When I first started this whole doctor thing, people would say, "It must be so hard to be around sick and dying kids." Yeah, I guess, I would reply, and brush it off, because I hadn't seen the really sick, and I hadn't seen the dying. Pretty much everyone got better and went home, and I thought, this isn't so hard after all. Children are resilient, and medicine has advanced so much. We're in the business of curing kids!
Then came the first death, and the second, and then Heme/Onc, and the NICU. And now every time another "Death Notice" email comes through my Inbox, I cringe, because now I know their names. I remember their faces and their voices, their rooms, their parents, their pajamas and their favorite gatorade flavors. And it's awful. I keep trying to think of a "but" statement, like "but it's worth it" or "but I'm grateful to be a part of it" except that today, getting another email, and remembering yet another face, I don't have a silver lining. It's just hard.
1 comment:
Nowhere is it written that life is easy, but we know that life can sometimes be hard, even to the point of painful. As Mary suffered the 7 sorrows she asks us to use our suffering and pain to be strong for others to show the love of God.
As iron sharpens iron,
so one man (child) sharpens another. Proverbs 27:17
Remember that being strong doesn't mean that you can't be soft and caring.
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