End of an Era

So I've developed a unique habit of going to bed by 8:30 or 9 p.m. and watching something fulfilling and life-giving such as "The Cosby Show" or "Full House."  But that's only if "Friends" or "Chopped" isn't on.  I'm so not a television person and it's on in the background as I read.  There's something comforting about Rudy Huxtable and Uncle Jesse....

I feel tapped out.  I'm not complaining, mind you (!), just jotting down my feelings.  This past weekend was exhausting to me.  A dear old friend of mine visited for a few days and while it was nice to see her, it reminded me of how divergent our lives have become.  She's become the quintessential mom who makes all the organic food mixes and home-made lotions and lip balms.  I.....don't have children and I don't have time to go buy lip balm.  The visit illustrated the vast differences in our lives.  It was difficult to counter each story about a 3-year old's life journey with a tale about a lawsuit at work or an accreditation survey.  She wanted to talk about parenting ethics and psychology and I wanted to discuss current events (what in the HECK happened to that Malaysian Airlines flight?!).  I wanted to share cheese and wine and talk about career trajectory and she wanted to drink water and discuss parenting philosophies.

We both wanted different things.  It somehow turned into a friendly, polite discussion of who has the harder life.  Me, with my crazy hours and stress?  Her, with her children and educational position?  It's not even apples to apples; it's like comparing apples to Camry's.   I sort of understand what people mean when they say "irreconcilable differences" now.  

It felt a little like oil and water.  No matter how hard we tried to reconcile our differences, it was just different.  I love her like a sister but even despite my efforts to let the differences go, I couldn't help but mourn things a bit.  I felt a pit at the bottom of my stomach.  In the words of Friends, it was "the end of an era."  I had a feeling I wouldn't see her for a while, until our divergent lives turned a little and our paths could intersect once again.  

After I dropped her off at the airport, I drove home thinking about my life.  I like my life.  I LOVE my life.  When I contrast the life I could have had against my current life, I suddenly realize that God knew what He was doing when He directed me down a certian path.  Sometimes I can't say I'm giddy happy about my job but there are times when I can't help but smile about how things are going.  Is it tough?  Of course.  Not having children is very diffficult and because I look young for my age, I still get the question ever week or two, about how "someday" I'll have babies.  People tell me that I'll "soon understand it all" when we have babies.  Heck, I can't even eat Saltine crackers without people thinking I'm cooking a muffin in the oven.  

But that's not what God wanted for Jack and me.  And it's okay.  I've come to accept this fate and instead, we host friends and dinner parties and go out on random Wednesdays with my doctors at work who need to blow off steam while watching Pacers games.  

Sometimes I wish others would realize that God's different plan for us is different.  Sometimes God has crazy plans for us that illustrate His sense of humor.  All that matters is that I love my life and its direction....even if we divert from the norm.  

Hey, I had a small serving off French Fries for dinner!  How many parents can do that?!

I Saw My Brain Today

I complain a lot about my job, I know that.  This Lent is proving to be a challenge!

Today, I experienced one of the 492 perks of my job in Radiology.  Whenever we buy a new piece of imaging equipment, Imaging staff and radiologists get to be guinea pigs so the technologists can train on the applications.  They solicit people with ailments so they can test their new toys.  This time, it was MRI and I was approached last week to see which test I wanted to try.  Not IF I wanted to try one, but WHICH ONE I wanted to try.  

Being the eternal masochist that I am, I picked a brain MRA/MRI.  I was the first person to have a brain MRA in the hospital and our healthcare system.  Heck, why not.  

Have you seen the movie "Gravity" yet?  You will not be disappointed.  The cinematography was awesome; you actually feel dizzy when you see the bottom side of the earth from space.  Anyway, there are multiple scenes where people [Sandra Bullock and George Clooney] are floating around space in the constricting space suits.  You almost want to hyperventilate watching the movie, knowing you shouldn't breathe in space.

I wore a space suit today.  In MRI.  On a Wednesday.  At 3 p.m.  The team leader called my office and said "Table for 1, no waiting."  After giggling at that and doning the biggest metal necklace I could find, I entered the MRI department (the suite, not the scan room itself).  The metal necklace was a joke, of course (you can't take metal anywhere near the magnet), and I wanted to make the techs laugh.  

For a brain MRI, you lay on the table and rest your head in the head coil (it's like a little plastic vice that holds your head still).  Then they close the coil over your head, so you have a small window of vision the size of a visor.  Then they put the headphones on you so you can listen to whatever radio station you want.  Then they wrap you in blankets so that you stay warm in the 58 degree room.  Then, mummified in a space suit, they raise up the table and into the bore/tube you go.  

It was then that I realized why 90% of brain scan patients require valium as a pre-treatment to relax.  It's a tight fit.  I promised myself that I WOULD make it through this scan.  Very few people can make it thorugh 30 minutes as a mummy, in a small casket-like tube, with loud sequencing sounds bouncing through your head.  At one point, my head became hot.  I don't want to insult your intelligence but magnetic resonance imaging "works" by bouncing radiofrequency (RF) waves back and forth between the magnet.  The RF waves cut through you.  I swore I could feel them.  And my head did get physically warm [that is when you picture your head exploding in a gory mess and the CSI people have to come to investigate your untimely death].  I also experienced head-rocking waves of RF that physically moved my head millimeters at a time.  3 Tesla is a very powerful magnet.  

So I am encased in the MRI tube, possibly enshrined forever [Seriously, your head does some funky stuff when you know you physically can't get out of the restraints you're in.  I get the whole Valium thing now.].  Classic rock is piping through the earbuds and I try to picture myself on the beach.  It's warm, loud, and I challenge myself to keep my eyes closed the entire time so I don't freak out.  It's EXTREMELY hard to keep your eyes closed for 30 minutes when you're nervous and mummified.

But I had no choice...I had some serious props to earn with the MRI staff.  They cannot handle being in the bore for brain MRI/MRA.  Claustrophobia is a very real illness.  Once I figured out that I would truly be encased in my classic rock-wired space suit, I knew there was no going back.  Turns out that I earned some great respect from not only the MRI technologists but also a few of the radiologists.  They tried out GE's new silent brain scan technology on me and a whole gaggle of radiologists reported to the control room to watch my scan.

Good thing I grabbed my pink sequined slippers for the exam.  Seriously.  Picture me, encased in my space suit, covered in blankets (in scrubs), and so far into the tube that all you could see of me was from my knees down.  And my fancy sequined pink slippers, peeking out from under my blankets.  I'm sure there are pictures of that gracing the social media sites.  It's not technically a HIPAA violation (LOL).

So once my heart rate slowed and I calmed myseff down, I actually relaxed in the scanner.  I dozed for a while.  I debated dinner options.  I said one very slow "Our Father."  I listened to the words of Steve Miller Band's "Joker" and caught myself wiggling my feet to the beat of the music when Journey's "Separate Ways" came on.  Which was followed by about 9 people laughing at me over the intercom.  

But I did it.  28 minutes and I did not open my eyes.  Talk about self control (that I didn't think I had).

After the scan, I looked at my images and it was creepy.  CREEPY.  To see the ridges in my brain, my vasculature, and the backs of my eyes.  I could even tell I had contacts in.  In one very surreal black and white 3D front-on image of my whole head, I could see the fusions of my skull and then the blood vessels under my scalp.  That was eerie, as I was looking at myself and could see THROUGH myself.  I tend to feel somewhat invincible but when you see your own skull as though you're looking in a mirror, it's unsettling.  I also kept thinking, "Is my nose really that big?"  

One of the techs chided me about having 8 dental fillings and tiny flecks of metal in my eye shadow.  There are no secrets in my head now and not surprisingly, I am very relieved that I have a normal brain anatomy and physiology.  Ever since my bout of vertigo, I sort of wondered if I had something brewing.  Guess not.  It's just stress.

