"You believed me"

Today was a really rough day in the clinic.

I let the entire morning pass by with only one or two charts completed. It usually starts with being behind on one chart...and then it is just a cascade of ugliness thereafter.

It started with my first patient.

An African-American man in his early 60's, he stuck out like a sore thumb at our predominantly Asian clinic. He is one of my favorite patients. He is hesitant to take medications, but he is always willing to try his hardest to modify his lifestyle so that he can achieve certain health outcomes.

He was incarcerated for nearly a decade for assault with a deadly weapon. He was trying to protect his 9-year-old niece from an adult who was trying to harm her.

After his release, he moved to Seattle to work. He was injured on the job and now has chronic ankle pain caused by that accident. This injury eventually cost him the job. He has only been volunteering here and there. Nobody is willing to hire him with his past criminal record and physical limitations. He felt depressed and was having a lot of trouble with insomnia.

I started seeing him shortly after starting my position at the clinic. He is one of my longest standing patient who follows up with me regularly for a variety of chronic conditions. I connected him with our behavioral health team to discuss sleep hygiene initially, hoping that he would continue to follow up with them to explore issues of depression. He did!

He came in to see me yesterday after a few months being away. He was grinning ear to ear. He had ankle surgery in February and he is feeling so much better. All his other chronic conditions are improving, too, including his sleep troubles and depression!

Before the visit ended, I asked if he had any other questions or concerns.

He only said, trying to hold back tears, "I just want to thank you. So many people didn't believe me. But you believed me. You believed I was in real pain. And you tried everything to help me. And now I feel so much better after this surgery! Thank you!"

Some days, I just need a tangible reminder that I love what I do.

I was made to do this...and more.

A new season

There are plenty of biblical references to living our lives in seasons. I am starting to discover, acknowledge, and embrace these seasons. Particularly, I am learning to live in the current season.

It was completely pissing me off a few weeks ago that people were already talking about pumpkin-spiced crap while it was still summer (yes, I have an anger issue...and I'm totally not dealing with it).

But now that it is the cold season, here are things I'm going to be looking forward to:

• Hot pot - yessssss!!
• Pretty leaves
• Costume parties
• Candy overload from Halloween
• Wearing the 1,200 turtleneck sweaters I own
• Baking
• Chai tea
• Crock pot cooking
• Making cháo/粥 (congee)
• Christmas music
• Candles
• Winter gourds
• Wearing tights
• Chicken noodle soup
• Digging for razor clams...with our kids
• New TV season!

What are you looking forward to this season?

Clam digging 2008

Parenting...is hard

Ain't that the truth.

As a friend has reflected, "Have to say, I sometimes want to go back in time and smack my pre-parent self for being judgy."

I just feel that no matter what I'm doing, I'm doing it wrong...and I'm also doing it awesomely. There is intense cognitive dissonance between my beliefs about parenting and the extreme spurts of anger I often feel when, well, I'm tired of being a grown up.

Anyway, there are so many articles these days about parenting. How it's hard. How people are judgy. But it's okay, dang it! So don't be too hard on yourself. In response to these articles, I'd like to say, "B*tch please!" I've been lazy-parenting since I developed ovaries.

I am, however, constantly thinking about how my actions (or behavior, rather) affect the kids. I am yelling a lot these days. And I'm nearly convinced that I may have borderline personality disorder. One moment I'm so deeply thankful for my kids, and the next I want to strangle them (not literally, never, ever; please don't call CPS). I'm grateful that there is grace in all of this mess. Consider: God is the perfect parent, but how screwed up am I?! Rather than striving for perfection in this parenting thing, I really should be praying more. I really should be trusting more.

Also, I'd just appreciate some more sleep. And to poop in peace.

So, yes, I was on my phone while pooping

Woohoo! That's two blog posts on two consecutive days! This is part of something new that I'm trying: blogging for 5 minutes each day. Partly to emote. Partly because I'm procrastinating (senioritis, you know).

Blink

I blinked.

And my baby is now a toddler...

 ...and my toddler, a preschooler.

Taking it all in.

Coming to terms with not going to term

I need to do it.

I just need to wrap my head around the fact that I am not going to carry Marcus (Baby Chestnut) to full term.

I am disappointed and frustrated.  That's normal, right?

Last night around midnight, I was trying to take it easy just laying on the futon and pretending to review some material for my upcoming finals when a series of frequent contractions hit me.  They started out as been about 10 minutes apart.  And then they got closer and closer together, averaging about 5 minutes apart (some were 3).  In addition, a new symptom arose: deep sacral pressure.  The contractions weren't painful, just a little uncomfortable.  Before I went through childbirth, I would have ranked them 4 or 5/10 on a pain scale.  After childbirth, 2/10. Yes, M'am, knowing what a 10/10 pain is definitely shifts one's perspective!

I thought about it and thought about it.  Finally, I called the Family Beginnings Unit to ask if I should come in.  After answering a few questions (contractions getting more frequent & painful, no leaking fluids, no change in discharge, lots of fetal movements, etc.) they decided I should definitely come in.  The triage nurse said, "I'm seeing in the chart here that the last time you labored, it was only for 1.5 hours.  So...yes, please come in now!"

Then I still debated on whether to come in.  Now contractions were consistently under 5 minutes apart.  At around 3am, I asked Chin to drive me in to Seattle.

SR-520 is closed this weekend for construction so we had to take the long route to the hospital. *shakes fist* There, they monitored me for what seemed like an eternity, checked my cervix, and took a sample of urine just in case some hidden infection is causing all this preterm labor ruckus.  What they gathered was:

• My contractions slowed down to 5-7 minutes apart, but that was still frequent enough for them to be concerned about impending true labor.
• Dilation: 2
• Effacement: 70%
• Station: +1 (which explains the sacral pressure)

Camille was born at exactly 37 weeks (term).  I am currently at 35 weeks and 1 day.  The midwife who was there last night does not think that Marcus will make it to 37 weeks.  She predicts that he will be here by the end of this coming week.

