full moon call night

Shortly after dinner this evening, I was summoned up to casualty to see a patient by Mercy, my on-call intern, and incidentally discovered a beautiful full moon. I'm a person who finds the full moon to be enchanting and would happily sit underneath it for hours just appreciating its beauty (well, I would until the mosquitoes start to get friendly, anyway). So upon my return from the hospital, I zipped up my fleece, perched on the balcony steps, and spent some time watching the moonlight silhouette the trees and listening to the thunder of the river flowing over the dam down the hill. It hasn't rained in almost two days and the skies are fairly clear tonight, though in the bright moonlight, the stars are fading into the background. Peaceful.

My camera can't quite capture the magic.

Fully twenty four hours have  passed since I started thinking about writing another post, but the honest truth is that I feel like I don't have all that much of import to relate. I mulled it over this morning, wondering if the comfortable routine of the last few days is somehow wrong. As if I'm not paying enough attention - to the work at the hospital? to God? - and I'm going to find myself back on a plane for the States having missed out on... something. But needing to feel something profound every day can be a trap, too, and can get in the way of obedience to a simple call to serve. I've been going through the Psalms in the mornings and made it to Psalm 121 today: I lift my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? Especially here, where I'm surrounded by hills, I love that verse, and I'm trying to remember it every time I look out the window at the hospital, just to stay grounded.

The hills.

So. While the day-to-day hasn't been highly eventful, it has been quite pleasant. And - up until yesterday - periodically monsoon-ish. On Tuesday, I practically swam down the hill after work to have dinner with Jen and Todd Lavery, who are here for two years through the SP Post-Residency Program. Jen and I were introduced via email by a mutual friend, and this was our first opportunity to meet. Dinner was falafel (I think I need the recipe), flatbread, cucumber salad, artichokes, and lots of enjoyable conversation, followed by an introduction to a 1970's-era Parker Brothers game called Waterworks. It's rather mindless fun, and a great way to spend an evening with cool people. I found it on ebay yesterday... I'm a little bit tempted to buy it.

This week the peds ward team has been over-generously staffed, with five interns and a medical student, and rounds have been pleasant and - rather notably - devoid of emergencies. Mercy and I were even reflecting that none of the ever-so-numerous babies in nursery are particularly ill right now, which is a huge blessing. We have had a few challenging cases, including a teenage boy who was referred to us almost a week ago in a coma from which he never awoke and never had a clear diagnosis in spite of our best efforts. Knowing his prognosis, we offered his parents the chance to take him home today, rather than stay in the hospital while the bill increased every day, but they declined. It seemed cruel to hope that he would die quickly rather than linger and increase the expense to his family. But when Mercy was urgently paged to the ward just a few minutes ago while we were on the phone, and I called ahead to find out why, they told me that he had stopped breathing. I can't help thinking that it's merciful that he's no longer suffering and that his family is no longer living in uncertainty. The interns and one of the chaplains had spent quite a bit of time with his relatives, and they understood his prognosis, but I always fear that grieving without a clear answer as to what happened is very hard for families. Pray for them.

On a lighter note, today was the last day for one of our MO interns, as he's graduating on Saturday with his classmates, and we lingered in the nursery after rounds, taking team pictures. Notably absent from the team picture is Chuck Bemm, the long-term pediatrician who also oversees the all of the interns and seems to be pulled in about five or six different directions every minute of every day. Perhaps we'll get one with him at graduation...

Joram, Benta, Paul, Dennis, Mike, Mercy, and me.

I won't deny that while I've enjoyed the rhythm of this week at the hospital, I am a little bit looking forward to having the weekend off. Okay... more than a little bit. I'll try to write more then and will hopefully have more of substance to report, but if it doesn't happen, just know that I'm having fun and loving being here. I'm going to try closing my eyes for a bit, as there are apparently four vomiting siblings in casualty that I'm sure I'm going to hear more about later, and I'd love to get some rest before then. It sounds like they drank some bad fermented milk - I wish I was being redundant by saying that, but I'm not - and I'm just crossing my fingers they'll keep down their ORS. I'll leave you with a picture of a little guy I watched wheeling around outside the ward for most of the day before I asked him if I could take his picture. He seemed really attached to this chair, and would careen around, crashing into walls and posts without seeming fazed in the least.

Not sure I'd let him drive me anywhere...

Hysterical.