Gravity

Today (well, really yesterday as it's 4:34am right now) was an emotional day. As I paused to reflect on my last 2 weeks...4 weeks...and year...I couldn't help but feel blessed beyond measure, stretched towards strain, and raw with emotion. Even as I write this, I feel my heart rising towards my throat and my eyes become watery. Thank you God for taking me through this year. Thank You for allowing me to feel again after experiencing bitterness and hardness from observing unspeakable injustice in Angola. I'm discovering that there is alot of gravity to life.

Today was the end of my 4 week clinical block elective. In mid November we finished the 'classroom/book/tutorial' portion of school and have delved into full-time clinical work ever since. In Jan 2005, the hard core clerkship truly begins.

Something interesting has struck a deep cord within me in the last 2 weeks. I'm realising that I love thinking & mauling through issues, I absolutely love working with patients and their families, and that life is truly complex and painful. Although I can distance myself to a certain extent in my professional work, I find it near impossible to shake off the profound implications it might bring. How can one NOT be affected by the events of one's day if it involved certifying a death or reading through a lab report that points towards cancer?

Over the past few weeks, i have barely had time to sleep with all the 'non-medicine' committments I enjoy doing. I have had an average of 3-4 hours of sleep per night in the past few days. I'm exhausted beyond articulation. But well worth it. I will crash and pass out on the plane ride later today back to BC.

There is so much to be thankful for....the fact that it looks like my EEG and MRI (head) is normal... and that symptomatically, i am feeling so so so much better than a month before (4th concussion)...and a truly awesome experience in the past 4 weeks with tremendous preceptors in medicine....and the opportunity to do things that make me tick...and a chance to build new or further old relationships.....and an opportunity to be really watch God at work in the ministries around me.

'hi' to everyone...with love,
shermeen