Invincible Summer
Stories and memories have power. This entry is my own deeply personal musing about that, and the major reason why, in large part, this journal exists and why I write in it. A deeply personal reflection written near the end of medical school at U. Michigan: years later, as an oncology fellow at Johns Hopkins, it still speaks for me.
In my worst moments on clinical service, I discovered I'd find something.
In my most exhausted, most shell-shocked moments, it was then I would come out of the room and see something or hear something. See a road map of Michigan which happens to be open to the northwest corner of Michigan and Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes. Or see a framed poster of a rider on horseback on the Mott hospital ward wall. Hear a snatch of music from a doorway that sounds like Road to the Isles. Or the tinny sound of a cell phone playing Chopin. Or I would wake up in my apartment from a ward-triggered nightmare and my eyes would alight on a souvenir or gift from times past. Something, somewhere, at my apartment or at the hospital, would start a chain of memories, and I'll start remembering an evening with glasses and voices raised high by candlelight or campfire. I'll be reminded of a day at the coasters, or a night on the dance floor, or a happy surprise wrapped in tissue paper, or so many other happy memories.
And no matter how bad things were a moment before, I would smile.
No matter where I was, something would remind me of a happy moment, an incredible adventure, a bout of mischief. Remind me of something that you all shared with me during the years of freedom I enjoyed on my research sabbatical, or in my moments free from the wards. There are so many happy memories from these years past, that the things that could potentially remind me of all of you and the adventures we've had are everywhere in my daily life. *Everywhere*. On every ward, in every situation. No matter how bad things got on service, I was always just one thought away from something that could, just for a moment, break the spell, the cycle, the mood, calm the fears, lift the cloud.
And that has turned out to be far more powerful than I could ever have realized.
From petty stupidity to just heartbreaking tragedy, there is a lot -- a *lot* which conspires to beat everyone down on wards, rob you of your spirit, of your passion, of your heart. If nowhere else, in the diaries of my fellow med LiveJournalists, they surely have captured that day-to-day reality far better than I ever could. I thought I intellectually knew what to expect before I started this year. I can't say I honestly was completely prepared for the kinds of moments that would give me lingering nightmares, of doing chest compressions on a half-dead skin-and-bones elderly living corpse; of bloody emergency bedside skull surgery on a car-mangled teen while the parents weep outside. Everyone tries to find some method of coping with all of that. Not everyone succeeds. And a lot of folks -- many of my classmates -- end up resorting to methods as self-destructive as the stress itself.
But what I discovered over the course of this year was that, for me, all those happy memories you all so kindly gave to me, created with me, were powerful. *Very* powerful. Powerful enough to let me not just endure, not just pick back up, but pick back up with a smile. Give me the lift to not just pick myself back up but to encourage my teammates on, in a way that has even made it into official comments my clinical evaluations. All those memories you all have given and still continue to give, all those kindnesses and gifts of friendship, to me they all have proven to be a shield against bitterness and a renewing force dependable, reliable, inexhaustible -- invincible; and a gift more precious than can really be adequately said.
It is true that none of these things are necessary. That it is entirely possible to endure without them. One does not, strictly speaking, need joy, or friendship, or memories of happier times, to survive. One can endure without them, fight on without them, carry on without them. All of that is true. I would endure and carry on without if I had to. But I *don't* have to. Thanks to all of you.
So perhaps the most important thing I learned in the crucible was something I already knew in kindergarden: the people who care about us most, friends and family, are the most valuable gifts we can ever recieve. Thank you, my friends, for all your gifts of kindness and friendship from seasons past, precious gifts that accompany me yet even into the coldest, darkest moments late on call. Thank you, my friends, for all those happy memories that shine for me with a light in my heart, even in places and times when all other lights seemed to go out. Thank you, my friends, for the gift of an invincible summer.
In the midst of winter / I finally discovered within me / An invincible summer.
Albert Camus, "Return to Tipasa"