First half of February

We traveled to AZ for the marathon. David ran the full and the pictured group ran the half. I hadn't run more than 3.5 miles since our 10K for Thanksgiving, so it was ugly. Time was not my focus--I was enjoying a nice therapy session with Lex's therapist friend. I think my time was 2:15--I ran bandit-style, so it was not official. 

Pupusas for the post-race meal:

The girlies getting ready for church:

They traded dresses.

Cool cousins

February 9th marked 54 years since Hector stepped onto US soil. 

We celebrated with Burger King which was Hector's first US meal, the most delicious the 14-year-old had ever had. 

Hydrogenated oil and hormone-laced bovine were not on the Cuban menu. 

Elijah was working and Sybil was mad that I wanted her to share the food:

Sybil's dress-as-your-future-profession day:

She dressed as a nurse because those were the props we had at home.

Bottom left (clown face):

The big, bad news:

about a week before Elijah's birthday, our refrigerator bit the dust, my 205,000-mile van got several repairs, Elijah's phone was stolen at school, 

AND...

an unfortunate parking job, to say the least:

Elijah's first accident: I had asked him a few times that afternoon to please take my van, not David's car. 

If he would have totaled my car, it would have solved more problems than it caused, 

except for the biggest problem: 

mommy vans are not cool. 

Thankfully, the only fatalities were a bush, a small tree, the car (we are pretty sure it's totaled since the front axle is snapped), and Elijah's access to any vehicle with a motor and more than 2 wheels. 

We arrived at the scene with David joking, laughing about all the cars he had totaled as a teenager. I threatened him with domestic violence, which silenced him for a few minutes. 

I will never understand teenage boy brains: When David walked into his 16th birthday party without the family truck (which he had totaled on the Huey P. Long bridge), he tried to tell his parents that his brother had the car. His brother was on a mission in France.  

Humanity

 Today my patient found out that he had stomach cancer that had probably metastasized to his lymph nodes. I went in right after the doctor had given the bad news. His eyes were red. I had to will myself to keep it together. Those moments are raw. It's hard to to describe what they feel like. They are horrible, but  they make life valuable. Not just his, but mine too.

I had moments like those much more often in the hospital, but they came in different forms: a mean man who realized alcohol had ruined his life, was in withdrawal that made his hands shake, he couldn't even walk to the bathroom, but in the next breath was begging for alcohol. A man who told me he had won the lottery, but it had ruined his life. A woman who had to be put on a high air-flow device and cried because she was afraid to die. A family deciding whether to put their father into hospice or place a feeding tube. A woman who hadn't eaten in a week because of a bowel obstruction, but was still cracking jokes. A woman whose abdominal skin had been eaten away and she cried for pain medications to dull her agony. How a new diagnosis of multiple sclerosis had lead the family to the brink of divorce. A young woman with a chronic, painful condition who came in for an abscess created by dirty needle drug use--drugs were her only relief. A man who lived with an ostomy that shot out yellow liquid like a geyser after every meal. The wound nurse scraping away dead tissue from a foot, so deep I could see the ligaments and bone and the patient didn't feel a thing because of neuropathy. A mother and daughter huddled on a bed, trying to decide how to proceed with life after the diagnosis. So many people dropped off by family members who simply couldn't  or wouldn't care for them. An anxiety attack, which exasperated Covid-induced breathing problems. A man with several toe amputations who lamented not taking better care of his body and tried to teach me what it meant to love someone. 

Oh man, the memories are rushing back. Healthcare is a raw place and I had almost forgotten it for the past few months until today. They are painful, but they open my heart. I have applied to start working in a low-income clinic. I don't doubt I will encounter many more raw, human moments. 

Humanity is found in sorrow, but it is also found in joy: