AIrports are lame . . . but it sure beats driving

 love people. But I hate the horrible things they do.

What would possess anybody in their right mind to go into an elementary school and shoot a gun at children? My heart breaks when I hear tragic news like this. Where is God in this situation? I can only pray that he is holding the broken hearts of the parents, family, and friends as he leads the new little angels home. I simply can not imagine this situation, and want to be home with my babies so I can hug them so tightly and cherish all my moments with them.

Life is too short, and I have seen firsthand the tragedies and diseases that can rip families apart from one another. They say that by the end of medical shool, you’ve usually seen enough to become numb to terrible events; you lose your empathy so that you are capable of doing your job and moving on to the next patient who needs your knowledge and attention. This has not happened to me, I still am considered to be overly empathetic, which is clear to the others around me at the airport as I’m crying my eyes out over the children in CT. Furthermore, I do not want to lose my empathy – it’s part of who I am, and the reason that I will be a great doctor. Who wants a cold, emotionless psychiatrist? Certainly not me! Surgeon maybe, psychiatrist definitely not.

I loved the NICU, and believe I would have made an excellent neonatologist and would have loved it, however, I would go home in tears nearly everyday.  I still pray for the patients that I cared for last month in the NICU, though I heard from one of the residents the littlest baby of mine passed away about a week after I left L

Maybe I am too emotional to be a doctor.

Worst experience thus far as a medical student:

Toward the middle of my two weeks in Emergency Medicine this year, a young girl was wheeled into the ED - clearly she was extremely anxious, face pale, hyperventilating and holding her chest. I immediately recognized her as a patient I had worked with previously on my Internal Medicine rotation a few months earlier. She had the misfortune of having post-partum cardiomyopathy (in english this means that a few weeks after delivering her baby, her heart went into failure for reasons we still don’t understand, it is a rare and very severe occurrence after pregnancy). She had been discharged to another hospital the last time I saw her, so that she could get more specialized care. Apparently, in the meantime she had been released and though her outcome was hopeful, she had basically given up on life. Her mother reported that she had not left the house, rarely talked to anybody, and was not taking care of herself – not showering, eating, or even getting up from the couch to use the bathroom. She also blamed her beautiful baby girl for her killing her, she said she knew she was going to die. Obviously she was going through some major depression, and she also suffered from panic attacks, fearing her imminent death. I felt sad speaking to her, and wished I could just hug her.

She had been on the way to the hospital for a blood transfusion when a panic attack set in, as being in a hospital made her endlessly nervous that she would never leave again. After only a few short minutes in her ED room, her heart started racing, her heart that was operating at only about 15percent of normal. Unfortunately, her heart could not handle the stress, and stopped altogether.

I was there for the whole thing. I watched as they pushed medication after medication into her veins. I observed tubes being shoved down her throat to get an airline in.  I performed chest compressions on her, pushing with all my might to the beat of “staying alive” as I had been instructed (how ironic). I watched as the cardiologist hurried to her side and did an ultrasound of her heart. As I was pumping on her chest, which was covered with dirt, sweat and cigarette burns, the cardiologist showed me how I was making her heart work, and when I stopped compressions, her heart failed to push any blood on its own. And I was there when they told me to stop compressions and she was pronounced dead. It was truly awful.

What was worse was being there as the ER doctor and the cardiologist sat down with her family and told them that, despite their best efforts, their daughter was gone. The mother’s cry of horror, and the patient’s baby girl staring at me with unknowing, innocent will haunt me forever.

I still had three more hours to work that night, but I simply could not handle it. Without telling anybody, I walked out the door to my car, and left, crying tears for the mother who lost her daughter, and for the baby who would never know her mother.

Sadly, this is only one experience of what will be many unfortunate events. I don’t know how many more I can handle.

On that note, I’m gonna look at pictures of my happy babies to cheer myself up . . .