• ashirk@gmail.com
  • Kijabe, Kenya
hospital
on radio silence. . .

on radio silence. . .

(started on april 3rd . . .appropriate blog to have taken me a month to finish. . .)

Sometimes the blog goes so so quiet.

Because every time I sit down to write it seems not enough, not ready, not real, and weariness takes over.

So tonight, at 11pm, in the midst of loss and gain, of exhaustion and deep peace. I am sitting down to break the silence with something. . .

Last week David watched as I clocked 10 consecutive 16 hour days, with one or two calls in between. Working a lot isn’t new, but this felt relentless. Early morning meetings to late night lecture planning. Talking to friends and colleagues and fitting everything else in in the in between.

There were concrete reasons- it was the first week of the pediatric emergency and critical care fellowship that we have been planning since the week after I arrived in Kenya – 5 people arrived to teach, 2 brilliant fellows came to learn. They will be my first Kenyan colleagues, and even with all the help – the emotional and temporal weight was palpable. I wrote new lectures, did intros and closing, crossed my fingers that they would love and learn in Kijabe as much as I have.

And it was my first 3 weeks as the head of the pediatrics department – which is amazing and complex, with questions and responsibilities that seemed to come from every direction. Our department is doing amazing things – and with that came lots of emails, lots of calls, lots of questions, lots of catching up and a lot of learning.

And a question “can we do this?” I bristled at the question so early into so many new things. . .anger, tears, confusion. And then a quietness.

We thought through this. We calculated. We took risks. We had kept the things we loved.

But how do we actually do this?

The 16 hour days have died down a bit. But the struggle to balance is real and pressing things on all sides remains.

To see what is important.

To build on a year that has been one of really hard change and beautiful growth.

To love really, really well.

how do you do this?

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