On dogs, chocolate, mermaids, and other happy topics

Hello! It is a beautiful spring day in Portland---70 degrees, sunny, everything is blooming already, and I have a day off! I’m sitting under a tree in our backyard filled with glossy green leaves and huge pink blossoms with yellow middles---anyone know what that tree is??? The tulips and roses are coming up, and I’ve discovered we have a huge patch of green onions (or chives---I’m not sure which!) growing by our back door which is letting out the most amazing aroma---I considered taking a bite out of it but decided that I didn’t want to give my dogs a bad example! The dogs have grown up so much now, it’s amazing. They’re almost 9 months now; I can actually let them just hang out in the backyard with me without worrying they will chew on every last tree, twig, flower, and stone out here. They’ve leveled out at about 20-24 lbs, so they’re still small dogs but I think the perfect size. I wish you could all see how cute they are. They’ve made me very popular in the neighborhood!

Since I last wrote, I have now finished two rotations: palliative (or end of life) care, and a general wards month. I can’t sum up palliative care at all, except to say it was great. I loved every minute of it. Many people wonder why I like end of life care---it seems morbid, I’m told. I wish I could express just how much of a privilege it is to be able to share someone’s death, and be a part of making it peaceful. It’s on the same level as attending someone’s birth. I see it as a similar thing. After all, everyone is born, and everyone dies. There’s no getting around it. But I also think there is more than just this life, that the soul goes on, and goes on a different journey. So death, well, I think it’s sad because of the loss we, the ones left behind, experience; but not because of death itself. It’s a new beginning of sorts. Sure, I’m scared of dying, there’s so much still I want to do. People I don’t want to lose. And the fear of the unknown. Yet, when the time comes, I hope I can embrace it as just another beginning, a start to something even better, and end as joyfully as I came to this life. And that’s my hope for everyone. So to be able to be a part of that for someone else, it’s really a great thing.

Plus, people are real at the end of their life in a way they are at no other time. There is no time for superficiality. There is no time to push away hard questions, and avoid dealing with hard situations. People think about their lives in a way that I wish everyone did. They ask those hard questions: what is the meaning of my life? Where am I going? What do I have left to do? What legacy do I leave behind? Who do I regret being mad at? Is there a God? And though I don’t have any answers, I can still be there to listen and encourage them to talk to people who can help them find those answers. As for myself, I’ve learned that I am lucky, because I know what my purpose is. I’ve asked myself those questions, many times, and I know where I stand. There are days when I don’t feel very spiritual. Days when I just want to get through every task and I don’t think about the meaning of my life or what I want to accomplish today. Yet I know that there is one thing by which I live every minute of my life, whether I am good at it or not, and it’s to love God, and to love people as God loves them. That’s it. I can’t imagine a life without that purpose. And it’s reassuring, to know no matter how mundane things are, at my core I have that truth to hold onto. I wish everyone had some truth they held precious as well too.

I change my mind about my dogs. They’re idiots. They’re now eating the grass.

Anyway, on to lighter things! I have 2 more days off, due to a freak of luck during rotation changes---yay!!! But then I start nightfloat----booo. 7 Pm to 8 AM for two weeks. Yuck. But I won’t think about that. Instead, I wanted to be happy and list the top 10 things that either are making me happy or that we’re looking forward to in the next few months:

1. There are 4 Moonstruck chocolate truffles waiting to be eaten by me (if you’ve never had Moonstruck chocolate, you really, REALLY need to come to Portland, it’s the BEST chocolate ever) which my senior (there’s always a junior and senior resident on general wards teams) gave me. I assume it means he thought I did an ok job but I haven’t had the guts to outright ask yet---no one wants to be the intern that everybody thinks is unreliable and terrible, so though I haven’t gotten any terrible feedback yet, every rotation I wonder if this is going to be rotation where someone tells me I did something really bad. But chocolate strikes me as a nice way of letting me know I did ok.

2. Frank apparently does a good mermaid impression. A few years ago, we were playing Cranium or something and Frank had to get us to guess the word “mermaid”. We didn’t get it; he was disgusted. Recently, one my favorite fellow interns had a deep fry turkey party (long story) which I couldn’t go to because I was overnight call but Frank went, and the next morning as I’m trying to finish my work so I can do home, I heard various reports of what actually went on; apparently Cranium was played again, and Frank again had to act like a mermaid, and everyone got it in seconds. He felt vindicated. A girl can’t go wrong when she’s married to a man who does good mermaid impressions. I also heard something about Frank being a bike messenger???

3. We’re going to Stephen and Karen’s wedding in May. I’ve recently been missing Madison a lot. We really loved Madison, and our friends there, and though I love Portland as well, part of my heart is still there. I hate moving.

4. My brother is getting married in August. His fiancée is very funny and fun, and I think she makes him more funny and more nice than he already is. I’m so happy for them and I can’t wait. I love weddings. Love them!

5. Baseball season starts. I hate baseball, but now Frank has something which makes him deliriously happy to occupy him when I am working a lot.

6. Our tulips from Holland are starting to come up, I can’t wait to see what they look like (Except our dogs keep running over them, sigh….)

7. We went hiking with our dogs along one of the waterfalls in the mountains just 40 minutes away from our house on a beautiful warm sunny day last weekend. They hiked for two miles without any complaints, and it wasn’t an easy hike (wasn’t hard either, though). I was very impressed with their stamina for such little dogs!

8. We’re going to hear the Oregon opera do the Magic Flute for my birthday in May. It’s my favorite opera, so I’m very excited!

9. Frank finally managed to find us a church whose style we seem to like, though it seems full of yuppies. I’m trying hard not to become a yuppie.

10. Many of my friends are having babies. I love it. What an affirmation of life and family. Sometimes being a doctor stinks, as it makes having a baby so much more difficult….I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ll never work full time. I want time with my family, time with nature, time for myself. And babies sure need to fit in there somehow!

One more; can’t help; I’m a happy person right now!

11. I was lucky to have many patients on wards this month who reminded me of why I wanted to be a doctor. One patient, who was very ill, greeted me every morning with “how are you?” even when it took him many tries and a lot of gasping to actually get the words out. I couldn’t believe he would still ask me how I was when he was on the brink of death. His family was amazingly sweet and being Asian, pressed gifts of pearl necklaces on the doctors which we could not refuse. Now, normally, we can’t accept gifts from our patients---doctors don’t want to be seen as bribeable, basically. But being a good Asian girl, I understood that it was truly a cultural way of showing appreciation and I was quite touched. He ended up dying, which was sad but not sad. Because I knew he had lived a good long life, and a gracious one, even to the literal end of his days, and he left behind a legacy of love and graciousness in his family. I may not like paperwork or bureaucracy or insurance companies or many of the hoops I have to go through as a doctor, but in the end, I’m happy to say that the times of interactions I have with my patients, and knowing that I’m helping them even a little, makes this all worth it.