quiet whispers: part three

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5

In early September, my second year of fellowship, I drove to the hospital for a 5pm-1am shift. I parked my car, walked to the glass door that led into the hospital, and froze.

I was 15 minutes early, and I couldn’t make myself walk in the door. Dread settled into my lungs and muscles.  I sat down, put my back against the cool glass and stared absent-mindedly at my phone.

My mentor, who had become an amazing friend, walked by on the way to her office at that moment. “You okay?” she mouthed, talking to someone else on her cell phone.

“Do you have a minute?” I asked, relieved but hesitant.

“my office in 5 minutes?” she asked as she wrapped up the call.

I walked into her office, opened my mouth, and then dissolved into tears. Not pretty, dramatic tears. Messy, mascara-running, choking sobs. . .

I can’t do this. . . .What if my lack of knowledge is the reason someone’s child goes home and dies?. . .What day will be the day I  miss something unforgivable?. . . I am not ready for this. Who am I to think that I should be responsible for someone else child?. . .It would be better if they were seen by anyone else. . .I am not myself right now. . .I am not a good mom right now, not a good wife. . .I can’t. . .I can’t. . .I can’t.

Out tumbled all the lies and doubts that had been floating in my head for the better part of a year. I’m sure not intelligibly or sensically, but there, across the desk, in their unrefined glory.

I don’t know what response I expected. I live in the South, and my mentor embodies what you think of when you picture a strong but sweet Southern woman.  Perhaps I expected some encouragement, some reassurance, some “this is normal,” maybe a hug. . .

Instead, she said exactly what I needed to hear. . . She sat across from me with a determined compassion and some incredulity.

Arianna, you are not that important.

You need to trust your residents. . and you need to trust your God more. You are not so powerful that you hold the difference between life or death in your hands. He does this with you, and He can do it without you. . .

I sat, dumbfounded, the barrage of tears slowing a bit as I tried to soak in her certainty. I am sure we said more, but I don’t remember it. (Although, I do remember her telling me to go wipe off the running mascara and get down to my shift as she gave me a hug. . .)

In medical school and residency and fellowship, we are taught over and over again the importance of our diligence, knowledge, training, attention to detail, and constant attention. We are ingrained with the need to be near perfect because people have trusted us with their life and health. I grew up a responsible kid and this training only reinforced my natural tendency to want to be seen as perfect, infallible, a bit of a super-woman. We are not taught as much the need for intuition, for compassion, for faith, for granting grace to ourselves when we realize the obvious – that what we are trying to do – to stand in the gap between life and death – is an impossible task.

The human body, the responsibility of caring for something so beautifully and wonderfully made, had bested me.

Of course it had.  My near misses – I caught them because I listened to the gut feeling- the intuition – not because of my intelligence or training, but because He was using me. Because I had showed up. Because I had been me. With all of my flaws and indecision and double checking and deference to people who had more gray hair than me.

I thought I could be so in control that I could manipulate the patients that I saw. I did not trust that God had brought each one of those children deliberately to me, not someone else. To me, for some specific reason.

I was not that important. I was not that powerful. But He was both.

That day didn’t fix things. That shift, however, was somehow lighter – like a heavy, suffocating blanket was starting to be lifted off of me. The next day, David and I sat down for a big talk to reevaluate.

I hadn’t gone into medicine to lose myself to doubt, to lose sight of God, and to try to control everything. But, I couldn’t really remember why I had done it.

So we went way back – 10 years before – when we had gotten married. What had I said I wanted to do? Why had we started this crazy, exhausting medical journey? Every doctor has a different answer to that question, but for us it was simple.

We had done it for somewhere across the ocean. We had done it because of quiet whispers into the heart of a 5 year old thirty years earlier. We didn’t know if that was next for us, but we decided to do what everyone does when they don’t know what is next. . .

We sent an email.

We sent it to a doctor in Kenya who David had done support pictures for 5 years earlier. We asked if we could come visit for a few weeks and relieve the doctors working there, and we waited for a reply.

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5