's respite is because of God's illogically wonderfully perfectly planned grace.

"Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning... For He does not willingingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men."  Lam 3: 22, 33

*Note to past-self* Do not read Lamentations on this rotation, it is hard to understand some of its painful descriptions anyway... pick something more cheerful.  -Thanks, future self