VA Day

The Veterans Day walk at the VA Hospital was a wonderful success.

It was a special year in that both the OHSU President and the Dean of the School of Medicine published letters commemorating the day and thanking veterans.  As I understand it, Rob West and Kathleen McFall in the Dean’s Office encouraged that to happen. I hope Rob and Kathleen, and Drs. Robertson and Richardson will accept my sincere thanks for that. I truly think veterans deserve to be remembered. Collectively and individually, they certainly made that happen.

We had nine students, a veteran friend of mine, and two gracious physicians give of their time.  They were Drs. Mark Deffebach and Jennifer LeTourneau, Julie Doberne, Annika Giesbrecht, Geoff Maly, Andrew Peckham, Mackenzie Farley, Nick Eglitis, Natalie Wu, and Albert Alaniz. Rob West also took photos. Thank you all for your kindness and willingness to give these folks a few hours out of your busy schedules. While we can’t discuss details due to privacy concerns, here are some allowable excerpts from the encounters:

"I held one veteran’s hand as he cried and described American aviator POWs being stoned to death in the streets before they could be liberated."

"I hugged a lady whose veteran partner will die in a couple of months from his lymphoma."

"One veteran told us about the way the Korean winter caused a deep ache in his newly-healed bullet-hole when he would lie on the ground at 35 below."

"One lady said that in her 50 years of being a veteran, no one had ever told her thank you."

Many asked us to stay longer. Some cried as they thanked us when we left.  It is such an honor to share a few moments with people with such huge hearts and to understand how it gives them great joy and a sense of pride and sometimes needed relief to be able to tell their stories.  I confess that sometimes I don’t do that as well as I would like, but I believe we truly made a difference for them yesterday. I know they made a difference in me.

Overall, we had tremendous support and genuinely positive feedback from the OHSU and VA communities. Thank you all for coming. Thank you all for adding good moments to the lives of these veterans as you honored their sacrifices. You guys are awesome. Will look for you next year.

Busy Week

Feels better to be feeling better.  This last illness was a doozy. Took the last of the antibiotic yesterday but am still blowing my nose and dragging stuff out of the lungs as though the vestiges of a viral infection are finally being conquered, too.  Good riddance.

Finished the make-up final and a PCM exam just fine.  Didn’t do as well as desired, but it will just have to be okay.  :0)  Can’t be at the top of your game every time.  Grades are  a great rough marker, I think.  Motivation and capacity are fairly well reflected in them.  Hopefully, we use them in a more personal way in order to guide ourselves down our own path rather than fearing how others may guide us down a path that they control.  Although there is an established framework here, we still have a great deal of room to choose and grow as we become something new.

Will do lots of reading this weekend and try to get caught up.  Lots of good stuff to learn.  Will squeeze in a run or two if I can...  :0)

Distraction

Have been sick the last week and a half.  One of the bad ones where you really can't get much done and there are a few days where you really don't function well at all.  Kept running into things, and words were turned around.  Hopefully, I didn't hurt anyone's feelings by saying something inappropriately.  Some days I wonder if this old immune system is cut out for this kind of work.... - My days have been marked by the pills I am taking.  Decided I had better write down the times I was taking them because I would be convinced I had taken one, and the paper said I had not.  I would count the pills in the bottle, and the paper was consistently correct.  Am starting to feel normal again today. 

Good thing, too, because I have to take a make-up final tomorrow.  Was unable to take it on Friday.  Was able to study some yesterday and will do my best today to go over the material.  Will be all of the material since school started.  Close to 1500 pages worth of syllabus.  How will I go over it in one day?  Who knows.  Why am I writing here instead of studying?  Distraction.  Avoidance.  It's something real I can share.  Lots of reasons, I suppose.  Will do what I can.

Have been lacking motivation lately.  Maybe just the illness.  Seems to have been going on for awhile, though.  Seems to be related to a sense of isolation here.  Am just very different from my classmates and never feel connected to the process here.  Never feel truly accepted.  Only nominally.  I know it's not their fault.  How can you connect with something you can't have possibly experienced?  Being the oldest out of 500 people isn't an easy thing to be.  Being the only anything is hard, I would guess.  I have always wanted to do something for orphans.  Maybe this will help me understand better how they feel.  Maybe.  Even the silver lining isn't very shiny today.  I have other things to write, but will not.  Back to the syllabus.