She also gave us some good advice about coming to terms with the things that aren't ideal in this scenario:

• SR-520 is closed until Monday morning. That means we need to find alternate routes if things progress quickly before the weekend is over.
• Our trusty friend & doula, Tara, will be out of town until Thursday evening. No working around that :(
• If labor seems to be progressing quickly and/or traffic looks dismal, we need to get to Overlake Hospital (less than 2 miles from our house).
• I need to stay off my feet (or, rather, keep baby off my cervix) to hopefully increase my chances of keeping Marcus in for as long as possible. That means not being able to make it to church today (a huge disappointment because there is a pot luck today...and there ain't no pot luck like an RAC pot luck cuz and RAC pot luck don't stop!), possibly not being able to make it to my final on campus tomorrow, no play date for Lauren & Camille on Thursday, no traveling to Oregon to work on doing a surprise makeover of my sister's sewing room, no class reunion with my beloved MEPN friends next weekend, and no going to Lucky Buffet with the Ng cousins to celebrate Father's Day.
• Finally, if he arrives before 37 weeks (which is very likely at this point), he may be tiny, he may need to stay in the hospital longer, he may not be a good feeder, he may not have awesome lungs, etc.  Little boy...I really hope he stays in longer.

I mentioned this in my last post, but I am not done nesting, dangit!!

There are lots of things I still need/want to do around the house:

sort all the hand-me-downs for Marcus

somehow turn our dark gray bedroom into this serene oasis

attach the co-sleeper to our bed

do this for the little nook in our bedroom where
Marcus's mini crib will eventually go

do this thingamajig for the kids' room

and this funky idea with the Ikea-spice-rack-turned-bookcase

make & put up curtains in our living room

do this photo collage thing that I've been
meaning to do for months

And I still need to finish my Father's Day project for Chin, too. :-/

Have I already mentioned that Pinterest is slowly ruining my life?! It gives me the illusion that I can sew, do crafty carpentry, know how to cleverly organize all my crap, and live in a region where the sun perpetually shines. And I'm like, "Yeah, my house can totally look like that!" Sad.

Anyway, that's my rant.  I just need to get over it.  Get my poop in a group.  Finish this flippin' academic quarter.  And get physically/emotionally/spiritually ready for Marcus's early arrival.

It's disappointing, exciting, scary, frustrating, and wonderful.

I know nothing of heaven

Yesterday on the drive home from my clinical rotation, I got to listen to this poignant story on NPR (yes, poignant = basically the word used to describe most NPR stories).  The piece was about a minister who, through a discovery process, found that she no longer believed in God.

Teresa McBain, the minister who discovered she is an atheist, retells the story of her struggle in her final days as a clergy person when she was tasked to preach things she no longer believed.

My heart went out to her.

Teresa, of course you felt confused.  Of course you felt frustrated by the inconsistencies you see in the Bible.  Of course you would feel like you were living a lie preaching sermons you don't believe.

She deserved to own all those emotions.

I believe that God lets her feel all the things she feels.  He lets her choose all the things she wants to choose.

Toward the end of the story, I felt hot tears streaming down my face.  It was this line that struck me the most:

Interviewer: I don't hear you say that you miss God.

Teresa: Uh, no, no...  I can't say that I do.

I felt a sharp pain in my heart.  At that point, I realized that God was teaching me one of the primary reasons why He made me a parent: That I could feel a deep emotion that God would feel as a parent.

My heart went out to God.

I know my kids will one day think that I am stupid.  They will one day find that they don't need me.  But I hope that they won't choose to walk away.  That would break my heart.  Much the same way that God's heart is broken when we choose to walk away from Him.  Yet He allows it...because He is a God of freedom.

Through a simple story, God teaches me a dual lesson about the purpose of being a child (with lots of teen angst) and being a parent.

Teresa talks about heaven and hell and where she thinks she might end up...

I know nothing of heaven.

But I do know that while I am on earth, there is a fulfillment in my soul that can only be achieved when I choose to be close to God.  That is a joy that I get to keep while I am here...in the present.

Heaven is a bonus.  And hopefully a wonderful one.

Why bother?

I've been struggling a lot in my prayer life lately.  It is painful.  But in a way, I welcome this struggle because any interaction I have with God is a good thing.

In recent years, God has been taking me to hard places where it is difficult to praise His name.  It is in these dark places where the most bitter sweet songs of praise arise.

But sometimes I don't want to sing.

Sometimes I ask God why I bother asking Him for anything.  For the life of my nephews David and Benjamin.  For the baby I miscarried early in 2009.  For our daughter Penelope.  For my nephew Caleb.  And most recently, for our friend Dwight.  

Please, don't ask me to think of "all the other miracles" in my life.  I get it.  They're great.  Whatever.

Why do I even bother to pray for miracles anymore?  And how do I pray for them?  How do I petition to God whole-heartedly, while at the same time bracing myself for the worst?  I feel incapable of praying with abandon anymore.

It seems that every time something tragic happens, God takes me to the valley and asks, "Am I still your King?  Am I still your first love?"  It gets more difficult to answer Him as the valley seems to get darker and darker.

Then I realize...it's not about me.  It's not even about my perception of the darkness in the valley.  It's all about God's constancy. 

This song helps me in those times.  But I cry every time I hear it...because I still don't see the bigger picture.



Lord, please forgive me if I have shamed Your Name in any way.  I still love You with all my heart.  I just wish I could be more...daring.  Please keep working on me.

You are still my King.

You are still my First Love.