So I put my suit back on and headed to my office.  On the way, I ran into my interventionalist.  He asked me what I was up to and I mentioned that I just had a diagnostic brain MRA/MRI in the new 3T.  

His response was, "you did that for fun!?  You need to get out more!"

Touche.  But at least I survived my first brain scan without requiring Valium!  

On the Stupidity of Challenging God

So here's a funny story...

I'm recording this more for my own personal accountability than to entertain you.

Yesterday, I dragged myself through about 16 academic articles on Aquinas' theories of God's veracity (basically, proofs that God is all good and because of His nature, He cannot lie) and flipped through a couple of books.  I was struggling to reference a concept I had in my mind, about how it's contradictory for God to lie since it counteracts His entire existence.  

The little hamsters in my brain's wheel went round and round.  Finally, it hit me.  

Descartes.  Descartes was the philosopher that said that.  I reached around me and pulled that book off my bookcase in the library.  

I always feel super cool to be able to use books from my undergrad theo and philo degrees as academic references in grad school.  Sometimes, like in this case, it's actually a primary reference (as opposed to a secondary reference, as through someone writing ABOUT Descartes.  These types of primary citations usually win you substantial brownie points in Dogmatic Theology Professor World).

ANYWAY, I took a break in the late morning to convince Jack to go on a long neighborhood walk with me.  It was sunny and 50 and we had this terrrible winter storm (snow, sleet, hail, ice, locusts) due in by evening.  I HAD to get outside. And expose my pale, Eastern European skin to the Vitamin D gods.  

We went for a glorious walk.  It was glorious.  Did I mention that it was great?  Some of its greatness, of course, originated in the break from good ol' Thomas.  The other snippet of greatness came from the fact that I knew I had to have a quick evening and crash early, since I was scheduled to help run the hospital during the storm.  My shift was from midnight to 8 a.m.  

SO during the walk, I complained and complained to Jack, about how I never get any down time.  A stupid Aquinas paper AND an accreditation survey AND a freaking snowstorm?  UGH.  Why can't I ever get a stinkin' break!?!?!

In the middle of our suburban street, on a 50-degree Saturday, I uttered "If I don't have to cover the hospital tonight, I will never complain about Thomas Aquinas ever again."

When we got home, Jack promptly started perking a pot of chili.  I returned to my paper-writing, shoulders hunching over medieval epistemology that rang very distant bells in my undergrad head.

I then received a text message from the Administrator on Call, about how I was not needed until 5 a.m. Sunday.  YEEEEHAAAW!

I was able to break out the Saturday Night Vino (second only to Saturday Night Live)!

Jack and I had a wonderful, surprise Saturday night together and celebrated by challenging each other to Wii tennis, 100-pin bowling, and frisbee golf.  I think I tore my rotator cuff.

I set my alarm for 3:30 a.m. so I could check texts and emails for further updates.  Upon waking from a very vivid dream where I accidently infested an old gothic church with wasps and then somehow burned it down (no, I did not take Ambien), I checked all my correspondance.  

Nothing.  Crickets chirping.  I whooped for joy, set the alarm for 6, then went back to sleep.  

Same story at 6:00 (minus the church arson part).  So I let myself sleep until the glorious hour of 8:00 a.m.  Jack served me coffee in bed and we finally ambled downstairs to cook brunch.

I received the email at 11:06 a.m., that the command center at the hospital was not going to be opening and that they were calling off the coverage schedule.  (!!!!!!)  The forecasted storm was nothing too crazy; we did receive a small bit of ice and maybe 2" of snow, but people were still out in the neighborhood, walking their dogs and exercising.  

At 11:07 a.m., I realized that God fulfilled His end of the deal.  I did not have to sacrifice a much-needed Saturday night and Sunday of rest.  I have to now uphold my end of the bargain:

I can never complain about St. Thomas ever again.  

God - 1, Dorrie - 0!